The Archives

Every once in awhile I peruse through my archives to remind myself where I came from in regards to photography and to look at where I thought I would see myself in the future. Everything I would choose to shoot over time was always me learning to control my camera so that it would not get the best of me when the time came to shoot for a client. Whether I was crawling through bushes trying to get a macro shot of a honey-bee or setting up the studio lights to practice my portraiture, I was always challenging myself and learning something new.

By looking back at my archives, I can see where I needed to be more present. I can look at a series of photographs and remind myself that there was another angle, a different focus technique could have worked, or that I needed to stop obsessing over one shot and move on to another. This image, I found in a series of photos I was taking at Mondos in Ventura of some surfers. In the middle of the series of wave riders was this one single image that I must have snapped on a whim as the two boys ran down the beach into the water. Today, at least, it has become one of my favorite images.

As I continue on through my archives, I found one of my very first portrait sessions. A friend of mine had a friend that was a makeup artist and she needed some photos for her website. So the joint effort begun.  Not only did I learn a bit more about lighting during this shoot, I also learned a lot more about editing and finding style. 

One of my first ever family photo sessions in the park. By looking through the frames from this shoot I found that I stayed vigilant enough to catch the family interacting in between poses. A step back real quick to get the whole scene, I get dad holding the diffuser and create something a little more than just the ordinary portrait of the kids on the wall. 

The following set of shots were just random shots I found through my archives. It is always good to name your files based on year and date so that you can always go back and find what you are looking for. I name my files as such...2015_0415_0001.jpg so that I can quickly go back to the 2015 folder and open the April 15th, subfolder and find my archives. It also makes for going back in time and seeing a nice timeline on how learning has progressed. Not only does the actual framing and exposing the image come into play, but you can see where you were at with editing. I even found in some instances where I liked my editing style during a certain season and was able to incorporate that into my current workflow.