I make videos to inspire and empower creatives. By documenting my own journey of finding myself as an artist and sharing the things I learn along the way, I hope to leave a trail that helps someone find their own path.
I’ve always been into art, photography, music, design, animation, drawing, cinema…I’m a creative jack of all trades, master of none. Through my experiences I hope to learn and share the overarching principles that drive our work and our creative lives. Creativity is a powerful tool for making our own lives more fulfilling while inspiring and affecting others.
My videos are often longer and overly detailed, but I’m not the energetic, bouncing around, ‘ADHD’ type. So grab your beverage of choice and come chill while we talk about creativity and how we can use it to enrich our lives and the lives of those we create for.
Thank you so much! I wanted to make videos about topics I had to go digging for and figure out myself. If I wasn’t learning anything researching a video, I’d scrap a topic fast. I tried a gear review once but it wasn’t my thing. This was my favorite series to make by far.
@@VinnyLePes Yes, I'm also always looking for inspiration, for little compositional nuggets that could improve my photography and spark some ideas. Much appreciated!
Vinny, where did you disappear to? Your series on painterly photos really opened my eyes and this video in particular is amazing. I'm going to watch several times
Thanks man, it’s good to feel missed. I love hearing my videos opened things up for you. That’s the best reward. I miss making videos and interacting with everyone here. I could say I’ve been planning the world’s slowest comeback…but one day I’ll make it happen! 🤘
The books may be interesting with beautiful images, but with the glare of the light on the pages, the images are impossible to see. Except of course when you put them on the screen.
coming from an actual realistic, classical oil-painter who also goes out to shoot photographs a lot (pretty much inside I paint and outside I shoot), I have to request: please adopt a different manner of describing whatever it is that you mean with 'painterly' It's not. for instance: if you want to create a shiny spot while painting, you mainly darken everything else. you really plan the thing out. while with photography you're chasing, running around and trying to catch that glimpse, like one tries to hook a fish. very different.
I want to take a moment to address this because I feel it warrants some elaboration. First off: I totally understand what you mean. "Painterly" is a tenuous comparison at best, and pointless at worst. I feel that part of what makes a photograph "painterly" is applying that same level of planning and detail in your photography as a painter must do, not simply documenting what is in front of the lens and touching up the results. If you took to your camera with the same mindset as your paintings--planning every detail and controlling every choice along the way--or even abstracting things to the point they become graphic--you would see a clear shift in your work. "Painterly" gives that shift a name that people immediately understand. I have yet to find a better term out there in the wild and this has resonated with a lot of people who want to take their work in a similar direction. Phrases like "Attentive Photography" or "Considered Photography" or whatever else one might call this fail to resonate and quickly describe the goal as well as "painterly". I know painterly photography is a contentious term for some people, and that's ok with me. I personally went on a journey of "what is it that makes this photograph look like a painting and that photograph is obviously not? What am I seeing that I can't put my finger on? What would I need to do to get that look in my own work?". I was amazed by the work of photographers such as Leiter, Crewdson, Olaf, and Uta Barth (whom I originally had in my series but eventually omitted out of respect because I heard in an interview she shares your opinion that photography should never be called "painterly"). I didn't coin the term, clearly, and I understand the contention. I felt it was important to pin down what I was seeing and to help others know what to look for to get a certain look in their work as well. I didn't want to let the boundaries of purism stop me from answering a burning question and sharing what I find with others on their own similar journeys. Along the way, I discovered there was very little information on the "how", and quite a lot of people out there trying to answer the same question. When I started trying to figure it out for myself, I discovered a lot of tangible ways that photography and painting are approached and perceived differently. I made this series to help other photographers find their own way to elevating their own work to the level of detail and craftsmanship that is often more a hallmark of painters than photographers. I also discovered there is less of a bright line between the two media than one might expect. If nothing else, learning a bit of what goes on in the mind of a painter helps photographers learn things that aren't as commonly talked about in photography circles, such as imposing a meaningful color scheme, doing studies before approaching the final piece, etc. In the end I am infinitely glad I put this series together. It is my most loved series based on the feedback I have received. Years since my last upload, people still reach out regularly to thank me for this series and to share their favorite "painterly" photographers. So while I do agree to some degree with the criticism, in the end I am glad I didn't let semantics or purism hold me back. My goal with starting a RU-vid channel was to connect with people and this series has resonated with so many people I couldn't be more grateful to my past self for putting it together. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I do find it to be an interesting discussion that raises more questions about where the boundaries are between media, and if those boundaries really exist, and if we should allow those boundaries to limit our work or our conversation around art.
