A Little Windowlight Love ~

I'm not full of wisdom. Not sure I even have that many good ideas. But one thing I am sure of is simply this: If you're not finding something new and different and challenging and fun in your creative life -- whatever that may be -- you die a little each day from terminal boredom. And I hate when that happens.
Years back, a fellow portrait photographer and I would take great pleasure in looking at how light was falling on people we would casually see in restaurants and bars; die-hard studio guys, we nonetheless thought many times that we were looking at what would have been lovely portraits. But our cameras -- big ol' medium formats -- were always back at the studio, so we had only our eyes and a few beers to appreciate what we saw. This is the great liberation of the digital camera, and even more, the smartphone camera. I'm never, ever, without my iPhone, and I've become almost fanatical in my desire to chase down that great light and make those portraits I saw in my mind all those years ago.

This is what's so neat about the iPhone: it's spontaneous, unplanned, creativity-on-the-fly when you find yourself in that perfect place with perfect light. So I have a call-out to all of you to help me find those wonderful places with big windows and the kind of light that makes your knees go weak. Restaurants and bars; living rooms and hotel lobbies; the places that are all around us. If you know of such places, I want to go there with you and make a portrait.

Terminal boredom? No, never.

But maybe a few beers.