On the importance of a personal project photography
The importance of photography in my life cannot be overstated. Photography is for me the vessel I use to connect to other human beings through art. That’s essentially why I took to photography so deeply and why I love to photograph people more than other subjects. For me, photography is about learning from others, listening to others and especially it’s about empathy to others. Photojournalist Carol Guzy said it better than I can so I will use her words: "it's not about how great the photo you make is, it's about the person in the photo. it's about the story. You're just the link between the camera and the subject. it's about empathy and it means everything."
You’re right Carol, it does mean everything.
I think that’s why personal projects in photography are important, especially if you are in a rut creatively. I love working in photography and to provide the services I offer. I always put my heart and soul in my work and I love the smiles on people’s faces when I give the photos from our time together but there is a special kind of love and connection that one creates between the subject and the photographer when one tackles a personal project.
Back in August 2017, I felt I was missing too many moments of my daughter’s life so I bought an Fujifilm x100s (an amazing fixed lens point and shoot camera) and decided to start on the photography journey of telling the story of my daughter’s life everywhere she went.
That’s because Anaïs is 2. She is amazing, beautiful, spunky, mischievous, funny, goofy, weird, bright, and very sweet… all those things are true about her… I know it; I am her dad… but do you? All kids that age are amazing and all go through the same stages. They are incredible and change every day and I think we don’t document their lives well enough because they are always on the move and we —the parents— are freaking tired to run after them.
After completing my project (which still goes on anyways), I decided to present it to a competition because I knew that all the love I put into those pictures were gonna knock the socks off the judges. Believe me though, when a few masters of their craft critique your highly highly personal work, it’s hard to stay put and listen. I am glad to say that I won my first ever award in photography thanks to this project and I am very thankful to my amazing model for making things easy for me for being so cute and photogenic. I love you.
Enjoy.
