The Art of Photography
A podcast where you can learn, be inspired and fall in love with photography all over again. My goal for this podcast is to help you to find hope, purpose and happiness through photography. Whether it’s to 1. Learn the journey, passion and stories behind other photographers. 2. Get inspired and motivated knowing that we all struggle at one point or another. 3. Learn and progress your skill further through these world-class photographers’ experiences and mistakes. As you see these extraordinary photographers on social media, sometimes it’s easy to think that they’re an overnight success. For that reason, we often expect expensive gear and YouTube Videos will get you there in a week or two, whereas in fact most of these photographers took years to get to where they are right now. Many of us didn’t realise is the hard work and sacrifices these photographers put into building their craft. So if you been feeling down because you feel your progress is not fast enough, or you have lost your creative mojo, perhaps some of these stories can be an inspiration to bring back your passion. I’m also wanting to be able to provide a platform for photographers to be able to share their stories past the 160 characters on social media. Photography is more about the journey, it’s a part of our life. If you’re like us our main purpose for photography is to be happy. Whether it is through: 1. The Wicked Hunts chase and capture unique moments that we see in our life. 2. The memories we get to capture and leave as a legacy for years to come. 3. The journey and challenges to get the photo that we can be proud of and get appreciated by others through social media, awards, publication or other monetary exchange. Social media following and true fans should follow as a result, but the main purpose of photography is not to get those likes and followers on social media. https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt https://www.twitter.com/thewickedhunt https://stanleyaryanto.com ------- The Wicked Hunt You Better Hold Fast The Wicked Hunt is a mission to go through unconventional ways to experience and capture unique moments. As a photographer, it is my duty to show a different perspective of the world, hopefully in a better way. The Wicked Hunt isn’t about hunting for the perfect photo. Instead, it’s about enduring the journey to find and experience that perfect moment. Whether it is a long hike to a unique spot, an early wake-up to find unique lighting during sunrise, a quality time with friends and family or merely a deeper observation of a common area. The photo was never the goal, it’s simply the trophy, something to capture that perfect moment and something to remember it by. We all dream about a moment in a place at a certain time, but often we’re discouraged by fear of failure and going out of our comfort zone. As a Wicked Hunter, I believe that we should overcome these fear. Life is fragile and precious. We don’t know when our time will come to an end. We only have one shot at making this our life, a life that is driven by love and passion, not fear. We must take more risks, go out of our comfort zone and take small actions toward our “dreams”, however big or small they might be. Don’t wait for the perfect moments because they’ll never come. Instead, make those moments perfect in their way. - About the artist: In 2018, I finally found the courage to leave my career as a mechanical engineer. When I left my career, my mission was simple: To be able to experience and capture the unseen perspectives of the world so that I could inspire & bring happiness to other people. To help others to find hope, purpose and happiness through their passion and live their dream life. I’m honoured to have won over 100 international awards, published in magazines like Canadian Geographic, and Exhibited in countries like Australia, US and Japan.
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Episodes
Friday Dec 11, 2020
Friday Dec 11, 2020
Hey Wicked Hunters,
What did you think of our chat with Will this week? I had a lot of fun chatting about action photography with Will. In this episode, I talk about some of the things that really resonate with myself.
Don't forget to subscribe, hit the notification button and give us some love/comment. Thanks for sharing forward this podcast.
For those of you who want to learn more about Will:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WJLPhoto
Instagram: www.instagram.com/WJLPhoto www.WillLambertPhotography.com
www.WillLambertPhotography.com
If you want to watch the video podcast, head to https://youtu.be/JachAV_2XSo
Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast:
Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify
Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr
Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr
For those of you who want to see more of The Wicked Hunt Photography:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/
Masterclass: https://www.TheWickedHuntPhotography.com
Photo print: https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/
Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
Monday Dec 07, 2020
Monday Dec 07, 2020
Hey Wicked Hunters, This week we welcome Will. Will is an Ambassador for Ski big 3 here in Canadian Rockies. He is a passionate lifestyle and action photographer. In this podcast chat about action photography and how his passion pushed him to carry 12+ kg on his back every time he goes on a Wicked Hunt.
Don't forget to subscribe, hit the notification button and give us some love/comment. Thanks for sharing forward this podcast.
For those of you who want to learn more about Will:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WJLPhoto
Instagram: www.instagram.com/WJLPhoto www.WillLambertPhotography.com
www.WillLambertPhotography.com
If you want to watch the video podcast, head to: https://youtu.be/ocy6x9GI1qg
Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast:
Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify
Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr
Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr
For those of you who want to see more of The Wicked Hunt Photography:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/
Masterclass: https://www.TheWickedHuntPhotography.com
Photo print: https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/
Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
Thursday Dec 03, 2020
Thursday Dec 03, 2020
What is photography to you?
I can relate very well to this question that Seng Mah encourage for you to ask yourself. Seng Mah is an accredited Australia Institute of Professional Photography. He has been a photographer and an educator since 2009.
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment below, let me know "What is Photography to you?"
For those of you who want to learn more about Seng Mah:
Website: https://venturephotography.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sengventure/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VenturePhotographyWorkshops
If you want to watch the video podcast, head to:
https://youtu.be/pnQEW3kAQYU
Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast:
Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify
Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr
Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr
For those of you who want to see more of The Wicked Hunt Photography:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/
Masterclass: https://www.TheWickedHuntPhotography.com
Photo print: https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/
Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
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Transcription:
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:01 Hey Wicked Hunters, welcome back to The Art of Photography podcast, where we share our passion and how it helps us to find hope, purpose and happiness in our life. So, hopefully you guys have a good week, how, how have you guys been? You know, what do you think of that last podcast? Please let me know in the comment below so that I could, I could hear some feedback, you know, maybe let me know if there are some part of photography that you want to ask this guest and you know, understand a little bit more from their perspective, because that will be amazing. I would love to hear your not only your opinion, but also different perspective and different questions that I can put out there. To this such an inspiring and full of wisdom guests. So
Unknown Speaker 1:07 this week, we had sang MA and sang was very my very first mentor in photography, I should say, when I left them, or before I left my job, I took a follow his his photo, walkabout or photo, like a local photo, like shoot kind of thing. And also learn how to use speed light or flash from him. And he's he's an amazing photographer who control lights very well. And yeah, that that course was just blow me out of the water. And, as you all know, which you should, because I've been saying this every single week is that light is the most important thing in photography. Okay, so going back to our conversation. I think one of the thing that you asked was that, you know, fill this blank fill this line, I think photography, because and I think that is very important to me when he was one of the most important part of that interview. I mean, there's, there's so much wisdom in there. And there's so much, so much so many interesting perspective that he brought out about, you know, whether or not art is photography? And, you know, what, sort of what sort of photographer? Are you? Are you a landscape photographer? Or are you a wildlife photographer? Or are you a portrait photographer? And then you also talk about, you know, how, how does the storytelling kind of fit in with photography, and so forth. But one of the very important thing that he mentioned there was, at the end of the day, a lot of that have been defined by someone else. But it is very important for you to create a definition for yourself, create a label for yourself. Why do you take photography? What was the first thing that got you interested in photography that, you know, the very first time? And was it the landscape? Was a document in your travels? Was it the wildlife? Was it the wildflowers or, you know, whatever it may be? And he said, In this podcast, it is very important that you define that for yourself so that you could actually enjoy photography. And let's face it, we're doing this because we love photography, right? We, you know, most of the photographers out there, especially the professional one, they they make a living around photography, because they love photography, because they're passionate about it. And those people like those of you who take photo, you don't take photo for the sake of taking photo, you take photo because you have photography, right? No one ever forced you to take photo. Well, at least I've never heard anyone that's, you know, being forced to take photo, apart from maybe those Instagram, boyfriends and girlfriends congratulations. But, you know, we talk about a lot of things. We cover a lot of things in this one and we talk about how in social media, it kind of takes away a lot of that expression for yourself a lot of fulfilment, a lot of that creativity, you know, and is that a bad thing or is a good thing? Well, actually saying talk about both, you know, you talk about both the positive and the negative and one thing that I think really important from all this is going back to your purpose and going back to why you shoot in the first place. And when, when the very last of the interview when I, when I asked him is like, Hey, I'm saying, so what advice would you give a photographer, especially new one out there who just started. And one of the things that he talks about was like filling this blank, you know, I take a photo because or I do I practice photography, because and by doing that, you know why you started photography in the first place, why? Why you want to express yourself to a form of photography. And from there, he talked about how you could create something that is truly unique, or you could create something that is popular, and that is up to you, you know, at the end of the day, it's for you, it's for your sake, it's for your happiness,
Unknown Speaker 5:54 whether how to create a story around how to carry a powerful photograph. But at the end of the day, if you don't have that definition in mind, and you've you don't have that definition at the back of your head, you don't have the purpose and the drive to make that happen. And therefore, you might not have as a good wrestle or resolve to make that happen and make that story kind of, you know, cemented into people. And it's very true, you know, we are in social media for a main purpose that we want to excavate our photography, we want to be able to reach more people. And for those of you in business, we want to hopefully turn those people or fans into, you know, a customer, but at the end of the day, don't lose yourself in there, right. I think one of the reason why I do I do photography is because I want to share more of my photos, a unique perspective of my photos, to more of you out there, you know, a different, a different scene, I mean, how many of you are able to climb a mountain in the middle of the winter, on a split board on a negative 25 degrees Celsius, staying pretty much the whole night until the next day, and the next morning watching Aurora, and you know, those kinds of things, I really want to share that with you. And one of the things that I want you guys to explore more. But, you know, I still do, I still do Instagram and I still want to get the likes, I still want to get the comments, but it's, it's not as important for me compared to reaching the right people and reaching those of you that actually reaching the people that actually have a meaning to towards my photography or have a connection towards my photography. So yeah, just really, really good advice that st gave you. And if you just start photography, try to find that voice very early on. There is no problem of copying other people work and other people perspective when you just started. But you know, quickly, quickly get out of it and use your basics and create one that you can call your own that you can be proud of that you get fulfilment from. Or I will have those Thank you very much for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe. And also, don't forget to follow the podcast if you're listening on the audio version. But most importantly, feedback is very important. So let me know what you think I'm sharing the comment below. What was the what do you think of the this blurb that I just talked in the past 15 minutes or one? And also, what was the interview like and what are some of the questions that you want to hear more from this awesome photographers out there. Okay, until next time, we get on to this and hopefully you guys have a great weekend. Catch you later.
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Monday Nov 30, 2020
What is photography to you?
Seng Mah is an accredited Australia Institute of Professional Photography. He has been a photographer and an educator since 2009.
In this episode, Seng and I talked about What is Photography to You and How to Capture photos that bring fulfilment to yourself.
For many of us, photography started as a way to document what we've witnessed. From being able to capture unique moments, to be able to share those moments with our loved ones, to be able to inspire others through your photography. Photography means differently for everyone but one thing we have in common is the way it brought us fulfilment.
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment below, let me know "What is Photography to you?"
For those of you who want to learn more about Seng Mah:
Website: https://venturephotography.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sengventure/
If you want to watch the video podcast, head to:
https://youtu.be/uYxJ1l9DL2Q
Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast:
Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify
Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr
Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr
For those of you who want to see more of The Wicked Hunt Photography:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/
Masterclass: https://www.TheWickedHuntPhotography.com
Photo print: https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/
Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
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Transcription:
Seng Mah 0:00 When you start to think very clearly about what it is that you do, and why you do what you do, a lot of it comes not from this whole notion of photography, but whatever it is that fulfils you as a person Hey, wiki hunters,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:24 welcome to another podcast or the art of photography podcast. I almost forgot my own podcast name there. My apologies. Yeah, I mean, it's really exciting. It's been an amazing journey. It's been really inspiring, just not for not only for you guys, but also for me talking to this amazing photographers and sharing their wisdom. And their knowledge is just really amazing. I actually have not only watched them once or twice up, watch multiple times, and going back over again. So really, really awesome to hear this guys just share their knowledge. And, yeah, today we have one of my early mentor when I first started photography, actually, I learned one of the flash technique flash. Yeah, one of the techniques from him. And he's, it's, that was like, it's crazy. We'll talk a little bit more about it. But this is saying and he is one of the he runs photography trips all around the world. And he is one of the the go to person, I suppose I think for people in Perth. So Sam, how you doing? Welcome to
Seng Mah 1:39 the Yeah, thanks, Stanley. Good to be here.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:43 Yeah, I can't I can't believe how long it did. It's been isn't it?
Seng Mah 1:46 Yes. A long time. I've been running the business for 11 years now. What do you think you came? You came in a few years ago? Right? Yeah.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:55 Yeah. So I actually sorry, yeah. So I came in, I think three times to have the walkthrough and I remember I booked two of the the photo walk about with you with you. And then I forgot I, I I had the reservation wrong. Or I thought I had grown reservation and went to the wrong location. It was so funny.
Seng Mah 2:20 Like, oh, yeah, that was in Fremantle, you went to the wrong location.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 2:23 I went did the one next week or something else? Like yeah, yeah, that
Seng Mah 2:29 was one of the days. Yeah,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 2:32 yeah. But yeah, I mean, like, so like, I've, I've learned a lot from you. And, you know, watching you're not only from your workshop, we're also watching your photography and the way you compose and the way you vision a lot of the scenery. So just tell us a little bit about yourself. So the listeners know about you, and maybe a little bit of origin story of you know, how this photography, passion come about. Okay,
Seng Mah 3:04 I'll try and keep it as brief as possible. Otherwise, it just gets gets a little bit too long. So my name is Seema, and I'm based in Perth in Western Australia. I've been living here for about 37 years now. Prior to that, I was I was actually born in Malaysia, but came here as a young person with my family and things like that. I run a business called Venture photography workshops and tours. And it's got two branches of it workshops is the education part of it. So as Sandy mentioned earlier, I teach photography, a whole gamut of different things from beginners all the way down to advanced lighting and portraiture, landscapes and so on. But then I also run photography tours, which was great, up until around, I suppose, march 2020, when, when the will and the pandemic kind of shut things down. And so at the moment, I'm just running tours in Western Australia. And which is the state, I mean, in Australia, and, and I run my photography classes. with some regularity, it's my I'm a full time professional photographer. I also do also do commercial photography. On the side as well. So yeah, so as a photographer, but I teach photography, and I take people that were on photography trips, you asked me about my passion, I think, I think a lot of us get into photography just because we like creating things and and one of the things Chai got me to photography was really kind of just, in a way kind of documenting moments. And I guess, you know, the moment now my preferred genre in photography is travel and documentary. And I think it comes from the fact that I do enjoy documenting moments. And then just from basically using my dad so they can film camera. I kind of graduated around 2004 2005 I got my first digital SLR and things basically progressed from there. So I've been running venture photography workshops and tours for about 11 years now. Yeah.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 4:54 Wow. 11 years. All right.
