Burbs – © John Neel

Most of us who claim to be photographers have our favorite image-makers. We have lists of those great photographers who have inspired us to make images, those we respect for their vision and their execution of great work. Their messages have been beautiful, powerful, humorous, insightful, entertaining, riveting, heartfelt, overwhelming. They have offered us new seeds for helping us to become better photographers. Hopefully, we learned something about our world or theirs. Our spirits are lifted, we are renewed and we feel a need to be creative. We become motivated to photograph.

Here are a few of literally hundreds of my favorite photographers throughout the history of photography whom I admire and respect. They have had a great influence on my thinking, my work and the work of thousands of photographers:

Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Alexander Gardner, Eugène Atget, E. J. Bellocq, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Frank Gohlke, David Hockney, Gustave Le Gray, Richard Misrach, Inge Morath, Eadweard Muybridge, Timothy O’Sullivan, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Sebastião Salgado, August Sander, W. Eugene Smith, Josef Sudek, Arthur Tress, Jerry Uelsmann, Jeff Wall, Weegee, Minor White, Garry Winogrand, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann…

So, what do you do with the inspiration that you walk away with? How do you channel this feeling of desire to create after viewing the works of great image-makers?

What happens after you are inspired? Do you want to go out to make images like the ones that touched you? Do you have ideas that are similar that you would like to express? Do you like the style that the artist used? Are there things that you simply want to emulate? Did you learn from the experience? Did you understand what the photographer was showing in the work? Did you try to understand the communication?

If you simply respond to an image by trying to make a similar image, you have missed the point of inspiration. By copying you are not adding to the communication. You are not creating. You do nothing but voice what the artist you admire has already shown. By doing so, you devalue the work that you admire, while simultaneously diminishing your own voice, your own creativity and your own vision.

As photographers we need to develop our own vision and style. Inspiration is a way to grow. It shows you what is possible at the same time as it asks for a response or an acknowledgment. To be truly inspired is to be you. Learning to be yourself is understanding how to learn from others by understanding their work and trying to make your work as inspirational as theirs using your own voice and your own vision. There is plenty of subject matter, so why make the same images that are already out there or the same images that we have seen hundreds of times before?

Looking at work in a gallery or a museum is one of the best ways to see an artists work. There, you can appreciate the subtleties of the image, the details, and the texture, the size of the print as well as the hand and mind of the artist. In the age of the computer, it is easy to simply look casually at an artists work by skimming through a gallery of work on a web page. To really see the work, it is vital to spend enough time with an image to allow for some insight. It is important to see the work in the context of the presentation. When the work is meant for a gallery, it is best to see it there.

Orb – © John Neel

To be inspired is the realization that you too can make images produced through your way of seeing the world. The inspiration handed to you in a gallery or a book or on the Internet should be one that elevates you as an artist. It should pull you to wanting to make your work as powerful as what you are looking at. It is not about hype or being cool or making stuff up. It is about revealing truths. It is about being honest to the realities of living. It is about communicating something real. It should always be about truth.

“The greatest works rise above mere representation and show us something much bigger and more profound. This is sometimes referred to as a hyper reality. It is this that provokes awareness in the viewer. It is the result of a heightened awareness of the photographer and his/her ability to capture it in the image. It transforms the object/subject into a metaphor and gives it new meaning.”

Like words, music and the other arts, photography when used properly, is a language. As a language, it should be a vocabulary of the mind, the heart and the soul. In making images, it is important that we communicate the good, the bad and the ugly of that we see and feel about our realities. It is a way of letting others understand our thinking in ways words may not allow. If what we photograph, compares to what others see, that is OK. To reflect off of the works of another photographer is probably acceptable. But it is of little or no use if all we are doing is imitating the voices of others.

We need to speak with our own voice in a language that empowers us to visualize what we, as individuals want to share with the world. Our vision needs to be concise such that it poses a question or an answer. It needs to speak in a way that allows others to realize something new and truthful. Likewise, it needs to be seen with eyes that are searching for meaning. To understand the work is the other half of creativity and communication.

“If you make images that are trivial, that is all they will ever be. You will miss the opportunity for communication and your images will only add to the profusion of mindless, hyped, confusing, thoughtless, irrational, and boring images that already exist in this world. As with any language, the strength of an image is in its ability to stir the imagination by communicating a truth. It is the photographer’s job to make that happen. That kind of communication is what makes a photographer GREAT. It exists in their work.”

I believe that the language of the image is capable of transcending words. At the same time, it allows us to see the world through the individual perspectives of many eyes.

Anything less is trivial and clouds our collective search for the truth.

You can read about my book “Rethinking Digital Photography” here.

Please have a look at some of my other posts here.

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