Last year I experienced burnout. I was doing work I didn’t enjoy and was taking whatever came my way. At Design Camp, I resolved to enjoy my work again. Over the holiday, my friend and colleague, Ben Easter, gave me some sound advice: play. I can’t do anything if I haven’t thought it to death, so of course, I spend an absurd amount of time thinking about what it would look like to play with my work. I decided I needed to withhold judgment and reconnect with that sense of curiosity that I had when I was a kid. Instead of looking at an idea and deciding I wasn’t interested, I decided I can’t knock it til I try it. I need to simply try things without caring whether or not they produce something that I like. Over the past week, I have introduced a daily playtime. This is what I’ve made. I don’t like all of it. And that’s okay.

ABOVE: This was what I did when I was bored (read: stuck) with my work. So I got out my macro lens, and tried to see how close I could get before I was too close to focus. Then I decided to see if it would work to put wedding rings on Hershey's kisses, you know, because, kiss… wedding. Then I decided to eat the kisses and get back to work. I can’t say it’s my favorite work, but I do like it. •

ABOVE: This was last week’s blog photo! I know this is actually work and not 100% play, but I stepped out of my comfort zone. I used a typeface that had both a solid form and a shadow form that I could combine to use with two different colors. I don’t typically go with pinks and blues together since it just isn’t my taste, but this time I thought I’d experiment. Let’s play with colors I don’t typically use. I do like how this turned out. •

As I seek to play in my work, I find myself gravitating towards unproductive, cliche shots that are stereotypically artistic but are uninspired. I seek to check a box and that’s not what this is about. It’s about learning through enjoying my craft and experimentation. I even started making a shot list and two items deep, I realized I don’t want to do what’s on that list. This is where I give myself permission to put down the camera if I’m not inspired.

BELOW: I went to the library with my boyfriend so we could study/work last week and I found that there is a lot of variance in light in the library between natural light and the overhead lighting. I took two images one close up and darker, as well as one wider shot that was a little brighter. Having always liked the matte look, I thought I would play around with my editing skills for a bit since people get a little sketched out when someone whips out a camera around them and I didn’t want anyone thinking I was photographing them. I have never been terribly confident in my matte editing skills, so I decided to work with two different lighting scenarios and edit them accordingly. The photos themselves aren’t terribly interesting or even technically appealing, but I’m a lover of books and I was working with my surroundings. My conclusion with my edits is that I don’t think I’m doing it right. I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them. •

BELOW: Here I experimented with using tin foil and available light to create a semi-interesting image of my ampersand. I saw it on Pinterest and wondered if it would really work, and the best way to find out is to try it. There was no flash involved, and everything I used to light the image was under $5. Unless you buy really expensive tin foil. And I guess my desk lamp was $10. For the background, I used crinkled tin foil. For the foreground, where the ampersand is sitting, I used smooth tin foil. The tinfoil did not light up the front of the ampersand, as it might be reasonable to expect. For that, I used a piece of white foam core. I don’t think this is a technique I would use for a wedding or any other busy session that couldn’t be repeated. It is something that produces a nice image and can be fine-tuned (like how to crinkle the tin foil so it reflects light consistently) to make the details even better. I think I would prefer twinkle lights, but I like the results of this. •

My conclusion at the end of this week is that mixing work and play brings joy into what you do. Even if I haven’t liked the results, I’ve enjoyed the process. I’ve gotten new ideas. I have always been skeptical of people who say you learn when you try new things and create for the sake of creating. After giving it a try, I can say that there’s no reason I should be skeptical. While not every frame was a success, every frame was worth taking.