Seng Mah 4:59 It feels so good. It was like only last year that I started, so it's obviously enjoying it.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 5:05 Did you actually study photography or
Seng Mah 5:07 no, I'm self taught and when you call yourself God, it's it's an interesting thing in photography, I find that it's probably one of those fields that you can get into without actually having to complete any kind of formal qualification. And from my understanding, in terms of the sorts of formal training that you do, takes two sides of it once the practical industrial side. So basically, you learn how to take photographs, you learn how to work as a professional photographer, so that you can do commercial work, or portraiture work and or weddings or things like that, learn a bit about the marketing side of things. And then the other side of it is probably more the history and theoretical side of things that looking at photography within the framework of, I suppose the history of photography, and the work of other photographic practitioners and people who are working in a whole range of different styles and genres and things like that, and relating photography back to the whole notion of, of art in a way of seeing and stuff like that. And I think, you know, quite often, to be a good photographer, you really need this great combination of both of them. One thing and the other, in order to be able to produce the great images, but also to be able to understand where the images that you're producing, where they sit in relation to what has been produced before what has been created at the moment and what possible paths may be taken in terms of photographic image making into the into the future as well. So I think it's a, it's quite often a nice balance, then, in some respects, because I'm completely self taught. And I actually come unfortunately, I come from a fine art background as well. So I studied fine arts at university years and years and years ago. So while I know the practical side of photography, and the pragmatic side, you know, how to how to teach photography, how to, you know, shoot, how to use lighting, and all that. I also understand photography as a form of artistic expression and weights, it's at the moment in relation to all the work that's come before, and potentially weighed nearly down the down the line as well.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 7:19 That's, that's amazing, I think, you know, there's a lot of a lot of not only, like, I guess, false perception that photography is, it's not considered art. And I really, really glad that you mentioned that, you know, that there is a two things to photography, one of one of them is the artistic side of things, and other one is like more of the technical side with the camera and so forth. So what, why would you like zero, like, consider photography as an art? Because, you know, nowadays everyone can kind of take photos, right? I mean, the new iPhone takes such an amazing photos. And would you consider like those photos as an art as well? Or, you know, what do you think, share us your thoughts?
Seng Mah 8:08 Well, let me just answer that with another example. Because he gave an example of the iPhone and people being able to take images and all that. So let's say for example, I have a wall in my home. Okay, I have a few choices. I'm going to paint if I got a few choices, right, I could buy a big tub of paint and just paint a wall and said Painted cream, neutral vanilla cover, colour, paint a wall cream, and I've created a painting, correct? Yeah. Or I could, you know, take a mix of colours and I could splash the colour around on the wall and I could just create a multicoloured rainbow splattered wall. So I've also created a painting or I could buy more colours and more paint and I could paint landscape scenery on the wall and I've actually created a painting or I could instead by a very large canvas and paint something else on the canvas and I've created a painting as well. So which one would you consider? In which one would you not consider? So
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 9:08 I have never heard that analogy before. That's That's amazing. I think for Yeah, for those people who kind of don't see it as an art that's the ad is amazing. I'm definitely gonna I'm gonna I'm definitely gonna take the copyright
Seng Mah 9:28 thing. Yeah, so I guess just to kind of kind of prevaricate on what you're saying a little bit, as well. I guess the thing with photography is, photography emerged, I guess, historically, almost in direct competition to what was perceived as art back at that time, because suddenly there was the ability to create a way of capturing or documenting representing a scene which, you know, compared to now two ages, but back then was a lot faster and Perhaps more realistic in its depiction then then painting. So it created this massive kerfuffle, in terms of what would you consider them? You know, what is photography? Where does it sit? Is it? Is it a tool? Is it? Is it something that's used to record an aspect, or representation of reality? Or is it an art form is it just another way of expressing the inner vision or the artists vision in that sense, they created a massive kind of paradigm shift in the, in the art world, and I guess, because photography, and the use of the camera, which is basically a light box, this captures light is different from, say, for example, being a sculptor or a painter or something along the lines of an artist in that sense, because photography is in the service of a whole range of different potential outcomes. So say, for example, you could photograph something to record it, like, you know, real estate photographers photograph homes inside and out to provide a an advertisement for it, you could create that so it serves a very pragmatic functional outcome, in that, in that respect, there, you could use it to take portraits of people essentially document what people look like. And that's another kind of really kind of very pragmatic functional purpose to photography, you could use it to record events, you could use it when you're travelling to record, your travel experiences, and things like that, so has a very practical reason for for photography. And I think, because a lot of people experience photography, through this practical aspect of it, you know, think about it, your earliest memories of the photographs, you know, it's quite often family photographs, photographs itself of itself as a baby taken by parents or grandparents and so on and so forth. You might see photographs, you know, from say, you know, your parents generation, your grandparents generation, from their travels, from the trips from the, you know, family gatherings at home, and all that. So your introduction, as most people's introductions to photography will be some level of representation of their lives in a sense that, even if he was someone born, you know, within the last 15 years, or 10 years, their introduction of photography would be images they've seen on the phone or the tablet, and it's basically slow recording. So because of that, I think we tend to perceive photography, less as a, an art form, and more as something that is like a documentary documenting, recording kind of process. But at the end of the day, you know, the camera is still a box that captures light is a technology in that box that has changed
over over time, and changed a lot more rapidly recently, obviously. And so the way in which that particular box that particular tool is used, and reason in which is used defines the actual product, whether it is a documentary thing or whether it's actually something quite artistic, you know, we always fall down to tools now the the analogy of the paint on the walls and the paint on the canvas, for example. Or if you've got rock and a sculptor with a hammer and different types of chisels, those are the tools at the end of the day, it's just a set of tools and, and what it actually creates, can then be regarded as to whether it's something that's pragmatic, so you know, they might, the sculptor might produce column for a pillar to hold up a wall. Or it might they might produce a sculpture or such and such, for whatever artistic purpose in there, I think, you know, when people say beauty is the eye of the beholder, I think what is art is in the eye of the Creator. And, and quite often artists defined by a marketplace as well. So you know that there are commercial entities out there, who work very hard for their own purposes, commercial purposes, to define what is art and what isn't. And I think there's always going to agenda behind this definition of art. And unfortunately, a lot of people who work in the creative field agonise over whether what they're producing is art or not. And I think they spend far too much time agonising about it, rather than thinking about what it is they're producing, and then working hard to do something with what it is that they're producing, whether it be using a column to hold up a wall, or are they producing a beautiful sculpture, they need to define what it is that they're what they're doing. So So I guess, in answer to that question, in a very long, convoluted way is why don't we just start by defining what art means to us and what we produce, and then go from there.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 14:47 That's awesome. That is, wow, it's just so much wisdom. That's, I never hear it in that perspective. And that's amazing to hear that in that perspective and the way you put it I love how you say, you know, a camera, even though with all the technology nowadays, at the end of the day is just a box. And you're right, you know, at the end of the day, the camera one click by itself, you know, you have to set it up, it's all in your hand as, as a creative, you know, the creative creator. So that's exactly, yeah, I totally love that, that you mentioned that. So you talk about document photography there and, you know, like, how the document, document tree photography might not be considered as much as art compared to like, a lot of those, like, you know, the fine art or the illustrative because, you know, the illustrative are a lot more closer, because you don't actually take that realistic kind of image. But, you know, it gives you the creativity in there. I personally think there, there is a lot of art in documentary. And I think you do too. And I would love for you to talk about that. What what your thoughts on the in terms of documentary photography, especially when you travel and stuff like that, you know, and how it relates to the art side of things.
Seng Mah 16:17 I think at the end of the day, if you're going to look at documentary photography, and travel photography, they all serve a particular purpose. And I think you need to define what it means to you. For me, everything starts with a definition for yourself. So you know, you can you can travel and create fine art pieces. When you travel, as you know, you could you know, you could travel to Canada and then create a beautiful wintry landscape that you perceive as being an artistic expression of your heightened sense of isolation, or loneliness or something like or peace or calm or an end, it might look really pretty, and people might buy it for their own homes, or it might resonate with someone else. And they are drawn to it for purely emotional reasons. So in that way, you can create what is essentially thought of as artistic photography, when you're travelling, you can also create illustrative work while you're travelling because you take a picture of a tree, a picture of a chapel, Hill, and you Photoshop it all together, you can create those things. So you're creating something out of that through the process of travelled. So at the end of the day, you still need to be able to define for yourself what you mean by documentary photography, and what you mean by by travel photography. And for me, when I define it, it's very, it's, it coexists together because when I travel, I'm documenting something, in terms of the travel and the travel photography, part of it simply means that when I travel, I'm looking at being able to photograph a sense of place and a sense of culture, a sense of community, in the sense of people in the, in the environment, which I'm actually travelling in. So that is that is my own definition of travel and documentary photography, it's about, it's about, you know, conveying a moment, an emotion, a story that's based on human activity, for example, or a place to draw my photography there. And if someone else resonates with it, and wants to call it art, that's great. I sometimes will call it art. But, you know, in order I think I call ourselves photographers, you know, in that sense there, and then when we're interrogated a little bit further, we might then start to go into genres of photography, like, you know, a travel photographer, or a documentary photographer, and stuff like that, then anything beyond that, I think there's a lot of soul searching that comes into it. But it's an interesting point that you talk about this art versus photography dichotomy, because as you know, within the photographic circles in the community, there appears to be a little bit of a backlash against things which are photographic in origin, but a lot of people don't consider photographs. So the illustrative work, for example, where people construct images from photographic sources, you know, a tree that was taken in their church or was taken in their cloud taken somewhere else, you know, a flock of birds taken somewhere else, and then they composited together. So the a lot of people who get up in arms and say, That's not photography, you know, that is art. Or that is, that is, elicits an illustration, in fact, we have the category Courtland street photography, in of itself, it's almost as if we need to categorise this thing. So that's the complete opposite of it, isn't it saying like, well, is art now we can call it photography, you know. So I think those things are constantly being defined and redefined. And it just get back to the fact that at the end of the day, you have to be really true to yourself, and you have to define it for yourself first, because once you find something for yourself, it makes explaining your work a lot easier. So what I often tell people to do, even if they're new to photography, and they don't know what they like photographing and all that is, if you can take a blank page, and just let whatever's in your head stream out in terms of what it is. So you say, you know, I like to and you just write, write, write, write, write, that's the first step in being able to define what it is that what is this that you you like photographing, and how you're going to go about defining what photography means for you. To begin with. That's,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 20:22 that's amazing. I think one thing that I really like, from that point that you bring is that defining something for yourself. And, you know, in this media era, and the social media era, I think, a lot of times, and you know, I'm one of those person where I, when I started, I was defined by everyone else, instead of you finding for yourself. Mm hmm. And then like, after a while, like, you know, you you get, you lose kind of the passion because you stopped taking photo for yourself, and, you know, you stop taking photos to express yourself. And I think like, especially in the photography era, one of the things that I love about photography is just the way that everyone perspective is different. And you know, like, it's just, it's like, you don't have to be the same. That's what makes it great. Like, the difference is what makes it great. So, I'm really glad that you mentioned that. Yeah, so, I mean, you do a lot of different genres of photography, isn't it? You go from trade to commercial to travel to documentary? If you're like, you know, what's your favourite? And or, you know, like, what, what do you like, out of those things? You know, there's not a lot of people that actually like to do all, all the different genre, because most people are either like a landscape or a portrait or wildlife and so forth. And how did you kind of like, get into, get that exposure to all these different genre?
Seng Mah 21:52 It's really interesting, because I never actually come from a position where I let what I do as a photographer be defined by other people. People like categories, people like labels. So they quite often ask questions like, what kind of photography? Do you a landscape photographer? Or are you a portrait photographer? Or are you your animal photographer? Do you like wildlife and all that, and those are categories, right? Those are labels. And I think a lot of people who start off in photography, they think that they have to fix they have to, they have to be able to fit into one of these little pigeon holes, this little boxes, in order to be able to then start to define what it is that they do. And this is where the kind of self reflection comes in really handy. Because I think, when you start to think very clearly about what it is that you do, and why you do what you do, a lot of it comes not from this whole notion of photography, but whatever it is that fulfils you as a person, right? So, I'm a person who enjoys learning about other people. I'm a person who enjoys connecting with other people engaging with other people, I'm actually, you know, they're very curious about other people's lives. Before I took up photography. In a very serious way, I also wrote a lot like what stories and stuff like that. So that's, that was a storyteller. Enjoy storytelling. So it was a curiosity about creating things about people's lives, and often talk to people and try to find out more about their lives and all that. So if you look at that aspect of it, that translates into an interest in people. And through photography, how do you basically represent an interest in people, you take pictures of people, you take portraits of people. So that's where the portraiture comes in. And then again, you know, with landscapes and all that, you know, there's a part of me which enjoys the natural world immensely, and you enjoy going out and you enjoy seeing beautiful scenery, and you look at beautiful light. And how do you go about expressing that creatively when you're a photographer, or you become a landscape photographer, and that basically, then leads you on to try a whole range of different techniques, you know, you learn to photograph in the right light, you learn to chase that light, you learn to work with a light that nature has given you at a particular point in time, regardless of whether it was the light you're looking for or not. You learn other techniques, you know, that comes through like your long exposures, for example, using filters on your focus stacking, and, in your case, your astrophotography, you know, that comes through in that aspect of it as well. So that's also sort of different than in your, in your wilderness photography, for example, you know, the pristine landscapes that you find in the Rockies and things like that. So there is that aspect of it that appeals to me and it still comes from the heart comes from a part of your spirit that says, I relate to the beauty in the natural world, right. You know, so there's that aspect of it and how do you go about finding more and more about the way Oh, well, you know, you travel for example, I have an interest in culture and history. So a lot of my travel and because I've got a background in art, as well as literature for some strange reason,
one of the things I love doing was basically to go to museums and stuff like that when I'm travelling, and I love going to those all historical towns, because I've read about it I've seen, I know the history of those areas. So it's about relieving that, that thing that when you go and travel there, you know, so how do you express that love of have new new worlds and new lands and new towns and all that kind of stuff? How do you express that love of being able to see for your very eyes, ancient history manifests in front of you? Well, you do that through your travel photography, travel photography. So I think, for me, and it's probably true for a lot of people. Those labels don't mean anything, because for me, it's really about this is my interest. So I photograph, what I'm interested in. This is what resonates with me. So I photograph what resonates with me, it just happens to apply, people can apply labels to them. So that's why people say, oh, you know, you photograph portraits, and you photograph landscapes, and you photograph, the travel and all that, you know, so people apply those categories. And I think, you know, at the end of the day, all you're doing is you're a photographer, and you're making images of things that you like, and, and experiences that resonate with you. That's, that's all it is. So, so that's, that's, for example, is a reason why, you know, I'm not that interested in say, Photographing Flowers, that doesn't appeal to me, I'm really not that interested in photographing birds, because it doesn't appeal to me, you know, the sorts of things so I don't go around chasing little spiders and insects and all that with a macro lens, because I'm not interested in it. So for me, photography is really about fulfilling what interests me. And acknowledging also that interests change over time, I may find new things that are very interesting to me. And then I may then pursue them photographically, and if there's a label that goes in it, great, if there isn't, well, that's fine as well. That's, that's
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 27:03 great. Yeah. You know, I totally can resonate with that, because I'm, I'm a bit like that, I just like to take photo, whatever and reason why I like to take foot off the stars, there's just a lot of, I grow to I get frustrated being some just always struggling with a lot of people, especially when here in the Rockies, you know, with the monitors here. And when you do Astro it's like photography, what photography was meant to me when I started was it was more like a meditation, it was like me and the camera and the nature or with whatever it is, I shoot, you know, whether it's a portrait or wildlife. So that's, that's why I kind of get into more of the Astro because of that reason, but it's not necessarily that I you know, I like to shoot Asher more than the sunset. I love sunset photos. You know, they're amazing. But just that when I do sunset, and sunrise, usually there's like 20 Other people next to me. And, you know, sometimes you just want to be by myself. And for that reason, I tend to be shoot more Astro. So that's pretty
Seng Mah 28:11 much an expression of your own personal interest is your own the way you are as a person, right?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 28:17 Yeah. Yeah, that's great. But so what do you think of the social media? How does that impact the perception of photography and how it can shape the photography nowadays, especially for those of you who just started, right, because this is all day know, if they just started, you know, or someone like you, you have that different understanding of what art is. But for those people that can just start it, they might not see anything past Instagram photography, you know, what do you think about? Yeah, but that,
Seng Mah 28:54 but the first thing that I've got to say is, I think what social media has done for photography and photographers is it's actually made a lot of people very aware about the value of the visual image, as opposed to basically just say, someone writing a long essay, and posting it on a blog or something along the lines of that. So Instagram, for example, is clearly a very visually driven social media platform. And so what it's done is actually foreground for a lot of people that photographs, images, visuals are incredibly important, as part of this social media transaction that takes place. So that's a really good part of it, because basically, it's making photography very prevalent in the eyes and minds of a lot of people. Obviously, there's a flip side of it, in a sense that what happens then is people begin to limit themselves in terms of what images they actually take, because they almost in a way kind of mimic or duplicate what has been deemed successful before so you know, the thought the sorts of silly talking about selfies, but it's not just a selfie, it is a particular style. I'll have selfie. You know, a lot of influences are practically, quote unquote Instagram models, because they are producing images that look very kind of fashion editorial, whatever it is that you're promoting or influencing on your platforms. They are, they are being photographed for photographing themselves or whatever it is they're photographing in a way that fulfils the need to gain more followers or, or promote a product or something along the lines of that. So even though everyone sort of realises that there is a greater need for visual images, the variety is being reduced the variety and visual imagery that we produce because of social media has been reduced to a kind of repetitive duplication of what people deemed to be successful. It's in in photographic circles, it's kind of like, you know, someone taking a picture of something like that BlueBoard sharing Crawley in Perth, for example. And then it's successful. So everyone else goes there. And we repeat the same process because they believe that photographing that subject in that light from that angle can repeat that success. But what it simply does is it creates a super saturation of the image. So the power of the original image is so watered down by that, that repetition itself. Think about the one like a tree, for example, right in New Zealand, the soul autumnal tree in the lake growing out there, I'm sure the first time it was published, it blew the minds of people away. But now we look at it. And we don't even give it a second glance because the you know, immediately so supersaturated images, you know, in Juana Korean and even in Canada, for example, I know that's a really blue lake, I think is like the mountains coming down, or Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, Moraine Lake, there's so many images taken from the same lookout positions, that initially it looks amazing. But eventually it's like, well, you know, nice, you just kind of move on. So I think, I think what social media has done is it's actually created this, this repetitiveness in the way people take photographs, you know, people very cynical people, basically look at this whole thing where they can pull off very similar looking images, you know, someone in rejected standing in front of the giant waterfall in Iceland, for example, or someone on a rock in the weight jacket, and a hat overlooking a lake, that images that those images have been repeated, ad nauseam. So it's created this kind of a culture of imitation rather than a culture of of originality, because I think the purpose of imagery in social media is actually governed not by the desire to actually create an image. But the desire to gain some level of fame, or notoriety through social media, and not so much wanting to actually create images. And for one reason, I mean, if you ask yourself, right, why am I putting images on social media? I get every person listening to this, who uses Instagram and asked them the answer this question, why am I posting this photograph on social media in my Instagram? And what would the answer be? What's your answer? If you post a picture on Instagram? Why do you post on Instagram?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 33:19 My, my answer to post is that to share my, my travel and my whatsapp experience with other people, and, you know, those, that's why I like to take those views that are quite unique, because I want to show people you know, that unique perspective that people never experienced and share that kind of thing. But yeah, you're right. I think a lot of them a lot of part of the is also to get that likes, and also to get that comments, right. Get that sense of confirmation saying that, you know, yes, you are doing the right thing. Yeah. So So there is two things that and I think some people can have, kind of have habit more towards one or the other depending on what they're doing. I'm not sure if that's how you feel as well.
