A Photographer's Guide to Finding Inspiring Images
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2024
- Photography is a game, and if you want to be an expert player, you need to find a source of creativity to go with your technical skills.
A big thank you to picdrop for sponsoring today's video - click here for your free trial: www.picdrop.com/go/tpe
00:00 - Where to find inspiration as a photographer
00:14 - Seeking Inspiration
01:57 - What is inspiration?
03:20 - How to get started if you have no starting point
05:48 - Picdrop
06:42 - Yes, it is coffee
09:26 - A never-ending pool of visual inspiration
Alex, your image of the child in the overcoat is spectacular! I love your work.
Thank you very much!
Olga Karlovac, Todd Hido, David Bailey (initially because he took the portrait of Cat Stevens on the Teaser and the Firecat album cover) and Anton Corbijn (for his images of U2). Oh, and someone called Kilbee, Alex Kilbee as he has introduced me to so many names I hadn’t heard of previously! All big influences for my photography.
Last Monday I went to the city's annual book fair and I found a couple of photo books, among them, I found a book called "All smiles" which is a collection of photos of... Smiles 🤭. From there I found this absolutely serendipitous photo by Rene Maltete.
I can wholeheartedly recommend their photography
I find people get very angry if you tell them to better their work by looking at other art or by otherwise learning about art. It’s an amazing thing. It’s one of the few disciplines I know of where people get mad if you suggest they might benefit from learning about what they want to do.
A list of photo influences, or those I studied, will probably give me carpal tunnel lol. Some to start would be Alf Kumalo, Catherine Leroy, Peter and David Turnley, Dirck Halstead, Gordon Parks, Robert Frank, Jim Richardson, Lee Miller, Saul Leiter, Fred Herzog, Joel Sternfeld, Annie Leibovitz, William Christenberry, Ilse Bing, Walker Evans, William Eggleston, Dorothea Lange. For starters...:-)
Thank you Alex! Your advice is invaluable! I can't think of another channel that goes so deep in the creative process. I very much appreciate all the advice!
More and more I am turning to painters for inspiration, particularly the way they handle light.
Hi Alex, it's great you opened up the conversation about looking for inspiration not just other photographers but things that interest us. When i look for inspiration i think about things that i haven't photographed like surfing, Ferries, Boats. And when you photograph these things, you see so many other great compositions just waiting to be snapped. Just walking around you see so many cool cars parked, Sports cars, Vintage Cars, its amazing the variety of cars you can photograph. The Sky's the limit, literally the Sky, now there's a great composition to photograph. Great topic Alex, thanks 😊
When looking at long term productive photographers i have noticed most have other ways of being creative. Some may paint, write or even play musical instruments. I'm thinking maybe even writing simple poems conveying thoughts of places/experiences or activates one experiences may be a place to then pull from to try and create an image to convey what comes through the written poem. Maybe I'm just crazy though?
"Why does this photograph work?" Recently on a country road, the leaves beginning their transition to the autumn colours and a driveway over a concrete culvert with the late afternoon sun created a composition, I stopped the car took a few images and it is the combination of light, colours, lines that create the composition that works. For me it is my emotional response to an image. Recently I have been scanning transparencies that I took 4 decades ago, only to look at my work through a more mature lens, and I was actually a better photographer than I thought I was at the time.
Thanks for all the advice. I always take it to heart.
Just 2 remarks (1) about what you said at 3'30" (other media) you took my direct words which I used recently in a presentation Alex! and (2) your principles for finding ideas are well written about in this little book by James Webb Young titled: "A Technique for Producing Ideas".
I ilke the expression "visual magpie". Very on point.
Karajan + Eroica
Brilliant, as always Alex!
Another interesting talk, Alex. Thanks.
If it doesn't inspire you then most likely it won't inspire others. If a sports athlete is not inspired to play the game, will you cheer or boo them? Same applies to photography. Great Talk Alex !
Thanks!
informative photography content
Obie Oberholzer, who you have as your first image, has been my biggest inspiration - not necessarily in terms of emulation, but in terms of attitude to photography and using invention to enhance the subject matter, to say something extra about it, not for its own sake.
Obie is awesome. I've spent a lot of time chatting with him.
maybe we who are slightly older found what we like, the internet tells you what you like.
I am also slightly older, and that was my first thought as well. Tubular bells record cover was the first to come to mind, then Abbey road.... Growing up in a remote part of South Africa with no TV being broadcast, now living in the UK its so different now being bombarded continually by imagery on screens all around us.
If people are letting the Internet tell them what they like, then they are using it wrong
What's in that cup? Creative juices?
Is the light on you specular? Did you used to use a softbox or something diffuse? If so, maybe I'm learning about light.
What type of light do you think it is? What's giving you the idea that it might be a softbox?
@@ThePhotographicEye Sorry, I wasn't thinking. Now I can see the light right there, with the grid. It suddenly struck me as specular, which I just saw for the first time when trying out my gold reflector. I've never used a grid so I'm not quite sure what it does except direct the light towards the subject. But when I wrote softbox I was thinking of the light in your older videos. That was a softer light, if I remember.
Have you checked out Jay Maisel ?
Sibelius symphony no 1 E-minor - Helsinki Philharmonic
I’ll throw a couple out there for y’all:
(Mostly Street)
Alan Schaller
Trent Parke
Matt Stuart
Melissas O’Shaughnessy
Alex Webb
Olga Karlovac
Matt Hall
Alex, you haven’t put the link in for the inspirational person. 😫😫😫😫
That's odd, it was there - th-cam.com/video/KxRuu-cFimY/w-d-xo.html
For some reason your end cards sometimes don't appear. Like this video.
Weird, I don't know why - because this was most certianly there (because it was when I checked)
@@ThePhotographicEye maybe can you add a link in the description, or better yet a pinned comment? Also, recently Tatiana Hopper posted a video about how photographers can learn from painters, Caravaggio being an example. I think that's a great idea. Caravaggio and Rembrandt taught us so much about lighting.
Alex, who was this person at the end of your video??🙏🏼
th-cam.com/video/KxRuu-cFimY/w-d-xo.html here you go
So who is that person? There's no suggested video.
I really want to know the answer to this too.
Yep, and this happens all the time.
th-cam.com/video/KxRuu-cFimY/w-d-xo.html - no idea why the end card didn't show
th-cam.com/video/KxRuu-cFimY/w-d-xo.html - no idea why the end card didn't show
th-cam.com/video/KxRuu-cFimY/w-d-xo.html - no idea why the end card didn't show