Focus
As a photographer, having to write about my recent struggle to focus is pretty perfect. For a while, my determination to push forward with my photography trumped everything else. But upon returning to NYC on January 1 after a week in Marin, the fatigue I had inflicted on myself over the previous three months was almost enough to break me. So I took off January to recover, opting to pick and choose work instead of actively pursuing it until February.
During that month of January, the time was filled with introspection, and doubts began to resurface for me about my life and my goals, since New York City has far greater and broader potential for growth than I ever discovered living in Marin.
I was advised by a number of people to take the opportunities to assist, and to shoot portraits, music, fashion, events, interiors, etc. After focusing my photography to just portraiture for musicians, I was granted with the (apparent) fortune to be a generalist again so I could re-evaluate the direction of my photography. Then I got stuck re-evaluating that decision.
A few weeks ago, I shot a show at SOB’s in SoHo for the Memorials (http://thememorialsmusic.com/), headed by my friend Thomas Pridgen, formerly of the Mars Volta (which has gone downhill following his departure, in my opinion):
My love of music photography (live and staged portraits) was reaffirmed that night, but I’m still making my connections out here as a photog who’s essentially fresh to the music scene.
I’ve been shooting street stuff a fair amount, but mostly from a withdrawn perspective, one with few people in the scene, if any at all:
This last weekend, I helped my friend Seth Bernstein (http://eideticproduction.com/), a amazing lighting designer, with two different fashion week runway shows, one of which (Band of Outsiders) was truly impressive and pretty much how you’d think a penultimate fashion show would be lit. His work is visually intimidating, and definitely of the highest caliber. Check him out.
When I wasn’t learning important details about the process of lighting design, I was working on rigging, giving my body a more-than-thorough workout which needed a day of rest on Sunday to recover. I definitely had less muscle tone than I thought after the Levi’s Photo Workshop ended. Lighting design and fashion shows are things I have no interest in pursuing further, but it was definitely great to have the experience of fashion week for me to reference later on in life should I need it for my photography or even cinematography (that may be a topic of a later post, should I take an opportunity I’ve been offered).
Right now, I’m really eying a transition into fine art photography. I’ll follow up on that in my next post. For now, enjoy my redesigned site: http://williamross.com.