I can’t stop. Seriously. I wake up thinking about something I wanna try. I can’t shoot on weekdays because of my work schedule, so weekends are kind of crazy: location hunting, meetings with other photogs and friends to ask them to pose, atrezzo shopping… I’m an amateur, I want to go pro someday soon (in the next 1 to 2 years to say something) and in the meantime… I’m doing everything I can. Contact models that will do TFCD jobs, organize workshops with amateur photogs to do thematic portrait sessions with people that will let us take pics, find places to shoot, ask permissions. I’m moving the earth under our feet. Everybody around is amazed. Damn, I am amazed. I didn’t know I was so proactive. I’ve even discovered I’m a quite good make up artist, wich comes up handy for my shoots.

This weekend I have a session I’ve organized with 3 models, 8 photogs, 1 makeup artist, 1 assistant. Next week I’m on holiday (and will go to 2 different concerts, obviously there will be pics involved) and then I have to schedule 2 shots, one consisting in a double portrait session with friends (something candid and natural that I haven’t done before) and a group portrait session with boys from the hood (rappers, I gotta get creative and I love it!). Then I have to teach strobe basics to a small group of photogs that know nothing about it and I have to propose a couple of models and a couple of photogs a session at an abandoned mansion (something dramatic and in the line of fashion photography that I’m willing to try too).

At some point in between, I’m doing my 52 weeks and shooting some of my relatives. Model-like.

And mind you, I’m still an amateur. So I guess I can say I do have that sense of urgency

http://keithtaylorphotography.blogspot.com/2010/02/rubber-ducky-memoirs.html

Anyway, took the family out yesterday in order to take advantage of the fine weather, went for a walk over some hills and through some forests, and yes, I took the camera. Being one of lifes procrastinators and terminal planners, I always have that nagging insistence playing on my conciousness that I should be ‘doing’ more… and lo, as my daughter, in amongst the trees, stood playing with a stick near a small shrub looking as cute as she can, I noticed the play of sunlight on her blonde hair. Aha!!! I thought, this would be that backlight rim light thingy that looks super ace and gorgeous that I’ve read about so much… so I took a few shots and yes, it was good… Sure, I’d read about it and seen images of it so many times that I’ve always felt like I knew the technique and utilisation of such light inside and out, but I’d never had chance to try it before – we don’t get all that much sun in England – The buzz from actually achieveing it with success though is incomparable, an actual experience that has the method burned into my brain, a practical experience from which to draw, in a way all the reading and theory in the world could never do…

From now on, I promise to do a lot more ‘doing’….