are you scared of being cliché?

That's a rhetorical question. It's a question I ask myself from time to time. My photographs can sometimes be - to me - on the cheesy side. Slipping into what I'd consider overused photographic tropes. 

Like this one: 

On 500px.com, which is where I frequently post my photos, each spring there are a kajillion photos of dandelions, of kids blowing dandelions, of dandelions being blown in the wind, you name it.

So yeah, it's a bit cliché. But you know what I think? I think it's ok to go cliché, especially if it's in the pursuit of higher learning. I wanted to get a depth of field in this shot where you could see all those little seeds being blown about, and yet not much of the background. So by taking this photograph, I learned something. (by the way, remember me saying that you don't need perfect hair for a nice photo? I think the subject above corroborates my point...)

So, what did I do after snapping that dandelion shot? I took another one, the next day, in a slightly different light:

And then, having convinced myself that I had learned how to do this reliably, I got bored and ditched the dandelion thing. But hey, if ever I need to photograph a kid blowing a dandelion, it's in my bucket of tools. ;)