Trying new things

Venturing into things you’re not used to or familiar with is f**king SCARY.

(This is also sometimes referred to as “getting out of your comfort zone.”)

Normally after doing “photo walks” I end up feeling like “meh.”

That was no different a few days ago, when I walked around downtown Grand Rapids expecting to get some great sunset photos, but all I got was grey. It was much too cloudy for ANY other color to appear in the sky.

Thankfully some photos allowed an orange-ish tone to come through by tweaking a few things in Lightroom.

Anyway, I stared at this photo thinking “well I like the coloring but the photo itself is just blah.”

But sometimes my mind suggests I do some crazy things while editing. Most of the time I’m like “WHOA, whoa, whoa [like Peter Griffin in Family Guy]… let’s just scale that back” but this time…

Mind: what if you cropped it SUPER tight to the buildings & clouds?!?!?

Me: why? that’s weird

Mind: just do it, control + z exists for a reason, even though you use it so much you’ve thought about control + z‘ing things in your actual life

Me: well, holy sh*t. I love it.

Building/architecture photography is never something I’ve been all that interested in, but now I have a weird inspiration to go find cool patterns & angles in buildings.

New thing #1: building/architecture photography
New thing #2: major cropping

I also want to photograph a bolt of lightning at some point in my life. But that’s for another day.

I feel like I say “I” and “my” so much, so today I began my “Help Me, Help Others” plan –
learn more here!