#insta_view

http://www.roomtheagency.com/c/leannestaples/ https://plus.google.com/+LeanneStaples/posts  by [email protected]

This insta_view can be republished but it must credit RooM the Agency and link directly to the source.

BIOGRAPHY

Leanne is an urban photographer based in New York where she not only teaches online photography classes but also works as a licensed tour guide. On top of that she’s officially “one of the nicest photographers” on Google+ as well, so it’s our pleasure to introduce the lovely Leanne!

You don’t seem to have taken up mobile photography yet… and Instagram is one of the only main social networks that you don’t have a presence on. Will you be making room for it in your life?

Mobile photography seems impossible for me. I find it difficult to compose shots and it just feels clumsy. I am used to having something with more substance and weight in my hands. I do take the occasional shot as a reminder of a place that I want to shoot again at a later date. As for Instagram, I recently rejoined it, but I only post photos taken with cameras, not mobile phones.

Photography is an art that is known for it’s evolutionary process - does it become tougher each year to learn new tricks?

For me, the only limitations I experience in advancing my work are with myself. I tend to go through different periods of shooting certain subjects or processing in certain styles until I get bored. (I get bored on a regular basis.) Then I start experimenting with new subjects and processing techniques. Photography and art are only limited by one’s imagination and willingness to constantly experiment and not fear failure.

There is an ongoing debate about photography still being a male dominated profession with the majority of veteran successful photographers being men. Do you feel that women still don’t get taken as seriously as they should and is there a difference in the way men and women produce images… or do you feel that its just a case of great photographers take great images?

As a woman I have to say that this is a question that has haunted me for many years. When I was in my teens and considering photography as a career, I was unable to find women as role models. I was unable to find a niche that spoke to me. That was a time well before the internet and I had no idea that photographers like Diane Arbus and Helen Levitt existed. As a result, I did not pursue photography as a profession at that point in my life.

If there’s a difference between men and women photographers it could be that many women produce art for arts sake and men produce as a career. That said, when it comes to photography produced by women and men they are equally talented.

You’re quite an ‘influencer’ with over 1.5 million followers on Google+. Do you feel a big responsibility with regard to what you post, how often you post and how you interact with your followers?

Social media is a double-edged sword. It has democratized photography as a profession. Before the internet the work of many photographers past and present would’ve gone unknown. The only method of seeing photography before social media and the internet was in museums, galleries and books. The chances of getting your work accepted into that world that was difficult at best.

Now we live in a world that is bombarded with images and likes on social sites are free and since everyone owns a camera now, it has become more difficult to actually make a living selling photography. I contribute to a number of social sites but as I need to have time to create and to make a living, I limit my time online. As for having a responsibility with regard to what I post, I tend to post photos that I am currently in the mood for.

Sally Mann said “I get seduced by visual aesthetics. Because I just like making beautiful pictures, sometimes I wander away from making a clear statement”. Is that something you can relate to and do you feel that much of what it produced today in this throw away society we all live in, is perhaps lacking any statement at all?

I guess that I think of my work in a post-modern light. That is to say that what a photograph means to me is not important. Each person reads an image in their own way. If I am successful, an image speaks to others. I only hope that it isn’t pedantic, that there is only one way to interpret an image. So to answer your question, I don’t know that I neatly fit into either camp that you mention. But then I’m not certain that I am able to be totally objective about my own work as I am too close to it.

Visual communication seems to be taking over as the primary form of expression and there are obviously good and bad sides to this but what do you see as the biggest benefits that photography has brought society – and conversely do you see any drawbacks?

Photography as an art form is very important to me. In contrast, the majority of images that we see on a day to day basis are forms of advertising. The biggest problem I see is that as a culture we tend to be visual illiterates and that we don’t tend to take the time to understand the meaning in the images that we view.

http://www.roomtheagency.com/c/photoartbyshannon/ https://www.facebook.com/photoartbyshannon/  by [email protected]

This insta_view can be republished but it must credit RooM the Agency and link directly to the source.

