Who or what inspired you?

[Kragmeister]

For me it was Larry Fink. I took a Photo 1 class at Moravian College in 1986 and he was teaching. I had been taking "happy snaps" with a 35mm SLR for years but he tought me to "photograph".

Basically he let me do my thing and encouraged me greatly. I had an opportunity to work for him at his farm in Martin's Creek but stupidly passed it up to stay in college. Well, things happened, I stopped taking photos for a number of years but recently picked up again. I should try to reaquaint myself with him but I keep holding back. He was a really inspiring teacher, but he moved on as photojournalism is his thing.

On thing though that he said I have taken to heart. You have to get close to the subject, as he put it "get close enough to smell their breath". So I've decided to stick with wider lenses to force myself into the space of my subjects and become part of the subject's scene. This is hard stuff for an anti-social SOB like me but I try.

Later,
Greg

 

[sf]

I was originally inspired by architecture to take pictures. Then, the fashion work of Sante d'Orazio. I think, overall, the greatest inspiration has been my own work. When I'm out and taking pictures, and I do it well, it inspires me to reach higher/look harder.

 

[telenous]

Great stories. And interesting how the craft of photography can be nurtured from one generation to the next.

Which is not the case when it comes to my story. I do not recall anyone in my family taking the faintest interest in photography. Nor, of course, did I ever care for it. Sure, I had a couple of cameras in the past; including an SLR (Nikon F401/N4004 with a standard 35-70 zoom, for those who care about such matters). The kind of P&S use I made of it gave deminishing results which no doubt contributed further to my continuing estrangement from the art of photography. I have actually used disposable cameras, and with that, I guess, I reached the bottom of the photographic barrel.

Some time last year something gave. Perhaps it was the ever-increasing demands of my thesis or other unwelcome events in my life; but the requisite rigorous research had definitely taken its toll and I was looking for a liberal creative outlet. Painting or playing the violin were not an option 🙂 Photography seemed the kind of craft which you can take up even if you are a late entrant. And as Thanatos said earlier - BTW very witty choice of username for an expert on the Life Sciences ;-) - photography has the right combination of art and science in it for those who enjoy both.

And so I bought...a digital camera. That was the now gone, never forgotten Lumix FZ-20. I will not say I loved the camera; because I didn't. But the seed was planted and the bug was eating me from inside out. I started reading a bit here and there and I finally chanced upon, well, you guessed it: RFF. There were many good people here with great expertise and a good attitude. Late last year I bought a Canonet QL19 to see what's this rangefinder thing and if I like it. The viewfinder was a bit fogged and the slow speeds a bit sticky...but I loved it. For the first time I took a couple of pictures that I actually liked. I am not talking about exhibition quality; I am just saying that I liked them. Rangefinders had both completely changed my expectations of myself as a photographer and redefined the limits of what I think is photographically possible. And that was my birth as a photographer.

Let me not tire you more, the missing bits of the story you can fill in yourselves: I have spent more than I actually can afford on RFF gear; I 've learned acronyms like GAS and IMHO and I am comfortable using shorthand words like 'Cron and 'Lux (preferably Asph please). And my partner has developed PPS*.

And so, to answer the original question, what really, really inspired me were rangefinders and the RFF community. A big thanks is due here, so, thanks very much.

I am as newbee as can be. But, I think, I will always have a rangefinder, and who knows, may be one day, if I have kids, I will have taken some good photos to inspire them too.


* PPS = Postman Phobia Syndrom.

 

[gbremer]

My dad was definately my inspiration to start. He was always taking pictures. He had a Retina IIa (which is now part of my collection) and he took tons of slides. When I look back at some of the surviving slides, I'm still amazed at how good he was.

When I dicided that I really needed a creative outlet in my life, I remembered his photography and decided to teach myself.

 

[jan normandale]

I knew little about photography when I started several years back. I still know little..

I was inspired to take up a camera because of the ephemerality of things in my life and city. Toronto was beginning to go through huge changes, buildings demolished, buildings erected. Streetscapes changed, houses demolished, graffiti, street culture. Many of these things all impacted me to pick up a camera and record these things and events in this dynamic environment. I cannot keep up.

