As an artist I think it is important to find your muse. The person/place/or thing that the images just sing with ever click you make without trying so hard. This is Bethyie. She is my muse.
We set up a shoot and she came over to my studio (we had no hair, no makeup, no wardrobe). At the time my studio was an abandon ball room and everything just came together. It was as if we had stepped back in an era. Every photo we took was impactful and to this day, we do not have to try to make impactful images. It's simple, easy and lights me up.That to me, is what a muse is.
Do you have a muse? What is it?
Shot with : Canon 5d mark iv , 85mm 1.2
Hi Addison, and a warm welcome to the forum!
I agree and must say your image has that sense of inspiration that is the mother of great art. I look forward to seeing more of your images in the future. I have a couple of muses, although they not typical of the images I take myself: which are wildlife and scenic - although, since retiring, I have expanded my horizons to explore new areas.
The first is Sean Tucker, an English photographer who shoots in the street and whose strength is the capture of light itself, so you have much in common with him. His great love is portraiture, however. His work is dominated by greyscale images where the lighting is dramatic with strong contrasts in dynamic range. He is also a very philosophical, wise and humble person and I admire him in that context too. I recommend his You Tube channel: Sean Tucker - YouTube
There is a great, fun video of him which says much about him:
Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera Challenge - Sean Tucker - YouTube
My other muse is Sabastio Salgado, a Brazilian photographer, who spent most of his life in some of the worst trouble spots in the world, photographing our common humanity: in some of its direst moments including conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, to celebrating workers around the world. He became so exhausted that he almost died, so he embarked on a project to celebrate nature that is undamaged by humanity, but he did so in his style of strong greyscale imagery, which is extremely rare for wildlife. I have his book Genesis which is an inspiration to me. sebastiao salgado photography - Bing images
This is one of my own efforts to emulate his style to learn of his technique. In this image, I tried to achieve the same result that he has from his long-term use of Kodak Tri-X film (which has quite a bit of grain), a style he ported across to his use of Canon digital cameras.
Thank you for your warm welcome and kind words! I am on a decompression in the mountains for a little while! I found this and thought I would pop in for a week or so before I head back out to the field.
What new areas are you exploring? This is the best part of our jobs. Getting to explore different avenues of life/inspiration through the lens-you see so many things you wouldn't typically see. This world is truly so beautiful and without my lens I do not think I would have the same perspective;) I just got back from Vietnam and my interest has been in elder craftsmen and vanishing crafts :
Thank you so much for sharing Sean Tucker and Sabastio Salgado. I had good time looking through their work.
You did an amazing job on this image, love that he looks so deep in thought!!! It makes me wonder what is going on in there;) Where was it taken? When you say you do wildlife-how crazy do you get?! Life+Death? I just was at the David Yarrow gallery and he's face to face with lions and bears. Would love to see a photo of the scariest encounter!
