Let’s Review

To say this is a business would be a liberal use of the word. If by business you mean passionate hobby that I like sharing with others, then yes, it’s a business of sorts. As a “business” I thought I’d share a Year-in-Review. The past few years I have written a year in review for my life as a whole. I find it to be a great time to reflect on the previous 12 months which usually pass at warp speed; to think about what I’ve accomplished, what I didn’t get to, and how I can be a better person. Year in reviews are a great way to set the stage for the coming year and I find them to be way less disappointing than New Year’s resolutions. So I figured now that Crescenti Imaging is a business, why not do a year-in-Review specifically for it! So grab a cup of coffee (you’ll need the caffeine), recline the Barcalounger, and let’s get started with the 2019 Crescenti Imaging Year in Review.

What Worked

2019 was actually a pretty exciting year photographically speaking. In the year(s) since finishing at Rocky Mountain School of Photography I had been considering and building towards starting a real estate photography business. Why real estate photography you might ask? Well, for one I have always been drawn to the design aspects of architectural photography. More importantly at the time of consideration, it was practical. I know what you are thinking, I have since had the same thought…and I’ll get there so bear with me. I was taking all the steps I thought I needed to –learning techniques, acquiring the necessary equipment, practicing, building a business model. As I plotted along Studio Boise, a local community photography studio held a photo contest that included a gallery showing and public voting. I submitted two landscape photographs that I had recently taken and was excited to hear they had been accepted. It is such a great feeling to see your work in print and hanging on a gallery wall is even better. The show was great and I was excited to have friends and strangers see my work. I did not win the contest, but to my surprise I sold both prints! Wait a minute, people will pay for what I am creating? It felt like in the cartoons when realization causes the characters brain to explode out their ear. 

With that big shot of enthusiasm and excitement I pushed aside the idea of real estate photography from the proverbial desk and laid out a new map.  What I have always been drawn to and really wanted to shoot is landscape and outdoor photography. So why hadn’t I? Why did I go with practical? Well for one it’s in my nature, but that is a story for another day. I saw outdoor and landscape photography as an overcrowded space with little or no hope for my work to get recognition. I would say that is still the case, but for some reason the gallery showing and print sale made me realize it didn’t have to be this big perfect amazing business, it just had to be my passion project. Thus in 2019 Crescenti Imaging was born.

What Didn’t Work

To me, an important part of creating meaningful photographs (and art as a whole) is to be able to identify your voice. As one of my favorite photography teachers David Duchemin describes “voice is what you say and how you say it. It is how you make a photograph that is not just better, but yours”. To me your photographic voice is what gives you direction and focus in your work. I know, this is getting a little heavy, but it’s true. Without a photographic voice you end up selling random over-saturated HDR prints at the craft fair or make the same bird-eating-out-of-your-hand-under-the-Milkyway shot in Iceland that everyone else on Instagram has. So did I find mine? Not exactly. Turns out this artistic omphaloskepsis journey takes time and really can’t be rushed. I suspect in a Mr. Miyagi lesson sort of way it comes to you after hours and days of cleaning windows and painting fences.

As part of the voice finding process, I have begun to identify the types of images that I want to make. When I look through some of my favorite photographer’s work and those that have been most impactful on me, it is ones that tell a compelling story. Which leads us to the second part of what didn’t work. You see storytelling requires characters and while characters can be implied or in canine form they by and large are people. For me, people means interaction, which means anxiety. Not so much the personal interaction, but more the interaction of taking photographs of people. This requires me to overcome a heavy dose of imposter syndrome, which is apparently harder than it sounds. It’s pretty silly when I think about it. What is the worst that could happen? Pretty much nothing, yet it is still a struggle for me. Unfortunately, that means I missed out on a lot of story ideas and making photographs I really want to be making.

New Year New Ideas

What excites me the most as I continue on this photographic journey is creating images that tell stories. This might be one image or several in a series, but all of them connected by a common storyline. If you are reading this (Anyone? Bueller?) I’ve tried to generate about one blog post a week on a variety of random topics. Usually the posts I wrote were paired with existing photographs that I had in the catalog or were written in response to images I had recently create. Next year I will pair these posts back, probably about one a month in an effort to be more intentional and to give myself enough space and time to craft stories that marry together the words and images. Certainly not the best approach from a business perspective, but to me it feels way more authentic to the images I want to create than optimizing my SEO for Instagram.

One of the biggest thrills for me this past year has been seeing my images in print. While the digital medium is convenient in many ways, prints just have a way of bringing a photograph to life that even the highest resolution monitor cannot. The selection of paper, image size, and mounting or framing are all elements that can further enhance a photograph. So this next year I want to print more images and find more ways to share those final prints; whether it is the local coffee shop or a private showing in the basement with the dogs.

Finally, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts I’ve recently returned to exploring the world of film. The film medium requires so much more thought and energy than the AR-15 shooting style that can be accomplished with digital, but the reward of a final image created with film photography (printed of course) is so much greater. I’m not going full on bespoke with my photography, but I do intend to reconnect more with the medium of film photography.

So there you have it, the Crescenti Imaging 2019 Year in Review. If you are still conscious, thanks for reading and can’t wait to show you what 2020 brings!