I want to be the change I want to see
Happy new year all :) 2015 has come and gone and i am very much looking forward to 2016. For me 2015 was a year of taking a step back really and looking at what I was doing, what our industry was doing and establishing what i really wanted to do with my work and life. Well, actually , partly - i can half answer that ...... “ a work life balance ?!?!?!” I still have no idea what that is but i think i am getting closer. Does anyone know? has anyone mastered it ? I personally think the popular phrase is perhaps distracting and now realise a little more that work has always been life and life is work. Not work that pays money, i don't mean that, but minute by minute, every idea i have turning over in my head new ways to do the thing that pays my bills. The evolving art I am trying to master. New ways of using the mediums i have chosen to create things for the people I work for.
2015 has been a good year for thinking and observing and trying to work out what I want to do.
The interesting thing at the moment that i am seeing more and more is how good everyone is. There is so many wedding photographers out there that have really arrived with great cameras, ideas, attitudes and work ethics and they are producing some amazing results. Everyone is on FB and twitter showing off their weekly weddings and everyone out there is really good ! Really good. So ......... how do you stand out ?? How do you avoid merging into everyone? Its very hard for couples to find something genuinely different now because perhaps everyone is different but now the same - because everyone is being different. Different now has a look , and it looks the same ?!?!?
The other part of what i want to do is with what i produce. This year I have tried to step back, stop looking so much at other wedding pictures and started to look at other mediums, other platforms other skills, other books, had different conversations with different people. Started thinking beyond single frames on FB and been thinking about the tactile, the stories, the presentation , the real , the tangible and the different.
What I am proposing - (changes I am making)
Create work that people can touch. I want to print, shoot with film, polaroid, iphones. I want to print and make, write, draw and sign, create more work for walls and tables
To work closer to home - I live in Devon and want to work more here and in Cornwall and really want to stay closer to home. Tel the stories of people around me as opposed to being so far away. I live in an amazing place and hope that people find me that want to come here too
Shoot more work that is not weddings.
Make films, cool films that tell stories.
Use different cameras.
I want find couples that want to experiment more with pictures. To be involved in ideas that are genuinely concocted as a team between me and them. To push ideas and to make something different
To realise my potential more.
Do more.
2015 has been amazing. I met a wonderful girl who helps me grow and understand myself everyday. I am so lucky to have my favourite person in the whole world next to me all the time. 2016 is going to be.... I hope a year of change. A year when I get to project a difference into the job I do. I have tried to surround my self with a group of people that is going to help me and I’ll help them if I can. I want to make Harrera Images more of collective, to be involved with different people, alternative ideas, alternative weddings and people. To cross paths with those of wild mind and build something different everyday I get to spend.
I think there is so much more potential in wedding photography, people are ambitious , they have huge aspirations for something different, something genuine and something that is unique to them.
In summary “ I want to be the change I want to see. “
