Indianapolis Family Photographer | Project Ten | Where I Stand

As with almost every.single.Project Ten I’ve completed, I’ve struggled to narrow down my ideas for interpretations of the current theme. This month’s theme is far less objective than some of our other themes and left me thinking about:

photos shot from the perspective of where I was standing

photos of me standing barefoot in all the ‘weathers’

visual first-person images shot from directly above me

You’re seeing a pattern. ME too. When I started this month out, I couldn’t get out of the mindset of shooting ME for this series. But then I had a change of heart. This series didn’t have to be about me…. not visually, anyway.

Then I started to think about perspective and what my typical shooting style looks like during a session. I like to shoot at eye level… it’s no secret. Eye level or just eversoslightly above eye level (standing on my trusty stool) and shooting down on my subjects. The end.

So as I started visualizing this month’s images, I started thinking about “Where DO I stand!?”. Of course, this brought up all sorts of personal history, life struggles, and political agendas, but I veered away from that route… for now. 😉

Instead, I started thinking about where I stand… while shooting. And then I got this idea – I would photograph my series from a birds-eye-view. Inspired by a photo of a fan in our house, I started thinking about portraits… but shot from this ‘big-brother-esk’ viewpoint. Turns out, shooting STRAIGHT down on a person… not really that visually interesting. Not if they’re standing up… or in the snow. The white really threw me off for these shots.

However, shooting from almost bird’s-eye-view for portraits involving tulle skirts and curly hair, and adding in selective focus and motion blur makes for really dream-like images… especially in the snow.

Ultimately… not what I was going for or had pictured in my head (can I get an AMEN!?), but reeeeaaalllllyyyy happy with how these turned out. There are always things I would do differently (be more aware of my own footprints or remove them in post-processing (I chose to leave them), slow down my shutter speed even more, and so on, but at some point we have to sit back and appreciate what we’ve created. <3

Most of this session involved me sitting in a tree or leaning precariously over the side of a ladder secured in a mound of snow, so some sort of camera-boom would probably come in handy for these things, too. Does such a thing even exist? Ultimately, I’d be interested in trying this again when the snow has melted and the grass is that deep-green color and take a bit more time thinking about perspective, motion blur, and how to achieve what’s in my head.

My personal favorite and almost exactly what was in my head pre-shooting. <3 <3 <3

I have hopes to come across a piece of plexiglass that doesn’t cost me $100 that I can utilize for the opposite of this project – shooting from underneath my subject… the most unflattering angle of portrait photography. I’m sure I could come up with something interesting. 😉

Check out Jennifer Georgette Photography’s take on ‘Where I Stand’? She’s our newest member of the Project Ten (soon to be Series Six) blog circle. And if you make it through the whole circle, you’ll find a link all about Share Six and how things will be working for next month!

<3

casey and her camera is an Indianapolis Family Photographer specializing in family, couple, lifestyle, senior, and wedding photography for Indianapolis, Indiana and the surrounding areas.