The cinemagraph was introduced over 10 years ago when I was in college. It offered an amazing new set of creative possibilities, and world-class artists were creating mind-blowing moving still images. Where did they go?
Have you been told to stop messing around shooting models and get a job? Do your loved ones wish you'd do something more stable instead of wondering when the next job will drop into your email? Well, I believe they're on to something.
It's hard doing creative things. There is a lot we put ourselves through, and the emotional journey of an artist is a rollercoaster with loops, turns, and upside-down parts. Here are a few examples of thoughts you might have had before.
Of course photography is art. Is all photography art? Debatable. Is all photography good art? Nope. Most photography is bad art. Is your photography good art?
There are a bunch of different ways to make your photos stand out: great light, gorgeous model, amazing locations, idealized retouching, but one that is often overlooked in favor of these less subtle approaches is color. We photographers tend to schedule a shoot, show up, capture what's there, and pat ourselves on the back for our genius, but what goes into the shoot before we schedule it can be just as important to the end result as what we do with our lights or our camera. Let's look at an example from my work for Lifetime. No lights. No reflectors. Just color.
