Inspired

Lately, I have been realizing the importance of true inspiration. Without some sort of creative energy for my brain to absorb my own ideas become flat, dull and lifeless. In recent months I have been trying to absorb as many images as I can in the spare moments that I have between life as a student and employee. This absorption includes the good images and the bad and trying to differentiate between the two. Through this I hope I can learn the develop my own style while also learning trying to learn about photography through daily life and work.

Here are a couple of inspirations that have been bouncing inside my brain lately.

Within the realm of photojournalism I am constantly looking for interesting photographers. It seems so many journalistic pictures are simply a quick snapshot of an event used for filler that don't complement the article it belongs to. Stephen Crowley works as a staff photographer for the New York Times and continues to produce images that step beyond the bounds of normal journalism photography.




Until a feature on Nowness appeared, I had absolutely no idea who David Montgomery was. Upon just looking through his images it became apparent that he has been around for many decades is most famously known for being a portrait photographer for the famous, most of whom are musicians (something I would love to make a career out of one day). PLUS, he shot the cover for the Jimi Hendrix album Electric Ladyland; that alone equals massive swoon.



Steven Klein has a flare for the dramatic. If you need any evidence of that you can watch his recent collaboration with Lady Gaga: the video for Alejandro. His body of work in still images certainly does not hide behind this video. Klein is not only able to create brilliant fashion editorial images, but is also able to produce more commercial images for advertisements. "Playing with appearances he mixes mediums and metaphors to literally stitch his tableaus together from the stuff of reality and dreams...The result is a strange and fractured landscape, a form of collaboration that looks not to the glare of publicity but to the twilight of the idols. There it inhabits a darkened space where performance and art merge to create an iconography of their own." (quote via his website)





All images are from the photographers' websites.

p.s. Sorry about the cut-off images. I'll rework this later... probably with a new layout.