“the starting point of all achievement is desire”
The hardest part of doing anything is beginning, photography is no different. My intent for this series is to document my successes and shortcomings as I graduate photography school and struggle to establish myself in this highly competitive industry.
I know this must seem very egocentric, but what I hope to achieve is an honest first-hand account of what it takes to contend as a photographer. I want to share what I have learned in school and in the field to help other people who are following down the same path and open a discussion with the ones who walk beside me and before me. I can’t promise that what I am going to share is going to make you successful or talented, or even that I’ll make anything of myself; but I can promise that I am going to share my adventure with you as I dive headlong into the crazy world of photography.
The most appropriate beginning for this chronicle would be to catch you up to this point in time, starting with a proper introduction. I am Nicholas Freeman, a twenty-two-year-old student and aspiring photographer. Believe it or not, photography was not always my passion. I started with a love for video. I made my first short film around the age of seven using my grandfathers Hi-8 camcorder, a couple of toys, some weird amalgamation of stop motion and live action, and tape to tape editing. This video is to be locked in the vaults, only to be shared when my mother has decided to thoroughly embarrass me in front of my girlfriend.
In high school, I took my first proper video class which centered around creating short films for the local high school film circuit. I often stayed at school writing and editing until seven p.m. or later, far past when everyone had gone home save for me and a handful of other audio/video geeks. My work at this point had an infatuation with leading the story through visual clues, foreshadowing plot with strategically used props and images; I wont get into more because this is about photography not cinematography. The point is that I started to build an obsession about giving items in my work lots of symbolic value, trying to communicate story through visual elements, and this is still one of my driving passions.
After graduation from Santa Monica High School I joined straight into the film program at the Academy of Arts and Entertainment, a satellite program of Santa Monica College. I studied everything from simple editing to audio engineering, 3D animation, and composition. For that last class I ended up purchasing my first SLR, a Canon XTi. I fell in love…
However every time I shot stills I felt like something was missing. I could convey what I wanted in video, but I had thirty frames a second to get my point across; It is much harder to do in just one frame. So I aimed to better myself and started taking some black and white film classes, and put time into studying lighting (something I had yet to really do). I found the challenge of conveying an Idea with so little information thrilling and soon I changed my major from cinema to photography.
It has been two years since then, and I have grown leaps and bounds as a photographer. My work has been published in various formats and included in quite a few galleries around LA, including the Ritz Carlton Lobby in Marina Del Ray. I am also currently planning a solo gallery (which will receive its own post later) that will hopefully launch later this year.
That brings us up to now. I plan to start an active marketing strategy soon as well as interning with local big name photographers, and will share everything with you as I go. I should probably get some sleep now because tomorrow morning I am sitting in on a lecture by David Lachapelle, but I will have another update for you shortly and am happy to answer any questions you have via comments or social networking.
Here is hoping to a long and interesting journey ahead,
-Nick
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If you are interested in photography and like to write about it and would like to become part of Colours Magazine’s growing family of contributing editors, they why not get in touch. Your work will be displayed to and read by fellow photographers, Publishers and many other people in the photography and media related industry. It is a great chance to gain excellent exposure and connect with other like minded people. If you are interested then get in touch with what you would like to write about and also send some samples of published work. I would love to hear from you. You can send details about yourself to editor[at]coloursmag.com or submissions[at]coloursmag.com.
Sincerely
Zeeshan Kazmi
