We all grow and lean at different paces and in different ways.  As many classes, speakers, and online learning options as there are, I still hold fast that the best form of growth is in play. Always picture you are inside a bubble and the more you grow (learn) the tighter the bubble gets.  It can feel confining, uncomfortable – or if you stay really still you can cope and live in that position for long lengths of time.  Now pop a hole in that bubble and you have an “escape” to work outside the bubble.  The bubble is still there with your “core” of what gets the job done, but you are on the outside growing and expanding without restrictions.

See outside the bubble is your play-yard.  It is where you have no limits.  People can’t tell you what is right or wrong with your work – outside the bubble it is all you.  The thing is everything you learn when you are outside that bubble that works then gets stashed back in the bubble.  You keep growing and trying to things and all along the bubble grows with you, but never around you.  It is a freeing place to be.

So play, play hard, and make your play work for you.  It’s fun, it allows you to learn things, and best of all it will make your photography your own and not a copy of someone else’s photography.  Be yourself…. live outside the bubble and have fun!

Amazing make-up skills by the one and only Jill Scott.

Beautiful canvas: Jordan Chappell