Playing with Fire?

I took this photo a while back, and it lent itself to the title very nicely; actually, it was why I chose this title, LOL.

Let's start with the "playing with fire."   When you make uninformed decisions with anything in life, whether choosing a photographer, and especially what you to do to stay healthy, you are playing with fire (better to choose the method in the photo to do that, no?).  Regarding your health  - if you watch TV or listen to the news, there are constant ads suggesting you get this shot or take that drug.  Before doing anything, do your research, find out possible side effects, how well a product works, what are the long term benefits or problems.  What are your other options (diet, supplements, lifestyle, etc.) and have you tried them?  Besides the internet (mercola.com is a very good site), there are numerous books (Prescription for Nutritional Healing and Healthy Healing are two excellent books).

Now, back to photography.  If you are a photographer, there are almost limitless choices on what to photograph.  Babies, children, families, seniors (high school or college), weddings, engagements, sports, street photography, dating photos, landscape photography, architectural and astrological photography, aerial photography, war photography, celebrity photos, headshot and composite photography for acting and modeling, and on and on.

In the past, I have photographed weddings, actors and models, family portraits, sports, street photography (mostly in Venice  CA for over 20 years), and more.  Whenever I've taken a bit of a break from photography (last time to run a health food store), I've learned more and come back better.  I hope this time will be no different.  Even when taking breaks, I've studied other photographers whose work I love, and have taken webinars from them on CreativeLIVE and other sources.  Some of my favorites have been Tamara Lackey, Jasmine Star, Sue Bryce (from Australia)(http://suebryce.com/home.php), Christa Meola who is in NYC (http://christameola.com/), and many others.  I also look at many photographers websites to get ideas.  Two sites I came across today that are worth a look:  http://www.simoneportrait.com/signature-environmental.html
http://www.martinphotography.ca/galleries/index.html
Hope you enjoy them - their image ideas, as well as the other photographers mentioned, are similar to what I plan on doing in the future.