The Fire

For a while now, I have been getting paid to take pictures of people. Recently, I have been doing more seniors than anything else. I enjoy seniors. They are really trying to look good so that they can hand out the pictures to their friends. Each senior that I do, loves their pictures. The problem, however, is that a lot of the pictures are the same for me. Sure, different subjects, maybe a different set of railroad tracks, maybe a different alley, maybe a different barn, but they are all basically the same. I try very hard to not use the same locations or the same poses with kids from the same school, but it’s hard.

When I started this business up I lost a lot of my creative drive. Some of it was me, and some of it was the kids. You come to them with crazy ideas and they get nervous. Doing the same old thing is safe. Nobody will make fun of you, and that is a big deal in school. That spark is still inside me and, every now and then, it ignites. It ignites into a full on inferno. I get excited again. My brain switches off auto pilot and starts figuring out flash ratios and placement. I start looking at pictures in the back of the camera and think, “How do I make this look like what’s in my mind?”

Today I photographed Sarah. We started on the tracks. Then we went to an old run down building. Then we went to a barn. And then it happened. I had an idea and Sarah was the one girl to drop it on. She is artistic and could appreciate what I wanted. She said that she had the perfect dress at home.

When we got to my spot, it went slow at first. I tried the whole natural light thing. Lackluster describes it well. The woods were so dark you couldn’t see them. Then I exposed for the woods and Sarah lost so much detail that she looked more like a ghost. Then I looked at my flashes just sitting there. I pulled out the main light but I lost her hair in the trees, so I started using bungee cords to place flashes in the trees.

When I was done, this is what I was left with. With a push of the shutter button it was over. The image in my mind was in front of me, tangible. I was looking at my camera, the way you look at a great book that you have just finished reading.

Yeah, Sarah will have her pictures, but she gave me so much more. When that fire is lit, there is no better feeling. It was so fantastic to take a picture, the way I used to. Barns and tracks and brick walls feed the bank account, but the fire feeds the soul.

It’s the fire, my friends, that feeds the soul.

Go out today and light yours.