that's right folks. your eyes do not deceive you. it is in fact the 10th. and for the momentous occasion of actually completing something on time, i decided to go with something totally unrelated to children. i think these 10 on 10s are generally supposed to be introspective. feeding your own creativity. taking time out of work to take pictures of your own kids. daily life. all that. i don't really ever shoot anything with this project in mind. i just sort of use this day to showcase things i've been working on. ways in which i'm stretching and working through growing pains.
i felt sort of dormant after this summer. don't get me wrong, summer is a beautiful time to shoot. but alone time is few and far between for me and with both kids home all summer, well, there are only so many summer photos one can take. i was wanting to put myself into a more vulnerable situation with my subjects than at the beach. babies and sand shovels and all that. i know that a photographer i really admire says that the way to burning out is not to shoot for yourself. personal projects. 100 strangers, 365 photo a day, etc. i've never really done that. sometimes when i try and think of things i just feel like they're played out. i still haven't found *the* project that i feel really inspires me. or maybe i have and i just haven't found my way to it yet. but one thing i felt was sure, i need to force myself to photograph something that wasn't families, weddings, parties, babies, plants, flowers, a cup of coffee, etc. so i asked my friend, who i know is comfortable, mostly, in front of the camera, if she and her hot sexy EMT boyfriend would let me come over for breakfast early one morning.
i really and truly don't know why i did this. i can't say i went into it expecting anything, good or bad. i thought maybe i would just completely botch it, waste the time, be too afraid to really make anything of it. looking back at the time as a whole, of course i would change things, i would push boundaries a little more...maybe. even still. while i was there i felt almost as though i wanted to just whisper. i wanted to be so unintentional. i wanted to see how intimate the moments could get without me doing a thing. or maybe i was too afraid to be an influence, though of course just by being there i am. when i got home and looked at the pictures i almost couldn't take it. i closed them immediately. it was completely amazing to me how beautiful some of them were. i felt too nervous to look at all of them. to find out that i had just...shit the bed. ruined them all. missed the point. these were shot in august, i just processed them last week.
i am so proud of them and of myself. for putting myself into a weird, awkward situation and making beauty with it. finding beauty in being with people in those uncomfortably wonderful moments. but of course the real test is what these photos make them feel...
these aren't boudoir. i don't know what they are. i don't know how it will move forward. but whatever first step this is, here it is.
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isabel
