The dirtiest secret in photography is to stop looking to photography for the answers
May 24, 2016
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Every day we’re told about the “Secrets” of photography, how to shoot this, or that, how to be successful, how to get rich, and so on, and they usually have quite the price tag attached to them. The simple fact of the matter is that there are little, if any, secrets when it comes to photography, only myth and misconception.
Chase Jarvis, however, believes that there is one big secret that we can all benefit from, and I’m inclined to agree with him on this one.
He’s right that it’s something nobody seems to talk about, at least not openly. Many seem content just to look at everybody else’s work and moan that they’re own work isn’t anywhere as good.
Every day, though, I see messages from people telling me about their cool new photography projects that were inspired by something that had absolutely nothing to do with photography in the beginning.
When something other than the bits of metal, plastic and glass you hold in your hand becomes the passion of your photography, the work starts to stand out and take on a life of its own.
Sure, you do need to concentrate on photography for a little while, look at the work of others, reflect on your own, seek help and get the technical side of things figured out, but once you get to that point, stop. Go out and explore other things. Find worlds outside of photography that you can discover, learn about and be inspired by.
It kind of goes hand in hand with getting out of your “comfort zone”, except that instead of simply trying other styles or genres of photography, we’re experiencing something completely different to photography and taking from it what we can to inspire us and our work.
Much of what I believe to be my most interesting work (even if not necessarily my best technically) was covering industries and concepts that were completely alien to me.
At one time, for me, photography was that thing outside of my industry that inspired me elsewhere.
Now that photography is my main industry, I’m constantly seeking inspiration from other areas of life, and having a reason to make photographs other than simply wanting to make a photograph drives you and pushes you as a photographer and as a person.
What do you do outside of photography to inspire you and your work? Let us know in the comments.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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4 responses to “The dirtiest secret in photography is to stop looking to photography for the answers”
That is gold, and that is what “mainstream” refuses, after all one is either a singular Sculptor or just another skilled carpenter. The industry. The industry wants you to idolize only their “chosen ones”, no room for non-conformity, no room for black sheep. Again great one by a self-aware master
Funny, this is something that I’ve started to believe more and more lately.
I totally agree with this. I always inspired with books. and today side by side a words and camera became my tools of telling stories.
its more than just an image I think a photograph. instead its become small pieces of reproduction of life and world itself
cheers folks photographer!
**Enter Face Palm Here** It’s not a secret in any way, shape or form!! You can apply the philosophy and points he made in the video, to dozens of other mediums and situations in the world. This is what happens when humans get together and throw ideas, great suggestions, and viewpoints off of each other, and acknowledge how others have become successful in different ways (of course having family money helps). I’m sorry, but Chase just didn’t wake up one morning and have an epiphany on this subject, that nobody else already had. He isn’t the only one that has thought of these points of view, he is just taking advantage of being the first one to throw the video about it on Youtube, structure and phrase it in such a way, so that his Youtube subscribers think he is a genius.