Tag Archives: Sarah Sloboda Photography
It’s been 9.5 years since I relocated to New York City. I’ve had amazing opportunities to work with gifted people on films, film festivals, photo shoots, advertisements, and TV shows. I’ve collaborated with amazing artists, actors, actresses, and musicians. I’ve had the honor of photographing dozens and dozens of couples and families. It’s been quite a journey from exploring all that New York had to offer me in the entertainment industry, to launching my business as a wedding photographer, to transitioning to a thriving family, baby, and child photography specialty.
I have been literally bombarded with inspiration here, from my peers, from my competitors, from my mentors. I am bursting with new ideas, including new mediums, new ways of expression, new services to offer my clients, and new services that will serve the needs of new clients.
Read More
When I started this blog in October of 2007, I saw it as a two-year endeavor, emulating a two-year Master’s Degree in fine art. The concept was to keep my creativity alive — having made the photography that was once only a hobby into a full-time job, I wanted to make sure I had a forum for non-professional creative endeavors (i.e., explored for their own sake) and a place to document thoughtful meanderings. Over time, the University of Sarah has evolved in many ways – using the term “fine art” loosely at times, other times blending over into literature, and sometimes simply exploring new thoughts and sharing ideas I came across. Read More
This weekend’s family portrait shoot in Brooklyn ROCKED! Highlighted by some brilliant family photo set-ups, the day also included tasty meats and cheeses to accentuate the bubbly… and Hope, Faith & Gluttony absolutely smothered us in tasty sweets like cookies, cupcakes, and butterscotch bars – plus special gift bags with more treats for the road!
Read More
This afternoon, at the end of a lovely portrait session starring a charming 2-year-old, I found myself atop New York City’s High Line, and just had to take the opportunity for a stroll.
It was a perfect late summer day in New York – cloudless sky, warm air, cool breeze – and the sun was shining all over the place, literally. For those of you not familiar, NYC’s High Line is old railroad bridges [turned urban park-space] that wind over, under, and through the buildings of Manhattan’s west side.
It is located near the Hudson River, so as the sun went westward this afternoon, the nearby buildings reflected bright, beautiful light in all kinds of directions off the windows of the surrounding buildings. The result was something like movie set lighting, only more abstract.
Read More
Several weeks ago, I launched a reverse photo caption “contest” (inspired by the New Yorker cartoon caption contest, and my brilliant consultant Melea Seward) to create captions for photos not yet in existence. My facebook fans have come up with lots of captions for non-existent photos, and I just want to give a big, fat THANK YOU to everyone who submitted one of these really interesting, creative, and inspiring captions. I was intrigued by what people came up with, and surprised at the various ways that people undertook a somewhat unusual request (although, one would hope, by degrees more interesting than some program’s algorithm determining what Disney princess by which one would be most accurately represented – for example – which is what they might otherwise be occupied with on facebook).
It was such a strange challenge to make photographs that adhered to the captions, and it was knowing that the people who submitted them would be checking back to see how I did that really drove me on this project. I absolutely love the collaborative nature of having people’s ideas in the mix to stretch my work in new directions, helping my creativity by giving it parameters I could never have established all on my own. Since my fans so generously shared caption ideas with me, I wanted to share a bit about my internal process of creating the photos, as well as some of the results.
Shooting the captions developed, over the course of the project, into an assessment of various creative approaches to solving a problem. This in and of itself is interesting, because it demonstrated to me that I had been truly stretched out of my comfort zone, and had to explore a few different ways of approaching the task at hand.
First, I tried shooting my literal impression of the images – letting them into my head, and then “trying” to get a photo of the thing I envisioned. This definitely worked, but it felt somewhat belabored.
“The other side of the coin.”
Photo caption by Stephen Sloboda
Read More
I am doing an experiment to foster creativity in myself and the readers of this blog. That means you!
Please send me a photo caption – for a photo that doesn’t yet exist. It can be anything – a person, place or thing, or something more ethereal. It can be abstract or specific, leading or obscure. For example:
- “The Silliest Kid in the World”
- “Adventure Walk”
- “Looking for Transformation”
- “Awakening Delight”
Post your caption to the wall of the Sarah Sloboda Photography facebook page. I will select the captions that most inspire me, and try to capture the essence of your caption. You can keep up with this experiment on the Sarah Sloboda Photography facebook page – and if you’re not already, be sure you’re currently a fan.
Send me a photo caption!
