Question for the Professionals

Joie

I know a big aspect of being a great photographer is being blessed with innate creativity, but how and where did you get your training and experience? Are you self taught? Did you take classes? Did you have a mentor?

Another question I'd be interesting in knowing is how did you become interested in photography? Who/what influenced your decision to become a professional?

Anyone want to share their stories? An inquiring mind who's been enjoying the beauty of your photographs and admiring your skills wants to know.

Art Scott

Joie wrote:

I know a big aspect of being a great photographer is being blessed with innate creativity, but how and where did you get your training and experience? Are you self taught? Did you take classes? Did you have a mentor?
self taught...mostly....mentor in away was/is PETER GOWLAND: Photographer for Playboy, Rigid Tools, Glamour Photography for various companies and the Stars of Hollywood ........I spent countless hours reading every book in my local library on the sugject I could get my hands on......I looked into the New York Institute of Photography but had a problem trying to convince the controller that it would be money well spent..........so no formal education in photography.

Another question I'd be interesting in knowing is how did you become interested in photography?

i tried every kind of art I could get into....and was no good at it at all.....could not draw a straight line with a straight edge...as a matter of fact I can make a crooked line by snapping a very taut chalk line......but I had been given a camera when I was very young (4 or 5) but my Dad never pushed me to get into it.....but he had bushel baskets of pictures he had taken all over the country from New York to California and back to Ks......he had a small red and grey (silver?) condensor enlarger.....it wasn't over 18" tall all plastic with a Schneider lens..... and we would sit and look at his negatives.... may he was a failed photographer or maybe he decided HE could not split his time between his construction work and family and the conmstruction work paid the bills so the other had to go.....I never knew.....he was damn good with his cameras.....even the movie cameras....

Who/what influenced your decision to become a professional?

To pay for college I was on the work study program.....working in the astromony dept, taking star shots and developing the film of the different professors and I had use of the 35mm camera when they weren't using it.....so I took it out and would shoot with it and was told told I was pretty good......until I took some artsy shots of a female student (no nude or anything...just suggestive voyuerism) from my 10' floor ledge to her 5th window.....all shiloutte thru the venetian blinds (she paid very well for that shoot) ......when I delivered the pics, I had to tack them to a bulletin board in her dorm in a manila envelope with her name on it.....all i had was a first name and she was the daugher of the DEAN as I soon found out....the next day.:D
I stopped for a many years (asI did not own a camera and everyone kept telling me that I needed a real job skill and that you could not make any money with a cmaera or photography) until I was going to a concert of some friends that I had not seen in about 5 yrs and rented a Miranda 35mm / 50 mm lens and I shot 3 rolls of film (100 asa kodak) ...... after seeing what I could do with a camera I had no idea how to work but had been given a 5 mnute lesson in what aperture and shutterspeed and ASA were......the camera shop developed the film and then I began reading POP and Modern photography and anything that had anything to do with photography in it........it just progressed into being what I felt alive doing.......then came the night when a newspaper photog wasn't allowed near enuff to Mark Farner for a shot for the Sunday Paper and he grabbed me asked if I could help him out.....we went to the paper's darkroom and processed my roll of film and I got published.....was paid $10 and not given any credit....but I have the original slide still and that was over 30 yrs ago.........

It actually boiled down to what do you love to do and after several years on hiatus and and then arriving in the Czech Republic with the stranges feeling (I felt as if I was covered in static electricity) and I was seeing everything as if it were a frame of film.....kid you naught, I thought I was hallucinating but my friends' running trainer told me it was just my creative juices boing over and trying their best to get my undivided attention.........so I began to listen and hopefully I will never, ever be in another machine shop running a machine to make anything unles it is a piece of gear I need NOW and cannot order over night...................................

Anyone want to share their stories?

Mixed in above

An inquiring mind who's been enjoying the beauty of your photographs and admiring your skills wants to know.

it is all above

JohnBiggs

Joie wrote:

I know a big aspect of being a great photographer is being blessed with innate creativity, but how and where did you get your training and experience? Mostly self taught internet and books. I took a workshop in still life which taught me some about lighting. I get my experience from shooting ALOT. Keep shooting. I had read this before and I thought I was shooting a lot by going out for an hour or two once a week. NO. SHOOT ALOT MORE and you will see the difference.

Are you self taught? Did you take classes? Did you have a mentor? I listen to advice from several people. Some are not photographers and some are. All of it is important. Photographers tend to look at the technical and non-photographers look at the asthetics. I guess photographers look at the asthetics too, but not quite the same as a non-photographer.

Another question I'd be interesting in knowing is how did you become interested in photography? I always had an interest but the costs associated with film kept me away. Once digital came along, I jumped right in. My first digital was an Olympus P/S with 640x480 resolution. Fixed focal length and only 2MB of non removable memory. That camera cost me $700 back in the day.


Who/what influenced your decision to become a professional? First, I thought I was ready. Second I was looking for a way to justify the amount of money I was spending on camera equipment. Sadly once I took this to the professional level I realised I was wasting money on some of it. Don't believe everything you read online.

Anyone want to share their stories? An inquiring mind who's been enjoying the beauty of your photographs and admiring your skills wants to know.

See above.