~ Stephen King
It’s been way too long (embarrassingly long) since I last blogged. Writing is hard for me, so please bear with me…
After moving from Finland to the US a couple of years ago I was finally at a point in my life where I had the time to work on my personal photography projects. Having the time did not, however, translate into the beautiful and well executed photo shoots I had been dreaming about doing. I hit a total mental block. My creativity was nowhere to be found. I spend too much time comparing my work to everyone else’s and their cousin’s and felt like I could never be as good or as original.
I’ve been photographing a little over 10 years and although I’ve had my dry seasons I’ve never experienced such a terrible creative slump. I was ready to throw in the towel and sell my gear. My once passionate love affair with photography had slowly died. Fortunately, while once again admiring other people’s work, I stumbled upon some images taken with the Lensbaby lenses and was intrigued. Something about the dreamy, surreal look of the images really struck a chord with me.
I decided to give it a go. I bought the Composer Pro with Sweet 50 optic and have been slowly rekindling my love affair with photography ever since. I’ve never owned a manual focus lens so, there is definitely a learning curve. I found that by practicing first with still objects it became easier to shoot portraits as well. I got my baby a little over a year ago and have hardly used any other lens since. I love the fact that by creatively using the lens, I can already see my vision of the image actualizing right there in the camera, instead of spending hours and hours in post-processing.
I feel so grateful to be inspired and shooting more meaningfully again. I do love books (and Stephen King), but dare to say I love my Lensbaby more (…or maybe it’s just a different kind of love). For me, my Lensbaby sweet 50 is pure portable magic.