Seng Mah 34:09 Do you use hashtags on Instagram? Totally. Why?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 34:15 That's mainly because for the business perspective side of things, and
Seng Mah 34:20 people can find your images, right, so people can find work for the Instagram algorithm. And it increases exposure increases, like so the reason you're posting on Instagram is purely driven by the fact that you are trying to gain some level of exposure and gain some level of you know, and that's the reason why I post on Instagram is I have no use of Instagram at all. So I don't use Instagram as a microblogging of my daily life or anything like that. I lead a very boring life if I were to deliberately post my life on Instagram will be like coffee, coffee, breakfast cereal, you know, his his me driving to the shops, you know, it's, this is completely unglamorous life. So we create fictions on Instagram. We create the Shouldn't in social media, and I think that's what social media excels in is excels in allowing us to curate the way we present ourselves and the way we present our work to the world. It's almost like having like a micro exhibition or having a publishing mini book, except this one just keeps going on and on and on and on and on. So so the impact of social media for me on on photography is that it encourages a lot of photography, it doesn't matter what medium you're using, what camera you're using, it encourages a lot of photography that encourages a lot of self reflection, and curation, about your own photography, these things are extremely good things to have in your mind, when you're a creative person, to be able to reflect and analyse your own work to basically curate your own work so that you're not just putting rubbish out there is a great things. But on the other hand, they're all kind of being moving in a direction of essentially mimicry and imitation, rather than the creation of original stuff, stuff that may not resonate with other people. Stuff that may not garner the likes and followers and everything else that comes that comes with it. So yeah, we are we are doing the right thing in terms of curating and all that. But we're probably curating it in a direction that doesn't actually allow for the exploration and the expression and the presentation of a more personal vision. That's my take on it. Anyway.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 36:27 That's, that's very interesting for you to say that. Yeah, I think you're definitely right, right there. Instagram kind of help photographers to kind of get out there and share their story and all that stuff, as well. But I think that the other side of thing is that people saw this popular photo that got that is successful. And then they get really fixated with that. And I think the really sad thing about this, like, like what you say, you know, like, when you do it on Instagram, you do, you will always want to try to do one for you know, the followers and the licence stuff. But also, from my perspective is like, don't stop creating for yourself. So, you know, I think one of the one of the education that I got from marketing on Instagram was saying that, yes, do you do your you know, do your popular posts, and then put it out there, but don't discount the photo, that really means something to you, and then don't worry about how many likes, you're gonna get on it, because you already get that likes from, you know, this popular one. So yeah, there's definitely a really hard balance there to take right now.
Seng Mah 37:41 But I think the danger there is to actually approach things like that with a level of maturity and a level of self awareness as well, a lot of people no longer they stop taking pictures of what it is that they are appealing to them, they're taking pictures of what's popular, because they are using social media purely as a popularity contest. So I think that's a that's actually quite a sad part of it in the sense that a lot of people who are very, very skilled, very skilled and have the ability to create very fine images, but it it's almost kind of being driven in a direction of creating what's popular, what's what's going to appeal to the market. It's a very business oriented kind of approach, you know, rather than creating images that, that appeal to them, and who cares what happens, let the images find the market, let the images find its viewers rather than creating images for an anticipated or expected audience and always, but at the end of the day, that's what art is, you know, do you create art, because you know, it's going to sell in order to sell, it's got to basically appeal to a particular audience, right, a particular aesthetics? Or do you create art, and hope that it finds its audience and through finding its audience, you find a market for it? You know, which one's the easier one to do?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 38:58 Yeah, totally. I think what you say is very correct. You know, it's, it's a shame that a lot of people that have that potential or new perspective, get kind of beaten down, and I, you know, that was me for definitely, it was me, when I started I was, I was an Instagram photographer, I go to places that looks great on Instagram. And we thought having second thought I would take that particular spot, I was like, where is that perspective taken for? And I took that and it took me a while until I realised that man, like, you know, like, this is not why I got here, you know, my mission was to, to actually show people, the world the unseen worlds, like why am I taking the photo that people take forever? All the time. So I think that that, that message that you see you have to be true to yourself and define it for yourself is like really a homerun for a lot of this because at the end of the day, like a lot of us see photography as a way to express ourselves and as a creative outlet in In our life, right? And I think like there's a lot of people that even though they do like a full time job a nine to five as an accounting or whatever they may be that photography become their creative outlet. So yeah, don't let that go away from from you. So that's great. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So you mentioned that you used to, used to, you're interested, you're very interested on people people's story. And, and also, like, you know, history, how does that have? How that storytelling have reflected your photography? And how that kind of translate from, you know, like words to do to basically a single frame even?
Seng Mah 40:45 Yeah, storytelling is one of those new buzzwords that have actually popped into photography? Well, it's always been in part of photography, but at the moment, it seems to be in everyone's consciousness, partly because I think a lot of competitions have judges to go on and on and on about how an image must tell a story and all that. So that's a, that can be, that can be quite a confusing thing for people to kind of think about, but a photograph photographs as a static image in one frame. So how can you tell a story about about a photograph in that setting image, the way, the best way I can relate to that basically, is let's say, for example, you are in a bookstore, and you are browsing books, or in the library in your browsing books, now, you're not going to be able to read every single book there. Alright. So how do you assess which books are essentially going to appeal to you, you might look at the title, you might look at the cover, you might look at the author, and then you might open to the first chapter or the first few paragraphs, and then you read it. Now there's got to be something in that initial process, that's going to basically give you an indication that you want to read more, so you will borrow or buy the book, okay? And what is the thing that actually gets you to decide that you're going to invest more time in that book, because you know, when you read a book, you're basically telling, telling yourself and telling the world, hello, take three days of my life that we'll never get back, because I'm going to invest it in reading this book, or we're gonna watch a movie, okay, it's gonna be an hour and a half of my life, I'm never gonna get back up two hours of my life, and we're gonna get back. So I'm going to, you better be good, right? And what is the thing that actually pulls us in and makes us commit that aspect of our life, which we have in limited supply to that, and that's where the story lies. It's, it's the hint, it's the hook that basically says, hey, it's worth investing, time, and emotion, and to commit to this particular book, or film, or in the case of photograph. So the way I basically say we talking about storytelling and photograph is the same concept coming through here, there has to be a hook, there has to be something that captures the interest of the viewer, and asks the viewer to commit time in engaging with that photograph. In other words, the viewer is almost in a way saying I'm going to emotionally connect with this is image, I'm going to spend some time exploring it visually, I'm going to try and get an understanding of what is actually happening
in in this image here. And in doing so I'm actually going to receive a sense of something fulfilling or something satisfying, through my engagement with an image. And that's what I mean by the storytelling. We may have bought a book or borrowed a book and not finished reading it, because it didn't go the way we wanted it to go. We didn't want to commit any further to it. Same thing with a movie or a film, or whatever it is, right now. If you binge watch NetFlix, and you watch, you know, season one offers a series and by about midway through season one, you're going like Nah, I'm not gonna, this is not interesting me at all, I've just wasted, you know, four hours of my life watching the first four episodes or something like that, you're making a decision to abandon that because the story is no longer appealing to you. So I think a storytelling and an image is about having the viewer engage with the image or your image, where they are investing time they're committing their attention to it, and they're engaging with it. So how do you how do you do that? For me, it's about it's more than just being a pretty picture. So, you know, like, if you're scanning a travel brochure, and all the images that are amazingly beautiful, because they're obviously selling the destination, right? And some of them use look at a new stare for ages and you can almost feel yourself kind of being there. And that's a story that's an image that's captured that particular feeling and it's drawn the viewer into the image and the viewer is exploring the landscape in an image with your eyes and the imagination. That's a powerful image, it tells a story. And it's drawing us into this narrative that you could look at a travel photograph or a documentary photograph or a portrait, and you're investing in the emotion, they look at a portrait of someone and you can identify with the emotion in your eyes, for example, you begin to explore what they're wearing. And you're kind of relating what they're wearing to the life circumstances, you're looking at the background, what might be in the background, and kind of looking at how that background might relate to their life circumstances, their story, so you're investing more than just a cursory glance at that picture. And that's a story that pulls them into that. So I guess the story lies in the story lies in the details that engage us and takes us into the world that's represented. In a photograph, it's not necessarily having something exciting happening, it's not necessarily having something that's kind of like visually explosive or anything like that. But it's the small things that make us linger longer in the image, and get us to invest and to enter the world of the image. And in the same way in which we imaginatively enter the world that's been told to us in a book, or which we engage emotionally with the characters that we watch. In a film, we actually care for them. And we don't want them to get, you know, the under bad circumstances, part and parcel of what makes dramatic tension in our in a film. But we want to see what happens to them. And hopefully, hopefully, it's a happy ending. That's why we stay until the end. And I think the same kinds of emotions kind of apply in a way which we engage with photographs. So if your images can tap into those very triggers, that will get people to invest and commit and engage with those images on those levels, then it's a storytelling image. So that makes sense. Yeah.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 46:46 Wow, that is that is crazy. Like, one other thing that I was very interested to, I actually had to put a note there, just to make sure I don't forget, you know, in this social media era, or especially on the, you know, technology era, we, we get bombarded with content and everything, right. So if you look at Instagram, we hardly browse through a photo for more than two seconds, we look like next look like next. So what what does it really take to create that that photo is that, you know, that we that we know, as a creator, that the story is in the details, but for the viewer? They might, they might not notice that within that two, three, or even five seconds that they're looking at it? What does it actually take to create that sort of photography that it's so powerful to hook your, your viewer? And engage them further into the details of your photo?
Seng Mah 47:50 Are you talking about a social media platform like Instagram? Are you talking? You're talking about social media platforms?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 47:57 I think it's just in general, not only social media, I think, you know, we have a lot of competition, for example, right now, there is no, you know, when you look at competition, we I think we can we can kind of think about you know, less of the popular shot, if that's what you men can I think, but also, you know, the judges will have hundreds and hundreds of entries. What does it take? Or, you know, how do you create that photo that's so powerful, so that the judges will actually invest further, as you said earlier, within, within that story, or within that frame?
Seng Mah 48:34 I think it'll you'll answer the question, you got to kind of think about how we, as viewers read and process visual images, right. And a lot of that is quite often very, very subjective as well. You know, if we can, if we can make meaning of an image, we are probably more willing to invest time in exploring it further. If we cannot make meaning of the image. And there's nothing that hooks us into it, then it's chances are, you know, just scroll past if you're talking about something like Instagram, for example. So if what I think you're asking is what are the key elements that will allow an image to engage with the viewer when it is competing with a lot of other images in a saturated image saturated kind of context, which could be Instagram could be if you're judging a photographic competition, you might be looking at over 500 700 1000s of images. So you have to make a decision very, very quickly. If you go to a group exhibition and 50 images in the exhibition, you're not going to spend, you know, five minutes on each image, you'll be there forever, right? So you're just going to scan and you're going to stop at certain images and what's going to do that, what's going to pull it into those images over there. Now, having said all of that, I would say that this is probably not a very ideal context in which images should be looked at and consumed by people this mass production. Spamming of images is not the ideal situation, to have easily. So when you have an exhibition, you curate it so that you're not having your images compete with each other by having too many of them, for example. Okay, so so I'll qualify that. So to say what's going to grab a viewers attention. I think the first thing is you need a headline, you need that headline, like a newspaper article, you need that headline. And the headline needs to hook the viewer in. So if the image is something that a viewer is already familiar with, it's chances are, they might just give it a quick glance, and you know, double tapping to give a love heart in Instagram is so easy doesn't mean any meaningful in engagement. All right. So you scroll past, the actual hook would be basically something that makes the leader go WTF, I think it's like, what what is this? You know, what is this? What is this, and then that curiosity then prompts them to look more closely into the, into what's actually happening in the image. And from that, they begin to try to find meaning in that image. And bearing in mind that the meaning that the viewer constructs out of the image is not necessarily the meaning that the photographer or the artist invested into the image itself, but they're already engaged, and they begin to draw meaning through gestures to get drawn, they might lock onto certain expressions, or they might, if it's a portrait, they might lock into certain detail in the images, you know, things that appear, and then that, that helps them kind of create a an image creates a story from the processing of the image itself. That if that makes sense, that's why I was thinking to myself that the the most valuable comment that you can get in social media for any image you put in there is not nice capture, or not great image, or not awesome, or not sensational, and all that. Those sorts of feedback, you know, or not, when someone just goes love heart emojis, those things require no investment. That's just someone, you know, saying something to be polite, and to acknowledge that, you know, they like your image. It's when someone writes something and says, Oh, my God, I know the feeling of this person. Exactly, you know, because I've been in that position. And this is what happened to me, and then they relay their own story. Back. And that's when you know that there has been real emotional engagement in the photograph. And I think that's something that we should all aim to look at an image of, say, a frozen feel in the Rockies, and there might be a few struggling plants growing in it. If you put it on Instagram, and someone just puts thumbs up, thumbs up, or the thank you emoji or the love heart emoji or the kissy emoji means nothing, right. But if someone writes, My God, this takes me there, and I can feel the cold in my bones. Now, that's real connection with with an image, as opposed to love hard, love hard, and about tech loves, and all that kind of stuff. So
for me, if you're looking for real connection with the people look in your images, if you are looking for your images to actually mean something to people and mean something. So when you invest time in creating the images, you gain, whatever time you've gone into photographing, you're putting into photographing and creating the image is time, you're never gonna get back. Right? So. So you want what you produce, to be meaningful, you know, to at least one other person out there in the world. Because if you can get a comment like that, then you know that you've achieved that particular achievement if we got that. And I think that's what we should we should aim for, rather than this kind of, oh, you know, to appease the algorithm of social media, I've got to post two pictures every day, when I'm going to post an Instagram story every day. I mean, it ends the day, some mechanism, the mechanism asks us to engage in engage with it in a certain way in order to get the popular likes and all that but, you know, is that is that actually good for creativity?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 54:11 Yeah, that's, that's definitely Yeah, that's great. It's definitely a struggle between creativity and being able to reach more especially with this, like, you know, all the algorithm that kind of basically curate what what what you know, seen as popular, so, that's great.
