Early Influences...Question?

A question for all. Early on in your photographic journey was there a photographer, or photographers that helped motivate and inspire you through their images to try and improve and grow creatively?

For me there was a couple of images of Yosemite and the Canadian Rockies that blew my mind before I knew anything beyond point and shoot, one was by James Kay. But Linde Waidhofer and her style was my biggest early influence. Interested in your responses.

One day when I was working at Microcenter, a woman came in to by a printer. She showed me a couple of images and I was pretty impressed. She told me she had just completed a one day workshop with John Fielder and it helped her a lot. I signed on for his next one day event and although pricey at $250.00, it was worth every penny. I learned more in that one day than I could have hoped for. It sparked my interest for making better photographs. A few months later I was in Larry Johnsons gallery in Littleton, Colorado and his work impressed me so much I asked him to mentor me and he has coached me for 4 years now.

Tony Litschewski met me in Ridgeway this fall and with his coaching, I came away with several of the best images I've ever taken.

I use this site to watch and listen to others with more experience and a "good eye" for critiques to see what I can do to improve. I'm constantly looking for better ways and ideas to shoot top quality images. Landscape photography has become my passion and my way of sharing Gods' creation with others.

Jack

Good question, I believe one my influences was a photographer named Bryan Peterson out of Oregon...I bought one his books to teach myself techniques and his book was full of images that also gave how-to instructions on how he took them...it opened my mind to what was possible...such has lighthouses at night...etc.

This is an easy one. In 1979 my then-girlfriend gave me a copy of David Muench's first "Colorado" coffee table book (released in '78) for Christmas, and it was a life-altering moment. That's when I decided I wanted to be a photographer, although I never dreamed I could make a living at it, no matter how meager that living is. It's funny to look at that book now, and see how dated it is. It's still got that Muench magic, though, and no one was doing what he was doing back then.

15 years ago I participated in a panel discussion with Marc Muench, and afterwards sent some of my favorite books of his father's out to California to be signed. My autographed copy of that original inspiration is one of my prize possessions.

In my days of moving from a point-and-shoot to my first SLR, I spent a lot of time reviewing John Shaw books. I really enjoy his work, and his books have been very helpful in my progression.

The folks on this forum specifically, and NPN in general, have greatly influenced my growth, and provided a lot of inspiration, as well.

Well, forgive me for mentioning it, but my first coffee table book that really got me going was a John Fielder book. I probably have to add that I made a few trips to Camera Obscura several years ago in downtown Denver and was just totally blown away by some Christopher Burkett prints that have been on display there. I've seen a share of large prints here and there, but I don't think any have come near as close to impressing like the Burkett prints. And his intimate compositions are still an inspiration. Though I've gone digital now, it was his prints that got me exploring the larger formats in the old film days.

Jim Cannata, professor of fine art photography at Arapahoe CC, has inspired me to shift form a taker to a maker of photographs. Dick York and other members of the Denver Digital photo group have inspired me to add creativity to my images. John Sparbel(d) and Don Hagan of DIGS in AZ encouraged me to shift from golf to photography.

This forum has provided additional inspiration to continue to grow as a photographer and as an artist.

Bill Brennan.

The late Galen Rowell's photographs and writing, but more than that, just his passion for life. "Mountain Light" was (and still is) an inspiration.

Initially, when I got really interested in photography (2004) I was inspired by Mahesh Thapas landscape work. He is a Seattle physician who I think is a master of composition and light capture. Perfect atmospheric conditions seem to follow him wherever he goes. I admire Belgian photographer Monique Bogaerts work very much. I have Linde Waidhofers "Colorado summer" print in my home.
I have always admired Albert Bierstadts paintings and the look he achieved in them. I pretty much admire any photographer who does whatever it takes to produce an image that inspires its viewer.

Pam

Speaking of Coffee table books, Eliot Porter's Glenn Canyon, The Place No One Knew had a great influence on me. I still have a first edition copy that cost me a fortune ($130) thirty years ago. My first workshop was with Boyd Norton, and was one of the most memorable and influential weeks ever.

Wow, tough question! As a kid I grew up on Life Magazine and Nat Geo. So ALL of those photogs whose names I probably did not pay much attention too influenced me I am sure. I made my first contact print around 11 yrs. But, I all ways had some kind of camera with me. I got my first SLR at 29, then I discovered, Edward Weston, Porter and Ansel Adams. My wife gave me Adams 3 book series for Christmas in 1984. For some reason the cameras got bigger and bigger and a huge darkroom grew in my garage!

Early influences for me included:

David Muench
Jimmy Chin
Galen Rowell
Jesse Speer
Thomas Ulrich

Arthur Morris really influenced me. His images are always clean and he really takes advantage of the light.

The first coffee-table book I bought was David Muench's "Ancient America" around 1993 and that was the book I always looked at again and again wondering how the heck I could get images half that good. Jerry Uelsmann also inspired me with his composite images.

I remember looking at photos from Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Dorothea Lange back in the 60's and being awed by their respective styles and subjects. In '76 I bought my first 35mm SLR and it's been all uphill since. One of these years I might reach 1/1,000,000 of their collective skill level.

