why i shoot my own reference photos

I returned to school to get my Master's degree in biology after working for a decade in corporate game development and film. After so many years of creative production pipelines, I started a journey of discovering what type of art I want to make for myself.

I grew up drawing constantly- especially once I was in middle school. We didn't have a lot of screens in the house, so our spare time was generally spent outside. In rural-ish central Indiana, we had the luxury of a big backyard that led out to the woods and a creek. I didn't grow up knowing the names of the trees or birds, but I had a connection to nature. We'd find crawdads along the riverbank, garter snakes in the yard, and mourning doves coo'ing in the crabapple trees. As I've gotten older, I've been working on getting back to my roots. I want my art- even if it's mostly digital- to get me outside. But how?

the camera connection

I had a life-altering back injury in March 2020, just as COVID hit the U.S. For years, I was in a gradual state of recovery physically and mentally. This led me to birding because walking was one gentle activity that I could enjoy in the turbulence of the injury. From the very beginning, I skipped the binoculars and started birding with a camera.

Other than a single film photography class I took in high school, I barely knew how to interact with the hardware. I began by borrowing my mom's dusty Nikon D80, an old DSLR from the early 2000's. Since then, I have upgraded several times and taken photos of thousands of bug, bird, and mammal species, many of which are local to the Midwest. This made my world bigger as a person in general, but also specifically as an artist.

I love to go outside, find something new, and make art based off of what I've observed. That can involve going to a natural area for bird photos, walking in city alleys to find flowers, or visiting a museum to take photos of taxidermy. I am constantly surprised by what nature I can find within 100 feet of my urban apartment. Within a few months of getting started, my photography collection began to form my very own reference library as an artist.

When I take my own references, I capture not only the pixels but also the memory of witnessing the subject. Even years after I take a shot, I can recall the time and place of the moment as I scroll through thousands of files. There is so much more wonder in a photograph when I was the one that captured it. My heart starts to race as I am whisked back to the late afternoon that I watched a pair of waxwings share elderberries or when I saw short-eared owls swoop down into dune grass against a pink sunset.

And the best part? I got out of the house, away from my computer, and into fresh air. Over and over and over again.

something special is right in front of you

We are constantly exposed to photos of novel things on social media. Whoever can show you the most surprising image wins the algorithm game. While in some ways this has made us more aware of lesser-known features of nature around the world, it has also made our appreciation of those things very shallow. There's a lot that you can't glean from a random image on Google Search. How fast does the animal move? What does the leaf feel like? Is the bee smaller or bigger than you expected?

Experiencing the outdoors through a screen is only a tiny fraction of what it's like to see it in person, and it's easy to underestimate the diversity of nature within our reach. When we are flooded with images and videos of exotic animals, it can lead to the false impression that "nature" is something far away, out of reach, and exclusive to protected places.

I had a conversation with a French coworker a few months ago in which I talked about how I wanted to see European robins. Her immediate reaction was badly much she wanted to see American robins! The next time I went outside, I saw our beautiful backyard birds in a different light. They were all I took took photos of for weeks. I would stop in my tracks to watch them dig up worms, the juveniles with floppy feathers hopping along behind their mom. The allure of exoticism makes us excited about rare animals around the world- but what about the amazing animals hanging out in our backyards that are exotic and rare to someone else?

get out there!

I wanted my experience making art to stretch in many dimensions. I wanted it to be based on an intimacy with my subject, rather than an abstraction of it.

I can search Google images for reference photos (and often still do!) but when possible, I opt to lace up my sneakers, pack up my camera, and find the subject for myself. The beginning of my art starts long before my pen hits my tablet, and the more often it begins outside, the happier I am.