Recently, I have been taking a moment to look at other known photographers who’s work I find appealing. By looking at these photographers, I am inspired to try new styles and continue with my practice for this art. On my Instagram page (@Heavysmilemedia), I began to follow multiple accounts dedicated to photography as well as photographers. Some of these are dedicated specifically to online media viewers and others are popular cross media platforms.
One of the most famous pages that I love looking at is National Geographic. In particular, I love looking at the way different photographers portray the lighting and camera angles during a portrait photo shoot. I think the way that lighting is tweaked and moved around really gives the end results character. There is a specific style that I enjoy and have previously tried mimicking. This includes a hard light from above enough to illuminate the subject while a black backdrop is set. This really gives the subject and intense look.
Some of the more internet oriented photographers that I love keeping up with would be Bryant Eslava, Andy Deluca and Brandon Woelfel. All three have very unique styles and I think that this is what attracts me to their work.
Bryant Eslava loves to play around with warm colors and grain to give his visuals a very vintage look. Much of his work consists of the use of natural light and outside settings. He is able to use what is around him to create wonderful photographs. He has worked with various types of cameras both digital and film. Though he has worked with many celebrities and models, Eslava is sure to include internet personalities such as David Dobrik, Emma Chamberlain and Ethan and Grayson Dolan.
Andy Deluca is a photographer that works along side performers during concerts, shows, festivals and tours. Recently, Deluca has been traveling along side The Chainsmokers and the Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer on their World War Joy tour across the US and Canada. Similar to Eslava, Andy Deluca loves to play with retro styles of editing and grain. However, Deluca’s work is more so focused on action shots during shows. Due to lighting not being constant during performances, his shots are primarily on the darker side. He also uses these images that are taken to produce graphic design enriched posters that reflect the punk rock scene of the 1970’s.
Brandon Woelfel is another photographer that I believe really stands out in the way he creates his own style. What I have mainly noticed with his work is that Woelfel loves to play with the cooler tone colors, primarily purple and blue. His color grading is tuned down to the cooler colors giving the image a very cinematic feeling. Another thing that is very noticeable when viewing his work is that he loves to keep his images sharp, in focus and contrasted. In his images, the focus is never set to an equal level of the background and the foreground, he makes it very clear that the main focus is the subject in the front view. Woelfel never forgets to keep the blacks as dark as they can be, and the color to a subtle dim in vibrance. In terms of the objects he likes to include in his pieces, Brandon Woelfel loves to play with lights. In a majority of his work, the model is shown to be interacting with some sort of light providing the intensity of light on the model to vary due to the distance from the source.
These are only a couple of the photographers that I like to gain inspiration from. By looking at these photos I have analyzed and learned more about different techniques used to created these wonderful pieces.
Heavy Smile Media 