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Inspiration From Strangers

posted on February 26, 2009

Last weekend I was sitting on the couch with my morning coffee going through Google Reader as if it was a Sunday paper.

I’ve found myself reading more and more photography sites lately. I promised a blog post listing some of my favorites, but since I got so many great suggestions from people recently I wanted to give them a few weeks to see which ones I connect with and which ones I pass on.

That was when I discovered Zack Arias.

I had never heard of him. He’s an Atlanta based music photographer with one hell of a cool beard. Having since looked at piles of his photos I can safely say that I love his style and subjects and have found another person to inspire me to take the craft of photography more serious.

Transform

But, what really inspired me was a video he made called Transform. You are not allowed to watch this video until you have at least 30 minutes of free time. The video is only 10 minutes long, but your going to need more time because if you watch it all the way through, I promise you are going to be inspired and your brain is going to be kicked into high gear thinking about things and I want you to be able to just idle well and process it all.

What happened to me after watching this was a complete injection of creative juices directly to the brain. A long thought about project I’ve wanted to do called God’s Eternal Campfire suddenly became a top priority. I began story boarding it out and making lists of things I wanted and needed to make it happen. I have some test shooting to do in order to see if I can do what I want and I then I hope to shoot it this summer and fall. If I’m lucky it’ll be done before the end of the year, but I need multiple seasons so I can’t rush to much.

I need to give a huge tip of the hat to Chase Jarvis for allowing me to find this video. He is another photographer that I’ve been following lately and it was on his blog that I watched it on that fateful morning.

The point of this post is to remind everyone that you never know when or where inspiration is going to come from. In this case it was from a complete stranger. There is something down right awesome about that.

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Categories: Photography / Video
  • Chris Scelza

    Wow. I’m not as deep into photography as the target audience that Zack was aiming for, but I’m pretty sure that anyone in a creative role could hear his message clear.

    I’m going through a transition from my 9-5 job into a creative role that’s more in line with my and my family’s lifestyle. The last few minutes of this video really made me stop and think, as I’ve been worrying quite a bit about whether or not this is going to work out.

    On a less serious note, if Zack made a move slightly closer to the equator, the winter months may not put him into the funk as deep as it does in the northern US. Just a thought.

    Thanks for sharing this CC, it was an experience.

  • http://dfblog.digitalflotsam.org/ P-Dub

    Wow! That put a huge smile on my face.

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