This blog post is mainly going to be about what’s been going on in my life lately and what I’ve been working on. The past few weeks have been.. quiet. I’m starting a few projects (still in the brainstorming phase) and doing a lot of research and reading.

I mentioned a while ago that I want to learn how to use studio lighting, so lately I’ve been spending all my  free time reading SO much stuff about lighting (Strobist’s Lighting 101 is amazing). I also stopped watching TV shows, and the time I used to spend watching TV shows I now spend watching tutorials and Creative Live workshops. I just feel like there’s SO much out there that I know nothing about and I wanna know everything.
And I’ve also fallen in love with Emily Soto‘s work and I can’t wait to start shooting different types of portraits. I mean, look at this..

I want to go back to experimenting. I feel like at some point this year, I stuck to what is safe, what I know how to do, and I just stopped playing. Of course, I still love what I do. But I want to challenge myself, I wanna try different things. I’m ready to fail and learn and grow.
And that’s one of the reasons I abandoned the 52 Week Project. I didn’t want to admit it. At first I thought I can’t abandon a project and even if I miss a few weeks I can still do it, but it’s time to admit that I can’t. The only good thing about it is that it kept me creating new work, but it started feeling like a chore. It stopped being about experimenting with different themes and it just felt like something I had to do so I wouldn’t disappoint people or myself. But now I realize how silly that is.
Whew. Feels good to get that off my chest.
And while waiting for my lights to get here, I decided to give myself a simple challenge that I’m calling The Blank Wall challenge. This was inspired by Brooke Shaden’s workshop on Creative Live where she demoed a shoot with just a blank wall. I want to try to do this at least once a week and just have fun with it. Basically, I shoot a portrait with a blank wall and any simple or small prop, or just fabric. I’m doing this mainly to train myself to think creatively when I don’t have much to work with. I did two pictures so far that I’m still editing and I’m really enjoying it!

Speaking of things I’m editing – in March I got to assist my friend TJ during two shoots he did. And since I want to practice my skin retouching, he sent me pictures from the shoot to edit. And I surprisingly love it. Here’s a picture of Marta that TJ shot and I retouched:

We were going for a vampire-y look for that shoot. We also did a different look, more flowery and pretty, but I’m still working on those pictures.
And of course, I love shooting BTS:

So that was fun and I really wanna do it again, so I’m planning my own shoot in a studio and hopefully be able to do it within two weeks.
I also got to do a shoot in a kiddy pool again! I love kiddy pools. The other day I bought this powder thing from a toy store that’s supposed to turn the water into red goo. I was so excited! I only bought one box though and it wasn’t enough for the kiddy pool. It colored the water, but it didn’t have the texture I was hoping for. I was determined to get something out of it though, and I ended up with this:

I want to tell you guys everything I’m working on and show you pictures but ahh there are a few things that I can’t talk about yet. I will tell you this though – I’m going to write a novel! I already have my outline for it and I just need to actually start writing. I’m so excited about it because the idea started with just a series of images I wanted to create and now it turned into this huge project.

That is it for now. I hope you’re all doing well ❤ and thank you for reading my rambles!

2014-2017 Thoughts amani alshaali challenge fine art photographer fine art photography friends inspiration photography photography challenge photoshop photoshop edit thoughts tj nuckolls