It is great being a photographer. It is great to be a wedding photographer. But being a fine art wedding photographer really takes things to a whole different level for me. I have always loved photography, especially documentary style. I was fascinated by photojournalists from an early age and lulled into the mystique of the National Geographic photographer. I wanted to travel the world and photograph all types of people and culture. This was my initial drive and what originally led me down the photography road. When I went to graduate school, I was at a point where I wanted to continue making documentary photography projects, but by that time I was becoming more and more interested in the fine art aspect of the photography world. I noticed that there was a nostalgia and a romanticism that was creeping into my documentary projects. I was no longer satisfied with the ‘straight’, classic documentary photography that I was producing. For a long time Sebastaio Salgado was my lone photo hero. You can read more about that in my post ‘10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Photos (Part 2).’ To this day I am still heavily influenced by him and his use of light and his brilliant black and white images. But my hero list has expanded and now I follow more styles than people.
Just prior to entering graduate school I took a few photography workshops. One of them was at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. The workshop was on documentary photography and it was with Sylvia Plachy. If you are not familiar with her wonderful work you need to look at it. The first day of the class she asked us to bring in prints to display and then the class would review them. I brought in some very classic, Salgado-like work from Mexico. The class and Sylvia liked it, but she could see that I was not satisfied, that something was bothering me. The beauty of Anderson Ranch is that you spend all day with your classmates; class, darkroom, meals, lounging time. And the instructors are around and available most of the time. So after class, later that night, I had a chance to talk with Sylvia one-on-one. I told her that I felt torn. My mind was telling me to stay with regular documentary work. I wanted a magazine job, a career with National Geographic. But I was feeling that romantic, fine art component creeping into my work more and more. I thought that she was going to be very strict and make me stick with the safe road of photojournalism. But much to my surprise she told me to do whatever I wanted to do. This surprised me at first, but then it really made sense. Someone who I knew and highly respected just told me to follow my passion and to follow my creativity. It was so simple, but I just needed that outside push to make it sink in.
That week long workshop literally changed my life. I left and began graduate school where all I did was let my creativity flow with no regard for what I should be photographing or not. The more I let go the more my true style came through. I wrote more about this in my post ‘Finding Your Own Artistic Style.’ When I began my wedding photography business my first impression was to photograph what clients wanted, to be safe and do what everyone else was doing. But I soon found that creative, free side creeping in. And that is when I decided to follow my passion to create fine art wedding photography.
Following my creativity is one of the reasons why my blog posts are so varied. I don’t want to just show lots of images from weddings. I am more than that. I want to explore photography subjects and review my art projects, and anything else that comes to mind. We all need to follow our passions. If you are trapped in something else, well now is the time to do what you want to do. Sylvia told it to me, now I am telling it to you.
Gary Miller
Houston Fine Art Wedding Photographer
Eye Candy and Brain Veggies
Related posts:
One Trackback
[...] of our style. You can read more about our fine art documentary wedding style in the posts ‘Becoming a Fine Art Photographer‘ and ‘Developing Your Photography Intuition.’ For the photographers it allows us [...]