A couple of weekends ago I did something entirely different.  A good friend and former co-worker asked me to photograph her triplets’ first birthday party.  Yes, triplets!  Like I said, she’s a friend.  With more than a little concern and hesitation I said Yes.

It was fun!

More than anything I was surprised by how much crawling around, getting up and down and generally doing things my body doesn’t usually have to do is required to do this kind of work.  It’s tough!  But I was also interested in figuring out how to apply things I know and regularly practice to taking photographs of subjects that move.  And eat.  And get messy.

It was great!

I even had one of the other kid’s moms ask me if I would photograph a party for her twins in May.  I thought about it just in case she called me and she did call me.  I said Yes.

I think it’s a good idea to step outside one’s comfort zone once in a while.  It’s good for the creativity to apply our vision to new things, to think about interpreting different subjects in our personal way.

As with a lot of photographers I often get asked if I do things I don’t do – weddings, portraits, birthday parties, etc.  Usually I say “no” and refer people to photographers I know who specialize in those things.  I figure I don’t want to be bothered doing something I don’t do, and I justify it by telling the potential customer that they would be better served by someone who specializes in their work.  What I fail to realize is that they asked me because they want me.  They don’t want to go with someone they don’t know, even if that person might “specialize” in what they are doing.  So what usually happens is that they don’t follow through on my recommendation or they just don’t hire anyone.  People take comfort in knowing that someone they know trusted me, and that if they hire me I’ll do the job.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it for free, or that I’ll even do it for cheap.  I know enough about the business to know to charge a fair rate for doing this kind of work.  If I quote my price and the people decide to hire me I’ll do the work.  If they don’t hire me or if they hire someone else it won’t be personal.  If I get the work I’ll do my best and be paid fairly for it, and if I don’t get it I’ll still have plenty of my own work to do!

Back in January, when we were sure that winter was never going to end, some good friends from Belhaven, NC decided to head south to Wilmington, NC to find some warmer weather.  They got to Wilmington and it wasn’t warm enough, so they decided to drive south until they found warm weather.  They ended up in Key West.

I’m currently working on a photography presentation that focuses on exploring a scene, seeing the details and getting down to the gist of what makes something photographically interesting.  It’s the way I often work, getting to a location and staying there until I’m done.  Sometimes it means skipping other locations I had planned on, but I’m a believer that if I get somewhere, I like what I see and it works, stick with it until I’ve worn it out.  I much prefer trying to find something that works where I am and not go running around chasing something that might or might not be somewhere else.

This approach sometimes runs counter to group outings and workshops, since in order to provide a variety of subject matter and conditions for all of the participants it is often necessary to “move along.”  This is tough, because I prefer to not work with an agenda per se, as “watching my watch” makes it tough to be creative.  On the other hand it’s hard to know when I’m finished, or when I have gone far enough.  Conditions change, I get tired, eventually I get hungry or have to sleep!

I feel like my best work tends to come either right at the beginning of a session or right at the end.  Sometimes I connect right away but often I start off wandering around, working on ideas but not really seeing or feeling it.  I gradually build up to the point where I get it.  But then what?  Do I just stop, or do I keep going to see what else there is?

If you are shooting something specific like a sunrise or sunset, you pretty much know when it’s over.  If you are making a portrait you might be looking for a certain pose or expression, and when you get it you might be done.  If you are shooting something abstract like clouds or ocean waves, how much is enough?  Random is random, and once you’ve taken 500 shots or filled a card I sort of feel like you either got it or you didn’t get it, and taking more shots won’t necessarily change that.  It really depends on what it is you are trying to say.  What is it that is pulling you toward a scene and how do you express that?

Sometimes it is good to have an idea in mind but to be open to changing your mind.  If you are photographing a scene and come across something interesting and unexpected, be free to pursue that.  Unless you are on an assignment you are able to choose and go after whatever catches your eye.  Sometimes you can do both.  Sometimes when you get to your personal “Wilmington” you’ll find it is just what you were looking for.  And sometimes you have to go all the way to the end of the road and end up in Key West.

I spent some time the other day helping a good friend try to diagnose some problems he was having with Lightroom.  His computer was doing some strange stuff with multiple catalogs and he couldn’t figure it out.  It’s going to take some more work because he’s made a bit of a mess of things, but I’m going to help him out because it’s a good way for me to learn, he’s a good friend and it’s something I want to do.

Sometimes it takes working with someone else’s digital file management system to appreciate how truly difficult it can be to manage our photographs.  I’m very fortunate to have realized from the start – even before Lightroom – that good organization was going to be essential if I had any hope of keeping track of what I was certain to be a lot of files.  And boy was I right – I had no idea!

The biggest realization for me is that using a program like Lightroom is a commitment.  Lightroom is designed to be your sole system for image organization.  It doesn’t do you any good if you put just some of your images in Lightroom, or if you work with Lightroom sometimes and other programs other times.  Once you decide to use it you need to learn how it works, figure out what works best for you and embrace it 100%.  It won’t do you any good any other way.

I’ve told this story to groups before so it’s nothing new to a lot of my readers, but the first time I used Lightroom it was to organize, edit and process images from a magazine assignment.  I decided that I was going to use Lightroom from start to finish to complete this assignment, and that I would use what I learned to develop my workflow around it.  I “got it” from the very beginning, understood how it worked and what it would do, and soon I imported my entire photo collection, which was much smaller than it is today, into my Lightroom catalog.

Today I use Lightroom for everything – from editing to processing to printing.  I rarely use Photoshop for anything – going there for the occasional cloning job, a panorama or the rare – for me – HDR image.  And I don’t own and haven’t tried any of the third-party software.  Not that I have a problem with it, I just don’t feel like I need it.

When I teach and work with other people dealing with their digital workflow, I try to help them develop a system that they understand and that works for them.  They could copy everything I do exactly, but unless they understand what I’m doing and why, they’ll never get comfortable with it, probably won’t use it and soon they’ll have a mess.

A lot of people enjoy the computer side of digital photography.  I enjoy it to the extent that I love figuring things out and solving problems, but once I get to a point where I have a system that works I want it to get out of my way and let me do my thing.  I don’t want to have to worry about hardware and software and plug-ins and actions.  I want the computer stuff to be a tool that I use to achieve the desired result, and I want it to come as natural to me as changing the aperture on my camera.

I’ve worked hard to get to the point I am at with my workflow.  I enjoy helping other people too, but it takes a certain level of commitment to get to the point where you have something you can use.  Getting there might take some valuable time away from our photography, but ultimately that time investment will pay off more than buying a new piece of software or even a new lens if it helps us spend our time being creative instead of trying to figure out the computer stuff.