non photographic influence

severian

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What influences us to make photographs has always been an interesting question to me. I suppose we have all been motivated to create images by viewing the work of other photographers. I think the major visual influence for me has come from a non photographer. A commercial illustrator named Richard Powers. I discovered his work in the '50s and I'm still intrigued by it. Do my photos reflect this influence? Yes.Does this bother me? no. Has anyone else been driven to create photographs because of non photographic influences. Music? Literature? Is this influence seen in your work?
Jack
 

Bill Hahn

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History.

I was interested in history long before I got interested in photography, and I will go photograph various historical places. New England is full of them. More a documentary effort than an artistic one. For example, I'll photograph places related to King Philip's War (1676), e.g., the site where Mary Rowlandson's (google for her name!) house was, or the foundations of a "garrison house", or
"Redemption Rock" where Rowlandson was ransomed.

I photographed the front of the old Meeting House at a Shaker village (the building is now privately owned) from an angle that matched a photograph from about 1911 showing several Shaker women in the front yard. The tree in front was recognizably the same (same branch structure).

Also, I'm a sucker for such photography. James Frassanito wrote books where he would look at Civil War photographs of battlefields (Antietam and Gettysburg), and attempt to make a modern photograph at the same place, same angle.

Enough - I'm looking forward to the answers of others....
 

reellis67

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I too have a history passion that affects my subject matter. I also have recently studied design concepts with a painter whos vision has changed my photography. I think that our life experiences have a great deal of impact on the way we see the world around us, and therefore also affect our photography.

- Randy
 

lee

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Severian,

where have you been? been missing you and worried something was up.

lee\c
 

juan

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My mother was a student of the German painter Emil Holzhauer. I grew up with his paintings, and when I look at my landscapes/urbanscapes, I see a lot of his influence - such asthis one and this one - particularly the angles of view.
juan
 

MurrayMinchin

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In elementary school I was fascinated with birds, which taught me how to see subtle field markings in order to make identifications, or put another way, to become visually observant of details at a young age. Early in high school I started to draw and paint birds, and I started to tag along with my older sister on day hikes in the mountains.

Sometime around grade nine my parents let me take their old 35mm camera on overnight hikes by myself, even during winter, into the surrounding forests and moutains where I live. The slides I brought back were empty husks compared to how the things and places I photographed had made me feel inside. Wanting to learn how to take better slides started the ball rolling. When I graduated, I just knew I was going to be an ARTIST with a camera and sell to galleries...thing is...I'd never heard of Karsh, Adams, Weston, Strand, etc, etc, etc, as Canada had no real history of photography as a fine art back then (1978) that I was aware of. It just wasn't on the National cultural radar.

When I later went to college for fine arts (to improve my photography) is when I learned of the LF B&W Masters and their work. So I happened upon this all by myself I guess, because of how much those early slides didn't communicate how the scenes made me feel.

Murray
 

tim atherton

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Novelist, poets, films (and film makers) and various artists (their writings as well as their art)...

Just a few

Murakami
Berger
Kundera
Klee
Kandinsky
Gauguin
Giacometti
Couzens
William Carlos Williams
Eliot
Auden
Stevens
Wenders
Malick
Kiarostami
Tarkovsky
Kieslowski
 

jovo

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I've often wondered why so many fine art photographers have spent a portion of their lives practicing to be, or, actually working as professional musicians (Adams, Caponigro, Bullock, Witherill, Les McLean, albeit as a rocker rather than a classicist....and many, many others.) Since that's what I do, and since I've loved photography since childhood I suppose I'm also in that vortex, but I've never tried to fully articulate why the one would influence the other. Both require discipline, constant practice, critical self-evaluation, and draw sustenance from a host of other internal engines. But, what informs me with the greatest energy is the emotional excitement and stimulation I get from each. As a re-creative musician, I can reliably count on a known piece of music to bring that about if I perform it well. As a creative photographer, the path is totally uncertain until the work is finished. Music is temporal and public; photography is concrete and private until I choose to make it public. Both offer tremendous satisfactions. I still have no reliable and certain answers, but I think I'm in tune with the general principles....and they're wonderful fuel for invigorating what life force I've been granted.
 
