The camera and the guitar:

I picked up playing the guitar late in middle school. As an impressionable 13 year old, I wanted to be just like my cousin who also happened to start playing guitar. I made this desire known with my family and one day my wish was granted. My grandmother brought back a guitar from Mexico for my brother and I. I always admired this cousin and wanted to follow in his footsteps. As I first picked up the guitar, I’d secretly learn the songs that he had first showed my brother and I. I later transitioned over to learning some of my favorite artists songs. I’d copy and attempt to learn the “Stairway to Heaven’s” and the “Wonderwall’s” to a T. Just a couple years ago, I sold my guitar and by doing this I actively made the decision to quit playing the instrument. For 13 years, my guitar playing never expanded further than picking up the tabs & chords musicians had discovered and created. The mere act of playing the guitar was fun but I felt like something was missing.

A large part in why I sold off my guitar was where I was in life. My career and its responsibilities were growing and photography was becoming more and more of a focal point in my life. Like I did when I first began playing the guitar, my photography began by emulating all images and compositions that were considered as iconic.

Tunnel View photographed in Yosemite National Park, CA. I don’t believe it gets more iconic than this location. Photographing an image of mine at the time felt great but didn’t really feel the same once I noted all the other photographers lined up a… — Tunnel View photographed in Yosemite National Park, CA. I don’t believe it gets more iconic than this location. Photographing an image of mine at the time felt great but didn’t really feel the same once I noted all the other photographers lined up along with me that evening.

I believe this period in my photography journey was vital. It meant I was able to proficiently capture the images that the legends had created. Similar to the guitar, this is how I learned photography. If I can replicate an image that Ansel had taken, what is stopping me from making my own image albeit less iconic. I am now at the point where I am creating images that are wholly mine but that doesn’t necessarily mean they lack inspiration.

Inspiration in my photography:

What I’ve found with my photography is that I feel more liberated to create where and what I please. I’ve been freed from the iconic images and now photograph what stirs emotion within me. Like with my guitar and my favorite artists, I still have my favorite photographers who I look up to. The problem now is how do I avoid wearing my inspiration on my sleeves as I did with my guitar?

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve went through a photography workshop with TJ Thorne & Eric Bennett in May of 2019. In that workshop, they both pushed the group to photograph more than the grand scene. What resonated with me very deeply was TJ’s fascination with photographing water. TJ has ushered into my work a love for photographing water as well. What struck me the most was his very own connection with rivers and bodies of water. It was very fascinating and I admired it greatly. With me, I find photographing water a very serene sense of presence and consciousness. I am not thinking about fumbling with my phone or checking instagram. I am at the edge of an ocean gazing upon the waves washing onto the sand. Seeing the unique and intricate shapes and forms that come, one after the other. Photographing water isn’t something new to me, I’ve shot a coastal project before that found me at various beaches along southern California. Seeing TJ’s excitement and connection reinvigorated me in photographing water with a tenacity I haven’t had since I first picked up a camera.

“Collision” - A scene photographed in an alpine lake in Yosemite National park. A far different image than the previous image of tunnel view.

Separation of Inspiration and your own work:

The dilemma now for me is a question: How do you separate your inspirations from your own work? I have a group of photographers I strongly admire and often enjoy looking at their work. Alex Noriega was the first landscape photographer I found that stopped me dead in my tracks. I discovered his portfolio many years ago and have been fascinated in his work’s progression from the grand to the quiet & intimate images of late. His image processing tutorials are the first that I purchased and really the only guidance I used in learning photoshop. How do I navigate the processing of my images without his editing technique being prevalent across my work? This coupled with my inspiration gained from TJ is a difficult but good problem to have.

Ultimately the differing factor in my work is that I photographed the image. I may have been nudged by TJ to photograph water more but the image and feeling at the time these photos were taken were mine. I don’t fall in the camp that you shouldn’t view other photographer’s work. I think it would be a disservice to not view all of this brilliant work. I try to be more cognizant of the work I create and think of maybe some inspiration that might be making its way through. Although some inspiration of Noriega might peep through my work, I have also experienced an entirely different life than him that I feel must show through my images. The image below is a photograph from Death Valley national park. Although I processed with techniques learned from Alex’s tutorials with my own hand, the image photographed is deeply rooted with who I am and all that I’ve encountered in this life. As a teenager, I was obsessed with this clothing brand “Hurley”. I honestly don’t know why, maybe I was attaching my identity to this clothing brand at the time. The logo looks like this “)(“. That is what I saw on the dunes that day. These experiences and memories can’t be stripped from me. Although I have my photography inspirations, I believe I’ll continue producing work that is unabashedly me.