These last few weeks I have been struggling to actually get into the studio, have and idea, and just shoot and get the image that I was thinking of. I had been doing research for about two weeks and I kept coming back to this time theme. There is an image I found that was a pocket watch outside on some wood and it really inspired me because I knew that I could do that. I decided that I was going to come up with a similar idea and make it happen. I was tired of having to rush home every night from work and try and shoot my project and edit it and be up until past midnight. I came up with the idea of having the pocket watch on wood just like the research examples but instead of outside, I wanted to give my shot a gleam of light only on the face of the watch. I wanted to change the idea and not make it seem like it was in the studio but that it wasn't a copy.
Now when I go into the studio and shoot, I enjoy taking my time, I would love some guiding but in the last two years of more professional photography I havent gotten it so I decided that I like to go in. Aim for the shot that I envision and then I like to just go and play with my setup, play with the composition of the photo and the lighting to expand my idea from the original. The image below was my original concept idea, my idea of what I wanted my final photo to be to add to my expanding portfolio.
Now after seeing this image and getting a difference of opinions on the composition, lighting, aspects and objects in the photo I decided that I wanted to go farther, I wanted to take my idea and not just play with it, but intentionally change it to make another new idea! I was suggested to that I should add another element into the photo. Another scene element so that there was a purpose, a narrative per-say. In my eyes, this first photo that I made was perfect, I knew it had meaning and a purpose behind why I did it. But I knew that to grow on myself and grow my portfolio I needed to make it even better. I have always had a thought of a hand holding items for the photo. So I had my assistant hold the pocket watch in a few different positions so that I could capture the feeling, now just to be clear he is older and after bringing the photos into Photoshop and zooming to 100%, you can see every little wrinkle, you can see the dirtiness of his hands and how they have been worked for so many years. It added a narrative to the photo, at least in my mind. After playing with the photo and using my growing post-production skills to try and make it the best that I could I came up with this.. and I am the most proud of this photo more than I have been in so long..
These next few weeks are going to be even more hectic because it is my birthday weekend and I am working as much as I can but I am going to be in the studio more often than now so that I can make more work that I am so very proud of.
