Definitely the post I needed right now. I can absolutely relate to so much of what you said. I was just talking about this with another substacker this week, as it’s an issue I’m also constantly facing, being from a small city. Between his and your advice, I’ve got a lot to build off to make photography here a bit more enticing.
I think it’s a difficult task but one that can be really rewarding. One of the things I’m going to start doing to challenge myself in shooting my local areas, is focusing less on place and more on the stories within that place. I don’t think my strong suit in street photography is focusing on people and stories, so I want to challenge myself to change that.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately — photographing my home neighborhood as if I’m a tourist on vacation with eyes wide open. Your post is great inspiration to go out and do it! Beautiful images — especially love the grocery store one 🍎
I hope you have the best time doing so! Honestly, it’s been a real challenge for me to force myself to see the place I’m from and the place I live in a different light, but I think it’s been so rewarding, not just from an artistic point of view but also a place of gratitude and strengthening my sense of belonging.
Solid piece, my buddy Dre made his first photo book "Home is Home" about this very thing. It's so easy to the glory in other placed but hard to find the magic around our own corners. I love your vulnerability on this and talking about your process.
I agree that sometimes we need to jolt ourselves out of the routine in order to notice new details. But it's always so rewarding when we manage to do that!
The tighter images seem to work well in the space you're more familiar with. It's always hard to do this. Sometimes I try to shoot the immediate 3-4 blocks around me as an exercise. Some days, I quit so fast. Other days, I find some great images. Not sure what inspires the difference.
Definitely the post I needed right now. I can absolutely relate to so much of what you said. I was just talking about this with another substacker this week, as it’s an issue I’m also constantly facing, being from a small city. Between his and your advice, I’ve got a lot to build off to make photography here a bit more enticing.
I think it’s a difficult task but one that can be really rewarding. One of the things I’m going to start doing to challenge myself in shooting my local areas, is focusing less on place and more on the stories within that place. I don’t think my strong suit in street photography is focusing on people and stories, so I want to challenge myself to change that.
Love that. Excited to see what comes of it.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately — photographing my home neighborhood as if I’m a tourist on vacation with eyes wide open. Your post is great inspiration to go out and do it! Beautiful images — especially love the grocery store one 🍎
I hope you have the best time doing so! Honestly, it’s been a real challenge for me to force myself to see the place I’m from and the place I live in a different light, but I think it’s been so rewarding, not just from an artistic point of view but also a place of gratitude and strengthening my sense of belonging.
Thanks for reading!
Solid piece, my buddy Dre made his first photo book "Home is Home" about this very thing. It's so easy to the glory in other placed but hard to find the magic around our own corners. I love your vulnerability on this and talking about your process.
I’d love to give that photo book a look over! Do you have a link?
Thanks so much for reading, and taking the time to comment.
Keep putting out great content.
This is it but he sold out his run of it. Not sure if he will do another run.
https://www.demondreward.com/merch/p/home-is-home-the-prologue
I agree that sometimes we need to jolt ourselves out of the routine in order to notice new details. But it's always so rewarding when we manage to do that!
The tighter images seem to work well in the space you're more familiar with. It's always hard to do this. Sometimes I try to shoot the immediate 3-4 blocks around me as an exercise. Some days, I quit so fast. Other days, I find some great images. Not sure what inspires the difference.