BIOGRAPHY

Pennsylvania based Shannon is only 28 and a mother to 5 - Anastasia Eve, Lillith Marie, Emily Wynter, Hayley Jade and Ian Jasper. Although not yet a mobile photography convert, she creates poignant and striking images that speak to your soul.

Life must be pretty hectic in your household with 5 young children so getting everyone involved in your photography as models seems like a great way of doing something as a family whilst allowing you to do something you love. Was it a conscious decision to do that or were they willing subjects from the get go? Yes, we have a pretty hectic household. My 5 children are 9, 8, 7, 6, 4 and 3 of my children are also disabled like myself. We have lots of appointments but we always make time to spend with each other. My children love photography, they use my point and shoot Sanyo camera. This camera was one of my first point and shoots that I loved. Now I've moved onto my dSLR Canon Rebel t3 Camera. The kids love playing roles in our photography. I'll give them a line and script like an actor/actress and they play out the parts to the best of their ability i.e.: " You’re in the woods and a bear is coming. Show this emotion". They ask every weekend to have photo shoots with me. Richard Avedon said “my portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph”. Is that something you think is generally true – and perhaps even more so when photographing your own children? It all depends on the person, with our photography we use life events, deaths, births, hardships etc. Whatever we all are feeling at the time gets brought out into our photos. If were having a hard day, I tend to make a more descriptive photo to show what has happened, but in our own creative way. With my children, they have come to me with their own ideas and I help them with makeup, and clothing and they pose themselves while I go with the flow and take their photos, along with process them with their ideas no matter how strange the requests are. "My 6 year old daughter Hayley wanted a tea party with an Elephant, we drew on paper an idea of what she wanted, and we went with it" You got your first dSLR about 2 years ago, having previously only had a point and shoot and you’ve only been working with Photoshop for about 5 months. Do you think being completely self-taught, learning by playing with buttons and going through a process of trial and error, brings a different perspective to your photography as you don’t have to follow set rules? Yes I've always had a knack for photography, when I was younger we had 35mm cameras, I had a class in school where we developed photos in a dark room. I had a few point and shoot cameras, and always wanted to try a DSLR camera, but due to how big they were I was afraid to have to carry it around with me due to size and weight. I finally got a Canon Rebel T3 camera and just love it. With Photoshop, I was not a fan of it at first, I wasn't sure on buttons, actions, gradients, etc. I used paint.net, Gimp, Photo monkey and a few others that I downloaded. They were all pretty basic and I started learning from there. Since about October 2013 I've been playing with Photoshop. One day I just started putting my kids in different backgrounds, and then it all started from there. I looked at a few tutorials but that was someone else’s perspective, and I wanted to do my own things. I started playing with buttons, making actions and brushes, I've taken simple things such as snow and turned it into sand. It’s a lot of trial and error, if I don't feel the image I will delete it and start over. I never put anything together completely unless I'm absolutely in love with it and I am able to look at the image and be able to think about it and what its meaning is to us. You’re obviously very creative as you also paint but where do you get your inspiration from, how long do you spend editing your images and do you have a vision of the end product before you start working on a shot or is that something that comes to you gradually? I am a very creative person in the artsy world. I think outside of the box with pretty much anything that I do. I like to be unique and different than others. My kids, my mother and brother are my inspirations, along with things we've seen in books, life events that happen on tv or where ever we go, I looked in a book with my daughter, a simple ISPY book and seen a key hole, That small object gave me an inspiration to do a photo with a keyhole. My photos generally take me about 2-4 hours to finish, depending on details. I have never had a photo take me more than 4-1/2 hours to complete. Most times I think in my head what I want to do and what it will look like, some times I've drawn out what I want to accomplish. Some times however I will work on something and have an idea ready but if I don't feel it I will change it to suit myself.

