– Posted by Mark

This past Saturday we went to a classic car junkyard that was spread out on 50 acres in the Georgia woods. We had come here before with the Season 4 Interns – but this time I decided to open it up to more people! So we put it out there on Facebook and Twitter – and we actually had a few more photographers tag along. In all it was about 12 photographers and 10 models – a really great ratio.

Now if you’ve ever been on an Intern shoot with us – we don’t do much ‘teaching’ or class instruction. These types of shoots are more for experience and being able to spend time directing a model – something most of the Interns need a lot of practice with. If you’ve ever read the reviews of this Internship, you know that if you want to know something, you’d better ask. This Internship isn’t mostly about photography 101. It’s about putting the Interns in new and different positions/experiences so that they can work through a few things.

Because photography is a process for me. Every session, every client – I run through a work process that consistently gets me from start to finish – and allows me to not worry about the end product, opening up headspace so that I have the freedom to discover shots. Basically – all of the stress of the ‘job’ goes away, allowing me to really be open to new ideas. My work process doesn’t restrict or lock me into a certain set of shots – but it frees me to find new ones. Got it?

A GALLERY IS HERE

Now – one of the main problems with shooting in a location like this is you can very easily end up with a card full of photos that consist of a model in front of a car. Or a model on top of a car. You feel like you have to showcase the cars as much as you showcase the models. And then all you’re left with are static shots of ‘model posing with car.’

And that’s perfectly fine. It’s totally okay.

However – the standard of ‘model posing with car’ should be your starting point. It should be the warm-up. You should work towards moving beyond that. Try different shots. Different angles. And if you get lost or bored – come back to the starting point and put your model in front of a different car. And then get bored with that. Let yourself get really bored with the idea of putting yet another model in front of yet another car. All of a sudden you might realize that you don’t have to show the whole car. Or any of it.

But sometimes. It’s just nice to get really great examples of basic photos. Portraits. You know, the standard stuff. So when you’re faced with a blank slate in your head, and you have no more ideas – but you need to keep shooting, fall back on the stuff you know. Just make sure you keep shooting. There is a physicality to the whole process and you need to keep yourself from getting stuck in your head.

Sometimes you just need to get on with it.

See you tomorrow.