Seng Mah 54:31 Yeah, look, it's coming
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 54:35 to an hour mark. So I'm just gonna ask you a couple more questions. One of the questions I'm really interested to get your intake on this is that especially based on what you just said before, should you catch it in your photo or should the viewer you know, let interpret that to their own, you know, what, what what does the what does the effect of the caption to Due to an art of your photography, will they actually take away that message? Or will they actually strengthen it?
Seng Mah 55:06 I think it depends on the context in which the image is actually being shown or exhibited. Captions can sometimes Empower images, make them strong make make the message, the meaning, the way it's consumed and understood and emotionally engaged with a lot stronger, incredibly stronger. And sometimes Captions can impede in letting the viewer kind of just process and make their own meaning, so to speak of, of the images coming over there. So it's not a it's not a binary outcome, yes, or no, you know, kind of stuff like a lot of it depends on the A lot of it depends on on the contexts in which the captions work. What I find more useful, is something like an authentic artists statement than a caption. So for example, if someone's having an exhibition, or they publish a book of photographs, so I'm not let's talk about Instagram and all that, because that's the thing we've talked about that, let's say you usually do a photo book, or you have an exhibition, or something where your work is actually or even if you've got an online gallery, right, okay, on your website. And you write like a statement from your heart, which means I'm not talking about some kind of highfalutin, you know, wencke type of, you know, artist statements, something that's really funny have heard about, about your experiences in making the images about perhaps the motivation in making the meme because I generally speaking, don't talk about the meaning in my images I talked about, about about what they what, what they are to me, and why I photograph them and stuff like that. But I don't prescribe what people should make out of those images there. And talk a lot more about myself, and what drives me as a photographer and all that and then let that become like an overarching context, in which people can then use that and apply to the images and see how the images have come about through this particular mindset that the artist had as a creative person, rather than writing the individual captions. But having said that, sometimes captions, especially for press images, and documentary images, sometimes captions, can really kind of work very powerfully with the images so that both of them together, almost symbiotically. Create an experience for the viewer slash the reader that each of them individually could not have achieved.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 57:40 Yeah, that's, that's very interesting. I actually, I always, almost always put a story behind the photo, you know, what, what was it like? And what, what, what my experience where I go out that day, and so forth. But one of the reasons why I I want to ask you this question was that just the other day, I have a, I saw a comment on on one of the foot photography group, and then that's what he said is like, you know, like, I'd rather not have captions. So I, you know, after our conversation, but storytelling, I was really interested to see your take on that. So yeah, that's really good. Cool. Well, um, yeah, look, you've been an educator for a while now, and you've got into photography for a while now, for those of you who just want to start it, and who kinda like, you know, got interested and want to create something that is meaningful and as strong as what is the one advice, you know, one of the most important advice that you would give them
Seng Mah 58:45 complete this sentence, I take photograph, because I take photographs because.dot.to complete that sentence. As amazing, simple as that. But it has to come personally, it can't come. Now, whatever reason you give after the dot, dot, dot, that's fine. But you just have to define that for yourself. First. Find out what it is that that interests you so much that you want to actually take photographs of it. And then work towards being the best that you can be in what it is that you want to take photographs of. And sometimes you might need to actually push your own comfort, boundary boundaries, basically, to break through any kind of resistance that your own self might have had to achieve that particular outcome. And I'll give you a really quick example of that one. As I said earlier, I have a very strong interest in people and I really wanted to connect with them. But in the early days, when probably 15 or so years ago, more than that, actually. It's hard to approach strangers to ask for their photographs, especially when you're first starting out and because I you know, engaged with a lot of photographers now that's still a perennial concern. On an anxiety with a lot of a lot of photographers who want to take photos of people, but they just are not out there with your personality. So I came up with a strategy to get past my own fears and anxieties. And that was to actually have a purpose, in a reason why I wanted to take photographs of people. And that purpose was to actually basically go create a community photographic project. And the community photographic project was essentially tied into what was happening in a wall at that particular point in time. And at that particular point in time, this was, I think, just probably after what had happened in Bali, and everything else with the bombing. So it's going back quite a long time. And there was a lot of fear and a lot of anger and a lot of suspicion and all that. And I thought one way in which you can actually combat that is to actually, you know, get people to express in writing their commitment to basically still be good people, basically. So I went around, and I wrote one piece of code, I wrote a very simple three or four word statement, and I met two people. And I said, Hey, I'm doing a community project where I'm photographing people, if they're willing to commit, they just have to be photographed holding this car. And that's how I got through the fear or the anxiety of actually approaching people. Of course, they will say no, but then they say no to the project. They didn't say no, to me. And that was a great way of actually getting past any of those initial hesitancy that comes with that. And after that, that was perfectly fine. If you approach people because you've already built up a particular pattern and a particular level of confidence. That's it.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:01:51 Yeah, that's, that's great. I mean, yeah, that's one sentence that is really strong. And it's really interesting, because I've never really actually asked myself that. And, you know, that's even for me who've been taking photo for awhile who've been interested for in photography for a while. And I think I know the purpose of my photography, but I think it's, you know, by answering that question, it really, really, you know, hit that home run. So, fantastic. You know, thanks a lot for the for the advice. That's, it's amazing, I'm pretty sure the listener at at home, especially those of you who kind of just started and not sure where to go with your photography can take this and, yeah, build your own meaning and, you know, express yourself to photography instead of looking at other things, or other people work and try to mimic them. So that's amazing. So for those, for the listeners, who's interested to learn more about yourself, saying, What's the best way to find you?
Seng Mah 1:02:55 Oh, okay, so I'm obviously all on all over social media as well. But I don't, I don't, I don't garner a very large following in the 10s of 1000s or something along the lines of that I use it, you know, for my own personal purposes and stuff like that, but my website is venture photography.com.au So they can go there and they can look at the courses so it probably be more relevant for people in Australia especially in Western Australia. If you want to learn photography with me, if you want to go on my tours and stuff like that at the moment for next year. It's just within Western Australia only go to triple W dot venture photography.com.au And you can see what's basically on offer there you can follow me on Instagram on sang venture, which is my name s e Ng, then what venture together and that's mainly kind of like my, like travel landscape kind of work there. And then obviously, on social media, you can connect with me on venture photography workshops on Facebook, or just look for my name and cinema on Facebook. Pretty much and yeah. And I posted on my YouTube channel, but I currently don't, I'm not a YouTube type influence. I use the YouTube channel more as a learning resource where I put a lot of videos, how to videos and all that for the classes and people that I teach. I put them up there during the lockdown. This year, when wa log down for about six or seven weeks I and people were at home and you couldn't do anything I ran. I ran live zoom webinars and sessions like this and had guest speakers and we did you know things like portraiture and how to use your camera and all those kinds of stuff. On and we have a group on Facebook called Photo talk, Rafi, which is spelled P H O T. A L K prophy. Like for tog Rafi on Facebook. That's pretty much it. That's where you can find me.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:04:45 Oh, yeah, fantastic. I mean, you got you got amazing works. For those of you who are interested in travel, I actually learn how to use light and flash that I still use that technique. It's It's It's An amazing technique, especially the one that you thought during the daylight, but you make everything underexposed. So it looks like
Seng Mah 1:05:06 Yeah, yeah, I love that. Tonight. Yes, with a flat sheet. That's right.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:05:12 I love that technique. I still like it was definitely one of my favourite techniques.
Seng Mah 1:05:18 That's right. Yeah, I still teach that. So if you find a potential boss with me, you come in learn how to do that.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:05:24 I would never think of it, you know, think of that in a million years. So that was amazing to learn. But yeah, like, you know, saying he's also an professional accredited photography and has one of few apps in documentary awards. Is that right?
Seng Mah 1:05:40 Yeah, yeah. So I was wa a professional documentary photographer of the year, a couple of years ago. Yeah. And I've quite often been a finalist of the professional Travel Photographer of the Year awards and things like that. Yep.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:05:51 Exactly. So highly recommend to check out his work. And yeah, thanks a lot for tuning in. And hopefully you enjoy that. Hopefully you get a lot of that there was a lot of wisdom in that. And thank you very much saying for coming in. But I'll see you guys next week. We can hunters. Hopefully you guys have a good weekend. Till next time.
Thursday Nov 26, 2020
Thursday Nov 26, 2020
Hey Wicked Hunters,
Welcome back to The Art of Photography Podcast. in this My take Thursday I shared my point of view on how mastering the basics could help you improve your photography dramatically. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment below, let me know if this is useful.
You can learn more about Dunna on:
Website: dunnadidit.com
YouTube: dunnadidit - https://www.youtube.com/user/dunnaj
Instagram: @dunnadidit - https://www.instagram.com/dunnadidit/
Twitter: @dunnadidit - https://twitter.com/dunnadidit/
If you want to watch the video podcast, head to:
https://youtu.be/uYxJ1l9DL2Q
Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast:
Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify
Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr
Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr
For those of you who want to see more of The Wicked Hunt Photography:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/
Masterclass: https://www.TheWickedHuntPhotography.com
Photo print: https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/
Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
Monday Nov 23, 2020
Monday Nov 23, 2020
Hey Wicked Hunters, what is going on?
What an amazing interview with the man himself Dunna Did It.
In this podcast, I wanted to hear how he mesh his passion for music, videography and photography into one and how he found the time to learn it all! He shared one of the most important ways to speed up your progress. Make sure you watch or listen to the podcast as he shared how his passion turns into a career as one of the leading YouTuber in a short 4 years.
He encourages you to say hit him up and say hi, how awesome is that.
You can learn more about Dunna on:
Website: dunnadidit.com
YouTube: dunnadidit - https://www.youtube.com/user/dunnaj
Instagram: @dunnadidit - https://www.instagram.com/dunnadidit/
Twitter: @dunnadidit - https://twitter.com/dunnadidit/
If you want to watch the video podcast, head to:
https://youtu.be/uYxJ1l9DL2Q
Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast:
Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify
Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr
Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr
For those of you who want to see more of The Wicked Hunt Photography:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/
Masterclass: https://www.TheWickedHuntPhotography.com
Photo print: https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/
Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
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Dunna Did It 0:00 You will look at it and go, Oh, I know how they did that.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:03 Hey wicked hunters Welcome to the Art of Photography podcast where we share our passion. And we share how our passion gives us hope, purpose and happiness to photography.
So today we have someone very, very excited.
I'm very excited to introduce this person. See, I can't even speak properly. And he's, he's celebrating. I think celebrity hasn't made it to the Oscar. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you'll make it there very soon. But he's Yeah, I'm sure a lot of you have seen him before. If not, you will get to know Him. And you can check him up. But Donna, how are you doing?
Dunna Did It 0:53 I'm doing well, man. Thanks for having me on.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:56 Yeah, man. It's great. I mean, like we met like, last year in in Lake Louise. And remember you were looking for the PD clip defeat.
Dunna Did It 1:09 Yeah, I lost my Peak Design clip. And I lost the last a strap to while I was there, I lost all sorts of Peak Design stuff while I was there. I don't know.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:19 Yeah, that's crazy. I'm glad that we keep in touch. Because, you know, when I started this podcast, I was like that I was straightaway thinking about like, you know, like us, like, man, like, what is he doing? What is he up to? And and you just you just had on your recent birthday, you reach a big milestone there. So you want to tell us a little bit about that? I mean,
Dunna Did It 1:43 what the birthday? Yeah, the birthday I got I got verified, I think on YouTube is what they call it, where you get the little checkmark beside your name. But yeah, sometime a couple a handful of months before that has to be six months now or something like that. I crossed over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is, it's very exciting to think that there's enough people to fill a couple of stadiums that, that like to watch my stuff, which is pretty nuts.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 2:12 And that's amazing, isn't it? I mean, how did it all started? Like how did this all like sparks and, you know,
Dunna Did It 2:21 I mean, honestly, like I'm a my full time job is I'm a music producer, I have a recording studio here in Edmonton, I make music basically, and I record for people and, and mix and master their music and that kind of stuff. And I think that that all that started because obviously I love music, I love being creative, that kind of thing. But then you you do that for so many years and answering the clients and, and you I kind of needed something else to be my creative outlet outside of that not not that I wasn't like having fun or anything at work, but it was always like, at the end of the day after I had made music that somebody else asked me to make for eight hours, the last thing I wanted to do was make more music. And so then my creative outlet kind of felt like it had been not taken away from me but like it was being used for something else it was being used for work and so I started to really get into photography and videography and that kind of stuff and and was really fascinated by the world of like YouTube vlogging so I started the channel, as a vlog channel I started it with just did the intention to just kind of show off what what I got up to every day and I kind of kept the studio out of it a little bit which is a weird thing to say to show off what I do every day but keep my full time job out of it but but you know when whenever my wife and I would go on little little trips and stuff like that I would make videos or if we went to Ikea and bought a new couch, I would make a video and like that kind of stuff. And eventually I wanted to I wanted to increase the quality of the production and I started like I was always learning and that kind of thing. And so you start learning about cameras you start learning more about I mean I already knew a lot about audio at that point but audio specifically for video and editing and those kinds of things and started to learn about that stuff and get really obsessed with not not only the videography side of it, but because we so many people are hybrid shooters and so many cameras are dedicated hybrid cameras where you can shoot both video and photo I started to get really into the photography side as well. And so I ended up I started talking about that on the channel like I think kind of unintentionally at first I started babbling about laying you know I got a new camera or I got a new lens like hopefully the the video should look better now. And you know, I'm excited about this new software that I'm trying or something like that. And then eventually it was like now here's the deal. Toriel on this software, and here's a review on this lens. And it just kind of blossomed from there when I started to see people really enjoying that content, and I think the way that the way that first of all, I was someone who was learning so they could, they could connect with that. But second of all, I think the way that I put it forward is, is somewhere in between being really technical, and being really like approachable and easy to understand. So it's like, it's good for people who want a little bit more than just the very basic thing, but it's not so so extreme that it's going over their head. So I kind of fit right in that middle space there. And I think that when I found out that I kind of had that skill for teaching in that way, I really kind of laid into that. And I really enjoy it as well. And I enjoyed the the feedback that I get from people and yeah, yeah, so that's, that's kind of the story of the channel. That's, that's
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 5:57 amazing. So you started in music? Wow. Okay, so, yeah, I mean, like, I could totally relate, like, you know, it's really hard sometimes, especially when you
do
when you work for when you work with something that you're passionate about. Sometimes you really need to differentiate, you know, between the hobby side, and then the work side. And I, you know, like, it's still a really, really hard distinction for me myself, how do you actually differentiate that like, between, you know, because like, you had that burnout in the music, right? So how did you not like, you know, have that again, how do you prevent that? Yeah, it's,
Dunna Did It 6:42 I mean, it's, it's something that I constantly have to kind of keep in check. And I mean, with, with music, the way that I differentiated as I picked something else to do, I still don't, I don't catch myself making music, just for fun very often anymore. It's, it's, it's kind of become my job. And I have fun at my job, I have more fun at my job now, because I have another creative outlet than I was before. You know, and so it's, it's one of those things where, like, I just literally picked something else to do. And that seemed, that seemed to do for me. And, you know, now it's because YouTube has gone where it has gone. And now it's like a source of income for me as well. You know, you start to think of it as a job. But I think the big distinction between YouTube and what I was doing with music is that with music, there's always a client. There's always an artist in the room who says, Here's my song, I want you to make it sound like this. No, no, I don't like that. Do this. No, no, I don't like that do this kind of thing. And so then I'm kind of always like answering to somebody. Whereas with my YouTube videos, with the exception of like, a couple of like sponsored segments and stuff like that, which really, like, I've never had, I've never had any sponsor tell me that I needed to make a different video, they might ask me to change some wording on how I talk about their brand or something like that. But for the most part, I get to make videos that I want to make, you know, so there's, there's nobody really to answer to, in that regard. It's it's mostly like I think of I have a list of videos that I want to make. And if a sponsor approaches me that would I guess, technically be my like, client is like, if a sponsor approaches me, I say, Okay, do you want me to put your thing on this video that I was probably going to make anyway, like, it's always really, it's really, like, I've become the artist that I work with in the studio, you know, their, their goal is as a musician, as a as an artist is to create a song and have enough people want to listen to it, that they can make a living at it. As a as a YouTuber, I basically say, Okay, I'm going to create a piece of information or art or whatever you want to call it. And hopefully enough, people want to watch all of my pieces of art, or information that I can then like, you know, make some kind of a, an income off of it. So it there's there does feel like a significant difference between my day job and my side job, which is the YouTube thing, because again, it comes down to that control. Like, I never have to ask anybody like, Hey, is it okay? If I, if I make this video this week, you know, it's like, I just make whatever I want. And some of them do great and some of them don't do as well and you move on and you make another one.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 9:42 And that is awesome. Like, I mean, like I could relate it back to like when I was an engineer, you know, like, as an engineer, you do get a little bit creative when you do problem solving. But at a certain point, you know, your boss just tell you, No, you just follow the process. Do you follow a, b and c and then you stop being creative? And I can totally relate to that. And I think that last bit that you say that you get to do things for yourself, you know, like, you get to choose the client that's aligned to you. Right? That is probably the big thing that, that, I hope the listeners get it because especially with photography as well, you know, like, when I first when I first started photography, hours, not shooting for myself, I was recreating images from Instagram, instead of shooting the photo that I want to do. I want to take and you know, for that reason, I was just everyone else. And you know, nowadays, there's a lot of photographers who kind of just start it. And they kind of follow or fall into the same trap. And then they ask themselves, how do I create photo that is, you know, stand out? Well, don't follow anyone else. Create your own perspective. So that's amazing that you say that. So? Yeah, awesome. So how does how does everything mesh together between like photography, and videography and music? Because you do it all? Like, you know, like, I don't know how you find the time for it?
