It's been a rough month since my last post. I've been training for my first half marathon which has been physically difficult(which I finished by the way, so yay me), but mentally it's been difficult too. I'm really trying to fight through some creative blocks. It's been tough to get pick up my camera and actually shoot anything, or do anything creative. That voice of "what's the point?" has been hanging out in the back of my head again. I hate that guy.
So what do I do? Well, I'm trying to fight through it. I'm watching some photography channels on Youtube, trying to find inspiration from photography and art books, and the other night I finally sat myself down at my desk to force myself to start working on a project. One genre of photography I do really enjoy is toy photography. Setting up pieces from my action figure collection, posing them in either some kind of action pose, or a portrait that tries to capture who that character is. At one time I was much more active with it on my Instagram page (@dazmatoyarts), but after doing a monthly challenge followed by life kind of getting in the way, I got a little burned out on it. It was also not great for my wallet and my urge to overbuy and expand my collection with things that didn't really bring me joy. However, I sat down at my desk this week to start on a new project.
With Halloween on the way, every year I try to watch as many Universal Monster movies as I can. I love the classic Universal Monsters from the 30s and 40s and have a small collection of the action figures NECA toys has produced of them. Last year I worked on portraits that tried to recreate photos of them. This year I'm doing something a little different and I'm mashing up my love of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the monsters. You see, not only does NECA make TMNT and monster figures, but they made TMNT crossed with the Monsters. So there's Raphael Frankenstien, Michaelango Mummy, Casey Jones Phantom of the Opera, and so on. So this year the series will be creating scenes with the two crossed over in some way. I've already started with Splinter Van Helsing hunting Bela Lugosi Dracula. I was really happy with how last years portraits came out, so I'm hoping my posing and scene set ups this year can help me take this to another level and recapture some confidence in my work.
It's silly, but it's fun, and it's something that I can do with my camera and hone my skills from the comfort of my basement. It's still a struggle sometimes to even shoot anything but I'm going to keep working on it and try to shut up that voice of "what's the point?" I know that guy has no idea what he's talking about anyway, but like an internet loudmouth, he's just hard to ignore because it's like he's yelling it in all caps and keeps making new handles to avoid being banned.
