This is completely unedited and 100% off the cuff. I am simply typing my thoughts. Ideas may seem to be jumbled and the essay may not flow, but thats the beauty of it. I was just writing. Writing from inspiration.
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What do I want to shoot?/Why do I want to shoot it?
I want to shoot high budget weddings. I want to shoot the bride as she is having her made up done. I want to shoot the groom drinkin' a cold one to relax before the ceremony. I want to shoot their eager and excited (while sometimes nervous) faces as they walk down the isle and exchange their vows. I want to shoot that first kiss as a married couple, and tat first dance as they ooze with their passion for one another. I want to capture those moods and expressions that last only a fraction of a second, in order to freeze it for eternity.
Why? Because I feel there is no other way to have that level of ecstasy and happiness than to be capturing that split second and giving the couple that image that they can look back on for the rest of their lives to remind them of the love that originally brought them together.
I want to do this, because I love it. Sure the money is a nice encouragement. But the joy I get while looking at the LCD screen on the back of my camera while the batteries in my flash are recycling is unmatched to anything I have ever done before.
As I was shooting the cover of the Raining Ami CD this pas weekend the model kept chuckling as I would take a shot and afterwards glance at the LCD screen and just smile. Smile at the image I created. That is why I want to do it.
Looking through the viewfinder, I can remember seeing myself smile in the reflection of the LCD while laughing hysterically at the lame joke I told to lighten the model's mood. That is why I want to be a photographer.
As I sit here outside of the business building at Kennesaw under a nice shade tree waiting for lunch. I'm reading "Vision Mongers" and it begged the question, "Why?". I had always thought about why, but never this in-depth.
It was in my Marketing class, where I was simultaneously reading about target marketings both in "Vision Mongers" and on the projection screen, that it hit me. I do it because I enjoy it. Most students sit absent minded while the professor lectures, but I was sitting there thinking about how I can incorporate this lecture, and this book into my business. I is that, and the fact that I left class and continued reading about target markets and marketing techniques that I knew why I wanted to do it.
I hardly take notes in class where I am required to do it. Yet im sitting here taking notes and writing a NOVEL in my free time for crying out loud! Not because I have to, but because I WANT to, because I want to succeed.
I know this was a ramble that started out as why I wanted to shoot weddings, but it turned into something much different. Something much more. And I am completely ok with that. And I have that same attitude with my future in photography. I have a vision of where I want to be. No, I haven't written down specifically that vision, but I have a vision of where I want to be and what I want to accomplish. But if for some reason it turns out differently, much like this "novel", as long as I am following my passion, I say "so be it" and I am looking forward to "riding that wave". Its going to be tough, but my passion will overcome obstacles. No matter how high. (And I'm quite short)
- Michael Knowlton
www.michael-knowlton.com
michael@michael-knowlton.com
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The view from where I wrote this
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