The best advice I heard from other artists

Want to hear a question I feel like I have no good way of answering? What’s your inspiration? Or in another way, what inspires you? I feel like I don’t know what to say. In my mind when I hear this, I should see something an artist creates then have the sudden desire to go out and do something in response. I personally don’t feel like that is what they are saying, but in my mind that is how it is translated.

Now if the question had been stated what are the best lessons I have received in my photographic career, I would have a much better answer. As of this writing my photographic career spans 10 years working with high end cameras and eight years of selling images. But the unfortunate reality is that I have had like 200 lessons in a myriad of ways. Thus the question is still to vague and is still not the correct question.

The best version of this question would actually be “what lessons have had the greatest impact on my photography.” Since this does not have some sort of built in truncated date, it hits closer to home as to “what inspires me” and “what lessons have I received over my photographic career that have changed my photography.” In addition it hits home to the real meat of what someone is asking, aka what changed you and your photography.

Though I think the above is the correct way of asking this idea, I think I will just state it as the title of this piece suggests “The best advice I have received from artists.” Many artists over the years have given my feedback from my time in high school, to my time in college. Post graduation the feedback loop gradually slips or slows down to a point where most of your educational inputs come from blogs, magazine articles and these days, podcasts. But over these years I have been picking up tidbits of information. Let’s say breadcrumbs of goodness that have been slowly influencing my work. Now that I have had ten years of work under my belt, I think I have gathered enough good tidbits of knowledge that are simple but have profound impact on my work today.

Artist: 2D design professor- Triangles

I am sorry, but I do not remember your name 2D Design Professor. I’ll just refer to you as 2D from this point forward. 2D introduced me to the concept of triangles in photography. Back when I got this advice the internet was beginning to hit its teenage years, and blogs were just becoming a thing. At that time, there were not two dozen websites that blathered about the role in triangles within photography. There were just college professors. And this college professor introduced me to the concept of visual triangles within images. In particular, she introduced me to the idea of three visual elements that create a visual triangle within the image. In this case I am not talking about actual triangles ∆, but visual stopping points throughout the image. Examples can be seen in my first image from the Zion region about 10 years ago, and can be seen scattered amongst my images ever since.

Artist: Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams is a bit of gimmick, but when it comes to his visual aesthetic that I acquired from him, it was the inclusion of “S Curves” in my images. I was actually introduced to this idea in between my times from Highschool and College. During this period I was serving a two year religious mission and was gifted the image “Tetons and the Snake River” in the form of a poster. At the time I didn’t have a name for the compositional element but I remembered it. Later in college while taking introduction to photography, it was it given a name. I have dozens of images across my portfolio today that use this compositional technique.

Artists: Intro to Photography Teacher.

Once again I don’t remember this teachers name, but he gave me feedback on a portfolio review that haunts me to this day. For our assignment we were supposed to do some sort of nature image. I went to Zion with my little point and shoot and photographed one of the mountains (I don’t remember now which one) but the peak of the image came up and almost touched the edge of the image. Upon his review, he pointed out that when you have important compositional elements (like mountains) and the tips of said peaks or hands almost touch the edge of the frame (or just barely touch) it creates a point of visual interest. The problem with this though, is that the visual point of interest is literally falling off the edge of the frame of the image. It causes viewers to not spend time in the image but on the edge of the image. I still think of this over a decade later and share it now with my students.

Artist: Marc Adamus

My best advice from Marc Adamus comes from a podcast done by Nick Page in which Marc Adamus describes how one of the most important aspects of photography is creating visual depth within the image. He went on to describe this idea using color, contrast, and saturation. Now I don’t find myself being particularly exceptional at this, but it is a point I really try to follow. In particular I really try to look for ways to make my images appear to have visual depth, either by using a wide angle lens, or by creating a sense of layers or motion within them so that viewers spend some time within the image. Nearly every image I edit, this thought runs through my head.

Artist: Unknown Ceramic Speaker

Rarely do you hear advice for photography being tied to a ceramics instructor, but this one has had particularly large impact on me. In college I had to attend a Convocation where guest speakers came in and spoke about their work. This guest speaker was a ceramicist who worked in pottery, but also got hired to do interesting projects. One project in particular was one where he was hired to design a nature path for a company. To make the nature path more impactful, the created a series of hovering disks that he scattered through out the forest that would cause a hiker to stop, stare and then notice the next disk further into the forest. The desired effect would be a series of "stepping stones" that cause the viewer to look further and further into the forest to see and explore. This might be one of the most meaningful lessons I have learned in my photography. I use when ever I can and purposely find landscapes that naturally do this.

Artist: Ryan Dyar

I can thank Ryan Dyar for teaching me about dodging and burning using layers, paint brush, and the overlay or soft light filters in Photoshop. I had heard in passing this concept, but during an interview this man gave, (I do believe with Nick Page on his podcast) he broke down the idea and how it functions and it literally revolutionized my world and my work. I use this technique with literally 98% of my images these days.

Artist: Mark Metternich

If you have ever listened to an interview with Mark you will know he is a bit of a perfectionist with his photo editing. In particular he is big into making sure the image is print ready so that when it comes off the production line the outcome is breathtaking to the buyers. In particular, he introduced me to the ideas and techniques around sharpening, noise reduction and why it matters. That is not the only places he has influenced my work. My notions of which file types to work from, the importance of non-destructive work flows, the importance of tonal curves and frankly every technical side of file and image handling. I can’t thank him enough as he has had a tendency to say something that ends up throwing me down a wild goose chase that results in me creating a better overall image or learning something that has changed my understanding.

Artist: Sean Bagshaw

I think one of the most basic videos I ever saw you give was simply about the value of a vignette in an image. I didn’t really use a vignette in my images really before that point, but after that video I learned a valuable lesson. Vignettes can be essential tools to subtly cause viewers to look into the center of the image. In general, the edges of images carry the least visually important compositional elements. Thus, they do not need to share the same visual weight as the center, so if they are darkened ever so slightly they give up their weight to the center of the image where you want the viewer to spend the most time at. So simple but so powerful. I think in the past 10 images I created I have a vignette on 70% of them.

Artist: Nick Page

Nick page was the evangelist that introduced me to luminosity masks. I heard him talk about luminosity masks for years before I dared dabble in the use of them. My first attempt at using them was painfully difficult. I struggled but I created something. Luckily for me, I didn’t give up. The introduction to luminosity masks changed my entire photographic trajectory. Images that I couldn’t bring together in a single image became possible. Images that were impossible came possible. Sunsets and sunrises were not insurmountable challenges but beautiful views that could be tamed. Thank you Nick.

Final Thoughts

The above list isn't exhaustive. People that keep providing a great stream of knowledge include Matt Payne who keeps bringing great guests. David Thompson who was like "dude... midtone contrasts is the best thing" and frankly he isn't wrong. I use it so much these days. Jim Harmer from Improve Photography probably was the man that taught me how to do focus stacking. And Guy Tal showed me another way to do photography other than big loud images.