So, at some point after I took a
workshop with Spencer Lum in
July, I was supposed to write some diatribe about how it changed me, etc. etc. But the truth is, it's hard to be changed. I think we tend to walk away from life experiences like that one inspired, challenged and
pumped and as time goes by, you settle back into who you always were. Maybe you get to grow just a teeny, tiny bit. Maybe not. I came away from the workshop absolutely jazzed to do personal projects. Total number of personal projects even started since then: 0. It is what it is.
I can say that I positively loved spending a week on the street, camera in hand. I so rarely push myself to really, truly get out there and work for myself. This workshop gave me that impetus and even though I haven't carried it on into my day-to-day life (road to hell paved with good intentions and all), it sure was great to have that week. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
So without too much further musing, here are my final selections from the workshop. You can also check out rejection sets
one and
two if you're so inclined. This first image I took sort of on a whim as I was walking back to my hotel from one of the twice-daily critiques (it may have been the third one - I don't remember).
Spencer liked this image, and he flat rejected every single other image I had produced for critique (see my previous blog posts for those - my blog I can put the losers up if I want!) He encouraged me to spend some time at this particular Subway station. And that's exactly what I did - I spent the next two mornings at the station - several hours in a half a block area, looking at every possible angle. Here are the results:
And that is that. After four days of shooting and twice-daily critiques, I came away with eight total project images. I love them. And I loved working on this project. So if anyone local (or even not - if you have a couch for me!) wants to roll on some new project action, I am more than up for it. Let's take some photos.
What I'm showing here is a selection of some of the images that were not selected to be part of my project. But I still love them and even if I killed my babies in critique, this is my blog and I can revive them. All of these images are from the first two days of shooting - when I was wandering the streets and thinking I would be doing a general New York City street project. It was really good to be shooting street, and to be shooting it for hours on end, regardless of how much my feet hurt. I claim to be a street photographer but the truth is I don't spend that much time going out to do street. It's intimidating. But having four hours to get something good to show in critique really pushes you to go for it. These are some of my favorite images from the first part of the workshop.
I'll be posting my final workshop images two blog posts on this subject from now. But if you want to cut right to the chase, you can hop over to Spencer's