repetition of blue and shade ii (2023) (Patreon)

Okay, so yesterday, I asked what makes my work special if the repetitive theme of dramatically-lit mountains and clear blue skies and winding roads defines it, and then I wrote some very unimaginative writing for work, and closed the evening out working on my novel. Generally felt kind of meh. 

I have awoken with the desire to prove to myself that the things I see, the photos I take, the words I write, the life I live, can be remarkable and I do not need to feel trapped by my own experiences and styles. I am twenty-eight years old, for God's sake. I am too young to get trapped in ruts of my own creation. 

So I took the most stylistically-similar decent shot to yesterday's I had—also one I took on the way to Bannack—and decided to try to reinvent my usual style with a completely different method of editing than I normally use. This is the result. This style likely would only work on shots just like this—dramatic mountains, clear blue skies, winding roads—but it does work and it feels like a fresh new way for me to look at something familiar. I doubt I would push most shots this dramatically. Maybe this is too dramatic as it is, I've been staring at it for quite a while now and made about six different versions before I chose this as the final edit. 

But it certainly does work for now at its main purpose: reminding me I'm never trapped in patterns of my own making. I can always change if I feel like it.