Harder Better Faster

Did a session last week with a model that I'd worked with in October of 2013.  She paid me the biggest compliment.  According to her, my current work was miles apart from what I had done with her before.  And its true, I can go back and look at my photos with her from before and see that I have a better grasp of lighting and posing.  There was no magic potion, just work over time. 

Too many people want to be great without doing the work that is required.  Time + Hard work = Greatness, there is your formula.

To see more of my work, go to: www.asharpphoto.biz

And, yes, I was listening to Daft Punk while writing this post. :)

What is greater than pain?

Fear of pain.  I used to be scared of bees, like deathly afraid.  This lasted for years until I was cured suddenly.  I was doing roofing work ... and there were bees.  I couldn't run so I just had to deal with it.  I learned that if you are cool, the bees are cool.  That's why I was able to stand within inches of the bees as they gathered pollen from these flowers and get this shot.

I now realize that the fear of being stung by a bee was more traumatizing than the bee sting itself.  You get stung and it hurts for maybe a few minutes or so. But the terror you feel when you see a bee is much more painful in its way.  What are you afraid of?  Are you causing yourself more pain via fear than actual pain that you would get from what you fear?
Once you conquer your fear, you can go places, have experiences, accomplish things that others can not.

Growing Pains

It started about a month or so ago.  I am becoming more disapproving of my work.  Its rough to spend 2 hours photographing someone and get home and look at the images and go 'Blech!!'  It isn't the models or the things that I photograph and people that see the images think that they are fine, but me; I'm not feeling it.

A natural phase in one's quest for mastery is realizing how little you know.  When you start, you learn a lot and experiment and as you look at your progress, you think you know something.  Then all of a sudden you realize that you are ok but there is so much more that you don't know and you see the wide chasm between where you are/what you know and where you want to be.

This point is crucial and frustrating.  It would be easy to quit now and say that you will never be great.  This place of disappointment, frustration, annoyance is what will drive you to something wonderful if you let it.  So, I am hunting for my exit out of this windowless and doorless room; this cocoon and I hope you do the same