Stress, Anxiety, Storms and 4 Years | The Inspirational Story of How Renee Robyn Completed Her Four-Year Long “Passion Project”

David J. Crewe

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“Passion Project.” It’s a word thrown around a lot by creatives and often is overused by our industry. That is of course, unless of course you’re talking about the work that Canadian photographer Renee Robyn does pretty much on the regular.

Renee is pretty used to overcoming obstacles to create some of her incredible works of art. We’ve all heard you should plan for every contingency when it comes to commercial work, as the old saying holds true; It’s not _IF_ something will go wrong, it’s _WHEN_ something goes wrong, how will you handle it?

https://www.reneerobynphotography.com/Blog/For-Love-of-Horses

“You need a plan to deviate from, to find what you’re really looking for.”

In the short video below, Renee details the process behind her 4 years of detailed planning and scheduling on her “For The Love Of Horses, Fantasy, and People” project she’s been wanting to do for ages, and how on the day of it finally coming together to shoot, mother nature had other plans, dropping a storm on them that shut down the whole province, effectively shutting down her production.

This was that moment of “when” something goes wrong, and what do you do? Not only was Renee working with a large cast of models in the middle of a snow-covered forest wearing incredibly ornate outfits, armor, and weapons,  but half of that cast were horses!

“It is a very good reminder about hitting the brakes on years of lofty goal making and visualization, and just rolling with the punches.”

If you read the full blog post on Renee’s site, you’ll get to experience the stress, anxiety, frustration, foul-mouthedness, and ultimately, the creativity shift of a true artist first hand. It’s kind of incredible to read the raw thought process of another photographer in the middle of a “For F%&k’s Sake” moment, and what it takes to pull it all back together for the team, the project, and your own sanity.

https://www.reneerobynphotography.com/Blog/For-Love-of-Horses

Having known Renee now for years and seeing first hand the amount of work she puts into a single image ensuring every single pixel is perfect, I’m simply in awe of this series. Regardless this not being the intended outcome and finished images that Renee had in mind going into the project, the work is absolutely incredible and is worth the time to check out in its entirety. (Plus she’s selling prints!)

To see more of Renee’s work follow her on her various social sites & channels below

*Images and video shared with permission from Renee Robyn