LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello and how the hell are you?  If this is your first time here thanks for stopping by.  In this blog I am going to give you the best and easiest tip to get yourself out of that photographic slump that you are in.  I was in one and I tried everything from shooting my normal landscapes at f2.8 instead of f11.  I also tried to do light painting to see if that is what I needed to just feel better about my images.  Well it started with a trip to town and my mindset was I am going to shoot some street photography.  

I thought that maybe shooting a whole different genre would satisfy my need of shooting.  When we got to the location the building was so dim and the area was not interesting.  I was destroyed in my heart and head but I was not going to let that stop me.  I had brought my camera so I was going to walk away with one image that is a keeper in my book.  This was the mindset that I adopted to get me out of this slump I have been in.  Off we went to the store of all stores meaning Walmart.  I was not going to shoot street photos there because well its Walmart you never really know what you are going to find.  

I decided to really challenge myself and find something that was natural and beautiful within the store.  As it turns out there is so many beautiful things to shoot in the major store.  I am sure the people walking by thought that I was off my rocker and how cool would it be to become of the people of Walmart while taking a photo of a cactus like I was.  You see I decided to stick with the f2.8 challenge because I could blow out the background so if someone was walking behind my shot they would not be recognized.  

I found a elf on a shelf that just screamed take my photo and his beard was so fluffy I had to take his photo.  In my head I was thinking what the hell are you doing why this.  My gut was like why not take a product photo of the product that is already on the shelf.  He has character why the hell not go for it.  I took the shot and moved on to the next one.  The person that was with me was laughing because there I am a grown man just standing in the middle of the isle at Walmart taking a photo of a stuffed toy.  I mean looking back it sounds cringy but hey it was fun.  The next subject was a small little cactus that was orange and red.  The tones and the lighting was so good that I had to take the photo.  I was darn near sitting on the floor at this point trying to make it look like it was outside not in a store.  

Let me just say at this point all bets were off on how I was going to be standing to get the photo that I was after.  I mean I may have been totally bent over the table stretching out for the photo hovering about six inches over the small plants.  It was bad but so worth it once I seen the image on the back of my camera.  The joy that I was having at this point was one of the reasons that I got into photography.  I was trying at that point to showcase the beauty of that small little plant and I didn’t care how I looked getting my shot I was more worried about getting the shot.  After I grabbed that shot I noticed a purple leaf just sitting in the middle of lime green leafs.  I was oh heck yeah I ran over to it and started snapping away again.  Focused on the beauty that was right in front of me. 

I was in the zone by this point and about 80 images deep into a photo session.  By this point we decided to leave and go to an old thrift shop.  At that point my mind was going crazy with all the subjects that you can find at a thrift shop.  Oh I was in heaven at this point and I just had to let my photo flag fly at this point.  We walked around looking at all the cool stuff.  I found a piggy bank that was too cute and snapped a few images of it.  The thing that caught my eye was an old golden shot glass that just looked so cool surrounded by the glass.  I was like man would you look at all that reflective light bouncing around the scene.  Man I was really in the groove and having so much fun.  

On the drive home I was seeing so many images that would look so good during sunset or sunrise with that soft golden light kissing the landscape.  The whole point to this story is get out and shoot the little things just have fun with your images and who cares what you look like getting the images that you want.  I never thought that a trip to Walmart would refuel my photographic desire.  Just doing this little challenge made me feel like I did when I first started my photographic Joureny. The joy of just having a camera in your hands and seeing what type of images you can get.  I mean the images in this post are not the best by any means but the joy of getting them and the memories that I have from this challenge was so worth it.