After Zack Arias posted his most excellent video on Scott Kelby’s blog and I watched it about 12 times in a row, things felt weird. Zack had nailed exactly what it felt like to be an emerging photographer, an emerging artist for that matter. Defining yourself seems to be an interesting spree of narcissism.

There I was, laying in bed awake for hours and hours in a sweat thinking about what I should take away from this video. It got me thinking about the nature of art itself and what art I found myself liking most often. Successful art, as I see it, is more than something that is beautiful or appealing visually (though still valid), it should be something that makes a bold statement about the world and the people in it. Photography typically does not transcend the “beautiful” dynamic and usually has very little to say. Again, this is not to say it doesn’t happen, on the contrary, it does quite often but I suppose it just doesn’t seem to be what is most popular.

This leads me back to the original thoughts I first had when I picked up a camera around 5 years ago when I was an amateur photographer. It is was a very immature desire of just wanting to be unique, to be significant, with very little thought beyond that. As I grow older, I realize in order to truly feel fulfilled with my art, my photography, I have to be able to give back somehow.

Besides the obvious donating my services to charity, there is more I can do and there is more that I want to do. That is being able to add real social commentary on my own terms. On my genesis to such a way of thinking, one of my favorite images was created in the spur of the moment. For me, it makes real commentary about how our mouths and minds act in opposition to one another sometimes.

This sort of direct “rebellious” imagery provokes and inspires me to create more shocking imagery, if you are not truly creating what you want with your photography, why are you doing it? Of course, being able to pay the bills with a camera is cool too. However, this led me to imagine what I could do with weddings.

I would still offer the normal wedding coverage and normal products, but, my real desire is to be able to offer a “conceptual bridal photography” service. In which my full artistic brain would be used to create shocking imagery to not only offer social commentary but be able to make a bride and groom into works of art themselves. Something that not only could be worthy of a gallery but something that could be placed in your own home as a memento of the most fabulous time in your life.

Everything inside of me tells me this is my calling to create insanely weird and unique conceptual wedding photography shots. My niche and my insanity turned to art, shared with fabulous clients.

If you have even the smallest inkling of wanting to have a weird wedding shoot, it isn’t really weird. It is normal and deserves to be explored.