2 years ago I received an email about someone lacking with confidence and this lead Mike Browne to express his thoughts in a video. There were a few viewers who felt the same and then others who asked: If I’m shy or introverted, can I still be a successful photographer?
The answer is yes. However (and yes I like to say that word “however”), it may be a difficult. I am by nature not the type of person who’ll walk into a room and be Yoda from star wars. In fact, I’m the total opposite. I’m way past the point of being a wall-flower…I think I invented that word. I’m an observer, watcher, and waiter…and have been this way since I was a kid. But when I started my photography business, I knew things had to change.
After a few epic failed photo shoots in 2012, I realized my pictures were pale because my subjects were pale…but it wasn’t their fault, the blame was on me. It was almost as if I was looking, watching, and waiting for the right moments, but let me help you save you some time from my experiences: Great photographers don’t wait for a photo, they create a photo. And by “make” I mean as put more effort as a staged shot or simply taking one step to the right to compose the image in a stronger approach.
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I’ve realized that if i wasn’t getting the type of photos I wanted, it was because I wasn’t engaging in a directive way, or even encouragement, in short i showed up in a wrong unprepared fashion. My subjects normally show up at the session being nervous, intimidated and shy and it’s my job to be in control, take charge, and make them feel that they own the universe. I couldn’t do this being the wall flower of yesteryear.
Before the shoot, I listen to good mood music, previsualize, focus on expressing my thoughts, and take a deep breath like more than a hundred times, yes I need that much. I arrive early to scout the shoot location, plan out the session, and by the time the subjects or clients arrive, I’m ready to give them my love…ready to make a photo.
And this goes not only on wedding, or portraits, this goes same with photo journalism, street photography areas too. You see if you are being shy and scared to engage with your subjects, they will not be comfortable around you, you might missed the golden moments of them giving you the unstage human reactions and emotions.
At the end of the day, you will go home carrying the images you’ll be proud of, so proud, you would want to share it to the rest of world and one better way to do this is by clickasnap, world’s first image hosting platform where you can upload your digital content, you can even share links to your images to your client for sneak peek to get them more excited on their final images!
If you’re someone like me, please know success doesn’t depend entirely on your shyness, but, rather, your ability to move past your natural characteristics and bring into play the type of photographer you want to be.
And because every post is better with a picture, this was taken from my last trip a sneak peek for the coming blog post.
