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I get a lot of questions every day about photography, yoyoing, life, etc. and finally decided to just air it all out and give you all some answers. Most of it is pretty straightforward but I every once in a while I get asked some weird crap so I'll do my best to answer some of that as well. Here goes...
Let's start with the basics.
Q: how old are you, and where are you from?
A: I'm 23, soon to be 24. I grew up in a tiny Oregon town of roughly 4,000 people called Philomath, about ten minutes from Oregon State University. It's rural enough that I grew up tromping around in the woods with friends and exploring back roads and abandoned barns and stuff. Once I was old enough to drive, I began to really appreciate the area more. There isn't much to do in the immediate area, but it's an hour from the coast, Portland, Eugene and the cascades all at once, so if you're a little more mobile then there's a ton of scenery to take advantage of. I've been a lot of places, but I've never really wished I grew up anywhere else, so that's something that I'm thankful for.
Q: What setup do you shoot with?
A: My main camera is the 5D mk III. I typically use the Canon 16-35 f/2.8 L with it, especially for astrophotography. Having the option for a wide angle and a classic 35mm look all in one lens is really versatile and important to me. The setup I have can handle night shots, landscapes, lifestyle and some portrait work easily, with the only thing it really lacks being the ability to get in really tight on a subject that's far away. Lately I've been using my iPhone 7+ a lot more than anything though. I absolutely love the tones that come out of this little guy, even though the picture quality isn't as good as with a DSLR. I'm working on saving up for the 24-70 f/2.8 L, and the 70-200 at some point to be able to get in close on those faraway subjects that I've been lacking up until this point.
Q: How do you edit your photos?
A: It depends on how I shot the photo, really. If it's something I shot with the 5D, then I start in Lightroom, touch up in Photoshop if needed, airdrop to my phone and make minor adjustments if I feel like it looks weird on the phone screen with a few different apps. If it's an iPhone shot, I typically start in Polarr (great app, highly recommend) and touch up in VSCO as needed. This changes photo-to-photo, but that's my typical process. I don't have any real editing secrets, I've developed a handful of Lightroom presets over the past few months that I use as a starting point for editing, but I don't like to rely on them too heavily. If you want to know more about them, hit me up and I'd be happy to share them with you if you ask reeeaaaaallly nicely.
Q: Are you still doing stuff for CLYW? When's your next YoYo video dropping?
A: SOON! Yes I still absolutely love CLYW, I YoYo every day, and I've got some stuff in the works. Chris and Steve have been amazingly supportive to me over the years, and I think of them as mentors in many different capacities. I've gotten to work with Alec (@aleccampbell) a lot these past couple years as we do a majority of the shooting for the company together, and he's one of the chillest people I've had the pleasure of hanging with. The past few years my focus has obviously shifted more toward photography than yoyoing, but I feel like I'm finally at a place as an artist where I can merge the two fairly seamlessly when we are given an opportunity to travel and work on a good project, so I'm excited to keep working alongside them and creating content that we all enjoy. Also I'll be at PNWR later this month, I'm probably competing for the first time in years, and to say I'm stoked would be a severe understatement 🤘🏼
Q: Are you always on the road? Do you have a job or do you do photography full time?
A: That's the dream, but currently not really an option for me. Because of where I live it can be difficult to find the number of clients I would need to make a living doing just photography, and I don't feel like my portfolio is currently oriented towards the kinds of clients I would find here. So I work for an Apple retailer in Corvallis in the meantime. Obviously I would love to shoot full time, but right now I'm just being patient, stacking photos when I can, and taking every opportunity I find to advance my potential career in the industry*.
*(please hire me I'll do anything )
Q: What's your favorite thing to shoot?
A: Tiny people in big, beautiful places. I love sharing a sense of scale and wonder in my photos, it never gets old for me. I've been falling in love with more "lifestyle" stuff lately, and trying to capture the small moments in between the destinations has been a rewarding challenge as well. I love shooting anything that has a good story behind it, and I'm doing my best to make that a priority.
Q: What did you study in college?
A: I originally went to school with the idea that I was going to be a doctor, cure cancer and retire with a fat pile of way too much money for anyone to know what to actually do with. I graduated high school with almost a year's worth of college credits done, all in math, biology, chemistry and english, and jumped straight into the 2nd year of Pre-Med as a freshman with practically zero pre-reqs left to complete. About a year in I realized how miserable I was spending all of my time in labs, staring through microscopes and being graded on how well I replicated experiments that had already been done years ago, just to prove I could. I wanted to go outside. So I met with an advisor, jumped ship straight into the media production field, and never looked back. I spent the next few years catching up, learning about every aspect of media production, getting a crash course in video editing, media theory, photography and fundamental concepts of art. I graduated last summer with a BFA in Digital Communication Arts. So I live and breathe this crap.
Q: How long have you been shooting, and what did you start out with? Any advice on what to buy?
A: I've been taking pictures for a long time, ever since my family started going on road trips when I was young. I would steal my parents' point and shoot camera and go off on my own to find cool bugs and sticks or whatever it is that kids do outside by themselves. I didn't really take it seriously until I took a class in high school that hammered in the basics of composition, and then I began using my phone to snap photos here and there since I didn't have a camera yet. I got Instagram my freshman year of college and began shooting at least a photo a day, though it wasn't something that I put a lot of thought into yet. Once I changed my major to media production, my parents gifted me a Canon T3i for Christmas, and I spent the next couple of years beating the crap out of it. I took that thing everywhere. It's fallen off of waterfalls, into lakes, been to the top of mountains, and been through more wind and rainstorms than I can count. I couldn't have asked for a better camera to really learn the fundamentals on. That led to the 5D III after a few years and me feeling like a crop sensor just wasn't cutting it anymore, and this thing is even more of a tank. So yeah. Start small, work your way up when you can, and don't ever forget that the best camera in the world is the one you have with you RIGHT NOW.
Q: Do you shoot anything other than landscapes?
A: I used to box myself in a lot more, and specifically call myself a landscape photographer. Lately though I've really enjoyed branching out and shooting anything that sparks my interest. Having a phone with such good image capabilities has been essential. I don't really publish a lot of the stuff I shoot daily on Instagram, but it keeps me inspired and pops up here and there on my other social channels when I really like something I've shot. Lately I've been taking a ton of inspiration from Andrew Kearns and Jared Chambers, which has forced me to go outside of my comfort zone and start looking at things in front of me much differently. So yes, I shoot other stuff, I just don't think it's as good as my landscapes because I haven't had as much practice.
😂
Q: What's your favorite kind of music?
A: I like a bunch of different stuff. I want to start adding a little playlist at the end of each of these blogs, just to kind of set the mood for whatever it was that I was feeling while shooting that day. (Jordyn's idea, she's a genius.) I can get down to oldies, thug rap, EDM, acoustic folk, and everything in between. It all depends on what the day feels like and what I'm up to.
So that's it. That pretty much covers all of the questions I can think of off the top of my head right now. If you have any weird ones you'd like answered, feel free to drop me a line on IG, twitter or Tumblr and I'd be happy to answer as best I can. I'm gonna start doing that playlist thing on the next one of these that I write, just to feel it out. In the meantime - thanks for reading, I hope I wasn't too boring, eat your veggies, love you.
🤘🏼
