Learning from other photographers offers insights beyond simply observing their images. Exploring their philosophies, methods, and personal approaches can directly improve your own creative practice and perspective.
Coming to you from Peter Forsgård, this insightful video emphasizes why understanding a photographer’s philosophy matters as much as appreciating their work visually. Forsgård introduces Daido Moriyama, whose unconventional stance that emotional authenticity trumps technical perfection challenges conventional ideas. Forsgård values Moriyama's fearless approach, urging you to photograph whatever captures your attention without self-censorship. Moriyama sees photography as fundamentally democratic, free from rigid standards. Forsgård himself adopts Moriyama's spontaneous practice as a warm-up method, highlighting how freely experimenting can open doors to deeper creativity.
Forsgård also highlights Saul Leiter, whose pioneering use of color in street photography defied norms at a time dominated by black-and-white imagery. Leiter focused on emotion rather than technical precision, deliberately leaving images "unfinished" to stimulate viewers' imagination. Forsgård underscores the value of Leiter's strategy of creating visuals that provoke thought and curiosity rather than merely presenting straightforward scenes. Forsgård then discusses Gary Winogrand's rapid, instinctual shooting style, noting how Winogrand deliberately distanced himself from immediate feedback by delaying film development. This practice offers you a compelling approach to evaluating your own work objectively, reducing the influence of momentary excitement or personal attachment.
Lee Friedlander’s approach, according to Forsgård, encourages you to reconsider the ordinary and mundane as potential subjects worth documenting repeatedly. Forsgård appreciates Friedlander's series on hotel-room televisions, an example of transforming everyday scenes into a compelling narrative through repetition. Forsgård suggests applying this mindset to your daily environment—capturing the seemingly insignificant repeatedly can eventually reveal compelling insights and patterns.
Melissa O’Shaughnessy, another photographer Forsgård highlights, reinforces the concept of openness and attentiveness in creative practice. Forsgård emphasizes O'Shaughnessy’s advice that clarity and openness of heart are crucial to noticing unique photographic opportunities. Her journey, starting photography later in life, also inspires Forsgård’s viewers to understand that age or past circumstances do not limit your creative potential.
Lastly, Forsgård turns to Mary Ellen Mark’s documentary-style photography, noting her intensive engagement and ethical approach to subjects. Mark's dedication to building genuine connections underscores the significance of emotional depth and sincerity in creating meaningful work. Forsgård encourages adopting her mindset of genuinely caring about the subjects you photograph, which significantly enriches the emotional impact and authenticity of your work. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Forsgård.
A thought about ones self why and how did you find a camera and learning ways to use it! Many pick photography as a way to make a living with it. Photography finds you not you finding photography. I am a product of military life as a Air Force brat with 30 schools and 40 moves by 18 or so. Also choosing a life in the Navy, I have told this before, A retiring supervisor took me under his wing and showed me on Shore Patrol the good the bad and ugly of liberty, the good was taking images of my travels and the bad was the money going down the drain in bars and the ugly going to jail in a foreign country. I was shown cameras in a NATO store where cost was way less and that is how photography found me in my travels through life after that.
To me photography is when Mother Nature puts you in the place that needs to be captured and with the instincts to capture. What I captured during a 20 + year of military travel is now in a strong box of film negatives, prints and slides. The real deal was with the digital world that trained in the film world. The great thing was and is I got to be a hobbyist vs making a living with photography, my hat is off to all who can!!! I get to do and try any genre that I find is a good try as an experiment and not have to make a living at just one.
My point about photography is like that of a painter is put what you see or think on a canvas. But I never travel to an image but my travel takes me to an image to capture like Mother Nature made it for me. I will be honest also from the beginning I never studied the the three ISO, F#, SS or understood until late in the digital usage, my first camera was the Canon Ftb with a light meter built in with a needle that went up and down as the light got bright or dim and a needle with a circle for aperture where both married up and with film speed dialed in on the top of the camera using the program inside the camera to get things correct, so i never needed to use a light meter by hand and figure settings from it and that made it a point and shoot like experience so all I had to do is find, see something and capture basically training my eyes to a subject and capture it. The great thing with film is you make a print and on the back you write the story of it and the bad about digital is you have many hard drives full of images without your story about and everyone posts on social media and others copy and can post on their wall.
Also I had a gift in life of having a job then a retirement fund to continue a hobby where as others choose to make a living at it, that has to be real tuff at times and I am proud of any and all who do!
One thing I learned is no matter the number of photos and the places gone people really can not take more than 30 minutes of viewing a slide show and people will buy a painting vs a photo to put on a wall!!!
The fourth image was doing a Lunar Eclipse one month after after buying my second digital camera the A7SM1 and using my Canon Ftb lens an experiment like a mad scientist that mother nature put it in front of me to capture. Just having fun with my minds eye!!!!