LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello and how the hell are you?  If this is your first time here thanks for stopping by.  In this blog we are going to cover the good and bad parts of trends in photography.  To start this out right you have to ask yourself if you fall into two categories for your photography.  The first is are you a trend setter or a trend follower.  The second is do you really care about the trends at all.  I fall into the second part of this and I will explain my position throughout this blog.  

There is one way to truly get noticed fast in photography and that is to follow the trends that are happening in the photographic community.  This will determine what your images are going to look like with an editing style to the color tones that you use for them.  The issue that I take with this philosophy is what is the real point in this.  Are you truly creating to be yourself is something that you have to ask yourself.  Are you making the images for others to like or are you making the images for you to like.  Trends are good because they can give you inspiration for a certain type of shot and I have done that trend to get an image that I fell in love with.  

At the end of the day when you start following trends for your editing and how to take a photo you are copying what others are doing.  The trend to make videos is there and taking over the photographic community because at the end of the day we all want to have our craft noticed by people.  The real question that you have to ask yourself is are you willing to sell your photographic soul just to get a like.  I mean if you look at and I mean really look at my instagram feed you will see that I took part in the video trend for awhile and I was chasing the views for my videos but the problem that I found was the people were there for the videos not the art that I was creating.  So some of the people were following me for the wrong things.  This put a hole in my heart and I was not happy with what I was creating.  

The  second part to this is do you really care about the trends.  Me I do but don’t care about the trends.  I care about them because it helps the community grow and brings people to your page.  I don’t care about them because I am not really a follower.  I have always tried to set my own path and make my own way through this world.  I noticed that when I follow trends I am never truly happy with who I am.  This is my philosophy for life as well as my photography.  I am like pop-eye I am who I am and that’s all that I am.  You see those words I have tried to live by for my whole life.  They have shaped me into the person that I am today and I am fine with that.  The problem with following photographic trends is that you are not being original with your images.  

I found that I was unhappy with my work when I was doing this.  I was not creatively fulfilled which always made getting images I was truly proud of harder and harder to find.  The one way that I found around this was to just shoot for me and over the last year that is what I have been doing.  The trends are good because they help you find what you like and don’t like.  I mean I love to split tone my images and that was trend that was hitting the photographic community years ago.  I allowed me to get the cooler tones in my shadows and warmer tones in the highlights.  I still use this on every image that I shoot to this day.  

The reason that I loved that trend is due to it being real to life.  When you are standing there shooting a sunset or sunrise you can see this happening.  The shadows produce a slightly cooler tone which can be brought out when editing your images.  This will give you a sense of depth to an image hence realistic part of split toning.  Now the actual trend was to change the tones to make the images more appealing to the viewer.  You see that was something that I was not liking because I was then following people in order to get likes to my images.  I took that trend and adapted it to a point that it is very subtle and most would not even know that I am doing that to my images.  

Now days I look at the trends and decide how they can improve my photography and use them in a way to enhance the images rather than follow the trend to the point that I am creating images like others.  Photography is a personal thing and your images speak to your mood that you were in when taking the photo.  If you really look at my images over the last year I have been in a dark mood and my images have taken on a darker mood to them.  That is the funk that I have been in but at the end of the day I have also like how my photography has changed.  I started shooting more wildlife lately and that has changed my overall mood.  This is due to keeping it real with my edits.  I have found that in wildlife there is less trends in editing and more about keeping the images looking as natural as possible.  I mean I hardly edit my wildlife images because there is no need to.  Now my landscape images those are where I let my art freak flag fly high.  This is where I get to truly express myself and show what I am feeling within the landscape.  Going to the natural side of things opened my eyes to how the trends affect you.  

The whole point of this blog is not try and get you to stop following a trend it was to open your eyes and get you to see how a trend can change the way that you shoot.  You should shoot those trends and then workout how to incorporate that trend into your work flow.  Don’t and I mean don’t allow that trend to speak to who you are as a photographer.  I mean my wife says all the time that I am stuck in the 90s because I love that style of clothes so why change if you are happy with it.  At the end of the day you have to find what makes you happy with your own photography and keep that up.  You are the only person that you have to make happy.  Thanks for stopping by and remember to enjoy from St Johns AZ y’all