There is a very established mobile photography art scene and a plethora of editing apps available. You don’t currently shoot on a mobile device but is that something you can imagine trying in future - especially as your children get older and the number of electronic devices in the house increases?! I have used my mobile phone before for landscapes, and have taken random pictures of art that I've seen. I have used a few apps that are on my phone, and loved some of the landscape photos for wallpapers. Also, if I don't have my camera with me when I'm out I will use my phone to capture photos of my children if they are also inspired by something they have seen.

http://www.roomtheagency.com/c/cityscape_nyc http://instagram.com/cityscape_nyc by [email protected] This insta_view can be republished but it must credit RooM the Agency and link directly to the source.

BIOGRAPHY New Yorker, Patrick, has a keen eye for the patterns, colors, shapes, movements, textures and light that define his city. He manages to capture the familiar and make it interesting – he makes us look at our surroundings in a different way. We're big fans of Patrick's work and you can view more of his wonderful images here at RooM the Agency. 

“I soon began to see there were serious mobile photographers out there doing interesting work”

As a long time professional photographer, can you tell us a little bit about your introduction to mobile photography, how it has evolved and what it means to you. Although I had been using my phone to take pictures since I got my first camera-phone a couple of years ago, it wasn’t until a good friend of mine persuaded me to join Instagram earlier this year that I started to take mobile photography seriously. I soon began to see there were serious mobile photographers out there doing interesting work, and I wanted to become a part of that. You joined Instagram last year and you now have over 1,500 followers who you seem to interact quite a lot with. Have you been surprised by how you’ve taken to the app and what, in your view, are the best things about the Instagram community. Yes, I’m a bit surprised at how quickly I took to Instagram. However, from the beginning, I have tried to use Instagram as a serious platform, keeping a consistent theme and feel to my images, and I think this consistency is recognized by those who choose to follow me. 
 One of the things I like best about Instagram is that you can find people in different corners of the world photographing their surroundings in a serious way. So now I can see images every day from Istanbul, Sydney, Tokyo, Norway, anywhere I choose. According to figures published earlier this year, over 500 million images are shared every day. Do you feel that’s a good or a bad thing in the way we view photography and consume imagery?

These figures are great for photography in general because millions now have access to cameras and methods to share their photos. Even professional photographers are now finding new ways to showcase their work, so it’s not a necessity any more to have an expensive professionally designed website. There are many options and photographers now often use several different platforms to reach different audiences, at a fraction of the cost compared to several years ago. Although New York is one of the busiest cities in the world and it’s known as the city that never sleeps, you manage to make it look very peaceful and at times almost deserted. As a born and bred New Yorker, are you deliberately trying to portray a very different image of your city? There are many peaceful places and moments in New York City, so they are not as hard to find as one might think! But, I am not necessarily looking for those. I am trying to portray the everyday New York City scene in a way that is interesting and different. I consider a photo a success if someone says: “Wow, I walk by that thing every day and never noticed it in that way.” Often this means looking for those peaceful moments, or maybe just waiting for people to move out of the way. Other times it means waiting for the color, light or composition to come into a particular balance that may create a serene composition from the madness. But as I walk through the city every day, I am seeing the ordinary street corner or statue or building façade more often than the stereotypical crowded midtown street. Basically I’m just looking for cool shots of New York!

You’ve travelled a lot – especially throughout Japan which is culturally almost as far apart as you can get from America. Do you see things in the same way when you’re shooting in Japan or does being in a different place affect the way you approach your craft?

Shooting in Japan doesn’t affect the way I approach photography, but being in a different place does affect the way I see things­—everything looks interesting! When you’re in a different place you see the same things as at home: streets, stores, buildings, trains; but they’re different streets, stores, buildings and trains and they look different, so they become new and interesting subjects. I tend to shoot more ordinary scenes when I travel, such as storefronts, signs, transportation, people standing on corner. 