Dunna Did It 11:15 Yeah, it's, it's a lot. I have a schedule blocker. So like, my, my Google Calendar has little blocks in it. And I have to schedule everything out, basically. And, yeah, it's, it's a lot. And yeah, it's a it's a constant struggle and some weeks, because like, it's, it fluctuates so much, like, some weeks, it'll be really busy on one end, and some weeks will be really busy on the other, and you have to be willing to kind of give up a little of one for another and that kind of thing. So it is is a lot to deal with. But it's also it's also a lot of fun. And, you know, you just, you just figure out what your what your balance needs to look like and what needs to be sacrificed and what, what doesn't. And I'm also like a, I think I'm a really hard worker, so it helps that I want to do it, and I want to I feel I feel best when I feel accomplished. So if if you know, I'm working hard and getting lots done, that's when I'm happiest. So it's, it kind of works out for me. Yeah. And then like I'm also really strict on like, I take I take time, on my weekends, I spend those with my wife and that kind of stuff. And every once in a while, I'll need to take a little bit of that time. And, you know, put it towards a busy week or something like that. But for the most part, it's like, I try and kind of keep that balance. And that keeps me keeps me sane.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 12:45 Yeah, that's, that's I mean, it's, you know, I, I find it really hard. That's one thing that I struggled the most is trying to find a balance. Like, so like, take us through, like, for example, when you were in like Lake Louise, how much how, like, how do you take photo and video at the same time? Because you only got two heads, right? Like, what does it look like when you're out there? Do you just like do one or the other? Or? Yeah,
Dunna Did It 13:14 yeah, I mean that it comes down to a lot of a lot of pre planning and kind of deciding what what is the main focus of today. And usually there's usually there's one or the other kind of thing. So like, I don't even remember when we're in Lake Louise. Oh, yeah. So I had one thing that I needed to shoot there, which was supposed to be I was supposed to be doing this trip this trip to Italy. With that, like people could sign up for and I was going to do some workshops and it was going to be a bunch of people and stuff like that. So I had like one promo video that I was like, okay, cool. While we're there, I'll shoot a little bit of video and but the main focus is get that and then everything else I was like everything else. I'm just going to focus on photography because I didn't need if I don't need video for anything. I don't just like shoot video for no reason whatsoever, or very, very rarely anyway, like every every once in a while I'll just shoot it just in case but but usually I'll kind of have an idea going into it of like, you know what, what do I need out of this and so for that, that specific weekend or whatever, it was a couple of days that we were there. I knew I needed that one video, but I needed to like be at a location so we like did this little hike and ended up I don't even remember where it was that we hiked to or whatever but that was gonna be the thing. I did my little blurb that was all the video that I really needed everything else the rest of the way was pretty much just just photos. And so then like and sometimes it'll be the other way around. Sometimes it'll be you know, what I really need out of this is a bunch of a bunch of video to put over a voiceover because I want to do this. This motive additional video or something like that, or I need to test this lens in video mode. And so like we're gonna, I'm gonna, you know, take all this video, and then any photos that I get are kind of secondary. So it's usually one or the other is takes priority, and I try and decide that ahead of time. And that makes it a lot easier. And usually I just shoot it all with one camera like I don't I, I carry a backup camera, because I am worried that something will happen, and I'll need it. But generally, I just shoot it all on one camera, and I just like constantly switch between modes for whatever I want to get some Yeah, so it's it's mostly about trying to decide ahead of time, like what do I need out of this outing kind of thing. So yeah,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 15:48 that's, that's awesome. I mean, I wish I you know, I've talked to you about this before, because when I was doing a trip around Indonesia and Australia, I had a drone. And
it was always like, drone, camera, photo, time lapse, and it just got like, oh, which I was like, Oh, I forgot to do this. But yeah, you're right. I think if you can, like plan and just have that pre mindset of what you you want to achieve, that would work a lot better. And I mean, like, seems like you really organised about all this, like you always like this, or did you like learn it kind of along the way,
Dunna Did It 16:24 this took a long time to develop? Yeah, there were a lot of times where where I would, let's say we would go down to Banff or something like that. And, and I would try, I would be trying to like, okay, everywhere that we stopped, I would get two shots of B roll. And I would talk to the camera once and then I would stop and take 10 photos of that thing. And then like we take 25 steps up the hike up the trail, and I wouldn't do it all again. And it first of all, it got really annoying because it was you know, what would should be like a 45 minute little walk or something like that would take us five hours. And second of all, what would happen is I would miss opportunity or not not so much that I would miss opportunities. But I would be I would have half a video. And I would have not quite enough photos to make a set. And because I was too busy doing one to get the other and too busy doing the other to get the one you know and so then like I didn't have enough video to get to make something out of it. And I didn't have enough photos, photos are a little easier because you can you can shoot like 10 photos and still get something if you're if you know you're you're pretty handy with your eye and stuff. But yeah, it's generally I'll figure out if there's an opportunity for now anyway, this is something that I've learned, I'll figure out if there's an opportunity for a video. And if not, I'll probably just shoot photos. And that's that's generally kind of how it goes. Because if if there's not like somewhere that I can post a video or something that I can do video for then like, generally, it would just take up a bunch of hard drive space and be video that I'd never use. I don't sell stock footage or anything like that. So yeah, but I'm pretty much always always shooting some kind of photos one way or another. Even if I am shooting videos, I'll usually shoot a couple of photos here and there too. So,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 18:26 man, I've got so many drone footage from that trip. It just it takes so much space and I hardly touch him I only touch him when I really need it like something you know, when I need to create promotion and stuff. And I always tell myself that, you know, one day I will go back to it and do it. But you know, making a video is a lot more effort than just making like editing a photo. It's crazy. So I haven't really got into it. So yeah, I know. You mean and the Alec for for wiki hunters at home was listening, I think this is really really valuable. You know whether or not you only do it for as a hobby or when you just do it for site income or even you want to do it full time. It's it's definitely one of the hardest thing to do as a creative, especially in this technology. Era, right. So do you have like, Do you have any inspiration that get you you know, going or get you to where you are right now? Is there a particular person or a particular photo that that you know, you remember when you started or whatnot?
Dunna Did It 19:39 Oh geez. I mean when I first when I first started on on YouTube, the Casey Neistat was was a huge one for the like vlogging side of things and kind of the crossover between vlogging and like really nice high quality, storytelling kind of thing like it was it was different than like people just on their phones he was using like the Canon 80 D or whatever. And like it, there was shallow depth of field and all that kind of stuff. And so I think that, that, that was what got me interested in more of the not just telling a story, but also doing it with a certain kind of quality and a certain kind of flair and vibe to it. So that was, that was a big one. And then yeah, honestly, as far as photography goes, I mean, I have lots of people that are like now but I can't think of anything like, off the top that was like, a huge, like, inspiration for me, I'm on an Instagram photographer 100% Like I don't, my photos don't really go anywhere other than Instagram. So like, I'm scrolling Instagram lots and you know, seeing what the trends are, and that kind of stuff. And but my, my biggest inspiration is learning new techniques, I think. So like, as if you were to scroll through my scroll through my Instagram, I'm sure you could probably even see it. It's like, oh, he's in he's in this phase right now, he learned this one thing, and now he's overdoing it like crazy. You know, like, he learned this, he learned about whatever, like long, long exposures or something and then or there'll be like, nine long exposures in a row on my on my feed, like, two years ago or something like that. And then, you know, those kinds of things. So it's like, it's really like the My biggest inspiration is the hunt for new knowledge and the hunt for, you know, learning and that kind of thing. So I think that that's really, really what drives me, especially I think, in the in the photography space. Whereas like, in for the YouTube side of things, when I'm shooting most of my videos, it's almost passing on that knowledge is a lot of it. So yeah,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 21:56 that's, that's really interesting, because that's how I learned, you know, I was too lazy to read or you know, to watch 10 Minutes video. So usually, I would, I would know exactly what I need to learn. And I would just watch that tiny bit of it. I would try it. And it's like, no, I need to watch the next video. Yeah, it was it was really funny. I had to go back and forth, though. But it's when when I first started photography, it was because of the Milky Way shot. It was just, I can't I can't remember which one it was, but there was a Milky Way shot that I saw. And I was like, I want to be able to take that photo. And then like, that was it that was like that was the mission. Like, that's how I got into photography. That was that one shot. So yeah, it's, it's always interesting. So if you were to, like, choose between photography, videography and, and, you know, music, where would where we'd all sit? And how will all sit?
Dunna Did It 22:59 If I had to pick one of them, as I say,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 23:01 Well, how you prioritise? You know, if you go like, when would you prefer one compared to the other? Because I'm sure everything has their own time, right, like, you enjoy things differently at different time or whatnot.
Dunna Did It 23:14 Yeah, I mean, I think as, as far as just like creating some kind of like, art or whatever, like, I find photography really rewarding in that way. Like I feel like I make, so my video work primarily is my YouTube videos. So it's not, it's I don't do I don't really shoot a lot of like client work or anything like that. Like, it's primarily just YouTube videos. Every once in a while I'll shoot a music video here and there. But the photography is really like the one thing that I just do, because I like posting it kind of thing. You know, like the YouTube videos, like of course, I enjoy those too. But there's kind of like a, there's like a transaction there happening with my audience. Like, it's like they're expecting a video, I put out a video, we have a conversation about it, that kind of thing. Whereas, like, I take tonnes of photos that never get posted, or anything and it's like, it's I enjoy that process a lot. There's very little for the way that I do it anyway, there's very little planning that goes into shooting a photo, you know, like I, most of my photography and stuff happens while I'm out. And I'm just capturing what's happening around me. I don't plan on on, you know, a set or a costume or you know, like like some like portrait photographers and and that kind of stuff or concept photographers or whatever. So I quite enjoy that because it kind of feels like a almost like a state of meditations. So maybe that would be that might be at the top which is seems like a funny thing for me to say Because I do consider myself like a videographer. Before a photographer, just, I think out of the sheer fact that I shoot more videos. I shoot a video every week. I don't necessarily get out and shoot photos every week. And so then it seems weird to say that but yeah, I guess that would be, that would be the top and then I don't know, it's tough. It's tough not to put music at the top because I've been doing it for so long. Like since 2005. I went to, I went to recording school in in 2005. I have three college diplomas in music related fields, I was nominated for a Juno for a record that I produced a couple of years ago, like, so like, it's, it's a huge, huge part of my life. But just again, like, it's like, it feels more like, it feels more like the nine to five right now. Like, I get to be creative in it. And I do enjoy it, but it's not. It's not the thing that like, is is driving me forward right at this very moment kind of thing. So, yeah, that's yeah, I don't know, if I actually answered your question or just hold on for a while. That's actually
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 26:06 perfect. It's like, it's like, it's like a drip, you know, you kind of like half the music seems like, you're more like work and obligation and a little bit of happiness and passion and creative side, I suppose. And the video is like in the middle, and then photography is kind of just like fully recreational, and you just do whatever you want with it. So
Dunna Did It 26:33 yeah, it just is funny because even just the way that you just laid it out there, like for audio and music, and then video feel very connected to me, they feel like almost almost like the same thing. But then with a with a visual aspect. And then on the other side photography and video kind of feel like they're connected. But just you know, the video is just with an audio aspect. And so it's like video really does feel like the, the mash of between the two, you know, it's like, it's like, photography is like capturing a moment. Audio is like capturing a moment over time, but only in the audio part of it. And then the video kind of combines it all. All together. So yeah, it really does kind of like have this flow thing going on. And from week to week, it changes to is like some weeks, I'm just super inspired to make music. And then other weeks, I just all I want to do is make cool videos. And then the next week, all I want to do is, you know, shoot photos. Yeah. So it, it's kind of all over the place. Yeah, that's, that's
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 27:37 awesome. I think I think the way you put it is really is spot on. I mean, I I, I kind of predominantly take photo, and then I take a little bit of video. And now because like I don't have a lot of drones and stuff like that. And I'm not very good with the handheld camera thing, because I don't have a gimbal or anything like that. And so I do a lot a lot of time lapse, which is kind of like, you know, like just a bunch of photo put together and makes a video. So that's Yeah, that's really interesting. And that's awesome. So like, I mean, like, you know, we're, we're, I think we're going back. So coming back to the end of the podcast here. So what if you were to kind of give a little bit of advice to someone who, who, who just started and I think someone who's interested on both, you know, videography and photography, and because I know a lot of a lot of creatives out there really love it, but they just kind of don't know where to start. And they are overwhelmed with things like trying to learn too many things. What what, what sort of advice would you tell them? And you know, how should How should they approach them?