My father, Walter O. Lund, took a photography class in college in the 1930's. I have several
hundred flower pictures taken in black and white. About half of them were hand tinted. I have
a few tinted landscape enlargements along with his simple gear. That got me started as a kid. My grandmother gave me my 1st new camera. It was an Argus reflex and took 2 1/4 square pictures. The Kodachrome slides from the 1950's are still as good as the day they
were taken. The Anscochrome slide have deteriorated substantially.

In more recent times, I have appreciated the work of John and Barbara Gerlach. I was 1st
introduced to them at a workshop in Denver. They have a way of putting the mechanics
of "how to" into language that even I could absorb. They have continued to progressl, and
their latest book "Digital Nature Photography" is very practical.

Years before I ever got into photography, I used to help haul photo gear around the mountains of Colorado for a cousin who was a landscape shooter. At one time, he taught alongside John Fielder and was a big part of Fielder's books including Colorado 1870-2000, which is dedicated to him. It wasn't until after my cousin passed away that I took up an interest in photography, but as I started to shoot, I slowly began to recall all the things he had indirectly been teaching me during our time in the field. His photography and love for the environment are a big part of who I am today.

There were also the usual suspects including Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell and David Muench. Like Grant, Muench's book Ancient America was a tremendous inspiration which I still enjoy browsing through every month.

Easy. David Muench. His Colorado was a standard on the coffee table as I was growing up. I can remember looking at it over and over again. And long before I became a photographer myself, those images defined what a photograph can/should be (composition, light, color, tone) and became the Colorado of my mind's eye.

BTW, great post!

Ansel Adams, Howard Bond, Bruce Barnbaum, John Sexton, The Westons, David Muench to name a few. (Hmmm any common thread in camera format here. Hmmmmmm?)

My mentor Bill Edwards taught me how to build custom B/W developers and how important it is to properly calibrate everything you do. He taught me that there are no accidents in photography and done correctly you never get halfhazard results. He spent three years of his life building out different developer/film combos and documented the results of his calibration tests. That dedication to excellence and having no compromise to the final results is what I always strive to achieve in my work.

Creativity with no compromise towards excellence in quality of product are my goals.

BTW I was in Santa Fe last week and checked out a gallery from Lisa Kristine (OMG her work (and she shoots a 4x5 Canham) is off the charts - look her up). I was blown away! http://www.lisakristine.com/home.html

RichieV

About 1973 or 74 my wife was taking an art class at DU. I had a camera and was taking mostly snapshots but when I saw a reproduction in one of her books of Edward Weston's "Pepper #30" I was hooked. That photo made me get serious about photography.

Since then, influences have been many and varied: Kurt Fishback (my first instructor), Ansel Adams, all the usual suspects. Lately I've drawn inspiration from the likes of Rick Sammon, George Lepp, and John Fielder.

Oh...and don't forget a lot of talented photogs who frequent this board.

Very interesting thread!

For me, early on, William Neill's landscape work was a great source of inspiration. Art Wolfe's, too.

I've also been very inspired by the writings/teachings of Freeman Patterson and Bryan Peterson. They way they communicate thought process and photographic design is exceptional.

But like many others, I'd have to say that it was Ansel Adams' work that first got me seriously interested in photography.

Somewhat ironically, these days I find myself moving further away from representational landscape work (like Adams') and more towards the truly abstract. Though [digital] photography is still my medium of choice, I have more recently drawn inspiration from painters like Rothko, Pollock, Motherwell and de Kooning.

I think it's helpful for many photographers to also study other kinds of visual art.

Great thread you started Jeff! My parents slapped an old Kodak Brownie #2 box camera in my hands in the early 60s and my very first images were nature, wildlife and travel-related - - same stuff I do today! I was eight when I started. Later in high school, my cousin Fred, who was a reporter up in the Bay Area, got me interested in photojournalism. As I continued to get more serious, I was greatly influenced by David's father Josef Muench and his work in Arizona Highways Magazine. Of course National Geographic was eagerly read cover to cover.

But most recently, I'd say John Fielder and his Landscape Photography book, as well as attending a weekend seminar with John Shaw (plus all his books) gave me the kick in the pants to really go after photography with a new eye. There have been many other influential photographers, mainly in Colorado, that influence me today - - most of whom frequent this discussion group!

Ken

For me, the earliest conscious influence was David Muench. But as I developed my own visual preferences, I became aware of a previously-unconscious influence: Eliot Porter. I had once given my shutterbug dad a copy of The Place No One Knew, but had pretty much forgotten about it. But many years later, after I had taken up photography myself, an inspiring exhibition of Porter's "intimate landscape" work at the Fort Collins Museum brought it all back and I recognized what I had been trying (struggling) to achieve photographically, and why.

Now that I shoot color negatives exclusively, I have taken one step closer to Porter's printing technique. I see pretty close analogues between the per-color-channel curve tweaks required for effective color neg scanning and the dye transfer process of which Porter was a consummate master. Ironically, given the present controversy over digital manipulation of nature images, in Porter's earlier days color work was considered not to be fine-art worthy because the process did not allow the photographer enough creative control; it was too "literal". Porter's immaculate dye transfer printing work allowed him to control the density curves of each color channel and impose his often-nonliteral vision on the print, resulting in grudging acceptance of color photography by the fine-art critics. Thus Porter became the Rosa Parks of fine-art photography, breaking the "color barrier" once and for all.