I find myself standing metaphorically at a crossroads wondering which road to take.

I am almost at the end of my BPE Comping journey – I am very very close now to being able to apply for FBPE (fingers firmly crossed – hope I haven’t jinxed everything) and wonder what I will do next,  as I have absolutely no desire to try for FRPS or go any further with FIAP distinctions. So here I am kicking my heels, staring up at the sign – This Way, That Way, or Another Way.

So what now?

I still love to create images and will continue to do that for as long as I can put Wacom pen to tablet. I also enjoy helping others to blossom and I get  a great deal of pleasure seeing them flourish with just a little bit of encouragement. We all need a bit of help now and again and I am happy to help.

Recently, I have made the decision to study more closely the huge and very interesting  subject  of composition and the mystical world of colour theory – and it has stopped me in my tracks. I thought I knew this stuff…. but theres is soooooo much more to discover the deeper you delve.

At the moment I have a couple of ideas as to what I would like to produce after being been totally stopped in my tracks by group of artists/photographers/filmmakers that I knew nothing about before I started my studies. Since this this recent discovery I have started to rethink  everything again and wonder where my new found knowledge will take me.

I have never (well extremely rarely) pre-planned a photoshoot… I just go with the flow, knowing I could “cobble” something together later on. I don’t produce pictures with a meaning – they are just “pretty pictures” as far as I am concerned.  I don’t usually know what my images will finish up looking like when I start out. I usually get an idea (anything could spark it off) and then I just “fiddle and faff” around finding fitting pictures from my huge stock of images (taken over the last 10 years) until something appears and I head off in that direction.

I often liken what I do to making minestrone soup – I throw lots of ingredients (ideas)  into the pot (computer) , stir for a while (mess about in photoshop)  and then suddenly after lots of stirring (shouting at photoshop) it turns onto something quite tasty (insert your own simile here).

I know I will pick a path, but at the moment I am still collecting  the ingredients to put into the pot and hoping that a spark will occur that will get everything cooking nicely.

Soup anyone?