Photographer, Mel’s twelve Reflection
One month down in the Mel’s 12-project challenge. I wanted to keep my take on January’s project “Reflection” to be different from what I shoot on a daily basis. When I sit down and come up with what I am going to shoot for a project or a theme, I find that brainstorming really helps me find some deep ideas and emotions to bring out in my photographs. When I first started attending Academy of the Arts, I was shooting projects for school on a weekly basis, with different themes or lighting scenario’s. I found that for me, the best way to come up with ideas for my theme of the week was to sit with my composition notebook and a pen alone in my office. I would think of the theme or assignment and randomly write down anything that came to mind when I thought of example: “reflection.” Whether it was lighting, posing, costume, props, emotions, hand placement, a song, whatever randomness popped in my mind, I would write it down, whether it made sense at the time or not. By looking at my notes, it helped me bring to life the photograph that I wanted to make for my project, and it also helped keep me more organized in planning.
This month along with my photograph, I will be featuring a past client of mine Shannon Schiefer. Shannon had told me that she had taken a basic’s class this last year to learn how to better use her camera, but I had no idea that she had learned so much. Her photographs are beautiful. Thanks Shannon! As you are number one on Mel’s 12!
With my project I am hoping to that you all will dig deep and think of what each months theme means to you, literally or figuratively.
Regards and Love,
Mel


