Finding frames during freelance gigs
July 18, 2016
Finding frames during freelance gigs
It’s no secret that I was nervous about this summer, with having little direction and too much freedom to potentially squander. But I’ve found it to be quite the contrary - I began picking up a bunch of photo gigs to the point that I am now shooting very frequently. On top of that, I’ve been photographing for fun (what a notion!) and liking the results (an even more foreign idea to me).
I spend the majority of the time at each event photographing how I’m “supposed to” be shooting, people smiling and straightforward shots that I can deliver to the client. But I stay vigilant, similar to when shooting an assignment, to snap things that strike me. This has been an excellent exercise for my shooting, treating each gig as an opportunity to sharpen my eye. So far, I’m pretty happy with the results, making a couple frames that I’m proud of at each event.
One more thing I’ve been considering a lot recently is photojournalistic trends. I remember my professor Marcy Nighswander would look down on trends, which at the moment happened to be an influx of wide angle shots, but I never understood it. Until recently, when I was flipping through recent copies of the British Journal of Photography and noting that photographer after photographer was going after that washed-out, low contrast, stark and awkward composition look and I became frustrated. Because I too was trying to achieve that look and now I realized I would just be another one of the same.
For that reason, I got a huge photo book of Magnum photographers to look into historic examples of shooting styles. My most recent inspiration comes from Martin Parr, whose style is similar to the modern graphic look yet not the same. Anyone know knows me knows I do not particularly like street photography, but his take on it is so brash that it works.
Up next: the Ohio State Fair, which I will be covering for two straight weeks… expect a wealth of Americana photos, hopefully shot in an interesting way!