My Influences - Harold Feinstein

“You must photograph where you are involved; where you are overwhelmed by what you see before you; where you hold your breath while releasing the shutter, not because you are afraid of jarring the camera, but because you are seeing with your guts wide open to the sweet pain of an image that is part of your life.”

— Harold Feinstein

© Harold Feinstein Photography

Have you heard of Harold Feinstein? He was an American photographer, born in 1931, he started his photography career at 15 years old in New York! I can’t imagine picking up anything at 15 and having that be THE thing that I get to do for the rest of my life. He has a very broad range of subjects from Coney Island, portraits, nature, and of course the ones that speak to me the most, flowers and butterflies. 

Of course, you can see that his style of photographing butterflies is different than how I photograph butterflies. His work is beautiful studio lighting with preserved butterflies and I go out in nature, and to places like Butterfly Wonderland, to photograph the butterflies as they fly all around. These photographs of Harold’s are an inspiration to me because his work is ALWAYS fantastic, the details of the butterflies show off their brilliant colors and patterns, and they are just so real that I expect them to fly off the page.

© Harold Feinstein Photography

One of the things that I appreciate so much in finding an artist that inspires you is you find someone who does work that you love and you think, how can I make something from this that inspires me!? His photos often show the inside of the wings but think it is so interesting when the work shows the beauty of the wings from the inside, where we always think about the exquisite beauty and shows the outside of the wings as well. It is fascinating to see some butterflies, like a Blue Morpho butterfly, that has spots on the outsides of its wings and a vivid blue on the inside.

I don’t remember exactly when I discovered Harold’s work but I believe it was after he passed away in 2015. I was struck by his work and started to collect the different books that he published. My two favorite books are The Infinite Tulip and the Infinite Rose because I love to see the very wide variety of both these types of flowers.

Now that you have had a brief introduction to Harold Feinstein take a bit of time to check out some of his other work as well. Click here to go to his website. Let me know what some of your favorite work is of his!

My Influences - Imogen Cunningham

“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”

— Imogen Cunningham

MAGNOLIA BLOSSOM, 1925/Imogen Cunningham

Sometimes it is hard to place where or when you learn about an artist. I can’t quite remember where I learned about Imogen Cunningham only because I took A LOT of art history while in school. I learned about her in either my photography art history class or my women’s art history, but it is very likely I learned about her in both classes. I know for sure, though, that I learned about her again in my photography art history class in graduate school and this is where she made the biggest impact on me and on my work.

Anyhow, all of that said, I have loved her work for, well, forever! Imogen Cunningham photographed flowers, nudes, still lifes, and self-portraits. She was part of a photography group f.64, with many famous names that I just ohhhhhhed and ahhhhhed over wishing I could have been there to learn from them. which was a progressive group that was pursuing sharp focused images.

I have been inspired by her work with the subject matter of her work, as I have photographed many of the same subjects throughout my photography career, but most certainly her floral work. I love the way that light falls on her sharp focused images and how, even though her work is in black and white, you can almost visualize the colors of the flowers. Her work inspired me to take a look at flowers close-up, but in my own way, discovering my own photographic voice.

Is there an artist, or someone who works your the field that you are in, that inspires you? How did that person influence your work? I love when you find someone or something that inspires you to find your own ideas!

My Influences - Georgia O'Keeffe

“Someone else’s vision will never be as good as your own vision of yourself. Live and die with it ‘cause in the end, it’s all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.

”

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Abstraction White Rose, 1927/Georgia O’Keeffe

Many years ago, when I was an undergrad, I took a women's study art history class that featured many wonderful female artists. This is where I remember having an in-depth introduction to Georgia O'Keeffe's work. Little did I realize how heavily she would influence my work in graduate school!

Georgia said, “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things that I had no words for.” This was how I felt! I was a new graduate student, trying to find my subject, while living in San Francisco and I felt lost. When I started photographing flowers I found that I feel the same way about being able to express myself through shapes and color. I found that to be super inspirational! There I was photographing flowers up-close with my macro lens, discovering a distinctly unique world that you would never see when just viewing flowers from a distance.

I could quote Georgia over, and over, and obviously will, but she had so many things to say that just resonate with me toward my work. Talking about a flower she said, “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”

Each and every time I look into her work and hear her quotes about her work I think, yes, she really knew what she was talking about!

One of the things I learned in studying Georgia O’Keeffe’s large paintings of abstract flowers was that it allowed viewers to look at her subject of flowers in a different way. Each of her paintings gives you a new and intriguing perspective on what a flower can look like when you take a deep look within.

This work has been a huge inspiration to just stop and look closer at what you are choosing to create as an artist. Working through the lens of the camera, and moving back and forth to find just what I want to capture, is not fast work, it is an enjoyable, slow-paced work that takes me into a different world!

Red Canna, 1923/Georgia O’Keeffe

My Influences - Edward Weston

Pepper No. 30, 1930/Edward Weston

I thought it would be fun to share some artists who have influenced me and my work. There are quite a few artists that have influenced me over the years but I am going to start off with my all-time favorite photographer, Edward Weston.

I was first introduced to the work of Edward Weston in my undergraduate History of Photography class. His work has inspired me from the first time I saw it. There is an amazing book called “Art and Fear” and in there, there was a description of their reactions to the first time they viewed Weston’s nudes. They said that there was the work in front of them and there was everything else; nothing else compared to Weston’s work, and that is the same way I felt when I saw it.

Weston had a great eye for the flow of the line whether it was in his peppers, shells, or in what he was most famous for his nudes. His photographs have given me a great interest in finding the beauty of the form within common objects. In the image above, Pepper No. 30, 1930, I feel drawn to the long lines that twist and flow into each other. It is almost as if two people are drawing each other into an embrace. This photograph offers up an invitation to stop and take in the beauty that we are too busy to stop and see.

This practice of looking at an object that is around your house was a big inspiration to me. I loved the idea of taking an object and looking at it in a totally new way. This allows us to draw out the beauty that so often we overlook.

I will leave with you one of my favorite quotes.

“Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.”

-Edward Weston