I’ve recently been encouraged to look back through some of my recent work – especially images that really speak to me – to see if I can see any themes popping out. This kind of an exercise is great to do from time to time to see what kind of things are remaining the same, what kind of new feelings, tones, subjects, compositions, the like.

Something I’ve found lately is that with a new baby around, I’m shooting straight down an awful lot. I can definitely see why that’s happening now in my shooting (she’s on the floor, and that looking up at you from the middle of the play gym is classic), but it made me wonder if it was a longer standing trend. I looked back through a good chunk of my 2016 images and found that we can’t entirely blame the baby for this one.

What themes do you find in your own work? Is this an exercise that you’ve done before, or something you find particularly helpful? What do these things say about how and what you choose to shoot? I also think it’s super helpful to have someone you trust take a look at a set of your work to see what kind of themes they see. I know there are things that I don’t see until I get them pointed out to me, no matter how many times I’ve done this little drill!

All the best,
Alison