Influences…

When it comes to art, nothing is new. Consciously or subconsciously we are influenced by what we see and hear, but what we do with that information is what counts.

I recently watched a post unfold where a painter sourced a photographic group for photos, replicated some of them, and passed them off as his own work. When called out, he claimed not to know better, yet had a well established website from which to monetize his paintings—which were identical in content to some of the photographs. He hadn’t asked permission to use them, and he certainly hadn’t made any of them his own. He’d simply painted the photograph with no credit to the photographer. One was a carefully crafted landscape image that this particular photographer had planned out. The resulting photo wasn’t a case of being in the right place at the right time. He, like many photographers do, had researched the site, the event that he wanted to photograph there, and when the two came together, he went out and got the shot—his vision, his composition, his expression.

Inspiration is a good thing. It stretches our creative boundaries and takes us in directions we might not have gone had we not been moved in some way.

From episode one of the series Yellowstone, I was mesmerized by the opening title sequences so brilliantly put together by creative director Lisa Bolan, Elastic, and crew. (If I’ve missed other attributions, I apologize.) Black and white photography has always inspired me and I’ve written before about people whose work I’ve particularly enjoyed, Stieglitz, for one. The images that drew me in from the title sequences had a gorgeous, yet gritty, yellowish toning applied to them.

By the next day, I’d developed a black and white toning pre-set for my monochrome imagery that for me, had the feel of those opening sequences. It doesn’t work for everything, it’s a starting point, but I’ve had a lot of fun playing with it.

The image above is a farrier hot-shoeing a horse.

Explore other mediums. Be inspired. Be true to your own vision.