Would you like to make more artistic photos? Here’s how mindset, background and world view influence your photos.

This post, including the accompanying video, outlines my own, unique approach to photography.

I haven’t always worked as a photographer, but my love of photography has underpinned everything I’ve done.

Over the years I’ve been a wedding/portrait photographer, landscape photographer, film stills photographer, travel photographer and photography tutor.

I’ve also worked in retail, manufacturing, customer support and product management roles, all within the photographic industry.

There’s no doubt that making artistic photos is at the heart of the creative process for so many people.

Nonetheless, to discover your true creative potential, you first need to free yourself from the constraints associated with technique and camera handling. 

Artistic Portrait Photography

Take a look at this portrait of a dignified man made in the tiny village of Maria Purem near Chennai in India.

The image is constructed very much around tone and texture. However, ultimately, the success is based around the emotive aspects of the image.

I think it’s a great example of photography, art and life coming together in a way that documents the life of someone outside of my normal everyday experience through my own, unique world view.

Artistic portrait photography is not, therefore, about the use of on lens filters or post process presets applied on the computer.

It’s an exploration of your own world view being realized through interaction with the people you meet on your journey through life.

The most important thing I ever did for myself was to travel, which I began doing in 1988.

Marrying my love for photography and travel has brought purpose, meaning and motivation into my life.

A range of self-initiated photography projects kept me travelling during what now seems like the difficult middle years of my life.

It’s these same creative projects that prevented photography from being left behind due to the pressures of career and the like.

The best way to develop a skillset and gain expertise and excellence in a creative pursuit is to immerse yourself into it.

In the case of photography that means making more photos, more often, and also spending time studying the work of other photographers.

By learning from the work of others you’ll begin to incorporate the work that inspires you into your own photography practice.

While I loved playing in bands I decided, long ago, that photography was the creative pursuit where my energy and efforts would be placed. 

Nine years of tertiary education, culminating in a Masters of Photography, helped keep me focused on my photography.

Sometimes that focus was restricted to formal lectures. At other times personal projects, undertaken while on vacation, brought fun and adventure into my life.

It’s at times like this when travel and photography provided such excellent adventures.

Of course a key determinant, when it comes to creating artistic portrait photography, is whether you place your focus on self or other.

It’s an interesting question because, as the camera looks both ways, it records what we see as well as how we feel about what we see.

In essence our photographs are mirrors of our world view that explore our experiences based upon the relationships we form and the places we visit.

Photography As Art

I think you’ll agree that the concept of photography as art is well illustrated in this image of the Madonna shedding tears at La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The image, featuring reflections of nearby buildings, hints at the ever encroaching urban sprawl in the background of this beautiful and historic cemetery.

These days I brand myself as a travel photographer. But what’s in a name.

In my case the term travel photographer is a perfect fit as I most commonly create landscape, portrait, architectural and wildlife photography.

It’s all great fun and, regardless of the subject matter or the genre before me, the underlying philosophy that underpins the photography I create remains consistent.

This is an important learning for those of us who work intuitively.

It’s one thing to make images, but our direction and purpose is made ever more clear when we spend the time editing, selecting and organizing our best work into collections or bodies of work that make sense.

Want to know who you are and what you’re all about? Stop talking and let your best and most creative work tell you.  

Photos Document Your Life’s Journey

Along the way, depending on your interests and the opportunities you make for yourself, you may get to explore all manner of subject matter and themes through the photos you create.

However, it’s your underlying world view and the way you approach your photography that determines the actual nature of your work.

There are a number of tags that are used to help separate us from each other and also define our place as photographers.

The most obvious of these tags include the following:

• Documentary photographer

• Fine Art photographer

• Photojournalist

• Architectural photographer

• Travel photographer

• Portrait photographer

• Landscape photographer

• Wildlife photographer

• Fashion photographer

Nonetheless, regardless of the genre into which our photos best fit or whether we are commercially successful, we remain artists at heart.

What matters to me is whether our work is based upon self or other and if it relates to wider concerns beyond the genre or object in front of our camera's lens. 

Artistic Photography

To help make sense of this let’s try to move away from genres such as landscape, portrait and wildlife photography.

Instead let’s begin looking at our own photography, and the work of others that we admire, and begin to describe images in other terms.

To begin with let’s explore some examples from the world of composition: 

• Light

• Line

• Shape

• Color

• Space

• Repetition

• Balance

• Symmetry

Each image in the video presentation at the top of this post includes more than one of these elements of composition.

The same is true for the individual photos within this post.

Take a look at the image of the gentleman serving up a refreshing glass of water, from a green jug, to customers out the front of his tea stall in the backstreets of Kolkata.

Notice how I’ve composed the image around color to help draw the viewer into the story.

We all make images where the subject or theme of the photo is quite obvious.

Here’s a picture of devotees around Mother Teresa’s tomb in Kolkata, India.

Notice how I’ve used a wide-angle focal length to emphasize Mother Teresa’s tomb and ensure it dominates the composition.

I really enjoyed my visit to Mother House and, while I only made a handful of photos during my visit, I’m really happy with the results.

My point here is that artistic photography doesn’t have to be a particularly cerebral process.

Simply by using composition and taking a creative approach to how you use your camera it’s possible to create visually interesting and artistic photography.

In addition to making images based around the primary subject or the theme you wish to explore it’s also possible to make images where the subject of the photograph is actually based around composition.

This photo featuring a pile of barrels in Bali, Indonesia is quite literally a study in composition.

The primary elements of composition that underpin this photo are color, shape, texture, repetition and balance.

You see, while the photo happens to include a bunch of barrels, that’s just not what it’s about. The photo is actually a study in composition. That’s it!

The irony is that, while I couldn’t have made the image without those barrels, in many ways they’re incidental to the photo.

Artistic Portrait Photography

In the case of artistic portrait photography we also make images that are more emotively based, largely because they explore the Human Condition and our relationship with nature and the sublime.

That notion is central to the success of this image of a porter, loaded with goods, as he makes his way along a wild and windy path across Huanghsan Mountain in China.

It’s a favourite image of mine and, my any discomfort associated with getting to that location and making the image was quickly put aside when presented with the opportunity to create such an image.

Now let’s move deeper and look at other themes and concepts you might like to explore in your own artistic photography practice.

• beauty

• relationships

• duality

• metamorphosis

• being alone

• loneliness

• interdependence

• identity

• authority

• war

• transience and the ethereal

• devotion and spirituality

There are so many themes that can be explored in the photos you make.

It’s all a matter of allowing your interests, concerns and world view to come to the fore in the photography you create.

Philosophy Of Photography

Imagine being able to marry interesting subject matter, composition, technique and metaphor in the creation of more meaningful and artistic photos.

As a result you’ll discover that your photos will carry with them the opportunity for the viewer to appreciate beauty and to consider issues such as the following:

• Conservation

• Ideology

• The worker

• Class

• Domesticity

• Fragility

• Joy

• Hope

• The natural world and our place within it 

Ultimately I strive to create life affirming images and to help other people embrace their own creativity through the art of photography.

I hope to meet you one day, perhaps in a private class or on a special photography tour.

Until then may a gentle light illuminate your path and may your own creative endeavours allow you to find your way through life’s trials and tribulations and, ultimately, bring you to a place of peace and beauty.

Glenn Guy, Travel Photography Guru