People flood into this city at about 100,000 per year. There are so many different nationalities here that there are at least 10 events every weekend. Chinese, British, French, Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian, German, Middle European, Russian, Philippino, Baltic States, Korean, Indian, SE Asian, Middle Eastern you name it even Maltese are here.

I have begun my attempt at recording this change in a ‘journalistic/artistic’ manner. I don’t want shots that just show what is changing for the record; I want shots that impart some of the drama or have additional dimensions to these events that show through the photograph. I have not (although I should and will) read or looked at many of the great photographers due to my own time constraints. I may do this in the winter.

Having started on this direction I also have become side tracked into the actual act of photography for the visual impact on a viewer. So my time is now split somewhat. If this gets in the way I will probably go back to the original inspiration.

 

[GeneW]

To be honest, it was the gear that inspired me. From an early age I loved things with knobs, dials and a feel of precision. Some of my friends dabbled a bit with darkroom stuff so I dabbled too, and loved darkroom gear. I just kinda grew from camera to camera, becoming aware of certain photographers and styles and probably unconsciously emulating them, but it was the gear that attracted me, and to a large extent still does.

Over time I think I've added a layer of wanting to photograph things around me. It's an interaction with my environment that makes me to want to shoot.

Of course I appreciate good and great photographers everywhere, in every photographic medium, but bottom line, it's using the gear :->

Gene

 

[Ash]

Another majour inspiration (which is quite 'uncool' for a 19yr-old to admit) is the National Geographic.

I was at the clinic waiting for a friend to finish her appointment, and the April issue struck my eye - Cherynobil. I spent the next 10 minutes or so glaring at every photo in there, of the canyons of america and dragonflies and Cherynobil. Also the earthquake photo's.

I use that magazine like a picture book. I always have. I love to pick it up and have a flick through, and one day I'll have my photo's printed in there 🙂

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

My father photographed light. Sunrise, or shadows or silhouettes. That sort of thing. I've just realised that recently I've been getting up at 5AM to get the honey light too.

His father had a darkroom. Although I cannot recall any cemeras or photographs. We needed to use the darkroom one at a time because it was so small and smelled foul. For some reason we never use print tongs, we went bareback, and the small of fixer stuck on us for days.

 

[Ash]

I've found even the most modern tongs can damage prints

 

[Ash]

On the note of films, Amelie makes me want to go to France and shoot 50 rolls of colour film and cross process it 😀

 

[zuikologist]

Great thread and lots of good stuff.

My mother and father started me off with a Kodak Instamatic at about 6 years old. Moved on to an Olympus Trip at about 11 and my uncle insisted a Pentax MX was appropriate at about age 13. He was probably my inspiration, along with the rest of the family who were very patient models. Still have the MX and lots of other stuff now, but I think many of the best photos were with the Olympus Trip.

 

[telenous]

Photography in cinema

Photography in cinema

One thing that also inspires me is watching movies. For example, "Hero" with Jet Li last year was an absolute highlight for me. "Paris Texas" is one of my all time favorites for this reason (and Cooder and Kinsky, of course) ...

Roland.

Good point Roland. I love the kind of B&W one sees in Welles' films (he did use different cinematographers but his films have a unified kind of photographic look). Sven Nykvist is superb too.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' is a great movie and beautifuly photographed.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

'Lisbon Story' also Wim Wenders.

 

[JOE1951]

Who or what inspired me? It comes from everywhere, but heres what I can pin down.

First off, no one in my family or immediate relatives ever took an interest in the arts, me and one other cousin are the "freaks" in my family!!

My interest in "images" goes back since I was five. I'm 43 now.
The first photo I really remember seeing was of Arthur Rothstein's photo of the dust bowl farmer and his children walking toward the little shanty hut, with the dust storm behind them, and to this day it still has an impact on me.

I saw this photo in a set of encyclopedias my parents had. Yes, I was an encyclopedia geek when I was little, out of a family of 5, I'm the only one who cracked them open. I also recall the painting section of the "P" volume and seeing a Holbien (The Ambassadors) Vermeer (Artist in his studio) and a Brueghel (Hunters return) that also had a huge impact on me. The Brueghel has been my computer wallpaper for about a 2 years now. This same volume also had a photography section that I really never paid much attention to!!

