A treasure beyond measure

A little over a month ago I had the opportunity of taking pictures for a Primary (children's Sunday School) activity. It was a Grandparent's "T" Party.

A couple of weeks before the event I was able to watch portions of the CreativeLIVE Jasmine Star workshop Jasmine Star is a very successful wedding photographer, and although I don't aspire to wedding photography I never turn down the opportunity to learn ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I can about photography, so I tuned in.

At one point Jasmine talked about attending a Zack Arias One Light Workshop (who was the keynote speaker at Photocamp Utah last year and is, by the way, TOTALLY AMAZING!) and him telling a story about a man wanted to shoot the World Series. (The story was probably about a now super famous sports photographer, and I'm totally messing up the story by not being able to tell you WHO he was....but it is what it is. I've got 3 kids-only so much info stays in my head at any one time.) Anyway, the point is, the only gigs he was getting was shooting Jr. League T-ball. And for a long time he shot the games like he was shooting Jr. League T-Ball. Until one day he realized that he needed to start shooting even T-ball games like he was shotting the World Series. And, so of course, you know what happened. Once he changed his mindset it wasn't too long before was, in fact, shooting the World Series.

I likely massacred that story, but hopefully the underlying message remains. At any rate it inspired me to change my mindset. I didn't want to go into this thinking "Oh, I'm just shooting a primary activity." I wanted to be as serious and professional and creative as possible.

Jasmine also talked a lot about building your brand as a photographer. She has 3 words she uses to describe her own photography and every picture she takes should be a reflection of those 3 words. She encouraged the photographers who were attending her workshop live to pick their own three words.

I don't know that I'm to the point of picking 3 words to describe all my photography, but I decide to go into this particular assignment with 3 words.

Since it was an activity for grandparents I chose as my 3 words: vintage, antique, priceless. Because that's what I think of grandparents. They are not old junk. They are antique-something that maybe has been around a little while, but that very thing is what makes them of great value.

So armed with my 3 words I set about trying to create that feel. I got this idea in my head that I wanted an old barn door to use as a backdrop. Amazing photographer and all around nice guy, Rich Legg, came to the rescue and loaned me a very weathered section of wood fencing. It was perfect!

So, enough talk already! What you really want to see is some of the pictures.

Remember, I was going for VINTAGE, ANTIQUE, PRICELESS.