Over the holiday break my family and I continued a tradition we started a few years back —- we celebrated Christmas and New Year’s in Hawaii.  In the months prior to the break, I spent much of my time processing and printing photos for various projects, but had very little time or energy left over to create new work.  There is nothing like beautiful tropical scenery to put myself back in the saddle.  

I decided early on to challenge myself with a little experimentation.  Having access to my boys all day, and a camera at the ready, made this much easier than it would have been in my daily life.  I played with portraits of the boys, asking them to pose more than I ever have before.  In the past I have gravitated toward environmental portraiture, but I stretched myself (and them) with several posed compositions—- quick shoots that I squeezed in here and there so as not to take them away from their fun and games.  I am grateful they indulged me so willingly.   I tried my hand at freelensing for the first time and found myself humbled and delighted with equal measure. I played with aperture and composition —– toying with what was in focus and what was not.  As I have discussed here before, I love underwater photography but it can be very daunting, so I used the time to really practice my technique and play with a new lens and housing port I purchased for the trip.And of course, there is always my love of silhouettes to add to my growing collection.  This shot at the airport (before boarding the flight home) has become a tradition for the boys at this same gate every year.All that free time really sparked my creativity.  I’m happy I was able to focus on techniques and compositions I was curious about, but also savor leisure time to sink back into my creative skin and shoot intuitively again.  It was such a lovely way to end one year and begin anew.

I hope each of you had a lovely holiday break and are finding the time to commune with your own creativity in some way.

xxoo

Deb