One of my main goals for this year is to put more meaning and more of myself into my work. I’ve spent the last year or so in a rut (on and off) and feeling uninspired by my work. I’ve been looking toward the visual side of things and trying to figure out what I needed to change to start creating work I was proud of again but when I started to think about what inspired me, I realized that it wasn’t the surface level that needed to change. When I find inspiration in music, it isn’t the sound that inspires me, it’s the depth and meaning in the lyrics. When a movie inspires me, it’s not the visuals that get to me, it’s the ideas behind it.

The reason I’ve felt stuck in a rut for the past year is because I’ve been imagining myself as a boat that could only steer left or right. Well it turns out that neither direction made a difference because I was still on the surface, I just needed to go deeper instead. Well here’s something I’m proud of. Visually similar but with more thought behind it.

Edited with my Heck Yeah Presets (Bright 3).

For those of you interested (judging by the questions I usually get, a lot of you are),  I shot all of these with the 5D III + 50L in all natural light (no reflectors or diffusers). During the day time shots I had Jenna in the shade of large boulders with the sun behind her and the boulders (creating that soft, even light). During the night shots at the end I had her out in the open facing the sunset (the sun was already below the horizon), to give some luminous light on her face (allowing me to keep some of the color in the sky behind her). Yay, easy lighting!

There also a few bokeh panoramas mixed in here (you can tell by the funky crop ratio), including the one above. These are shots compiled of 15 ish different images which allows you to shoot much closer and still get a wider shot. That means you can have a wide shot with extremely shallow depth of field (which is impossible otherwise). There may be a tutorial coming on this at some point!

Okay, enough rambling. Enjoy!