Dunna Did It 28:55 I mean, I would say to learn basic stuff first. And the nice thing about photography and videography is that a lot of those basics are the same, they might have different guidelines, but learning things like the exposure triangle, and how to use your shutter speed ISO and aperture in tandem with each other are the rules or the I shouldn't say the rules, but the the guidelines are the same. Or the information anyway is the same. And then the guidelines for a photography versus videography might just be slightly different. And so I think that really like if you're not sure yet you're like, Okay, well I like both of them. But like I don't know, if I want to make I might not have time to do both or like it's frustrating trying to do both. Like, you can learn the basics of both of them at the same time and you're not really learning two things. You're really only learning one thing so I think really really building up your foundational All knowledge is is kind of a great place to start and not and not worry too much about like, above getting into advanced techniques, we all want to jump into that kind of stuff but but if you really learn your kind of foundational stuff, honestly, it makes it easier to even figure out those kind of more, you know, advanced things if you if you have all the foundations down, and then you see a photo that has something cool going on in it, you will look at it and go, Oh, I know how they did that. Because I understand these foundational ideas, and I'm sure this could apply to anything. I'm sure this isn't just photography and videography. But I definitely find it that way. So yeah, like learning learning kind of your foundational stuff, I think is is really a strong place to start. And whether that means you know, looking up YouTube videos, or taking online courses, or reading books or whatever the best way that you specifically learn. But don't, don't hop over those foundational things, which I think a lot of people want to do they want to, they want to learn how to take the Milky Way shot, as their as their first photo, they want to be able to go out in the middle of the night and hit the Milky Way shot without understanding what a long exposure is without understanding how it works and understanding noise and ISO and all those kinds of things or what equipment they need that kind of thing. So I think really, really getting a grasp on that foundational stuff is the way that the way that I learned. And luckily, there's a lot of overlap between audio, the the post production side of audio and video. So a lot of that came really easily to me. But as far as like getting good images and stuff like that I was basically starting from scratch. So I think that learning that foundational stuff is really really where I would say like focus a lot of your time on that. And the rest of it kind of falls into place. You'll accidentally stumble a lot of along a lot of fun things that will take you a lot of places if you get that other stuff down first.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 32:09 Yeah, that's that's really funny, because you just talked to me about three years ago. It's like, yeah, straightaway. Myka is like, No, I don't know how to do
Dunna Did It 32:18 that. I did it too. I did it. I think we all do. Yeah. So this is me warning people who are just heard just starting out, they need to, they need to do some other stuff first.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 32:30 Yeah, that's cool. Right. So like, I want to ask you one last thing, and I think you're a perfect person to ask is, you know, you in the YouTube field feel you're you're, you're competing with many, many other people. And the thing is that you need to stand out, right? And that's the thing that a lot of photographers is asking, right? How do you create something that stand out? How do you create something that is unique? That is that is noticeable, and different from everyone else? So yeah. Do you have any advice on you know how to set yourself differently? And the, the, you know, different?
Dunna Did It 33:15 Yeah, that's I mean, it's, it's a difficult one, especially as more and more people pick up cameras are more and more people start YouTube channels, or whatever. But I mean, the the, it kind of comes back to what I was saying before is like, if you learn the foundational stuff, then you can put your own spin on it, if you don't learn that stuff. And all you learn is how to copy other people. You know, let's say you learn how to make a certain type take a certain type of photo, because you watched a tutorial where somebody walked you through it step by step kind of thing. And all you know is how to do that you don't really know how you got there, or why it worked or any of that you just know how to take that photo, then all you're going to be able to do is, is copy that person and you're in you're not going to stand out. Whereas if you if you really focus on those foundational things, you can then it's almost like a recipe if you understand how to use all of the ingredients, you can then put your own different amounts and and different flavours on it and you can you can make your own recipe out of it. Whereas if all you know how to do is follow somebody else's recipe then you're not going to stand out. But if you don't, again, if you don't understand those flavours you don't understand the spices, that kind of stuff, then you'll never be able to get to your own recipe. So I think again, it really comes down to understanding your foundational knowledge about this kind of stuff and then and then again like it I do I do always tell people to copy other people and not Not not because not not as like, necessarily your, your swan song or whatever. But because there's so much learning to be done from borrowing from other people and give give credit, if you if you're going to blatantly like copy someone as a learning experience, give credit to that person and that kind of thing. Don't pretend like you invented it. But at the same time, like you can learn a lot from that. And eventually what's going to happen is you're going to, let's say you copy 15 Different people over and over and over again, and you're learning and you're learning and learning, eventually, what what's going to happen is you're going to develop your own style based on all of the things that you learned from all those other people. So it's the biggest thing, I guess, is just time, right off the bat, probably in your first bunch of years, you're not going to you're just going to look like whatever you're learning at the time. And eventually, you're you're going to develop your own style out of it. And, and the only way to do that is to give it time.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 36:06 And that's, that's amazing answer right there. I think you're you're right on it. You know, the, the two recipes, by I think a lot of us, especially when you just start it, it's normal to follow other people because like, we don't know what we want, we don't know what's good, what's bad, until we can experience it all. So yeah, I think you're right. But like, being able to understand that foundation, then it will help other like you to kind of break down what you're doing so that you could reconstruct it slightly different or you know, like, like you say, you might be able to take 15 And then you create your own thing. So yeah, that's yeah, that's that's really awesome advice there. So yeah, like, man, it's been it's been a good like 40 minutes and which we can talk all day and I'm sure the listener would love is so much wisdom right there. But like, I don't know if I even should I should this but it for those of you who want to find you Where should they find you? And
Dunna Did It 37:14 he can find me at Donna did it.com or on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. All of them are backslash. Done it did it so youtube.com/done And did it twitter.com/jenna Did it instagram.com/jenna Did it. Come say hi, I am still pretty good about answering all my comments and DMS. So hit me up and let's chat.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 37:36 Yeah, that's, I mean, I'm sure if you just put it on Google done. I did it. I'm sure. I'm doing good enough there. Yeah. So I was like, I don't know if I should ask you this. But like, thanks a lot for sparing your time. And, you know, I'm sure you have a busy schedule. So it's, you know, you've given us a lot of valuable not only lesson but also inspiration, you know, to, to work to get to where you are right now and you know, the fact that you have to put it out there and just keep at it until you you get there. I think that is a massive inspiration. Especially for I think for creatives like us, you know, it's really hard sometimes to to make it out there. So, yeah, kudos to you and congratulation man. Like, yeah, we hear you made so much progress. Cool. Thanks, man. Yeah, so, well, we get Hans's hopefully that is, you know, you find not only one or two but a whole 40 minutes of wisdom right there. And yeah, think about that, like, you know, apply that to your, to your creative side, whatever it may be, but it is it's very important. Like he say, I think the one thing that I would really want to stress is that being able to separate between what you have to do and what you want to do and just keep creating for yourself, you know, even though sometimes you might need to get that post that you like and or you know, get that video that people will engage in alike, but never forget to create for yourself. Well, thanks a lot for tuning in. We can hunters and I'll see you guys next week.
Thursday Nov 19, 2020
Thursday Nov 19, 2020
Hey Wicked Hunters,
Here I am again blabbering. After each interview, I will release a "My Take" from the conversation. In the podcast, we often go round around and some time off on a tangent, but from each episode, there's one key learning take away that I want you to focus on. It's the one that I find most important from that conversation.
The big take away from the conversation with Jim was how a filter can reduce your time in front of your computer doing post-processing and also increase the wow factor in your photography. Filters will give you the ability to control the light and since light is the most important thing in photography, it means you'll be able to control and shape the story in your photos.
As Kase Filter Pro Partner I am able to pass you some exclusive offer, so if you're interested to get some high-quality filter, don't hesitate to get in touch. You can watch more about the review here:
https://youtu.be/YiC8W9PTvas
Watch Video Podcast on
https://bit.ly/TWHYouTubeChannel
For those of you who want to learn more about Jim Brompton, you can go to:
http://jimbromptonphotography.com/
https://www.facebook.com/JimBromptonPhotography/
https://www.instagram.com/jimbromptonphoto/
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Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com
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Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast on the comment below and subscribe
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Transcription:
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:00 Hey Wicked hunters Welcome back to The Art of Photography podcast where we share our passion. And we share how we found hope, purpose and happiness true photography.
So, today, I want to talk to you about what we've, the conversation that I had with Jim Brompton, I mean, 50 years, he'd been taking photo for 15 years, 50 years, and he's been in the business for 40 years. And he dropped a lot of wisdom and message there. And it was, it was just so it was so great to be able to learn and, you know, understand all of those mistakes that he's done. And to get to where he is. I think one of the things that really, that really rehome to me in this conversation was how a lot of the false perception, we broke down a lot of the false perception of using filters in photography. You know, we associate it filters with Instagram. And so when you when you think about filters, it was you know, people most people think it's though those things that you put on Instagram that you you can put the different colours or the different moods that you get from a photo. Well, in fact, a filter in a photography world or in a camera world is merely a lens, an extra lens, it's a tinted lens that help you to control the light. So it's actually really important. And Jim talked about this how using a filter can increase the quality of your photo, as well as, like increase that wall factor of your photograph. Because when you use a filter, you could control the light. And as you can, as you should be appreciating by now photography is all about light. Without light. There are no photography, and I talk about this actually, in my course it is the most talked about things. And the thing that I always bring back to light, light light, it is so important for you to understand lights and how to harness lights or take advantage of lights, even if they consider as a bad lighting or a flat lighting, there is always a way that you can harness it, and you can use it to its advantage to create something that is Wow, or, you know, different. Now, in this one, you know, Jim talked about the polarizer filter. And I totally agree with him, I didn't used to use the polarizer filter that much I used to use the polarizer filter to when I want to see when I want to be able to see through a water so what I do is I reduce the reflection. But ever since I got on board with case filters and I had the magnetic filter, he was just so seamless, it's so easy to put in and off and I find that glare is basically everywhere it's on the rocks, it's on the leave it's on an object. So if you use a K use us or it's not necessarily a case filters but case have a really a fantastic filter. So having said that, but if you just use a polarizer filter on your camera, you will be able to cut a lot of that glare and what it means is that you'll be able to see the texture you'll be able to see the actual colour and we'll have a deeper colour. You know, you can make the blue sky more blue by using a polarizer and the green trees more green especially during a sunny day by using a circular polarizer filter. Now a lot of people say that you know it's like oh you know you should keep it real don't use Filter. While in fact by using filter you can do less press post production and it is one of the reason why I use filter is that especially during sunrise and sunset and those dramatic lighting it's very important to be able to control the light and to be able to decrease that dynamic range because unfortunately even though our eyes can see the different dynamic from the darkest to the brightest, right and all the colour within there are no camera yet that is as good as Ri so you have to either do a few different techniques, maybe HDR you know or You know, a stalking, exposure stalking. But by using a filter, you do less in post processing. Why because you control the light in the field, you control the light when you actually shoot. And by doing that, you often get a better quality images because you don't have for example, you know, if you shooting a sunset and the sunrise, you don't have to bump up all those shots, all the shadows all that much because it was already a great, you're already control that with the filters.
The other thing where Jim talks about, you know, criss crossing filters, I haven't done that myself. And it was, it was good to hear that actually, I want to try that. Now that's it's amazing. And but filters give you an extra waste and extra to remember, at the end of the day, your camera is a tool as a way to express your creativity to photography. So don't think of it any more than that. At the end of the day, you are the director you are having to decide what you want to be in your photo and how your photo will tell the story. So very, very important for you to remember that. So having that ND filter helps you dramatically. Why because now during the daylight, you could start creating photos that are unique to yourself by doing long exposure. How many of you seen a daylight long exposure? I'm sure not many of you, because those people that does they are the one that are committed to it. So you know, if you put the extra time that effort to to use the filter and use the tool to create that unique perspective and unique take and creative part of of the scene, then you can capture and you can increase the wow factor of your photos for the sheer fact that not many people take that kind of images. Alright, well, thanks a lot for hearing me but babbling wicked hunters. But hopefully you get a very similar takeaway. You know, if you haven't use a filter before, I highly recommend trying one out or borrowing a friend's or even buy a cheap one. My very first filter was literally $50 for five, including a bag from eBay. And that was just getting to know to filter. But as a partner in case filter, if you are interested in grabbing a filter, you can either contact me or contact Jim. And we can definitely give you the best deal that we can have. So yeah, I highly recommend exploring that side of photography because not many people has gone out there and one of the best way to stand out is stop following the mainstream right creating one that is unique creating one that is powerful. Alright, well until next time wiki hunters and please, please, please don't forget to subscribe and hit the little bell button so that you get notification for the next time I put things on YouTube or on to the pod bean, I think for podcasts and notice the Follow button. Yes, yeah, I think it's here. Yeah. So podcasts here, YouTube here. podcast here, YouTube here. All right, cool. Have a good rest of the week. We can handle this and I'll catch you next time.
Monday Nov 16, 2020
Monday Nov 16, 2020
I'm very lucky to have a Designated Master in Fine Art to be joining me for this episode. Jim Brompton has been shooting for 50 years and been running a photography business for 40 years. In this episode, he shares with us his experiences and wisdom in photography.
As a Kase Filter Ambassador, Jim almost always has a filter on his camera. He explored the use of filters like no other to increase the quality and the wow factor of his photographs. As a person who's not a big fan of overusing photoshop, Jim use filters to be able to get as close to the final result as possible.
You can watch more about the review on Kase Filters here:
https://youtu.be/YiC8W9PTvas
Watch Video Podcast on
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For those of you who want to learn more about Jim Brompton, you can go to:
http://jimbromptonphotography.com/
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Jim Brompton 0:00 You can do some things very artistic thinking outside the box that a lot of other photographers don't take the time to learn, or.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:17 We counters Welcome back to The Art of Photography podcast, where we share our hope or purpose and how we get happiness through photography. And today I have a special guest. He is he's been a designated master photographer in fine art. And he also have been, you know, receiving multiple awards and been in a lot of galleries. And this year, actually, his 40 years or anniversary of, you know, starting a photography business. So congratulations on that. And this is Jim Brompton. Hey, Jim, how you doing?
Jim Brompton 0:55 Very well. How are you saying?
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 0:57 Yeah, I'm doing well. Well, congratulations on the anniversary. That's I mean, you know, especially the timing with like, receiving all these awards. I think that's, that's great.
Jim Brompton 1:06 Ya know, it's, it's been a lifelong journey for me for sure. Yeah. To pass that 40 year mark was just a real blessing. And I'm so happy. I've been involved in it for that length of time.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 1:17 Yeah, so that's great. I'm like, Wow, 40 years. I mean, that's, that's crazy. What's what, tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, who you are. And, you know, what's your passion in photography itself, what sort of photography and so forth?
Jim Brompton 1:34 Well, a long time ago, it all it all began. And I, I used to focus on mostly wildlife and in nature and nature seems my focus in my marketplace back in those days in the 1970s was to magazines and calendar companies, and school books, those types of publications. So I used to sell images to them, as well, as I did some some portraits and some weddings and tried to make a living as a photographer in the 70s. It was, it was a struggle, then no different than it is now for anybody. So I managed to get through all of that over those years. And I kind of switched gears and went into more fine art landscape. It did that, probably 25 years ago, and kind of ramped up to the, the other side of the business where I would have my images printed on Canvas, and then they would go to different galleries, and I would sell them through my, my galleries that represented me as well as I would sell it through my own my own stores, I had my own galleries. So that was, you know, that was the beginning of the fine art side of the business. Then I took another leap of 15 years ago and started printing my own. So I own I own the canvas print lab. Now that does all the printing. So now I it's a one stop shop, I take the image, I take it to put it through my own canvas print lab. From there, we distribute it to the galleries that that have ordered the piece or want to see it or want to hang it on display. And I stretch it, I finish it. And eventually I sell it, which is which is the end result.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 3:23 Wow. That's That's amazing. There's so many so many things I want to I want to touch to in just that little bit of a conversation there. But I want to start with, you know, like, where how did it all start? Like 40 years ago, what really is?
