When it comes to photography, a limitation seems like something that no one wants. A limitation seems like something that will do nothing but hinder your growth or expression. Most people have grown up learning that’s what limitations do. In school, the more we learn the more we decrease our limitations. The more math you study decreases your limitation in quick calculations. Having dinner with friends and everyone is unsure as to what a 20% tip for a total of $86.49? Well, you remember that a teacher or professor, or you just remember how decimals work, told you to move the decimal to the left one place and the double that number. So, you tell your friends that the tip should be between $16 and $20, and they wonder how you did that! To you that limitation doesn’t exist, because you eliminated that small limitation.
Limitations feel like they hinder your abilities. The opposite might actually be true.
When I first started taking photos and started looking at new equipment, I looked at all the different lenses companies had to offer for their cameras. I dreamed of owning at lest 10 different zoom and prime lenses, having something for every occasion. I would have needed a huge bag to carry all that glass around, but that’s the price you pay to be great right? A pretty high price to get that kind of equipment if you ask me. Well, that’s when reality came in a told me I definitely wouldn’t be getting that stuff, and I started to wonder if this was the thing for me. I would put my camera down for a month, pick it up for a week or 2, then put it back down. I felt like my limitation of not having “enough” equipment was holding me back. If I had all that stuff then I could be a better photographer. Nothing was holding me back but the limitation that I had put on myself.
These aren’t fancy lights. Just two color changing lights the model had.
I decided to take my limitation of only having 2 lenses and run. I used that as fuel to force myself to take better photos. Then, I decided I didn’t even want to carry the 2nd lens, so I would leave it at home more and more. All I decided to use was my 50mm prime and nothing else for a while. “Look at that cool landscape! I want to shoot it, but I don’t have the lens that everyone tells me I need to shoot it.” Fuck that, get your camera and take the damn shot. If it sucks, then figure it out to make it not suck. Shoot it again. Doesn’t look good? Move some where different. Shoot it again. Still sucks? Get Lower. Shoot it again. Still sucks? Change the exposure, the aperture, change something! And shoot it again.
Use your limitations to your advantage and get a different perspective on what you’re shooting. Move around, change settings, change something, and don’t give up. Will some shots suck? Yes. Hell, a lot will. At first. Then, as time goes on, you start to think with your limitations and how to use them to your advantage. Good luck out there, and don’t give up.
I loved the mood the sky and fog had in this photo. Adding the depth of the green grass to it brought the whole image together for me.