My getting seriously into photography and art in general, credit has to be given to Duane Michals. When I first encountered his work (sequence stuff), I realized still photography wasn't just a "documentary/recording" medium, but could really have the same creative process as a filmmaker/writer/painter, without the necessary years of training or expensive GAS. I believe Robert Frank once said that photography is "art for lazy people ;-)", I tend to agree with him on that statement, but not too seriously. He was also a major influence later on!

15 yrs later had the pleasure of meeting Duane Michals and Ralph Gibson during a photo workshop. Duane still impressed me, Ralph not so much. I've seen Robert on the streets of Halifax NS, but have never wanted to bother him.

For a period of about 12 yrs, I took a major interest in mostly European directors (eg. Andrei Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders, etc) and cinematographers (eg. Robbie Mueller, Boris Kaufmann, etc). They were and still are an influence on me. I don't pay much attention to movies anymore, but prefer to read (eg. Borges, Pynchon, Joyce)

In the past 3 years, I've been wanting to get into drawing and painting. Specifically, life drawing. The Nude in photography tends to leave me yawning, there are exceptions of course, where as drawing and painting nudes/figure studies, I'm finding really fascinating. (eg. Lucien Freud, Jenny Saville, Francis Bacon)

I still enjoy photography, but feel I need to expand on it with these new influences.

 

[Vagabond]

Robert Frank, Alfred Eisenstaedt, W. Eugene Smith, Sally Mann, Annie Liebovicz, Sebastiao Salgado, Gordon Parks, Mary Ellen Mark, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Milt Hinton, Ansel Adams, Roger Hicks, Lewis Carroll, Lee Friedlander, Cindy Sherman..........etc.

Oh, and the gang at RFF.

 

[vodid]

My father liked nice things. We most definitely were not rich, living in a rented house, but we had the first component stereo that I'd ever seen, and we had an MG magnette parked in the driveway. But that's long after I was born...

Expecting their first child, my parents wanted a camera to take photos of their soon-to-be-born baby. It was 1947, and the trend in photography was towards a smaller film format...the speed graphic was losing ground to medium format, and my father decided to go modern rather than traditional, and bought a Rolleiflex.

As you might imagine, I have GREAT baby photos. My mother got interested in the camera and took a lot of photos with it as well. When I was about five, I was given an Argus 75, a twin lens reflex camera that was not all that different in appearance from the Rolleiflex my parents used. I was careful and thoughtful about the photographs I took, but sometimes many months or a year would go by and I just didn't have any interest in photography...I don't know why. My father died when I was eight, and that changed things. I used the Argus 75 through elementary school, but viewed it as a dorky plastic camera by the time I entered junior high school. Several years passed, and I entered my first year of high school. The whole "spy thing" was big...we were in the cold war with Russia, and James Bond movies had just come out--it was 1964.

I hadn't thought much about cameras, but we had a next door neighbor who was a machinist, and he collected guns and other nicely machined things. He showed me a Minox III, and I loved it...talk about the coolness factor at school, jeez, a REAL spy camera! He sold it to me for forty bucks. I carried it with me every day, it was so damn cool, and I even took a few pictures now and then. Eventually, the roll of film was finished, and I dutifully sent it off to have it processed. It was probably ASA 50 speed black & white film, adox, or something like that.

When the stack of photos arrived, I was astounded. They were beautiful. I hadn't even thought about how the photos might look...I was just enjoying the coolness factor of the little spy camera and not really thinking much about the actual photos that might come from it. Flipping through that stack of photos for the next coupla days is what really got me into photography. I still have some of those photos but I'm having a little trouble finding them right now...otherwise I'd post them for all to see.

 

[Ash]

If you do find them, it would be great to see! The oldest photo's I have that I personally took are from when I was about 11 I think, and they're all cheap disposable camera photo's.

I've got a Hanimex 110 micro or something like that, never used it though - the film is stupidly expensive for what it is!

 

[Nachkebia]

I was mostly inspired by movies, and movie directors, I wont start listing them but yeah thats was my main source for inspiration, even at the very early ages I did not even knew directors I just could not stop watching it 🙂

 

[raid]

My late father used to take photos/slides with his Zeiss Contina. He also had a Bolex movie camera, I used to look at albumsof old family photos taken in B&W before I was born. I found the photos very inspiring. A family records its members' lives since the 40's. I think, this maybe inspired me the most.

Raid