What sets you apart?

It's been a while since my last post. I've been busy learning, experimenting, growing, improving and sharing. I can't help but be amazed with how far I've come, and it's not just the technical side of things. Anyone can learn how to shoot better, Photoshop better, manipulate light better, direct clients to pose better. But lately I'm finding myself actually creating. Creating works of art. Creating worlds. Creating moods. I'm really giving the artist in me the freedom it needs to create.

I was saying to Luke the other day, anyone can pick up a camera and take a decent photo and call themselves a photographer. And I will admit, that is probably how I started too. I thought it would be easy, you know, I've got a DSLR and suddenly my photos look amazing and oh my goodness I am going to make soooo much money from this!!!

Ha.

There is a whole other story to the actual BUSINESS of photography, but I won't get into that now. The reason I mention this conversation is because I said to him, how am I going to set myself apart from every other photographer out there, shooting with cameras and lenses that are way better than mine? And even worse, how am I going to set myself apart when there is a growing consensus that professional photography is a thing of the past - we can take amazing photos on iPhones now! Who wants to spend money on a portrait when we can take selfies for free!?! So I need to be more than that. There needs to be a reason people come to me and not the other 'guy with a camera'.

I remembered that I am an artist. I always have been. This is something that was never taught to me. It's just who I am. And I need to convey that in my work. I need to take my photography to another level, above the standard, and make it mine and make it awesome.

Self portrait: a feather boa, one sheer black piece of fabric, a dead tree, cherry blossom, a wooden fence post, the concrete in the backyard and some further editing in Photoshop and AlienSkin Exposure 5.