This post might be considered a follow-up to my previous post, Be the Photographer You Want to Be. Wondering if this is the direction the blog might take for the new year? Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. Right now, this is just some thoughts that are running through my head.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
People change and forget to tell each other. —Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)
To answer the question that’s posed by this post’s title…In Essence, Yes. “The continuity of self remains stable throughout our lifetimes, while other components of the ‘self,’ including physical appearance, attitudes, beliefs, and physiological processes change.—neurosciencenews.com
For some reason, the title of today’s post seems to be a recurrent theme in country music. From Tonja Rose’s religious take in her song, “I’m Not Who I Used to Be” to Toby Keith’s clever “As Good As I Once Was” and even Kenneth Tyler’s “Who I Used To Be.” They all seem to reflect some of the thoughts that have been going through my head as we run screaming into the New Year.
When I was writing magazine articles when print-based photographic publications were an actual source of information another staff writer emailed the editor critiquing the photography of all the other writers. He was unrelenting in his criticism calling us out as “hacks.” It reminded me in some way how Andreas Feininger presented some of his views on his contemporary photographers in his book Photographic Seeing but not as eloquent.
In his tirade, the (quickly fired) writer thought my photography “channeled the ghost of Peter Gowland.” I’ve always considered his complaint about my work to be a compliment, although I don’t think he meant it that way. Maybe he had a point, if only a small one. Perhaps I was hung up with my respect and admiration for Mr. Gowland;s work to see it. I have written before about Peter Gowland’s influence on my photography and, if you’re interested, you can read about it here. I also think that in more recent years the direction of my studio photography has moved, if ever so slightly, away from that particular aesthetic. (One of my other influences is Helmut Newton, although I have along way to catch up to his style. Once can only dream.)
A New Year, A New Start
Perhaps with this new year is a time for me to reevaluate my style of my portrait and glamour photography and challenge myself more than I have in the past. It’s easy to get complacent when you’re happy with what you’re doing. As I write this, I’m in the process of dismantling my home studio and storing the equipment who knows where. I’ve been talking about making this change for most all of this year but haven’t gotten around to doing it. Now I am in the middle of finally getting it done.
The main reason for shutting down my studio is that during 2025 I had only one model shoot in the studio; You can see one of the images from it here. So why should I even bother having a studio? I originally planned to knock the studio down on Labor Day but around that time an old client asked me to keep it up and running until Halloween so I could do some model test shoots for him. Those shoots never happened. Then I was encouraged by two of the best models any photographer could work with telling me they wanted to do some new and interesting shoots. So I decided to keep the studio in one piece until the end of 2025. But these shoots with those fabulous models never materialized either.
This does not mean that I am giving up on glamour photography. I am not. Whatever I end up doing with this genre with any models who are interested in working with me will be different than what I’ve done in the studio during the past years. Instead I plan to photograph models “on location” in my house the same way I did on my former house as shown in the image above left. That is me photographing Kellie—yes, the same session with Kellie who created such a hubbub in the magazine world because… I’m hoping that in 2026 that the images I create around my Daisy Hill home will be different and maybe even better. Finger’s crossed.
PS: Along the way to New Years. I had an idea of moving and expanding my LEGO city—it’s called Brickhampton—into that former studio space. You can get an idea of what an earlier version of my layout looks like by viewing this short video of my LEGO city that I made for my father-in-law before he passed away. And that idea got me excited about thinking about a city and layout that was bigger and grander—with more trains..
Note for my Patreon Subscribers. Images from my only 2025 shoot resulted in a Password Protected post that only members of my Patreon could access. As a member of the second and third tier of my Patreon, members can see uncensored images of Pam from that session. If you are interested in seeing more of these photographs from that session, click CONTACT and let me know. If you are not currently a Patreon subscriber—it’s surprisingly inexpensive—details on how to sign up can be found here.