“A good photo is a good photo”

There is a definite snobbery in the photography world with some of the more traditional photographers differentiating between “real” and “mobile” photography. Isn’t it all the same at the end of the day no matter what equipment has been used or do you agree with Annie Leibovitz when she said “computer photography won’t be photography as we know it. I think photography will always be chemical”.

www.roomtheagency.com/c/darekm101 http://instagram.com/darekm101  by [email protected] This insta_view can be republished but it must credit RooM the Agency and link directly to the source. BIOGRAPHY When he's not working in his day job as Director of Engineering, Chicago based Darek is a keen landscape photographer. His vibrant, atmospheric photos capture perfect moments in time – not an easy thing to do by any means! Darek has some great images for sale with RooM and his Instagram feed is really worth checking out. 

“Photography being a visual medium doesn’t require people to speak the same language to be understood”

You joined Instagram in May 2011 and your style has definitely evolved during that period as has the way that you use Instagram. Your style now seems more natural, you don’t post as many images each day and you often share the ideas behind your images. How has that process evolved? Thank you for making this observation. I continue to evolve my photography and I am amazed that the process never stops. Everytime I think I am doing good work, all I need to do is pull up images from few yeas ago when I also thought I was also doing good work and re-evaluate those shots. Whenever I do this process, I re-discover two things. First that I’ve grown and second that most likely I still have plenty of room to grow further. In the past I had a problem allocating time to post production and editing. Mobile apps changed that because the entire process of shoot, edit, share was shortened to a single moment on a single device. I got hooked by the immediacy of the experience and as a result practiced more. Before Instagram was popular I used an app called “Best Camera” on iPhone 3G and I think Best Camera missed out by not creating a community around the filters. It was the first popular app, but Instagram came next and nailed the entire workflow by closing the loop on shoot, edit, share. I liked the social aspect of IG, but quickly the very thing that made it attractive (one click filter) became limiting. I wanted more control over-post processing. So I started using Camera+ which was a good stepping stone but still limiting, I switched to Snapseed and Filterstorm which allow more flexibility. Eventually editing on mobile phone was not powerful enough for me, so I went back to desktop to find Lightroom very refreshing for my SLR camera shots. More recently I started pushing the limits of Lightroom and doing more in photoshop. Funny how I came full circle, but now my post production process is long again. I resolve that by editing mobile photos on iphone and using lightroom exclusively for my SLR shots. The best thing is that I doubt anyone can tell which shot originated in which camera. 
 About my posts. I always look at a lot of photographs and try to understand the force behind the most powerful images. I found myself asking a lot of questions about the photography of others.  I figured that maybe others have similar interest in my photos. I posted some of my thoughts and to my surprise there was more engagement from my audience than I expected.  That engagement motivated me to write ever more detailed thoughts. Recently people started asking me if I have a blog, which tells me I need to start one. I think eventually I’d like to collect a some of the best posts and thoughts into an eBook, but I’ll be starting the blog and website first. On the topic of frequency of posts. I’d love to post more often, but I don’t want to post mediocre shots and producing quality work takes time and effort. I also learned to sit on finished images to see them next day when I am removed from the post processing. There are many over processed photos in my feed and waiting one day should help me avoid it in future. What is it about photography and Instagram in particular that you think appeals to people so much and do you think these media transcend cultures and bring people together? Photography being a visual medium doesn’t require people to speak the same language to be understood. Visual language is universal and everyone intuitively understands it. Still photographs especially leave a lot of room for interpretation, and I think that’s what we enjoy about photos. We bring a piece of our own experiences and emotions to someone elses still image. That is, once in a while we’ll come across a photo that resonates with us, we connect to it, and we have a platform in which we can reach out and share that experience with the person that took it. Very often they’ll respond. The byproduct of such exchanges is that we develop familiarity with someone across the world, and isn't that what transcending culture and bringing people together means? We know someone we wouldn’t otherwise. It’s quite amazing. I speak two languages, but I love getting comments in my feed in language I don’t speak.

