Pretty Flowers

[WesternGuy]

[QUOTE="jcdeboever, post: 3643305, member: 209470

...edited for clarity

I see what you mean now. I like your body of work. I definitely will play around with it to see if something grabs me as useful. It's already being done so I will probably not pursue it much further. I love flowers but I will not shoot them forever if I can't put a signature style on them. At the end of the day, I am really exploring in order to find my style. In a perfect world, I want to have a signature that can translate into any photo. Right now, I am very bored with myself.[/QUOTE]
I know what you mean, I have been there and I think every artist goes through a phase like that. Putting a signature style on any "set of images" is a very difficult thing to do. For me, the answer was in recognizing that there were some things that I didn't care if I photographed, birds being one example. Not that I won't photograph them if the occasion arises, but I don't rush out to do it. I settled on flowers as being one thing I can photograph, particularly when the wild flowers are in season. Yes, there are lots of folks doing them, a lot of whom are pros, but I don't worry about that. What I like about flowers is that there are so many different varieties, wild and domestic, you can shoot them year round (in winter I rely on bouquets from the local Safeway), and there are so many ways that you can photograph them. Having said all that, I also decided that I will shoot landscapes and waterfalls as well - ideally landscapes with waterfalls. Again, there are so many places to go and photograph them and so many different ways to photograph them that you will never run out of a supply .

The other thing I have done is to take up Infrared photography as an addition to my "toolbox". If you visit my Flickr page, you will find examples of my IR imagery there. This has opened up a whole new world of photography for me.

Lastly, you might wish to explore different ways of processing these images. Google people like Denise Ippolito, Kathleen Clemons, Harold Davis, or just "flower photographers" in general. There are lots of web pages out there - blurs, double exposures, textured overlays, etc. also, don't just look at the flowers themselves, but also the associated greenery. Mike Moats, an established macro photographer is good at the latter.

Sometimes, you just come to points in your evolution as a photographer, when you need a break. You need to stop or slow down and think about what it is you just love to photograph. Make a list of the things that you photograph. Then try and narrow it down to the three that "really turn you on" and go from there. Not always easy, but it is one way for you to get a handle on the things that make your photographic life really "zoom along". Try and figure out what it is about each of them that lifts your soul and makes it worth getting up in the morning...I know this sounds a little "hail, hail the gangs all here", but hopefully it will help cure some of the boredom.

Hope this helps a bit and good luck looking for the answers - there is often more than one.

WesternGuy