When I reach a stagnant point in my photography, my art, my life, I always go back to this. Do one thing different. 

This week, I am trying two. Tonight, my husband Paul and I are going to take our first ever dance class together. We are going to attempt the very basic walking steps of the Argentine Tango.  We met the Annapolis Tango group last month, when I was invited to photograph a workshop. The group expanded their inner circle far enough to include Paul and I in their event. Though we were watchers, many of the Tango dancers spoke to us about what they loved about the group and the dance.

What ever we bring positive and negative to the experience, our love of music and our in-ability to dance, we are open to the experience.

This may be the type of adventure, where we never speak of it again. 

Even if it just for tonight, we will Tango.

I am stepping out in other ways too.

More often that one would imagine, people approach me to ask about technique or to ask if I want to go out and try a new technique with them. 

Recently I saw a post saying there are 101 specialties in photography. Adding Rodeo photography to their ever growing list. What this means is you can be an amazing and recognized photographer in one area of specialty and far less experienced in another. 

The problem is once you've established as a photographer you wouldn't really want to be seen as failing in another area, such as night photography. 

I immersed into digital photography six years ago (2010). Over that time period, one phrase seems to be repeated often and resonates with me.

"I'm a natural light photographer" means "I don't know how to use lights."

While this may not be true and often isn't it is commonly accepted that someone who only uses natural light probably isn't comfortable with other light sources. So how do they balance their thriving natural light business with dabbling in studio lights or night lighting? They find a group where they can learn and fail and not be judged.

After six years and complete immersion in this digital photo world, I am still learning; still experimenting; and still willing take you along on the ride regardless of your skill level.

So I jumped in to start a "Meetup" group that will allow me to do this. http://www.meetup.com/Photography-Society-for-Epic-Fails/

Last fall, there was an informal meetup of people who inspired this group. We took our left over fall pumpkin. One person cut a face into it (Thank you T). Leslie is our resident fireworks person and great at adding suggestions on how we can get a bigger brighter flame. Paul was our experimental guy with the flammable objects. And I, the idea person, manned the camera and the tripod. 

Team pumpkin hoped for a success and planned to accept the epic fail. Cause if you are going to fail, do it big! We also took a lot of safety precautions and had someone manning the hose, because failing big meant getting a really bad photo, not burning down the house!! We had a blast. Nothing burned but the pumpkin!

And that is all I have to say about this.

Step out. Step on. Getting moving. Dance. And embrace the epic fail.