Photography schedule

After returning from Shanghai, where I did a lot of photography without any agenda – strictly as a personal project, it would seem logical to put photography on a back burner and let the ideas for the next shoots naturally form in my mind. In reality, it turns out that over the next few days I will be taking photos at various university events – an alumni workshop of our research institute, an opening of the new athletic centre and a headshots photoshoot for the website of the mathematics department.

On the one hand, I am flattered that my colleagues value my skills enough to ask me to the the photos (so I am not ready to say “No” to these projects,) but on the other hand, I realize that doing shoots that are not motivated by personal interest ultimately lead to a burnout. Perhaps, the way to approach this dilemma is to turn the photo shoots into personal projects – to find certain aspects that are enjoyable in their own right. This necessarily means taking time with each project, even if just enough to think about what is interesting about it.

In terms of finding interesting aspects in an arbitrary photo shoot, I find it helpful to keep the following points in mind:

• Any project is an opportunity to practice, to hone some photography skill(s);
• Any project is an opportunity to learn something about the subject(s);
• Most projects allow one to practice stepping outside of the comfort zone by trying an unconventional technique (e.g. composition, pose, lighting, post-processing).