Photographing With Passion

So what's your passion and how will you show this in photography? Well not as easy but not that hard either although it will take some planning and some help particularly from models or friends.

"Passion is a product of emotion. The known definition of emotion is 'any strong feeling'. Whereas, the known definition of passion is 'any strong emotion'. Therefore we have proven how and why passion would be a product of emotion. An emotion, such as love or jealousy, is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors." WikiAnswers.com

Start by asking some friends and relatives about those things or ideals about which they are passionate about and make sure to list them.

Then you should do some research into what constitutes a passion and some samples of people passionately dedicating themselves towards accomplishing them.

Once you have an idea of some of the samples that you want to represent through photography it's time to get to work and start creating in your mind how you will accomplish this.

A good tip is to draw some samples and it doesn't matter if you are a good artist and can actually draw a half decent sample. All that matters is that your drawings record your ideas of how to photograph a passion.

Here is where your artistic touch and creativity comes into play. You cannot just take a shot of a person for example delivering the mail and here is where the motto or rather the inscription from the US Postal Service rings true;

"An inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City reads:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.^{[1]" Wikipedia}

So how would you take a shot of a mail carrier that shows true passion for the work? It would probably be a model dressed in a typical mail uniform with a bag of "mail" fighting a torrential downpour accompanied by howling winds. This would definitively show a passion for delivering the mail and completing the rounds.

Sports is a great source for inspiration. We have all heard and seen the images of a marathon runner for example struggling to reach the finish line after suffering from exhaustion or suffering a fall.

Here again you can recreate the passion to complete the race by having a model who appears to be struggling and perhaps crying "desperately" attempting to cross that close yet elusive finish line.

How about a passion for photography, after all this is an article about photography. An image of a photographer full of gear braving a fierce bear or being in the most of a conflict yet never stopping taking images. This clearly shows passion.

For a recreation have a model with several photographic gear be in the middle of a pond or river while carefully aiming to get the best shot of a nesting bird or a crocodile devouring its prey. Off course more than likely you will nee the aid of Photoshop to add the dangerous elements much like sandwiching two images to make one but it gets the message across.

Not all images need be of people. Nature has its share of suitable samples. An ant carrying what seems to be an impossibly large piece of food to its den, a baby bird struggling to fly for the first time, a mother confronting a much larger foe in order to protect its young and so many more. No recreation for these you just have to be on the look out for opportune moments.

Music invokes passion in most of us. We are passionate about the music we like, and we stick to our guns when someone offers a different opinion. Artists are much the same, they are passionate about their art and a good photo to show this would be a musician playing the instrument so fiercely that his instruments shatters or burst into flames, thanks of course to the assistance of Photoshop.

Although you may need to edit some of your images with a digital editing program many photographs can be done using simple props and some creativity.

You don't need to stage all of your photos either, like in nature, some other images can be obtained by carefully choosing those events that are sure to have images of passion present.

Just be alert and prepared for them and record these instances when the opportunistic moment presents itself like on a dance when the dancer takes a leap that seems almost impossible for a human, that is passion!

Most of these image are probably better suited for the calendar industry and for motivational posters.

Many industries also use these types of images in their advertising campaigns and internal and external printed materials.

Take advantage of this fact and submit your best images to industry specific clients and to photographic stock houses.

Your goal is to show a "passion" in an act or a theme and represent it well enough that audiences will easily recognize the particular passion that is being recorded in your photos.

Do some research and think of what, in your opinion, represents a passion for something and proceed from that point on.