Awesome series Vinny! Really looking forward to the next videos! A lot of great ideas from music I take to my artwork with screenprint and even storytelling too! For music I also like to check out the composition series by Ryan Leach from time to time. Wishing you an awesome week, cheers!
Thanks for a very nice and well put together review. I was more or less familiar with all from history of photography class, and have been very interested for a long time in the work of Hido and Crewdson. One thing that seeing ryour review is common to all is the treatment of light,, either finding it, as Fan Ho does, or using silicon and post processing as Hido, or assembling a crew of 40 people to control every single light in a scene as Crewdson. Soft light and controlled transitions are part of the trick. But one thing i particularly like and to which I adhere to is what you said of Hido: photographing as a documentarian and processing like an artist. Congrats!
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Irene! I’m glad you enjoyed it. Light is everything in photography. It can sound like a cliche but I genuinely feel that photographers who treat it as such miss out. They are always chasing all the wrong things to get the look they want when the answer is often that the light is not working for the scene. It sounds so obvious that I think many overlook the power of just really paying attention to what light does in different situations.
@@VinnyLePes About Gerard Rancinan, French youngest photoreporter (15 yo) 5 World Press award, a picture sold 260.000 € ( auction, best price in France) many exhibitions here and there etc...
Totally know the feeling. Mine’s a mess again, haha. I guess I just have to accept this is the cycle of creating and destroying…or am I just creating and destroying my sanity? 🤔 But hey thanks for dropping by!
I don't know what I did to get this video showing up in my home feed but it was such a delight and really insightful. I'm a product photographer and my images lean almost more towards 3D renders in style than paintings and I'd love to bring more of this tactile feel to my images.
Thank you for this video! I was just thinking about this crossover and looked up the topic! You popped up. Thank you for making the idea easier to understand
Thank you for the comment, Anna! I'm glad this video found its way to you and hope it was insightful 🙂. Design thinking personally gave me some much needed structure.
Yes of course! Thank you for the reminder. I really regret the oversight, to be honest it's embarrassing. Uta Barth was in my original script, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to pay more attention to the diversity of the photographers I included. I discovered in an interview she doesn't like being described as "painterly" and doesn't feel photography needs to be compared to painting, so I felt it would be disrespectful. I don't know why it didn't occur to me at the time that my series was so exclusive. If I return to making videos, I will surely put more effort toward highlighting a more inclusive range of artists. I appreciate the comment!
If you like the kind of work in this series, here are a number of women in photography you may also enjoy! Julia Fullerton-Batten is phenomenal and would be high on my list. She has actually done some re-creations of well-known paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites that are just stunning. Helen Van Meene's work has a painterly look while also confronting human psychology in a similar way to Crewdson and Olaf from this video. Manjari Sharma stands out to me as well. Her Shower Series is intimate and painterly, and her Darshan series blew me away. They are large scale dioramas that hardly resemble photography in the finished work, achieving a surreal and vibrant look that is just gorgeous. Uta Barth, as I mentioned, doesn't prefer the term "painterly", but her work was a huge inspiration when I was researching this series. Her use of composition, texture and simplicity are what initially drew me to her work. She has a wonderful eye for minimalism and mundane beauty. Paulette Tavormina has some wonderfully painterly still life work. It absolutely blurs the line between a long history of oil painters modern photography. Many of Ira Bordo's portraits look and feel like a modern take on the Dutch masters. Many of her subjects look like they were carved from marble, as well. Julie Blackmon's mise-en-scéne is incredible, with that painterly attention to staging and details highlighting more light-hearted subject matter around family. I could keep going but at this point another video has almost written itself! Do you have any more names I should check out?
