A Change of Pace

I started this website for my portrait and wedding photography, and people are primarily what I shoot.  However, every creative person needs a break, and needs a way to keep things fresh.  This week, I’m visiting my mother in Ashland, Oregon, where I am treated to the above view from my bedroom window–yes, literally!  I promised myself that this trip wouldn’t be focused around photography, and it hasn’t been, really, but it still provided a great opportunity to shoot some landscapes, something I don’t do much of ordinarily.  Landscapes are creatively charging because they are so different than my normal shooting style–they are deliberate and pensive, where I am usually improvisational and on the move.  They are stopped down and on a tripod at base ISO, where I am usually shooting wide open, handheld at higher ISOs.  Landscapes obviously don’t feature people (generally).

It’s been gratifying to get some landscapes I’m really pleased with.  I feel like I finally have some that aren’t just good to my standards, but to other standards, as well.

Even though this trip wasn’t specifically about photography, I find that I engage more with a place when I think about it as a photographer.  It gets me out and about, looking for beautiful things, interesting things, ironic things.  In previous trips to visit my mother, I’d ventured out a little and appreciated the beauty that this state and region have to offer, but I had never really explored.  With this trip, I feel that Hanna, Isaac and I have had a much better opportunity to explore this beautiful, amazing place and hopefully, with these images, I can bring some of that experience back to others (especially those back home on the East Coast).  The fact of the matter is that Oregon is an exceptionally and exquisitely beautiful place, and I am extremely fortunate to have a mother who lives right in the middle of it all (figuratively, not literally).

I’m still taking the time to shoot the other stuff I shoot–the rural architecture, the quirky and the colorful.

And, of course, I haven’t neglected the things I shoot most, just been a little bit more, um, free about it… :)