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naturephoto1

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I would guess for me that it would fall on the interest and love of the out of doors, nature, geology, and biology. These are also the areas of my education, so it seemed appropriate to be interested in recording and bringing home the experiences.

Rich
 

rjs003

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Eric Sloan.... If he hadn't published so many books on Barns, I would have. A lot of my landscape photography leans toward the rural life and old barns in particular. Can't explain exactly what attracts me to shooting barns and Amish family farms. Maybe it seems to bring me back to a much less complicated time in my life. Don't know, but will continue to shoot until film is no long available.
 

Q17

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Given that my photography is personal (the original intent is to please myself rather than show or sell), just about everything in my life has inspired me to use my camera.

I was once thrown into a month long shooting frenzy by an Iggy Pop concert. I've been inspired to photograph by the paintings of Magritte and by Hiroshige prints.

Perhaps the most inspiring event for me took place in the mid 1990's. My father had been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma... he had gone through chemo, radiation and two bone marrow transplants with no change. He couldn't walk across a street without tiring. Then, his antique car buddies came over and got him working on a 1951 Hudson he had planned to restore before he got sick...
In the next few months, his cancer went into full remission and he was far more active. I took a great many abstracts of classic cars walking around fairgrounds with him for the next summer.

=michelle=
 

Whiteymorange

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smieglitz said:
Vermeer
Rembrandt
Odd Nerdrum
Johannes Itten
Carl Jung
Ozzy
Click to expand...

Oh man! Do we have things in common!

The vision of Post-Impressionist painters, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Naturalists and the Boston Schoo. Television and movies. The Talking Heads. Scott Prior.
 

eddym

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I would hesitate to say "influenced," because it infers too direct a relationship; but I have certainly been inspired by many artists, including the Pre-Rafaelites, the Impressionists, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, Van Gogh, Picasso, and many others. I've also been inspired by classical composers such as Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelsson, Bach, Vivaldi, never mind, this list is getting too long already! Then there's my wife, who is an artist, several friends who are artists...

Heck, sometimes my cats inspire me!
 

smieglitz

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eddym said:
...Andrew Wyeth...
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. That dude too. Sheesh. How could I forget? He's so good and so unnerving. I took a detour last year through Brandywine to check out his work and was mesmerized seeing some of my favorite paintings in person.

I suppose I should add Egon Schiele as well. He knew how to make those scratches.

So, the revised list:

Vermeer
Andrew Wyeth
Rembrandt
Odd Nerdrum
Johannes Itten
Carl Jung
Ozzy
Egon Schiele
 

MurrayMinchin

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(Never mind)

Murray
 
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Zen

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Edward Weston put it down to 'amazement at subject matter' and that's something I can easily relate to in my photography when exploring new places.
 

df cardwell

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Growing up on a farm was critical: the daily social connections at school, the solitude and family at home. Began snapping friends, family, places.

And I LOVED the smell of flashbulbs and VP.

Living on the farm, the chores, especially coming in to the house at dusk. The relation of farm life to nature.

Since then, music. Traditional, classical, jazz. Old pop.

Dancing.

The Book of Common Prayer. Bonhoeffer.

Travel: meals with strangers. Communicating with folks without a common language.
 

Valerie

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Well, my photos are typically concerned with family and memories. Reading Marcel Proust has served to influence how I view memory. My grandparents considered family photos one of thier most important posessions--my grandmother's scrapbooks are filled with photos of new babies, newlyweds, and relatives in thier coffins. And I am fascinated by psychology and spiritualism. I think all these factors filter through me.
 

anyte

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I am not influenced by any specific photographer. Simply having the knowledge that I can create the images and seeing potential photographs in my surrounding drives me.

I think part of it is that I feel like people have so little appreciation for their surroundings, for nature and all that it holds and offers to us. I love nature and I always want a piece of it to remember and I would also like to bring nature to other people on a level that they might be able to appreciate. Perhaps through my experiences and my photographs I can bring others closer to something I love, help to develop an appreciation or even plant a small seed of appreciation.

I guess, in short, I'm inspired by nature and driven by my own passions.
 

df cardwell

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