Josh Almazar: Month Three

We’re finally here, the third and final blog post to go along with our completed photo projects! The last three months have gone by incredibly quickly and I’m so happy to be able to share my work with everyone.

Since my last update I’ve only done one photoshoot going snowshoeing with a couple of friends. The day started off clear and sunny but by the time we got to the mountain, a thick fog rolled in ruining our chance for good views. Admittedly I was disappointed and unsure of what to do as I was counting on sunshine and a view for this shoot, but my friends kept spirits high and we managed to create shots along the way. Instead of focusing on landscapes and action shots (there’s not too much action in snowshoeing anyways), we focused on making it a more personal portrait-oriented shoot as the fog and snowfall provided great conditions for portraits. I primarily used the 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens which I’m really loving as its wide range of focal lengths has proven incredibly versatile for action, portrait, and of course wildlife. Even as the snow started to fall heavily, the combination of the E-M1 Mark III and 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens found focus quickly and accurately, making sure I didn’t miss any shots.

I’ve also gone out for solo missions on nearby trails and on drives for landscape and environmental shots. After another suggestion from my mentor Justin Kauffman, I’ve been able to use the 12-40mm F2.8 PRO almost as a macro lens with its super close focusing distance. I’ve had great results with it getting shots of foliage, frost, snow, and even a spider. I haven’t tried focus stacking yet and regret it a little bit for some of these shots – it’s definitely something I’d like to try out in the future. Ultimately these landscape and texture photos have helped better round out my project, offering variety outside of action and portrait shots.

I’ve learned a lot during this program while shooting in the field and from Justin during our calls. I learned to properly position myself while shooting my models depending on which lens I was using. At first it was a lot of trial and error but now I’m much better at knowing where I should stand when lining up a shot. This came about more quickly when Justin noticed I mostly used the 7-14mm F2.8 PRO lens for the bouldering shoot. He reminded me that using different lenses will ensure that my final images don’t all look the same and it will force me to look at shots from different angles.

Another lesson I received from Justin is to consider the whole end product, to be more deliberate in my planning and setting up my shot. He had noticed my shoots were mostly in the forest and suggested that I find some other locations to break up all the green. Luckily the local mountains were hit with early season snow to provide me with a different backdrop. Though these may be simple things for other photographers, they were valuable lessons for me as aspects I never had to consider in my typical photography.

It was difficult narrowing down my selection to only 30-40 photos for the final project and 10-15 photos for this blog post. My initial selection of images was well over 100 and it took the better part of a week for me to decide on this current group. It felt like something is missing having to narrow down so many photos to so few, but I also didn’t want to bore you and make everyone scroll through a couple hundred photos (though I’d be happy to show you all the outtakes).

After showing some of the photos I’ve taken to friends and family, the feedback I’ve gotten has helped me believe I can take good photos instead of thinking they were flukes or that people were just being nice. Thanks to this program I’ve gained a lot of confidence in my photography and hope I can continue learning and working on my craft. After this project I’d like to continue shooting sports, especially skiing/snowboarding during the winter and hiking/running in the summer. I’ve also been super inspired by the other participants and would like to try my hand at other styles of photography like macro, street, and night/astro. It would also be an interesting challenge to learn how to use lighting and try product and fashion photography too. In the future I’d love to print out my photos and have a website to show off my photography.

Overall, I feel confident in my project – it’s not exactly what I had in mind when I applied to the Break Free Program but it’s a solid body of work which I’m very happy with. My initial idea was grander in scale with larger dramatic landscapes but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen with zero budget, time limitations, and only being able to meet up and shoot with people for a few hours at a time and in nearby locations. At the same time, I feel that using more accessible locations in my photos will be more encouraging for people just getting into these sports, rather than using intimidating spots that seem totally unachievable to a beginner.

Another way my project strayed from the original idea is that I’d hoped for more diversity in adventurers, but I quickly realized that my own circles aren’t as diverse as I thought they were - or as they should be.