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In Love With Light - part 3 of 1 2 3 4

by Jerry Ghionis Published 01/12/2012

"I'm always trying to beat last week's effort. But beyond that, if we're talking about general inspiration then fashion, music and cinema are the three things that guide me the most. One of the first photographers I paid attention to in my career was Herb Ritts. His photography was unadulterated, beautiful, pure and timeless, and that's something I aspire to in my own work."

Jerry makes sure that he always puts plenty of himself into his approach. "To evoke more emotion from your subjects you need to be proactive as well as reactive on a wedding day," he says. "If you want your couples to have personality and to be fun and flamboyant, then arguably you have to be fun and flamboyant with them. Your couples will mirror your energy. At my full day seminar I'll be sharing with my audience many techniques that have served me well over the years."

Staying original

One of the most regular questions asked of Jerry over the years is how does he manage to stay so original at the same time as telling audiences around the world the secrets of what he's doing? "Simple," he says. "You can be inspired by something or someone else. Often, if you copy from one person, people consider that plagiarism. If you copy from many then they call that research. It can be very difficult to think of something new in an industry where everything has supposedly been done before.

My encouragement to anyone who has this problem is not to be overwhelmed with the thought that every click of the camera has to be completely original. Some people take different shots just for the sake of being different but with no thought process or at the sake of the craft, and in many ways that's worse than being unoriginal.

"Early in my career I challenged myself to take one single image during that wedding or shoot, such as a different light situation, pose, crop and so on. When that became easy I challenged myself to do a different shot during every part of the day, such as at the groom's home, bride's home, ceremony and location. I would pressure myself to do a shot that I had never done before.

"When that too became easy I then moved on to trying to do a different shot in every situation that I was in, and I still work in that way today. That elusive 'wow' shot stimulates me to keep trying something new. Living in the comfort zone has never been synonymous with artistic expression."

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1st Published 01/12/2012
last update 09/12/2022 14:56:09

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