How does one find inspiration? One photographer I admire, Chuck Arlund, has posted some photos that he’s been working on recently inspired by random lines taken out a novel. He has taken a book, let the pages fall open and found an interesting line or saying from the story to inspire his photographs. I love that idea!

I have actually worked almost backwards in the past, creating photographs and finding quotes to go with them. Others are galvanized by their dreams or stories of their childhood: make believe lands and times, imaginary worlds. Sometimes I simply have random weird thoughts pop into my head that evolve into a story. One idea that I have begun working on is based on how a woman’s face changes as she ages, no matter how hard she takes care of her soul and body. That concept likely came as I stared in the mirror on some morning and bed-face stared back at me.

This particular photo simply thrust itself at me in the form of a frightful storm. As I sat in the office working on the computer, the sky became very dark, trees blowing violently to one side. The storm had actually passed when I went out to shoot, but the sky remained quite overcast and a bit windy. Windy enough for my umbrella to be given its last rites after the shoot. “Up and Away” is a composite shot, taken with a remote (which I lost afterwards in the leaves). The leaves were thrown about while a self timer clicked away, and my body was composited together with legs from one image attached to my body of another one.

For each image, I stood atop my trusty Pelican case and jumped when I thought the camera was about to click. I masked out the muddy Pelican case in post, adding in rain and more clouds (taken earlier in the day on my iPhone).