Ramblings, inspirations & goals…

Even though there are a plethora of photographers out there on the internet encouraging other photographers that the best way to reach your audience is to be “yourself,” it’s still a little bit scary. Just kidding, it’s a LOT scary. I mean to open up and admit to my fears to you all is scary, but I felt like I had to get this out there, no matter how vulnerable I feel doing it (or how uninteresting some might find it?). I don’t know what this is meant to accomplish but it’s how I’m feeling lately and I like to tell myself that writing things down can solidify them somehow.. like if I get all this out in the open it will force me to act on it instead of making excuses…

Okay okay, I know you’re like “what are you talking about, Marlayna?”

Let’s just say I warned you, about the ramblings…

Sometimes I just get so desperate to make beautiful amazing work. I need it so badly. I look at and devour other peoples’ works – their beautiful images, photographs and collages and I want it SO BADLY to have come from me. It doesn’t matter if people and clients tell me they love my work or their photographs. Sometimes I still just don’t feel good enough. Some days I just want to scrap it all and start over and change my style and I tell myself if I do that then every shot will be perfect; every image will make you stop what you’re doing because you can’t quite pull away from it yet. It can be so simple, just simple beautiful light. I need to go on a mission to find beautiful light. This is what I keep telling myself, that I need to go, that I need to travel and get away from here so that I can make some bold and amazing discovery about a place or about myself and then I can come back to ‘here’ with outstanding, remarkable, never before seen, completely unique works of art. I want to go somewhere else and wonder about those people and that place and what it’s like to live there. I want to be curious and I want to experiment. I want to remove “I don’t have time” from my vocabulary and I want to tell myself to get off the couch and turn off the TV and go outside no matter what the weather is like or how cumbersome it is to carry the equipment and I want to create. But maybe I actually just need to slow down. I have to stop pushing down on the shutter too quickly. I have to learn to choose. Deep down I know going away somewhere new isn’t the solution but it sounds great nonetheless. I keep coming back to: How do I go about making beautiful work just because I want to and because I thought of it. I didn’t see it anywhere else. I just felt that it needed to be recorded. I need this so badly. I need photoshoots that are for discovery not only for work.

It happens way too often (or maybe just the right amount?).. I’m on the internet and one thing leads to another until I’m drooling over some other photographer’s or artist’s work. And it becomes agonizing to look at because I just have this incredible need for amazing things to come from MY lens, computer, mind.. I just keep flipping through image after image as if the more I look at them, the more I’ll be able to will amazing creativity to happen and I’ll create such beautiful intriguing things.

Here’s what got me going today:

http://mylifescoop.com/2013/01/14/8-wonderfully-inspiring-photo-projects/2/    <especially the amazing work of talented Kyle Thompson

http://amydresser.com/  <Amazing Photo retouching

http://jessicadrossinphotos.blogspot.com/ <Jessica Drossin, seriously does the most amazing work always.

Sigh, but I really love what I do. I love photographing people and I love photographing weddings. I love traveling and photographing places- in a way the places are just extensions of the people (or visa versa?) So I know how lucky I am to have these incredible opportunities to photograph such wonderful people and places – both through my business and through my work at UMBC. I just get so hooked on these other could-be projects but seem to get intimidated out of actually starting one. That REALLY needs to change.

There is just so much encouraging stuff online, yet it’s also overwhelming. It’s so tricky to be inspired by something when I want it to have come from me so badly but can’t stand to recreate it too similarly. I’m (mostly) positive the only way to do this is to shoot more often. It’s like my dad would say when I played soccer as a kid – if you keep shooting at the goal eventually a few are bound to go in. So basically I need to keep shooting more often – just for fun and to explore and to experiment and to make mistakes so that eventually I can realize what it takes to make a stunning intriguing and different image.

So I guess what I’m asking (to no one in particular but also anyone that’s reading this) is can we just go out and take photos and play with ideas that might seem weird but might also turn out really cool? please??

 

 

Okay… so I want to make this a little less frustrated/whiny and more productive/optimistic so I’m just going to list out a few things bouncing around in my head that I want to do:

1. shoot fashion-y portraits in the fog

2. do some creative/unusual self portraits

3. planned out construction series (not just snapshots from my phone!)

4. some kind of portrait of people based on their spaces.. I’ve always liked interiors..

5. More stuff like this (created for The Light Ekphrastic): Model: Maggie

6. & more stuff like this: (taken for an awesome ad series for the Baltimore Dance Project where I got to shoot on the roof of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building!!) Designer: Dina Karkar

 

 

gah okay. I just need to make a plan and make it happen. I’m sorry for going on like this, you have amazing patience if you made it all the way through this! So yeah, anyone wanna be my subject/model/shooting companion..please? Or if there’s anyone that wants to do creative projects to give us some structure & feedback, I’m all for it!

 

Do other artists feel this way? Or am I just being dramatic?