How I learn to see things differently and be more creative

In an attempt to learn to look at subjects with different eyes and be more creative I have choose the Mobile-home,  the infamous Trailer as a subject. I felt that this would offer a good challenge to my creative process and force me to think "Out of the Box" if I had any hope of making any good images at all. Often while out shooting with my photography buddy and would stop at a trailer to shoot,
 I would ask him if he was interested,  he would say "no, that's your style" and just sit in the car checking his email on his I-Phone.Which is OK.  But is the point of the project in the first place, which is to brake my NORMAL pattern/style of working  and try something different. One that forces you to look and think differently about what your doing.  Put another way
 "Get out of your comfort zone"
 and challenge yourself to do something new.You might find that it was fun and you
 learned a new trick or two along the way, I did.

Images number 6 and 4 are good technically but aren't very interesting and do not draw you into look at them beyond a quick look. But they do show what I'm saying about picking a subject that your not comfortable with.  They also demonstrate that I was still looking at the problem with old eyes and not thinking out of the box yet. The comfort zone is a hard thing to brake but it can be retrained.

  

I photographer many trailers before I started to find a look and feel that made me feel like

I was getting somewhere. It didn't happen right away, it took a few months before I was

 feeling satisfied with the results. The vision started to form in my minds eye and I could see

how I as going to capture the image and post processing it to get the look that I wanted.

The challenge had worked! I was seeing in a new way. A way that lent it self to the

 creation of other new images of subjects that I had long felt, " I was just not

 get the image to speak to the viewers". In the process of this project (on going )
 I have developed new skills that I will be refining while I continue to look for
 new opportunities to explore and inspire me to reach past me own vision and create new
uses for what I have learned so far.

You don't have to like the images that I've created and shown in this post.  But I do hope that you can see the transformation in in my creative process and that it inspires you to find your own challenge
and to look for new ways to see the subjects you do and don't like to photograph.

good luck--------------------------------------------------------------- Peter


Legal Notification,
Copyright 2012 - Peter Manship - all rights reserved
Reproduction, printing, or distribution of these images is protected by US and International Copyright laws and is strictly prohibited.

Fox and kits Brandon Vt 4-12-11

The phone rang, it was my friend Bill Jalbert. He said I just found a fox den. Do you have your camera with you? he said no, I looked at the clock to get a time reference, 6:25pm. Where are you ? Brandon. I set out for Brandon about 4:30 to try an photograph the Fox .  I located the spot and set up using my car as a blind to photograph the fox if it showed up. As I waited 5 cars stopped to find out what I was look at and still no fox. At 6;30 a Bill showed up, as we were talking he says "there she is" pointing to the road, I got the fox in the camera viewfinder, Bill says " hope the fox doesn't get hit crossing the road"! The fox walked down the slope to a den hole, looked around and nothing happened, then she moved to a second den hole and out poured 5 kits. All began nursing, when full playing was in order while mom kept a watchful eye.

The photos tell what happened over the next 40 minutes or so.

Even though I was about 300 feet from the fox hiding in my car with a camo cover covering the exposed side of the car and through which I was photographing , the fox was very aware of my presence and always kept an eye on my location. I think that the Fox and her kits will end up relocating to a little more private location as they grow up. But if they don't I will try to photograph them as they grow up and show the images here.

Thanks for visiting

Peter

All photographs by Peter Manship

Story and images © Peter A Manship 2011