I’m on a bit of a mission of self discovery in my photography at the moment, the last 6 months or so has been a huge learning curve for me in terms of subject, style and processing. This has lead to a lot of new work which I’m happy with but also long periods of self doubt and creative block.
A well known weekly competition on Twitter has been my driving force this year to take photographs every week, I know the majority of my entries don’t stand a chance but my resolution to enter every week has forced me to get out and take something I’m not ashamed to share even when I’m feeling uninspired, which is a massive positive.
On one of these occasions it got to Sunday evening without having picked up the camera all week and I realised I was going to have to do the dreaded look around the house for some last minute inspiration. This has previously resulted in entries I’m fairly embarrassed about now, definite filler.
I got the macro lens out and found something I thought could work, spent a little while playing and got my competition entries sorted. If you follow me on Twitter you’ll have seen a couple of the shots.
While I liked them I didn’t think they were photos that stood well on their own. I’ve had this a few times recently, I might have taken a couple together of small details or textures, or some dark ICM images which felt like they should be part of something bigger to really work. I think it’s part of the development in the way I’m shooting and I don’t see it as a bad thing, but I need to embrace it in some way.
After a bit of thought I decided this last minute competition entry would be the start of my very first ‘project’. Nothing big, but just 5-10 photos in the same style of the same subject which sat together as a series, a bit of a challenge but nothing that would be too stretched or consuming as my first venture into project land.
Coincidentally just as the plan was coming together Karl Mortimer posted his excellent on constraining yourself within certain boundaries for a project, which was the final push for me to share this.
I only spent a few nights shooting these, I think I’ve got what I wanted out of the process and I think it will be something I’ll do again.
The title is ‘On the Doorstep’ and here are the photos.
If you got this far and you haven’t guessed yet, I took the title and idea very literally, these are all macro shots of my doormat. It seemed like a good creative challenge, is there a photo opportunity right on the doorstep? To be honest there’s a couple there I’m really pleased with so I reckon I got my answer.