Today’s Rant is really a Rave… sorta. it is about the fun and joy of photography… beyond the craft and business of photography.

I don’t know what happens to us as photographers when we get to the point where the cameras stay in the vault until someone pays us to shoot. That was never me, it couldn’t be. I love to play… takes the mind away from the work. Folks who aren’t photographers play you know. Snowmobiles, horses, football with the gang, tailgate parties, dog shows… whatever. We all know the list of things we can do for entertainment is endless.

I do a few things myself. Last night before going to comaville (I really hate sleeping… such a waste) I sat at the piano and improvised on a melody for about 20 minutes. No recording exists (thank God) but it was a relaxing way for me to unwind. I also play the drums I have in the garage (just not at 11:30PM). I love to read and write as well.

And I make pictures. Photographs. Images. Whatever.

I am most at home with a pair of drumsticks or a camera in my hands. When I am asked why I make photographs, my answer has always been because I have to. I have to make images. And music.

But I like to play too… hence improvising a melody for an extended time. And after warming up, I generally play from my un-vast repertoire: Green Dolphin Street, Rainy Day, Over the Rainbow, I Remember Clifford, Phantom stuff… Not to think that I am gonna lead a trio someday, but just for me.

I photograph the same way. There are serious days of craft-heavy, intense photography where a lot is at stake and the endorphins are burning and we walk that glorious edge between confidence and sheer panic. I love those days. In this profession, a home run at every outing is the demand. No one hires you for singles and triples… the best effort means nothing if the images aren’t what the client needed. Or what they expected.

I love that pressure… God, I love it so.

But when it comes to play… well, I love that freedom, non-pressure and sheer fun that it produces. And it took awhile to get to the place where playing could be accepted by me. Where I gave myself permission to play, so to speak.

When I first started photography, it was all fun. I would take pictures of things just to see what a picture of them looked like. That was all the reason I needed to make an image. Then the thing that was a sorta hobby began being more of a sorta passion. The passion led to the business and then, it seems almost suddenly, everything was about the portfolio. Shoot for the portfolio. Edit the shot before you took it. “Is it portfolio worthy?” Second guessing it all… every shot. It had to be the best. It had to “MEAN something” before the shutter clicked. A sunset? Naww… been done. That great shadow on a wall? Naww… the folks at Kramer don’t want to see that stuff.

The images had to be difficult… still lives with shiny stuff and colors that would pop. Grab the newest copy of the Blackbook or the Workbook and measure your worth. Sometimes you measured up well and other times… well, off to get another power pack and a couple of heads and – hell, gotta have a ‘Blad.

And, you know, that wasn’t really fun. Oh, hey… it is pretty cool coming in with 5 or 6 Nikkor boxes and the smell of new cameras and lenses… well, yeah! But Fun? With a capitol F Fun? I dunno… I fear it wasn’t as much fun as we thought it was at the time.

I stopped self-censoring about the time I realized that I had gone a week without shooting because I hadn’t been able to connect a model and schedules and MUA and stuff just wasn’t meant to be that week. I took the Nikons and headed up toward Wickenburg. No ideas other than I wasn’t coming back till I shot something I wanted to shoot.

But you know… Wickenburg just wasn’t the right place for a guy who shot fashion and still life in his studio most of the time… you know… to get those “portfolio” shots? I wandered around for a while, lamenting the lack of anything worth shooting. (If there’s one thing we got to purge from ourselves it’s self-pity!)

But the light on one of the walls caught my eye and it brought me back to that time when all I had was an F2 and three lenses… and no friggin idea about the business of photography. Pulled the camera out, chose a lens and made a snap. Then another one. And another.

Gone was any idea of what I was supposed to be shooting… just the fun of making images that I liked. Me. My own pictures. I wasn’t even planning on showing them to anybody, cause I still had that self-censor thing going that said: (with booming God Like reverb…) “If it isn’t commercial, it isn’t worth shooting… ing…. ing…”

Except it was worth shooting. I shot 6 rolls of film that day. In the end I made 14 16×20’s of the images and they were some of the most talked about images at my studio for quite awhile.

But the most important thing that day gave me was a return to the idea of having fun with my photography. I never stopped from that point on. Cameras go everywhere with me… and I take pictures of things that most people don’t even see. Sometimes I share and sometimes I don’t… Doesn’t matter really. I had fun.

These days the iPhone has been my constant companion. And I don’t even have it hooked up as a phone… I already have a phone I like. I just use the iPhone (an old 2G) for the camera, wifi and storage for about 200 songs I like to have with me. Oh yeah… it also has my portfolios on it.

But the camera is total fun. Point and shoot cameras are great, and some of them like the G10 and G11 from Canon will rival top of the line DSLR’s. And don’t forget film cameras… they can be had for a song, and they still take – seriously now… get ready for it… photographs! I think there are a lot of photographers grabbing up some film cameras these days and adding to their arsenal of digital gear.

Here are some ideas for having fun with the photography.

1. Don’t self censor. Don’t not shoot something because you think it cliche, or silly, or not ‘portfolio worthy’… just have fun with the image itself.
2. Create a body of personal work that is simply your love of imagery… whatever it is. Keep it to yourself or share it with everyone.
3. You know those 365 projects where you either take and post or at least post and image every day? You do know… ‘K – ’nuff said.
4. Go out with minimal gear and make photographs of things that catch your eye. Limit yourself to making a photograph that goes with every song you hear on the radio for an hour. Do it a couple of times… see the imagery grow.
5. Rent a camera. Something you don’t usually shoot with. Say a medium format or larger format camera. Just for a weekend or a week. Make some pictures with it.
6. Rent a lens (like from BorrowLenses.com) that you don’t have. A Tilt-Shift or long tele.
7. Take two flashes and make pictures of people you meet on the street. Have fun with it!
8. You know those times when you say “Aww, dang. That was pretty cool. But I am in the wrong lane, or going too fast or late for somethig…” those shots? Turn around and take them. Seriously. It feels great.
9. Think of something you would never do… like for me, go to a circus. I am not fascinated by circuses. But whatever it is for you… take a camera and get to know it from behind a lens. Go to your ‘circus’ and document the entire trip.
10. Find the thing you love most about photography and do more of it. It may not be what is selling now, or even something that is a genre you are shooting… but you love it. Shoot and create images of that passion.

Having fun with photography doesn’t mean that you won’t get some good photographs. You could and most probably will. I do. And I have found a new respect for things and places I never would have thought of as being photogenic. I removed the expectations of what was ‘photogenic’ and just made images.

I don’t mean to say make bad images, or not to try hard to make them good. Of course you do that. We all do that every time we pick up our cameras. I am simply saying to break out and make some stuff for you.

Hey… workshop this weekend in Seattle (1 opening left) and the following weekend in San Diego (2 openings there). Check Learn to Light for our complete workshop schedule and thanks for following along. You can follow what I am doing and thinking about at Twitter and visit my 365 Project page for some of the whimsical images we are talking about above.

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