All through high school I took photography. I loved it and I was good at it. My dad was a photographer for about twenty years. He was better than I am now. He did a lot of photography with Iowa State University, mainly with athletics, and sometimes weddings. I like to shoot people. I’ve always had a fascination with portrait photography.

When I got out of college and into the job world, my music and photography took a back seat. I think that happens, but it’s not always fun. I had to spend more time on making money to just get by and pay the rent. Fun! No, not really. Now that I have more time, time to spend doing things I enjoy, I’m going to start doing more photography again. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Joe Hobot @DMJoe and I started talking about Instagram (a photography app) and my love returned, along with my drive.

I think when it comes to anything creative, you can’t force it. Trust me, I’ve tried. It never seems to work when you try to force it. You try too hard and it just doesn’t work. I think that’s another reason why I stepped back from photography. I did pick it up for a while, shooting some models, just for fun. It didn’t last long though, life happened again. It’s funny how things happen. You are either there, or you’re not. Well, I’ve made a decision to be there – to take photos as often as possible and make it fun. Not to try too hard at anything, just to have fun with it, for me.

I want to put together a book of all the photos I take between now and the end of next summer and self-publish it. I think it will be a fun project just for me. Maybe someone would want to buy one, but if not, that’s okay with me. It’s one of those things I want to do for myself, just because I can. I think it’s important to have things like that in life that you do. You do them just because you can and for yourself.

So, what do you do for you? When was the last time you did it? Is it time to pick it back up, if you’ve set it down? I’d love to hear about it!

About these ads