Two degrees in photography (pre-digital) and years of teaching digital photo, but never had broken down what it is that achieves that beautiful, saturated, and totally believeable image quality.
I never got anything like this in my classes, either! It took me longer than I'd like to discover these principles. I spent many years looking in the wrong places 😅
I see now, everything other than Beneath the Roses is now prohibitively expensive. (They are linked in the description in case you missed that.) Some alternatives by the same artists: Todd Hido - Intimate Distance contains a retrospective and I think it also includes much of Between the Two as well as House Hunting. I originally would have suggested House Hunting, which was out of print and too pricey at the time, but has now been re-released. Check out House Hunting if you enjoy that series, or Intimate Distance if you just want to see a lot of his work in one place. Crewdson: Beneath the Roses is still in print at the original price. Now that Cathedral of the Pines is getting expensive, he released a more affordable edition called Alone Street that contains some of the same work and a new series (which was only for collectors). I believe this was done to intentionally keep something accessible in print while the monographs continue to become further out of reach. Erwin Olaf: I Am is a retrospective that contains a comprehensive set of his work. I think today that is the one to get since the first ones are so pricey now. I always wanted the first self-titled book but it was out of reach for me even five years ago! I haven't seen any other Saul Leiter books in person, but I do know other publishers have put out some of his street work in color. I really thought Early Color would have a re-release by now, to be honest. I don't know of any other Fan Ho books to recommend as I only have the one. Hope this helps!
I didn’t think I was familiar but it turns out I’ve been following his Instagram. His work is consistently delightful, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll spend some more time learning about him now.
I like how you break down the app and it made me understand how to get started with using Vero. One thing tho, the music in the background of the video is a bit distracting, maybe lower the volume down just a tad next time XD
No worries! I do appreciate when people point out things I’ve missed because I learn something new :). Just having some fun about it, thanks for watching and reaching out with some feedback. I see your point though I don’t always read the comments before making my own either!!
i just write page by page literally anything that comes to mind no need to be so methodical that's what turns me away from journaling is all the rigid systems people live by when they write in their little notebooks, like there is really no need for all these rules no one is gonna read your journal.
Hey thanks! That's great feedback, I appreciate it. The slower pace isn't for everyone but I am not a fan of most RU-vid pacing so here we are. Attention spans seem so short these days, but it's hard to learn anything meaningful in a hurry!
Fan Ho didn't 'wait' as much as you think he did mate. "Approaching Shadow" for instance was done in edit and the girl in the image was his cousin who he posed for the shot. That's not always the case obviously, but it's worthy of note.
My house, my choice. And it’s easier than messing with my hair. And I like hats. And I was too poor for cotillion so I didn’t learn to GAF. I have my reasons. Why not? I’m alone so there’s no one I’m being rude to 😏
are you still using VERO? If so, do you still like it? I am looking to find an alternative to instagram etc. But can't find any current reviews on VERo.
I still use it and like it, they just rolled out some updates. To be honest though, I haven’t been very active on any platform lately. The only real change I wish I’d see on Vero is more people coming over from Instagram haha. Its a great platform it’s just missing people, like many social media alternatives.
@@UnbrandedLifestyle I do still use Instagram, since most people I need to interact with are on there, but I feel the right amount of dirty about supporting a Facebook product haha. I’m also tired of them changing the UI to copy whatever competing app is popular that year. I have abandoned Facebook though. I have to draw the line somewhere 🤣. The new Vero release is still heading in the right direction for me. More about promoting content and sharing your taste and less about making you a product. I’m hoping when another round of people get tired of the status quo that another bandwagon will move over or at least give it a try. I still think it’s a better platform for artists, and due to privacy and data collection concerns with Facebook, I feel it’s a better platform for society as well.
@@VinnyLePes I think I know how you feel! I’m giving Vero a try and can’t help but to think that I’ll still need my Instagram for the connections. Thank you for your insights!! You’re doing a great thing with your channel, keep going!