You’ve previously said that you took up photography when your kids were born in the early 90s so you could take great photos of them. You don’t generally share those images online – is that because you feel that those memories are private and do you feel that there are certain images that people shouldn’t be sharing so readily? I think people should share what they feel comfortable. I love when people post photos of kids on IG that are creative and fun. I often comment on these and encourage the parents to take more. I do not harbor the view that family images are too private for social networks. I think we live in a world where many of us live our lives publicly and it’s okay. 
 To answer the question why I don’t post photos of my kids on IG. It’s a matter of fit for audience. On IG, I’ve developed audience that comes to expect me to post and talk about a creative images. The portraits of my kids have a different purpose. They’re portraits that end up being distributed to family and friends, often via Facebook. Recently I started doing some creative portraits with Anna, one of my daughters who also enjoys creating art, @annam1920. We are in very early stages of creative portraits and for now the work is very amateur, but we’re having a lot of fun with it. Eventually if the work is good enough, I might post some of that on my IG feed, if I feel it’s right for my audience. Head and shoulder photos are not appropriate for my audience. Mobile photography has inspired people take more interest in their photography. Do you think the next generation will be communicating in an even more visual way and is that something that will impact your professional career?

Yes on both counts! 


I think most people will agree that taking and sharing a photo of an experience has more impact on the audience than the written word. This holds true for most of us, apart from really good writers and poets. Also, why do something many consider a chore, when one can easily pull out a mobile phone, snap, edit, share. The mobile photography experience is so fun it’s akin to playing a game. I think people quickly discover that their photos don’t communicate with as much impact as some other photos. That recognition inspires many to try to do better and seek better understanding of the visual language. In my professional career I direct software product design. I spend a lot of time obsessing about visual hierarchy, usability, and things of that sort. I do look to introduce visual communication into our product, but that must be first and foremost appropriate with the business goals. 
 To conclude,  I think we’ve always been visual species ever since the original cave paintings. I think the tools and means to produce visual communication are more accessible lowering the barrier to entry. Also, the cost structure changed for photography, we no longer have to pay to develop each photo we take. This results in massive amount of photos being produced and consumed, which inevitably raises the level of visual literacy for this generation and next. 
 I also think there will be even more visual communication with future generations in ways we can’t anticipate. The entire snapchat phenomenon is fascinating to watch. Snapchat is used mostly by teenagers to send silly faces around and I think it’s a visual communication between two friends who simply found a way to make each other laugh. It’s great!

“The mobile photography experience is so fun it’s akin to playing a game”

You’re a big fan of Ansel Adams and you reference one of his quotes in your Instagram profile - “there are no shortcuts to excellence”. What is it about his photography that inspires you and why do these words particularly resonate with you. I study the masters to understand their secret sauce and to understand what makes a photo timeless and a classic. I understand Ansel Adams secret sauce to be his scene selection and pristine composition, he also spend a lot of time in darkroom, a step we now call post processing. Ansel obsessed about every detail and I aspire to that. I also love the work of many other masters, but I think you’ve already read my other interview so I wont repeat myself. The shortcuts to excellence quote is very apt for photography because many people think that a photo happens when someone pushes a button. Also, as the tools get simpler as with mobile photography, it’s easy to think we’ll be better photographers faster.  Simply push a button, pick a filter, and viola . While the technical side is a lot simpler now, great photography happens in the mind of the photographer.  That’s the focus of many of my posts. This quote also resonates with me because it serves as a reminder that I also need to push my photography into areas previously unexplored. It reminds me not to get content with my current skill set and to explore new areas. As mentioned before I recently ventured into experimental portraits and photoshop compositing. The road the excellence doesn’t have shortcuts and it never ends. What are your personal goals and aspirations with regard to your photography?

Photography has been my hobby for a very long time and there are advantages to that. I can be bold and experiment and push into risky areas because there is no single paycheck on the line. I intend to continue to push into new areas, experiment and learn. Stock photography is a new thing for me and I am eager to learn more about it.

I also enjoy what I do in my day job, so overall I am pretty happy camper.  As a product guy I am very intrigued with what you guys are trying to accomplish with RooM and I am excited and honored to be part of it.