Hi, I'm Dave Powell. If you're up for a behindshootokyo.com.
So how I found the photography was I was working 80 hours a week traveling around the world.
But if I'd been to 50 countries, I hadn't seen a lot.
I'd be in cities like Beijing or Mumbai and people would ask me questions like
if you're doing a great wall and you've been in a topical wall.
And no. So I was looking for, you know, I decided I needed a hobby.
And because of the type of work I was doing, you know, a standard go somewhere like Thursday or
Thursday or Saturday, I was traveling so much.
And photography just kind of became a natural hobby.
So I'm a bit of an accidental blogger.
I was looking for a way to improve my photography.
And a very common approach people take is they'll do a 365 project or a 52 project
and take a photo every day or every week and post it online.
Kind of looking for feedback from people.
And it's a really good technique to become a better photographer because you end up kind of
forcing yourself to learn from these things.
So I decided I was going to do a 365 project.
And then as I thought about it, I think I don't have time to post a photo every single day.
And I decided instead to start a blog.
So I think what I was able to learn through blogging is you have this never ending pressure
and creating content.
So I have to constantly be creating images.
Because of that, I end up trying a lot of different equipment.
I end up trying a lot of different techniques.
And what I was able to quickly learn was what is my style?
What is it I like that might take somebody who's not kind of generating that much content
and could take a lot longer to learn.
So to me that was a really big benefit of doing a blog.
One thing I've always wanted to do like many photographers is I wanted to create a photo
book.
Something I can use to kind of share my images and make them more real.
I spent the last couple of years figuring out how to get all my images catalogued in
Lightroom.
And I started to realize I had a really good set of images that could create a book and
I was ready to get that point which I thought was a few years away from.
So I decided to do a book project.
And I ended up funding it through Kickstarter which I think is an excellent exercise for
photographers because you have to, you know, get the expressions you've got of hurting
your children.
So you have to take your images that you just love, that you just think of the best photos
in the world.
Print them out and start hacking off images that aren't going to make the book.
So I think I do a lot of street portraits.
And I love to, you know, some candid and often I like to just stop people and take a photo.
So I think a big part of doing portrait success is how do you approach people?
And do you approach me in a very friendly manner?
So if I see someone and their t-shirt captures my attention or glasses capture my attention
and I'll say, hey, great glasses.
Do you mind if I take a quick photo?
I took a photo workshop with Jay Mazzalla, a very famous American photographer.
And he said, the worst thing you can do is stop somebody as they're going about their
busy day and then rush to you and take a bad photo.
He said, so if you're going to be rude enough to stop somebody then be polite enough to
spend two or three minutes and get the photo correct.
