The Emerging Artist : Personal
JUNE 3, 2010 • FILED UNDER: PERSONAL
I have been wanting to write this post for a few days now, trying to come up with the perfect words of what is going on in my head. I do not think I have gotten to that point yet but I don’t want to put it off any longer, so I am going to do my best.
I am approaching my 27th birthday tomorrow and have been reflecting on my life this past year and getting comfortable with being able to call myself an artist. I have been spending time this year really trying to define who I am as an artist and what I am passionate about and want to communicate through my portraiture work.
You can’t really be an artist if you don’t have a vision and if you can’t figure out who you are as an artist you will just get lost in the crowd, and in my case get lost in the sea of photographers that pop-up daily. What sets me apart? What sets my work apart from others? These are the questions that have been on my mind since becoming a full time photographer and I am happy to say that my passions are developing and my style is beginning to emerge more and more.
From the beginning of my business my tagline has always been “fun, fresh, personal, lifestyle”, I felt that these words best described the direction I wanted to head with my work. As an artist I have been in the process of developing my voice and from time to time I may have steered away from that tagline, trying to experiment and see if I like the style other photographers are doing, seeing if I want to do pictures like someone else. But I always come back to my tagline and look it over, and the images I end up enjoying the most always fall under my original vision. I want to create art with the people I photograph as they are right now, I want to know them personally, I want whatever is in the inside to come out in the outside, and most importantly I want us to have fun doing it. I want laughter, goofiness, and joy to come pouring out of my images and I want love to be exalted.
I stumbled upon this blog post very recently by a photographer named Jack Hollingsworth and I read it at just the right time, it is exactly what I needed to hear and he put into words perfectly how I was feeling with the world and how I wanted to set myself apart. Here is a tiny excerpt of what he wrote:
“Sadly, I think our popular culture has unfairly conditioned us to think of portraiture as either sexy or serious. This, in my humble opinion, is a travesty. I’d like to lead the pack and reclaim portraiture from the realms of sexy, serious and superficial…back into the realms of innocence, playfulness, soulfulness. I’d like to see us make the experience of portraiture more about the inward, rather than the outward, journey.
We need a new playbook. And not one built on reality TV shows of supermodels. Our new photographic playbook needs to be built on sincerity, honesty, authenticity, originality. Being who we are. Not who we’re trying to be. Please, no more elevation and exultation of soul-less portraiture and lifestyle photography. It’s time to return to our roots of real emotion, real expression, real identity.
There is nothing in this world more beautiful, inside and out, than a person expressing sincere, deep down, joyous emotion in a photograph. I might also add that, in photography circles today, there is also nothing more coveted than photographers who know how to capture this sort of raw emotion. It’s a beautiful thing.
I like to think of happiness as more outward and temporary. And joy as more inward and long-lasting. Our goal is to get our subjects to express deep-down, from-the-heart, raw emotion.”
THAT is the type of photography I want to be apart of, REAL photographs, of REAL people, being who they are and being proud of it. No more trying to hide who you are, pretending to be something you are not, I want to photograph those being imperfectly perfect. This is what I plan to pursue and this is what I hope people take away from my work.
I wanted to share just one photograph with everyone before I end this blog post. I had a family session yesterday evening and this just so happens to be one of my first shots from our time together. I can’t wait to share the whole session with you and to share a detailed story behind this image, but until then I think the image may speak for itself. Enjoy.













I love this post, Jared. I’m 100% behind you, too….I’m much more a fan of photographing people in their true states, not trying to be a model, but simply being themselves and letting that light of who they are shine through in the picture. It’s definitely something we need more of in this world, and something I think you’re great at capturing.
I love the picture too!
Well said … and well captured! Love the image man! And if I forget to check my to-do list tomorrow … Happy Birthday!
This picture speaks volumes. Just love it.
GREAT post Jared!!! I really enjoyed reading it, thank you for sharing this!