markvelasquez

Back to Basics

Added 2016-05-20 18:27:26 +0000 UTC

For years I've gone out of my way to experiment with lighting techniques, buying a wide range of expensive equipment and spending countless hours trying it all out. There are countless ways light can be manipulated to create a photographic image, and countless more that those images can turn out badly.

But sometimes I get sick of all that nonsense. Sometimes I want to go back to the beginning, to use only what's available, to restrict myself from all that artificial manipulation. Only by limiting oneself with a lack of equipment, lack of tools and devices, can you really test your ability to make the kinds of images that are possible by your own personal creativity.

As is often the case with artists, I doubt myself and my work. That feeling of insecurity I felt as a kid when drawing and shading endless depictions of Captain America and Spiderman and Moon Knight in stacks of notebooks still permeates my mind today. No matter how many Likes or Comments or Follows I acquire via social media, it all feels rather meaningless when I'm judging my own work. And thus I like to challenge myself to prove that I can still make good images, to show myself that I've still got it.

Last night I had one of my many models who chose to remain faceless stop by and we shot for less than ten minutes. That's all I allowed myself. It wasn't my best shoot, nor my easiest or most creative, but after she left and I looked at what I'd captured, I found this image in the mix. I liked it, and more importantly, I didn't get tired of it the more I looked at it.

I have never and probably will never hang or display any of my photos in my house. It feels vain and self-indulgent. But I know that if I can enjoy one of my images, even after looking at it for a long while, still discovering new aspects of it to hold my attention, that I've done an okay job. And this shot worked for me.

5-20-16