Jim Brompton 3:38 Well, that's a really good question, Stanley, what it started about 50 years ago for me actually, okay, well, yeah, when I was in, in school, so in the in the early 70s, I started taking, I started capturing images in the 1960s. And so I just, I just developed a taste for it, I guess and, and I really enjoyed it. So of course back in those days were shooting film, so I I was able to buy a good, good quality 35 millimetre camera. And it was in the latter part of the 1970s that I decided that I would set up a photography business, which I did. So I've been shooting for over 50 years, generally 42 years owning my own photography business, but through that initial stages of my career, I went from 35 millimetre film to medium format. And I you know, shooting big landscapes and I remember in 1982, I had my first canvas print done and it was done in a company in Vancouver and I lived in Saskatchewan at that point in time. And it was the way they did it back then in the early 80s was they took a print and they actually melted it into a piece of canvas, which is that's that's how they did their Canvas transfers. So I remember clearly buying that piece and saying to myself, Wow, this, this is going to change the world. Like, we can put our own photography on canvas now and actually become truly become an artist. And so, so that part of it that really, really excited me, and I continued to shoot medium format. And I've always been a Canon shooter. So I've always had to Canon film cameras had several level more, we're a bunch of them out, dropped a few over some cliffs. It's all of the exciting stuff, you know, and lo and behold, I remember talking to the Canon rep, and I think it was about 85 I had dropped canon f1 film camera off of off of a ledge that went on must have gone 500 feet below and bounced its way all the way down. And when I went down to the bottom and got it is still worked. So that was kind of kind of a testament to me, I guess as to how you know what the quality of the year was back then and, and I still shoot to this day, I still shoot digital, of course now, but all canon all canon gear all Canon L class, and it's a big investment. And it's something that you have to want, for me at least, I don't think I could change systems. As much as I know that there's new systems out there, but it's so costly to replace the glass. It's not so much the camera, it's Did you know, I got $60,000 worth of lenses in my in my arsenal, and I just can't afford to go and replace all that. So I love my Canon gear, and it does a great job. And I'll continue to shoot it. So yeah, that's,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 6:35 that's a good point, actually, you know, at the end of the day, like, especially in this era, like all the cameras working, working, you know, great, they all have their advantages and disadvantages, but I think at the end of the day, there was one word that you mentioned there, you know, like, artists, like, you know, that's, that's, that's at the end of the day, that is what's important, the people that actually use the tool, you know, they all great tool. Sure some of them have their, you know, advantages and disadvantages, but essentially, at the end of the day is the people that are using it and pushing it to the limit, because let's face it, you know, most of us doesn't even, you know, even close to pushing it to the limit. Right. So yeah, that's great that you mentioned that, that wow, that is such an inspiring is there is
Jim Brompton 7:21 that, you know, I think Sandy, I think way back in, you know, in the 80s. And I used to follow a photographer from the US, his name was Ansel Adams. And I was just intrigued by his ability to capture landscapes. He shot mostly black and white, but he did shoot some colour. But his ability to create to create art, where his subject matter was sharp, sharp from the foreground to the background, just intrigued me. And it was something that I started to do on my own as well. So I followed his is his, his lead on that most of my art that I have for sale is sharp at the front end and sharp to the back. And I believe it creates a nice three dimensional effect, it creates some depth in the image. And you know, for that reason alone, I think he he's inspired so many different photographers. It's just crazy, you know, and I remember one of his quotes, he says the most important component of a camera is the 12 inches behind it. So, to me, you know, and he's right. He's, it's the artist that's behind the camera that makes the difference. It's not the camera. You know, sometimes people say to me, Jim, you must have a good camera. And well, yeah, I do have a good camera. But it's it's not it's not taking the picture. I'm taking the picture. So that's the difference, I guess,
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 8:41 is yeah, that is true. I mean, we as a photographer, we hear that a lot. You know, I mean, like, at the end of the day, how many of you look at you know, go to a coffee and coffee copies, and they would have this, you know, I don't know, hundreds 1000s of dollars of copy machine, but you tried to copy it doesn't really taste that great. You know, you're right. It's just part of the equation. And I'm so glad that you brought out your inspiration because that was gonna be my next question. Like, where it was all inspired for him. So, yeah, that was amazing. Yeah. So take us through about like, you know, I mean, now you've got so many awards there, you know, have been published and also recognised in different galleries and all that. How does how does that journey works for you? Because, you know, I'm sure a lot of photographers and listeners that listening to this podcast, might think, Oh, well, you know, Jim, Jim is probably a prodigy or you know, he's talented. I don't have the eye for it. You know, what, what, what, what do you have to say to those people?
Jim Brompton 9:49 Well, you know, I've been an educator for a long time, love to educate people on photography. I really truly do. And I think you know, like after in before I received my master's in in fine art photography, I've always been the person that likes to share my knowledge and my ability, there's so many photographers out there right now that, that keep that stuff so close to their chest, they just don't want to share that information as to how they shot it or where the location was. And I, you know, I think those people they need to revisit that they need to say to themselves, if I can do this, why can't I share that with another photographer, let him go and do his own twist on it, because they're going to be different, you can lie it line up 10 photographers shooting the same scene, and everybody's going to end up with a different image. And it's because they have lens choices, their, you know, their aperture choices, other filter choices, all of that kind of stuff will come into play. So there's, there's no way that that the information in regard to the location or how you capture the image, there's, there's no way that that shouldn't be shared. And I'm a big believer that, that it should be shared. And I share it all the time. So when I when I'm educating students on the art of fine art photography, and those are the classes that I actually teach, I, you know, we talk about composition, we talk about clutter, we talked about different things that you know, certain elements that make images better, that will make them all better photographers, and I can honestly say, of all of the people that I've taught over the years, I know that some of them, if not probably all of them, or most of them have, you know, gained information that they use regularly. Now, that makes their own imagery that much better. And they feel good about it, because now now they've got something that they can hang on the wall, or they can sell or whatever they want to do with it. And that's up to them. So I've always, I've always said to them as well hang your own art on the wall, don't buy mine just shoots up. It's beautiful. You it's yours. Why wouldn't you put that on your wall? You know? So that's the way I kind of roll.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 11:52 That's the yeah, that's, that's great. Um, you know, I think it was, there was a point that you touch that is really important to myself, is that one of the thing that one of the reasons why I love photography is the fact that we could see each other's perspective, everyone has different perspective, right? Everyone has a different way of looking at it and point of view. So you're right, like you could, there was so many times where I go with like, three or five of my friends going out shooting. And when we publish it on, you know, our social media, it is hardly the same, you know, the only one that are the same, or that iconic one, one that we continually see in the social media. And I believe a big part of that is because we are going to pre frame right, because we've been seeing that photo so many times. So I'm so glad that you mentioned that. Yeah, that's that's fantastic. But so you mentioned a little bit about, you know, your passion about teaching for others and, and like you helping your students to become better and to actually feel better about photography. How does that? How does that passion there? sparks from, you know, being a photographer to being an educator?
Jim Brompton 13:03 Well, that's a good question. I'm continuing to learn all the time myself. So I mean, I would start right there, there isn't a day goes by that, that I, I don't take my gear out and try something different. So I continue to learn myself, and then I continue to share what I learned. So as far as, as far as what drives me to do that, I'm going to suggest to you that photography, for me is a very passionate about it. And I'm incredibly passionate about it. When I'm actually out shooting, there could be a train go by me and I won't even hear it. It can be 40 below zero and I'm not cold, it's just I get I focus on what I'm doing. And in that element, I forget everything else. And to me, if you if you can give that kind of dedication to to anything, you're going to have a good result. So that's how I kind of approached by my teaching my own photography with a lot of passion. And it has to have some good bones too, though, you know, so it needs there's, there's certain things like when I'm instructing we, we go through a checklist. You're not going to have a good foundation on a house if it isn't solid. So what do you need you in a landscape photography, especially fine art, landscape photography, you need a really good tripod, you got to start right there without that, man, you know, you're all over the place. And I think it's my opinion that tripods will make every photographer a better photographer. It allows them to take some time to create the composition. It gives them time to create level horizons. It stabilises stabilises. Sorry So yeah, it states. Let me just go back. Yeah, I want to get rid of it. But that's up to you. I'm gonna stop that from happening again. And you know what it was just one of those calls that doesn't matter, right So, back to what I was saying the, the foundation of a good photograph starts with a tripod. And when you have a good solid tripod, it's going to it'll carry all your all your lenses, it, it'll reduce your vibration, it allows you to compose better. I like to buy tripods that don't have centre columns, because I think centre column tripods can add the effect of some movement. So I like a platform tripod. I also like to buy tripods that are eight or nine feet tall, and they're fully extended. So I can work on on the sides of cliffs and, and mountains where I can I can reach out with with those legs that that will help stabilise it. And the key is to make sure everything's level. So large, big multi stitch Trent panoramas are achievable off a good quality tripod, I like to shoot them vertically. So those are the kinds of things that I teach. And that's probably the very first thing that I teach a stabilisation. So every landscape photographer, my opinion needs to start with that foundation.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 16:24 Oh, that's great. Yeah. I mean, tripod is, yeah, in landscape, especially is such a big Foundation, right? I mean, I carry a small travel tripod, because I travel a lot. But yeah, you're right, in many cases is like, Man, I have like, I wish I have, you know, the bigger tripod where it could actually sit properly, and then just not try to take 10 photos in hope that one of them becomes sharp. So yeah, that's That's very true. It's it's really funny that you mentioned that straight off the bat, because most people doesn't think about tripod until later. Right? They usually think about it like more about the the exposure triangle or whatever, whatever that is. Yeah, that is great to hear. I think a lot of the listener definitely can, can relate to that. Yeah. So like, going back to your, your, your awards, I think you got you got seven of the prestige was and one of the
Jim Brompton 17:23 hits seven awards of distinction in 2007. Distinction, yeah. And one on prestige. And I had eight, eight entries, and I had won an award for every one of them. And was also nominated that year for nature photographer of the year through master photographers International.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 17:38 Yeah, so that's, that's amazing. Right. I mean, correlation, first of all, Burnham, you know, at the same time, so, um, how do you create those images? So, you know, what are your What are your thoughts? And how do you transfer your passion into your photos, so that it's actually different compared to, you know, make, you know, obviously, if you, if you're gonna make it to the top, you have to create something that that is different that is wild to not only to other photographers, but especially to this judges who's been regarded as a master in their own field. So yeah, talk us through how does how that process works for you.
Jim Brompton 18:14 That process begins probably at 4:30am every day. So for me, being a landscape photographer for as many years as I have, I've always worked both ends at both ends of the sun. So it's sunrise sunset. The filters allow me to shoot through the day, so I can shoot all day long. But as the last 20 years have been a travel photographer, and we travel all over the world, and we'll we'll do long long term stays like we'll go to to Hawaii for two or three months at a time, or we'll go to Australia for six months, or five months or four months or, and then pop over to New Zealand and then jump to Fiji. And so we get to do a lot of travel. We do a lot of homework before we go to make sure that we go to the places that we want to see. I'm not a believer of shooting places that have been shot to death. I would rather find something that's more remote that people haven't seen. And I like to create my art from from that type of vision. Those visitors so it starts literally starts in the morning so I can give you an idea. So last time I was in Hawaii on the island of Hawaii, I was there for too little over two months, shot everyday shot every single day never took a day off. My day would start at 430 in the morning and grab a coffee, I'd make a walk down to the beach, which was about a five minute walk or less from where I was where we were living. Of course we take a look. We we rent long term places when we're going to be there for a long time. So we have a nice apartment that's furnished and so I'll walk down to the beach. I'm there at least 4030 to 40 minutes before the sun is starting to think about the horizon and that and that's when I start creating it at that point. I started looking at what the sun's going Do what kind of cloud cover we have. So I need, I need to make those decisions fairly quickly once the once the sunrise begins, but my pre planning for that is, like I say 30 or 40 minutes before before the sunrise. From that I'll determine my composition, I'll determine what I want to shoot what I want to tie into it where I want to put some rocks in the foreground. And so I work the beach, and then also determined by my filter usage, I'm a big believer of creating my images in the camera. So I really like the use of filters on my lenses, it allows me to be very artistic, it allows me to control colour, and glare and exposure time. And, and bright spots in that either left or right or the sun or, or the bottom or whatever you're dealing with. So there's so many different filters out there that I use on a regular basis, that ties it all together. So then I'm on the beach, and I'm looking at at what's going on. And at that point, I say, Okay, this is how I'm going to shoot this this morning. And I get my filters ready, and it gets set up and I start shooting. Now a lot of times, I won't shoot more than maybe 10 shots for the whole morning. But the pre planning has gone into it, the composition is there. I know what I want to do with my filters. I know, I know what I want to do with the ocean. And those types of scenes where I've got moving water and moving clouds, I like to create some art from that by either adding you know, a dancer and D on or
are working with a grad or criss crossing to grads. The thing that's nice about our cameras this this day is that the there's so much resolution. So even if you do some Criss crossings on on some circular filters, you can still crop into it and still have a really, really good file. So you can do some things very artistic thinking outside the box that a lot of other photographers don't take the time to learn, or they've never tried it. And so those are the types of things that that get me excited. When I'm in the field. What can I do to this? How can I create this? How can I make this a better image? How can I make this so that when somebody looks at it, they're gonna stand in awe and stare at it, they don't have to buy it, I win, I'm a winner if they stand in front of it in awe. Or if they turn around and say to me, is this really a photograph. And I'm not a big believer of Photoshop. So I don't do a lot of work in Photoshop. One of the things that I learned a long time ago with digital cameras, and I tell a lot of my students give it a try is go into the back end of the cameras and turn everything off. Don't let your camera do anything for you. Turn off any auto enhancements, auto colours, auto sharpening everything, just turn it off. So now basically what you've got is an old film camera. Because in the old film days, the only thing that you could ever do would be to take the image, put it into a dark room and do a little dodging or burning and you're done. So you had to shoot it right back then, which when with the use of filters, you could do that and achieve that. So I'm doing the same thing with the digital world. But I'm not letting the camera do anything for me. So what I've learned, and I use Photoshop, and I don't use Lightroom. And I use Photoshop sparingly. But I'll take one of I'd say a single image file, not a not a multistage. And because everything's turned off on my camera, and I've used filters to create the image. There's so much detail in that in that raw file. So I'll dump it into Photoshop, and I simply will add black. And when I add black, it adds contrast and colour. And I'm done. I'm literally done with one swipe of one line. So that's the kind of stuff that our cameras are capable of creating for us like, if you take control of your camera, you're going to end up with those kinds of results, you're going to end up with that wow factor, you're good because you've used filters, you understand how to use them, you've created a beautiful scene with the composition you thought through it well before before it ever began. And that's that's the stuff that drives me every day. So then following that, the sun's gone, I usually will shoot a couple over my right shoulder or my left shoulder depending on what the Sun is highlighting now. So actually use the sun in a sunrise to the advantage of continuing to shoot past the actual sunrise itself, but I'll just face a different direction. And then I stopped in Hawaii situation then I would jump in the car and I'd go to the North Shore and I shoot waves all day long. And at the end of the day, the North Shore is fine to for for sunset, so I'd wait it out up there and shoot my sunsets and then I go home. So a very long day. I mean, they're 15 hour days, and I did it last time I was there. I did it every day for two months and five days I think. Wow. Yeah, that's all about it's all about dedication. Stan, you just got to be dedicated to it.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 24:57 Yeah, that's that's a great insight. Um, But I think most of photographers out there who, who really, you know, trying to push to get that a wow factor or something that is different in their, in their, in their photography, because at the end of the day, you know, like, if you want to grab that wow factor, you have to be creative, you have to find a time where other people would be in bed or a time where other people would be facing the other way. Right. So that was, that's great that you mentioned that. Now one of the things that I want to talk about there, you know, I am aware that you're a case filter ambassador here in Canada, and you talk about filter just on that last point there, and how the filter can not only help to create a better quality images, but also help you with creativity. So yeah, like, talk to us a little bit about, you know, how, how can you know, how does the filter help you to create these images that are Wow, whether they are different, or, you know, they are a better quality than you would have shot without the filter?
