Inspiration in photography. These are the word that come to mind when I think about the art form. “Divine guidance or influence exerted directly on a human mind or soul” is one definition of inspiration and it expresses my understanding of the word. The visual arts have always been something of interest to me.
Drawing first grabbed my attention; it has been one of my primordial passions since my hand was strong enough to grab a pencil. After my teen years, I tried my hand at watercolor painting. However, something was still missing, so I came to the conclusion that watercolor painting was not IT!
In the meantime, I felt it necessary to buy a digital compact camera to document some of my nature explorations with friends and trips with my beloved wife. Finally, it became unavoidable with the birth of my little princess. I bought a Canon Powershot A60 if I remember correctly, and it did its job in the following years, but only as a tool, since that was its only purpose. It served as something to document memories without much effort.
On a trip to Barcelona, a friend brought his Nikon D5000 and I observed the photos he took with it and compared them with mine. At that moment I realized something was deeply wrong and it was not with his photos but mine. That’s when I asked him, “Why are your photos so different from mine?” Different, in this case, meant better. What I got as an answer was a micro-tutorial on the difference between types of cameras and some photography tips, something very light in nature, but despite being new to photography and knowing very little about it, it was very easy to understand what I was doing wrong (or what I wasn’t doing right). A little bit of technical information, photographic composition, consciousness of how the light influences time and space. It was the first time I felt something change inside, a small breeze, a new fragrance in the air, I truly felt the first moment of inspiration in photography.
Not even a year after I let go of my digital compact camera (rest in peace my old friend), and following that little bit of inspiration that left me restless, I gathered enough resources to make the “capital investment” and finally bought a Canon 450D (Rebel XSi). It made me feel humble and wary in this wonderful world of photography. Obviously, “wonderful” doesn’t mean being free of hard work and study. Frustrated would be the word I’d use to describe my state of mind for a long time in those days and I believe it would have been the title of this article back then. I felt so many times that my early and primordial inspiration had tricked me, but nowadays, I look back and think that maybe it was just a trial I had to go through, a hard path that we all have to walk before we see the light.
That light came in the form of a book published in Portuguese – Fotografia, Luz, Exposição, Composição, Equipamento (photography, light, exposure, composition, equipment) by Joel Santos (an awarded Portuguese photographer) that provided the foundations for my knowledge simply and clearly. Most photography books I read were overly technical, complex and without the precious tips that experience brings. But this one was different. This time, inspiration came as a gust of wind that raised me to the clouds.
This was my second moment of inspiration and this time, finally, I realized that photography isn’t just the capture of reality; it’s the privilege of conveying to others the beauty we observe. In a single image, we can show the beauty of a landscape in its ideal conditions making it magical, human beauty at its highest exponent, showing true emotions and the social and ethnographic soul, a story of a thousand words, the invisible world that escapes us right before our eyes.
Today, having already owned a Canon 6D for 2 years, the entry-level for the full-frame and the first time I had contact with this format, I feel this is one more step on the long road to get increasingly more quality. I believe that the fact that I’m never satisfied with the photos I take is the key element in my evolution as a photographer, much more than simply competing with other photographers. I feel the urge to achieve perfection, something that I know to be impossible, but like the rest of humanity, I always tend to chase what’s impossible.
So we come to the importance of this word in our lives – inspiration – we all need it at some point, this breeze, wind or storm that guides us to different directions or destinations, makes us leap into this unknown and exciting world. It comes in many ways, a photo, a photographer whose work we admire, a stunning sunset, a special moment that happens and vanishes forever. The important thing to do is seize that moment of inspiration in photography and accept the changes it brings within us.
Finally, it’s impossible for me not to mention an issue that is connected to this topic: I usually visit several photography websites and see offensive and destructive “reviews” in beginners’ work, sometimes accused of being low in quality or copying a professional photographers style. People tend to forget that we all have to start somewhere, just like when we’re young; we see things from a different viewpoint and mimic words and gestures from the ones we admire before we get our own adult viewpoint and personality. It’s all part of growing up in this world, the last thing we need is arrogant and harsh words, that little candlelight that is inspiration might fade away in a single blow.
Each photo we take is a moment of inspiration in photography. Each one is a step towards the next one, moving forward, progressing, evolving and dreaming that someday we can have the privilege of becoming ourselves, that wind of inspiration that inspires future photographers.
Miguel Pereira was born in 1975 in Setubal, Portugal. This is where he works as a computer technician, a job whose expertise helped him enter the world of digital photography. Miguel loved all visual arts from very early on, but photography is a passion that came later on in his life, starting in a serious way around 2011. The next year, Miguel competed in a contest in the monthly magazine O Mundo da Fotografia Digital and won the first prize. His work is both in color and black & white and he has a special love for long-exposure effects. Ultimately, photography encompasses another passion of his which is the exploration of the natural world.