Having been at the Art Institute over a year now, I have been labeled a “walking photo encyclopedia” by a lot of my peers and faculty. This is because I have some kind of answer for every question that is thrown at me. Now do not take that as me saying “I know it all, I am superior to everyone in the photographic world”, because that is not what I am saying. I have a general attitude of problem solving when it comes to photography. With every problem, there are multiple ways to solve it…you just have to do it the way you feel most comfortable that end up with the result you were looking for. If you fail, then try again a different way until you get it right. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb on the first try… supposedly he failed 1,000 times before it actually worked. However his response to this was, “I did not fail 1,000 times, I just successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.”

Brand Yourself.

Style is not something that can be taught, because every one is going to be different when it comes to art, clothes, political and religious views, morals…etc., However, style can be developed by filling your brain with images from other artists or photographers. And yes, I do separate artists and photographers…yes we still deal with the elements and principles of art, we deal with light, space and composition. Balance is important too, you never REALLY want a subject to be smack dab in the middle of your pictures…that gets old…but sometimes it’s acceptable! Anyways, back to style. If you like a style of something, generally you will label that style as “good”. But what is good for you may not be good for someone else…just like everyone has different taste in music, and not many people like every single genre in the world. Style also has to do with your brand. If your pictures look consistently unified, you have a style or a brand; and on a side note, by consistent and unified I’m not saying they look all the same.

So I will start with who all has inspired my style over the last 7-8 years. There are so many different types of photographers…some that made this list are people I idolize, others are friends and acquaintances (that sometimes I idolize, too!) People always tell me “Your eye is so different from anything I’ve ever seen…” and then they follow it up with the question “How do you do that?”

#1: Michael Spear Hawkins – Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX

(All pictures by Michael Spear Hawkins)
Mike is a fellow North Texan and a pal of mine. I’ll probably get a complaint or two from him about this because the last time I paid him compliments he quickly shut me up, haha. I pretty much was glued to his Flickr for 3-4 years before I finally met him at a copyright conference for a Dallas photography club chapter I was forced to go to for two classes. He has shot a lot of local Dallas music around the area, and recently gotten into a lot of film work. Basically this guy has it all down, and his use of color is ridiculously unmatched from anything I have ever seen. I draw all kinds of inspiration from his style, and I am still a big fan to this day.

#2: Corinne – San Diego, CA

(All pictures by Corinne Alexandra)
Corinne is insanely talented technically and artistically for how young she is. Not to say age has anything to do with photography, but this girl has been good since I found her Deviantart back when she was like 17 years old. I do not know where she learned her chops from, if I remember correctly she did a lot of internet research and reading books…but this girl has got such a bright future in photography, it’s not even funny.

#3: Peter Place – Putnam, CT

(All pictures by Peter Place)
Pete and I actually met via Twitter. I do not remember for the life of me how I stumbled across his work, as I spend so many hours glued to the internet behind my MacBook Pro. Anyways, after talking to him about some of this work he’d posted, I found him on Facebook and we’ve been friends across country since. We share many different things in common besides photography apparently, one of those things being our love for Jesus, the Boston Red Sox and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia…anyways between his awesome work and positive attitude this guy will also do big things. Also check out FortySixty Photo, which is a collective group of photographers he collaborates with.

#4: Jasmine Star – Orange County, CA

(All pictures by Jasmine Star)
Jasmine, Jasmine, Jasmine. There is so much to say about this woman. She went from law school to one of the most well known wedding photographers in America at the drop of a hat! She has such a fashiony style to her weddings, any bride would be clinically insane to turn her down for a job. Not only is she spunky, goofy, and has what appears to be a hunger and appetite for living…but she is very talented with manipulating natural light to cause what is not necessarily the same effect as off camera fill flash…but still have this great equal balance on her subjects that you cannot necessarily figure out where her light is coming from.

#5: Aaron Van Dike – Akron, OH

(All pictures by Aaron Van Dike)
Aaron is another one I stumbled upon on Flickr. Very few people on Flickr ever catch my eye, but the handful that do are usually unique in some way, shape or form. I am not really sure what is up with his website currently, I looked for it but couldn’t seem to find it. But go and take a look at his Flickr account and you’ll get a good taste of his medicine.

[ More photographers to come. ]

Here is a photo I worked on today for my editorial photography class:

Stuff you will need:

How to shoot outside in the middle of the day (which is not my recommendation, wait for evening when the sun is low in the sky for that one particular hour, or get up at the crack of dawn when the sun is coming up and backlight your subjects)…

K? K.