Jim Brompton 26:02 Right? Well, photography, as you know, is all about light. So if you can manage late, you, you know, you're going to end up being a good photographer. So my first filter that I go to, is the is the newest filter system on the market by case Global Case filters have absolutely shocked me, you know, my camera bag consists of probably near $5,000, where the filters from other companies made by other companies and I would always buy when a new company, when a new company had a filter come out, I would always buy it because I love shooting the filters. So I would just see how it compared to the last one I bought. I've been working with case now since November of 2019. Very, very pleased to be their Canadian ambassador for their company, their filters are the best I've ever worked with. And that's and I'm not saying it because I'm their ambassador. But I'm saying that because is there a great solid filter that rugged, there's no colour cast, I just love them. They're super thin. They're easy to use. And I think the way that they've designed them even like even with with regard to the magnetic filters that they make, now, people are going to start using stuff like that more because they're so easy to use. You know, I think about the days when I was in Saskatchewan and shooting at 40 below zero and screening filters on the front of my lens and my hands are frozen in the design of this magnetic system by having a ring screwed onto your lens before you can get out of your your warm car, and then set up a you can just literally just go click click click click click and your filters are stacking and it's just so nice to work with. My go to Filter though the very first one is always in will always be a polarizer it's something you can't do in post. So there isn't a programme out there that can add polarisation to an image. So if you've shoot an image without polarisation, you can't fix that. So polarisation to me is is one of the most important things it allows you polarisation will will increase your blues and your greens, it'll add you it'll add some colour. It'll, it reduces glare. Even if you're shooting a forest where they've got wet leaves and there's a glare on the leaves from the available light, you can dial that polarizer to eliminate that so you know you've got all you've got is this texture and you've got this beautiful saturation. So it is without a doubt my first filter probably 95% of every image every image that I've captured in the last 35 years I've had a polarizer on it. So that's my go to the new systems nowadays. Even if you get into the sheet glass systems like case makes an awesome K A K nine system is there 100 series and so you have 150 by 100 mil sheath glasses and they're you know there's a lot of a lot of leeway with that where you can you can move your your grads up and down so you can control the light where you want it. Another nice thing about that that system is if you if you if you've got some side light coming in, you can turn the whole adapter rings so that you can you can have your grant at an angle but the key to that is you've already put on a magnetic polarizer you've dialled at the end. And when you do turn that it's a geared ring, so it actually turns the polarizer so it keeps everything as set so that when you put your like I was talking about a foundation before so you're on a tripod, you get your your put your polarizer on your Dalit to your liking whatever you want. And then you start being creative with the rest of the filters to add you know control the light and add time. That's to me is key. This is when you become very artistic. This is when to me you become an artist you become a photography artist. And and that's something that that you're going to develop on your own. You're just going to be a star out, you're going to have a stop, people are going to be able to look at an image down the road. And they're going to say, Stanley shot that. I mean, that's this is the kind of style so that people will start recognising your workflow, what's your images look like. And in my case, I mean, I have, I have, because I've been shooting for so long. I've got nice big landscapes, I've got a lot of water work, I love my oceans and beaches. And I know when I post an image, that that has a wave in it, or a car scene or a sunrise of an ocean. I know, I get comments all the time on my social media, I knew whose photo this was, before I even looked at the name, you know, so those, that's the kind of stuff that you can get down the road, once you develop that style. And your style is going to be creative with the use of your filters. So I strongly recommend if anybody that is shooting now isn't shooting with filters, they need they need to visit that I think that they'll find that their imagery will get a lot better in the end. If they do that.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 31:02 Yeah, that's that's fantastic. I mean, you know, I've been shooting with case filter, I've actually used the Leaf Filter before I got into case filter. And when case gonna approach me notice, I was excited. Actually, I've looked it up, I've seen the magnetic filter. And that was like, it was like mind blowing. Because before I used to have circular polarizer. And I will try to screw on the adapter ring on the Circular Polarizer oh my god, it was such a big nightmare. So that was such a big thing. And, you know, it was really funny that you mentioned how the circular polarizer is so important in the quality of a photo. Because, look, I mean, looking back through my photo series, sometimes I go back and I would start editing them. And I would go like, Man, I just wish I had a circular polarizer. Because, you know, back when I first started, I think that was a really good thing that you mentioned, back when I first started Circular Polarizer was more about for me, at least I understand it to take away the glare from the water. So if you want to see through the water, but actually, you don't realise that if you should, even in the forest, even if it's a form of overcast, you get a lot of glare on that leaf. So by putting that circular polarizer it takes away all that and the colour, and the texture just comes out. So yeah, like, that was amazing that you that you mentioned that. And yeah, like that. The the fact that you could actually control the light, that was the other thing that I think it was really, really great that you mentioned it, because I always knew that light was important is the most important or photography, right? I mean, at the end of the day, if it's dark, no lights at all, it's just pure dark, it doesn't matter what you do with it. But you mentioned that using a filter, you could actually control the light, there was actually a big aha moment for me, because even though I knew it, he was, that was the main purpose of it. I never really think of it that way. So so it's definitely a game changer there. And so as a as a sunrise and sunset shooter, do you do use a lot of the reverse grant or, or also known as the sunset or sunrise filter? And, yeah, take us through how that kind of helps in your photography.
Jim Brompton 33:24 Yeah, you know, at the nearing the end of the day, once the sun actually sets the, the reverse ground is a filter I like to use because it's a little lighter on the top, and but you can still control the horizon. So but what that allows you to do is to is to compare to just a grad nd it allows you to, to see because it's a little bit lighter on the top, you can actually see the stars and whatnot starting to appear, but you can still see the colour of the horizon, or you'll see you'll start to catch some of the Northern Lights, early early Northern Lights in the evening. So because because the filter is not dark to the top, it allows you to to, to capture that beginning of that of the of the end of that sunset. So it's always a, it's always been something that I've really enjoyed shooting is is once the sun's down, we still have a really nice colour along the horizon plane. But you can start to see the, you know, the Milky Way or not the Milky Way necessarily, you need to be darker, but the northern lights you can start to see the northern lights starting to get active. And then you can start shooting and you still have colour on the horizon and you've then you've got the Northern Lights already appearing. So you can't do that without without the use of a filter. It's just not going to happen. So the back in the old days, I mean we had graduated neutral density filters but there was never a reverse grad. I mean that was I've never heard it you know, all of a sudden hey, there's a reverse grad on the on the market and now there's a centre grant. And you know, those are the specialty filters that are out there that will allow you to enhance your imagery and make you a better photographer and make you stand out. So you know, like talk a little bit about the standard grads. So now instead now you got a strip right across the middle of the filter, and it's laid on the top and laid on the bottom. But if you take that filter and turn it sideways, now you got to strip down the middle. So now you got a waterfall or extreme that's running past you. Typically there are two stops are greater brighter the water so now you can control that and still have beautiful colours on the edge of your rivers or your streams. So now you don't have to worry about about blowing out the the river, you can add another filter on it now you can start to create what you want the water to look like. So, you know, you can go from two seconds to 20 seconds by adding a six top end on top of the centre grant. So it's this is where you This is where fine art photography really takes place is because now you're the artist and you get to choose what the end result is, there's a lot of a lot of places that I'll go to, and I'll get set up. And before I even take a picture, I know what the end result is going to be. Because I've thought through it, I know what my camera's capable of, I know what my filters are capable of doing. And because I've done it for so many years, I can see the end result before I even take the first photo. So that to me is something that I've earned. I've learned that because I've shot millions of photographs in my day. And it's kind of like, the old day where even now, you know, I don't rely on my metres very often, okay to know up here where, where I need to because I always shoot manually. So I don't talk where I need to set my exposure and my and I always shoot, I always shoot F eight or F 11 Seldom do I shoot beyond F 11. But unless I'm looking for some softness. But I mentioned earlier about Ansel Adams and I like to be sharp from front to back. So pretty much all my my cameras, all my lenses, they're happy. And what I call a happy spot is the sharpest part of that lens. In most lenses, it's midway between if it's a two eight lens and goes to f 22. It'll be in that F 11 Ranger F eight F 11. There's a lot of programmes out there that have done tests on these so you can actually see, you know, which which, which aperture gives you the the best sharpness. So I always say to myself, Well, why don't I rely on rely on that I mean, if this is if it's if it's F eight or F 11, then I want to shoot F eight or F 11. And so I do that. So that gives me the ability to have something very sharp. And then I start creating outside that sharpness, the use of filters to create the actual image.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 37:36 That's the Yeah, that's great. It's actually really funny when you when you think about filters, because like, we there's a lot of misconception that especially for people who doesn't really get into photography, you know, all into that depth. People think filters are the things that they put on Instagram, right? So there is a big misconception about filters. And the funny thing about filters is actually, it helps you to do less postproduction instead of you know, the other way around. And, yeah, that was really funny. Because like, when I when I see people who cannot comment, it's like, you know, it's like, stop using the filter, like, let let the nature like, you know, bring out the true nature. And I was like, actually, if you use it correctly, it would actually bring the true nature instead of you know, having to process it. So that's really funny that you mentioned that. And yeah, the sunset filter is same with you. I'd never heard of it until up until I got the master kid. And I was like, wow, I didn't even realise that the light was like that, when the sun actually disappear on the horizon until I use them. I'm just like, Wow, that's amazing. So, yeah, that was really great that you brought that up. Yeah, look, I'm we're coming towards the end here. I think one more question that I'd like to get from you. You know, if you were, if you were to give an advice to your younger self, you know, when you started photography, and, you know, I know that a lot of people out there realise that they liked photography, but, you know, they just not sure where to start. And I think with the social media that a lot of people kind of, like, they get discouraged because they see amazing photos out there and they feel like I don't think they you know, they don't think they can, they can do it themselves. And I'm sure as an educator, you you'll come across that often. So, you know, if you were to tell your younger self you know, and you're pessimistic self, I suppose I'm not sure if you were like that. I know that I gone through that phase before. What would you tell that um, you know, your younger self
Jim Brompton 39:46 over the years have made a lot of mistakes. And I think mistakes are, are good, are good as well because they, they, they teach you what not to do. So I mean, I look back 40 years years ago, and, you know, I'm thinking to myself, well, I want to be a photographer, how do I make money and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, I think now that where I am today, I don't think the money should be as important as I was I put the weight on it back, then I think, I think the the ability to become a better photographer back then, is something that I wish I would have developed quicker than I did. And so is through that length of time, where you make those mistakes, and you and you and you, and you learn from your mistakes, you know, over a period of 15 years, if that could have, if that process could have sped up would have been so much better, but, but I'm a self taught photographer, I don't, I, I've never taken any education on photography, other than other than perhaps the odd thing online now, but not back then, of course, we didn't have computers back then. So, you know, it's it's something that I wish I could have learned quicker, I guess. But now that now where I am today, and like I mentioned earlier, I still continue to learn, I mean, every day I go out I shot went shooting yesterday, and, and I was playing with some filters and just doing some some different things that I hadn't done before. So I'm out testing the waters, as you know, maybe a good way to put it. But it's a it's a continuation for me. And you know, and I don't see myself quitting anytime soon. And I'm probably you know, going to be going to be one of those guys that that loves his job, right to the end. So what's better than to be able to make a living as a photographer and a travel photographer to travel the world, and then to have galleries to sell your work and to print yourself, you know, I print for other photographers too, all the time. And, you know, I see, I see their abilities. And I see, I see some stunning stuff, like, oh my god, there's some great photographers coming up. In the world that I've been, you know, in Canada, I've been praying for someone in the US, but their work is exceptional, you know, and I can just see that at some point in time, they're going to be, you know, well recognised for their ability. And their, you know, then they shoot all different kinds of cameras, we talked a little bit about that before, you know, the mirrorless or, or, you know, the big name brands, well, I see quality files from other photographers that shoot a variety of different pieces of equipment, and they're all good. There. You know, as much as I mean, I shoot canon, I think you should canon as well. But, you know, I look at some of the Nikon files and look at some of the Sony files and stuff. And I get to see them firsthand in my print lab, and their quality quality stuff. So you know, I don't think a person can say, to anybody out there, don't buy this camera, or my best advice to anybody that's out there right now is spend the money on your glass, buy a good lens, cheap out on the body, the body will carry you through anyway. But if you have good glass that you can carry down the road, when you do eventually get full frame or whatever. Keep that in mind when you're buying it, but spend spend the extra money on the glass, don't don't go with the kid lenses. You know, it's just if you want to become a very good photographer, then you've got to think I got to spend some money. And that starts with buying a good tripod, like I said earlier.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 43:14 Yeah, that's, that's amazing. You know, I think making making mistakes is, is it's the most underrated thing people say, you know, like, oh, a lot of people. I mean, I know, when I was growing up, everyone, my parents would always be careful and all that stuff, you know, I wish going back, you know, my parents would just say, you know, go fall and you know, go do that. And I know they do it from their love, right? They don't want me to get hurt and stuff like that. But that's what I told my students as well I just go make mistakes like, sure, I think this is the best way but do the other way. And I think the worst thing as an educator educator we can do is trying to close their their perspective. So that was great that you mentioned that and I think one of the other thing that I want to mention out there especially for those of the listeners who shoot with a higher end camera, stop putting you know cheap filters in there because you spend so much money on your lenses and then you put you know things like Amazon Basics lenses just takes away all that it's kind of defeats the whole purpose. So make sure you invest on some if you already invest on your lens and your camera then make sure you invest on on the filter as well. So yeah, like, wow, there's just so many knowledge that you share with us always we can go all day but this but
Jim Brompton 44:33 the problem that's the problem. We literally could go all day with this and I'm not kidding. I could five hours from now we could still be talking about it is there's lots of tricks and techniques out there that I've learned over the years that that are great to share with people.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 44:46 Yeah, and I think the fact that you say you know never stop learning is so important. Especially for those of you who already kind of made it or you know, who already think they're one of the better one out there. The worst thing you can and do is that you need to think that you don't need to learn any more, because that's how you grow. That's how you develop your creativity. All right. Well, Jim, thanks a lot for your time here. I know you have a busy day. So I'm, I'm so glad that you spare your time to be here with us. And look for the listeners out there who, who interested to learn more about yourself who want to see more of your fine art photography and your fabulous images? What is the best way? Or where is the best way to find you?
Jim Brompton 45:29 Well, my website, I guess. So it's just gem brompton.com. And there's a contact link there that you can, you can get in touch with me, or on my Facebook page, Jim Brompton photography, that's another good way to reach out. I also have a case, Canada filters page, so you can reach me through there as well.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 45:52 Cool. Well, thank you very much, Jim. And, look, we can hunters, thank you very much for tuning in. And I'm sure you get a lot of gems from that. And look, if you're interested on a case filter, you can contact me or Jimmy himself and I will post the link to both have our profile on the link. So you could just contact us and don't forget to check out Jim's work. It's just quite amazing. A lot of his work is actually keep turning something that is nothing to something. You know, a lot of these work are quite simplistic, but nevertheless, it's just so incredibly beautiful and vibrant. So highly encourage you to check out his work. But thanks a lot for tuning in. And don't forget to subscribe and turn on the notification button so that you know when the next episodes coming up. But thanks a lot, and I'll see you guys next week. Catch you later.
Jim Brompton 46:46 Thanks. Thanks. Really appreciate the invite.
Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt 46:49 Yeah, no worries. Catch you then Jim. Yeah.