Inspiration

[Stephen Willard]

For me the camera is secondary. It is the experience that gives me inspiration. I must be experiencing something I love or will not photograph period. I do not look to other people's work for inspiration because the process of examining other work is not experiential. Without the experience there is no inspiration and there will be no photograph. It is as simple as that!

So when summer comes and the snows clear form the high peaks of the Colorado mountains, I will grab my llamas, my cameras, and my camping gear and head into remote drainages for many weeks with excitement and anticipation. And when I unearth an image from the land my breath will shorten and my heart will pound with excitement. I will not care if anyone likes the image or not. I will not care if anyone buys the images or not. I will only photograph what gives me pleasure, what excites me, and what inspirers me. Whatever that may be.




Fridgid Rock and Spruce in August

[paulr]

lots of things, including poetry, music, sadness, restlessness, paintings, and other people's pictures. what finally inspires me to photograph is a familiarity with my surroundings that breeds curiosity. it took me a while to figure this out, but i'm mostly insprired to photograph near where i live or spend a lot of time, and it starts with noticing little things i hadn't seen before. then one day, i might think, "i want to explore that with a camera."

i discovered many of my photographic "influences" after the fact. people told me that some of my work looked like a series done by friedlander in the 70s or by robert adams in the 80s. it would inspire to look at work by these people (who always seemed to have beaten me by a good ten or twenty years) and see the parallels. in general i think the similarity comes from having lived in a similar world as these people, and from having looked at the work that had originally inspired them (the early modernists, etc.).

[Gary L. Quay]

I am consistantly inspired by the works of other photographers. The way they use color, texture, depth, subject matter, all speak to me in wonderous ways. I don't try to copy them, but I do try to draw upon their experience. Light itself has become an art form for me, whether it paints the world with color or shadow--sometimes brillient, sometimes muted. I've learned to be aware of light at all times by first seeing what it did for other photographers, and later by seeking out that light in my own work.

--Gary

[Walt Calahan]

After seeing Stephen's "Fridgid Rock and Spruce" I'm inspired to get some llamas!

Beautiful!

[GPS]

Misrach - now that's a heck of a gesture!

[tim atherton]

Struan,

I just sent you an image file - it's safe to open if it gets there...

[Struan Gray]

Fantastic replies. Thank you all.

Sorry to those who can't get the image. It is hosted on the free space I get with my email and broadband and I don't think reliability of service is a high priority for them :-) Reload and reload again.

My two year old is squally and restless tonight, so I'll let the ideas stew in my head till morning rather than try and rush a reply.

Please keep them coming.

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

I think being inspired by others' work is quite natural. I know I'm inspired by other works of art and other photographers' images; however, I don't think there is a one-to-one relationship between what I see produced by others and my own photographs.

Personally, as someone else stated above, I have to experience something. It is any kind of experience that counts in the final analysis.

Cheers..

[Alec Jones]

Hey Bill: You're the lucky one! Believe me, you didn't miss a thing.

If I had produced that, I would be inspired to focus better, after looking for a better subject. Other than that, it is great.

[tim atherton]

you could have also been insired to develop a deeper imagination?