Moving Out of My Comfort Zone

Dendrobium Orchids

One of my favorite photographic subjects is flowers, based on my deep love of flowers. But I haven’t made a lot of photos recently of flowers because I was tired of making the same kind of image over and over again. I decided it was time to move out of my comfort zone.

I splurged and bought a bouquet of white dendrobium orchids before Christmas. While I enjoyed looking at the bouquet for our holiday celebration, I decided to work on photographing the orchids in as many different ways as I could think of (without adding additional props).

My love of flowers and experimentation photographing them over the years has taught me that making good flower photos is an art which takes much trial and error and a willingness to try, try, try again.

For every photograph I make that I like, there are at least 1-2 dozen photos that I don’t like (if not more).

I often prefer high key (like the photograph below) treatments of flowers but I want to move beyond that to explore new ways of expressing the beauty of what I see and experience with flowers.

I need to move out of my comfort zone.

So I decided to work on making black and white images of flowers and to use a light table to create a more translucent look to the flower petals.

Translucent Flower Photography

Using the surface of the light table as the “backdrop,” place the flowers directly on top of the light table, taking several different exposures of the flowers while the light table is turned on—from a normal exposure to a very over-exposed image. Then bring the different exposures of the image into Photoshop and work on combining them in ways that retain the details of the flower while also revealing the beautiful translucence of the petals.

Making translucent flower photography is a work in progress for me, which I have not mastered. It takes great patience and precision to create multiple exposures and combine them, neither of which come naturally to me.

Moving Out my Comfort Zone

I like to stretch myself and do things that are uncomfortable in my work (and my life) so that I keep growing and learning. The temptation to stay where it feels safe, familiar, and comfortable is something I resist, though I sometimes rest for awhile in my comfort zone.

“The magic rarely happens within our comfort zone, but outside it, on the ragged, scary edge, where we have to fight like hell to keep from drowning in the unknown.”
― David duChemin, A Beautiful Anarchy, When the Life Creative Becomes the Life Created

Deliberately seeking out and pushing against the edges helps me grow and learn. It has surprised me that the more I work on growing my skills as a photographer, the more I come back to growing myself as a person. The work helps me overcome old patterns of behavior and thinking through creative exploration and experimentation. Expressing myself through my photography takes me deeper into who I really am and gently exposes the ways that I protect myself or hide my true self, offering opportunities to shed the armor of my protections layer by layer.

Seeking my voice as a photographer, I ask myself, “What is it that I want to say? Who am I? How do I want to be in this world?” The answers are expressed through the poetry expressed in the photographs I make.  The answers are continually changing as I grow and change.

When was the last time you moved out of your comfort zone intentionally in your creative work or your life? Is it time for you to stretch and grow?

May you walk in beauty.