A new challenge, a new goal:
I’m going to shoot street portraits, and it will be a long term project.
Photography has had my interest as long as I can remember, although I haven’t spend a lot of time to it in my youth. Then, in 2003 or so I decided to boost my interest and quality by doing a professional photography course.
Until then, I mainly was interested in doing landscapes. And they were terrible.
In the course a wide variety of photography disciplines were handled, which really opened my eyes. I totally forgot about landscapes and I was totally interested in doing portrait shoots. I actually did a lot of portrait shoots, got my own small studio and started doing shoots commercially as a side job. Next were a couple of weddings, which I really enjoyed doing.
But I also enjoyed my day job, being a Business Analyst in IT.
At work I was thinking about the photography clients and when I was doing photography stuff, I was also thinking about all the things I needed to do at the office… In meeting I was actually ‘seeing’ great portraits. The light flattering the attendees of the meeting and I was composing the best portraits I did not shoot.
Also, I did not enjoy photography anymore. I could not get creative like the way I wanted to be. Having clients meant I needed to standardize my workflow to become profitable. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to determine the best shots by looking at the clients. By capturing their inner personality. Not by offering a couple of standardized shots. I’m a bit extreme here, because it has not been really like this, but you’ll get the idea: I did not enjoy my hobby/commercial product anymore.
So in 2009 I decided to stop my photography business. For a long time I did not think of my camera gear. After a while I sold all my heavy Canon gear, the studio strobes and deleted my online presence. I had to take a break.
Obviously, photography was in my blood and it was inevitable my interest would return. It did. I had looked into a small kit, which still offers high quality output, but without a need to go to the gym to be able to lift the bag. I invested in the Fuji X series. First an X-M1 with a couple of fast prime lenses and just last month I upgraded the kit with an X-T1.
Upgrading to the X-T1 was ‘necessary’ because now, in 2017, the photography bug got back from it’s hibernation. I still love photography, but this time I’m not going to restrict myself with paying customers. I want photography to be my hobby so I’ll be able to do whatever I want. For now my interest is focused on street photography and portraits.
To give myself some guidance, I’ve put on this website/blog. I want to do what I want, but still I want to commit to the bug. I love great people, photo’s, being outdoors and to learn new stuff… to challenge myself. So this website is mainly for me; to give my hobby an outlet. And sure, I love the interaction with likeminded people, so please do reach out if you want to ask, comment or whatever.
It would have been easy to grab a photo of from ‘back then’ to set up the blog of this website, but I will not do that. This will be my outlet of my new challenge. And let’s face it, a challenge it is. It has been years without proper shooting, and that is showing. I need to learn to feel the moment again, feel the light, feel the tools. It is not ready at my fingertips. It needs to be re-developed, which is perfectly fine.
So that is what I’m going to do.
I probably will include a few street photos I’ve taken in the past in my portfolio pages, but regarding my blog posts I will use new work only.
For now an easy and posed portrait of my daughter.
Rolf Aalders 