Just entered the image below of my grandmother into the 2010 PDN Faces Contest. Help me win and VOTE!!!!

For the past few months, and also while I was attending Hallmark I was so stuck on creating a certain type of image. Now, through a series of spontaneous and random events I have come to the realization that Marcus Smith is a photographer. NOT a fashion photographer, or music photographer but rather simply just a photographer. What that means is that through thought, light, and action I can make ANYTHING interesting. I was told this countless times repeatedly while in school, but it wasn’t until this morning that I finally realized how valuable and powerful that idea is. Before, I was limiting myself by thinking fashion this, beauty that. Those ARE NOT my only interest, so why on earth would those be the only things that I put effort into shooting? The answer is actually quite simple, it’s obvious and far less challenging to do those type of images than it is to come of with an idea, and make it look good without relying on the model or the make up. Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE fashion, but I don’t want to be one dimensional, I want to be a photographer who’s portfolio you look at and think can handle shooting anything. This moment of clarity has brought me a new excitement about creating fresh images of things that I like. I would like to end this post with a couple images from two photographers I feel do a hell of a job at creating images of things they like from their point of view. The first two images are by Carlos Serrao and the last two are by Mark Zibert.

I’m sorry for the lack of posts over the last few weeks everybody. I have really just not been in a blogging mood. I’ve been feeling that my time has been better spent trying to figure out how I’m gonna to better myself this year as a photographer and get some shoots done rather than blogging. I’ve been spending lots of time studying photos and styles that make some photographers highly sought out, and have just been taking all that in to hopefully absorb some of that same skill into my photography over this fastly moving year. Not to mention I have also been on the road for the past 2 weeks working on Part 2 of the Adidas 2010 World Cup campaign in Barcelona, Spain. That’s something I will eventually be blogging about at some point as well to let everyone know how it went.

About 2 weeks, UK photographer, David Sims came rented out our studio for a 2 day shoot with Giselle. He’d been one of my favorites for quite some time because of his use of movement and light to show shape in his photos but last night I really took some time to study his style. Here are a couple photos from him that have inspired me and will hopefully inspire you and give some idea of the direction I want to move forward in my own style. It was really interesting to meet him and have the opportunity to see how he works.