I follow many a photographer (At the end of this blog I will make an attempt to name them) websites such as flickr, 500px, 1x and such give you a real easy way to categorize photography into black and white, architecture or any category you are looking to research. After a while you will notice some of the same names coming up and hopefully those same photographers have websites and possibly even blogs. Those websites or blogs can give you insights into compositions, camera techniques and post processing techniques as well as places to photograph in your area. These websites and blogs I bookmark because I find them very inspirational. Not just the words that may be printed in a blog but the photographic work itself. There is so much that can be learned by just looking at a photograph and once you get an understanding of composition and post processing techniques these photographs and photographers can help you with your own vision.
There is often a time that I will look at photographers work and want to duplicate their finalized vision in my own work. Not in composition but in post processing, contrasts, dark or lightness of the photograph. I am sure we have all looked at other photographers work and have mumbled to ourselves “I want to do that, I want my finalized photograph to look like that”. But when push comes to shove and I get into the post processing part of my work, my vision can’t be someone else’s. Oh, don’t get me wrong I have tried to darken or lighten my images make them look a certain way. Yes dare I say duplicate something else I have seen from someone else’s work. But as I go through my post processing and try to darken this or lighten that with the attempt to duplicate someone else’s vision into my own it doesn’t fit. What I see in someone else’s work I don’t like for my own vision. Usually anytime I have gone off kilter trying to exactly duplicate a technique I have seen it goes for not. All the layers, curves, levels get deleted. Hours worth of work down the drain because I am trying to duplicate what I like in others work but not in my own.
These photographers who inspire me, do just that…inspire! They have inspired me to black and white, to architecture, to gradients, to be more critical of my own work and to put out a better finalized photograph. I now look at my own work through the inspiration not duplication of others. I inspire to be as good if not better than those photographers that I now follow.
Photographers that Inspire:
Joel Tjintjelaar, Darren Moore, Harry Lieber, Dennis Ramos, Ronny Behnert, Jeff Gaydash, Julia Anna Gospodarou, Kees Smans, Keith Aggett, Luca Cesari, Marc Koegel, Moises Levy, Nathan Wirth, Trevor Cotton, Dr. Akira Takaue.
Original, During and final Photo below: Click on Image
