Photograph What You Love?

Photograph What You Love.

I hear this a lot when talking about photography and business. Photograph what you love and the rest will be easy. Does that mean the business aspects will just fall into place? Of course not but they do say it will be easier because you will have the passion and subject matter more in control.

But how do I know what I love to photograph? Well that is the hard part. I've heard it said by many photographers that you will just know but it may take years to figure it out.

I think the cause of my photographic block I've been suffering through is due to me trying to figure out what I love to photograph. I could say my kids but that's a given. Or is it? I know many people with kids that take very few photos of their kids. Certainly few of my friends and family go through the set up and processing time that I put into the photos of my kids. So there, that's one thing I love to photograph.

But that's more for me isn't it?

Well there is another point. Don't try to love photographing something just because you think that's what others want to see. If we all photographed what we thought others wanted us to, there would be billions of cute cat photos in the world or on Facebook anyway! You need to photograph something that has a meaning to you. The passion you put into that will show in the photo. That will draw like minded people to your work and from there you never know what could happen.

So back to my stuff. I've spent some time looking over my Flickr stream and it looks to me that I love to photograph nature, minimalistic scenes, industry and rusty crusty stuff that is loaded with textures all along with my kids. Texture and color seem to play a significant part in my photos as well. I've also noticed a lot of daily life type photos. You know, food, coffee cups, socks hanging on a railing, people enjoying their hobbies. But in these I'm also seeing a lot of strong colors and textures as well.

Even when I use my phone to take a photo, I tend to punch up the colors and textures in the image.

There you have it I think I have figured it out. Besides my kids its Nature, Minimalism, Industry and Color and Textures.

It has taken me years to get to this conclusion and it may change down the road but for now, I think this is what I will focus on (pun intended).

Chris.