I list my preferred subjects as environments and inhabitants despite how pretentious it sounds to me. However, the aim is not to fake art by trying to be snobbish but instead cast a wide net to describe the vast swath of things my ADHD brain finds interesting. I re-started photography in 2015 in an effort to capture the beauty I saw while on hikes with my husband. And I certainly enjoy that, but given we lived in downtown Saint Louis, Missouri at the time. Waking up early and getting far out in nature wasn’t a frequent thing. Especially when I was working full time and going to school full time as well.
It was much easier to walk around and snap photos of my home town. Typically I went out with my phone since the kit lenses I had at the time were “no good”. Eventually after reading all various blogs I could, I came across people recommending picking up a “Nifty Fifty”. So to amazon I went and bought a gray market 50 f/1.8 and fell absolutely in love.
But lately I’ve been all over the place with what I want to shoot again. Do I want to do landscapes? Do I want to do portraiture? Do I want to do street, architecture, nature, wildlife, all of it??? YES! While theres nothing wrong with trying a lot of genres, theres a lot wrong with trying to pick up kit that covers every possible combination. Do I really need an ultra fast supertele prime? Or what about that ultrawide zoom? I was seriously planning on buying them all. But before that happened, my bank account reminded me that I needed to re-evaluate my plans.
So where does that leave me now? Well, if internet wisdom has any value placing limits on yourself helps you improve and grow as a photographer. So thats the plan. Limit myself…don’t let the desire to do it all make me burn out because im not good at any of it. With that I’ve decided to focus on travel/street photography for the next year. I’ve also hit pause on any new gear purchases for the time being. I’ll be out there pounding the pavement with my trusty Z7 ii and 50 f/1.8 for at least the near term. I have given myself permission to rent a wider focal length after about 6 months to experience that going wide.
So this is the start of a bit of journey. Thanks to some work and previous commitments I have a lot of travel coming up. I’m looking forward to exploring the places I go and hope to capture some interesting shots along the way.