Don’t Take an Easy Path

Не слідуйте простому шляху

Do care! Don’t take an easy path.

Many years ago I heard this tip from an amazing photographer Mecuro B Cotto. At that point, I only took up photography and was absorbing the information like a sponge...

This tip was one of those that changed my perception of art photography. From simple, primitive and dull portraits, I was slowly but surely moving toward something more complicated, deliberate and well-elaborate.

I was admiring his photo works and couldn’t imagine how difficult it was to create such photos. Since then, I haven’t been looking for easy ways, and I never take the easy path.

Putting a beautiful lady in a photo studio setting and taking a couple of photos with flashes is simple, fast and might even be beautiful. Yet, almost all photographers take this easy path and daily churn out millions of similar photos – photos that represent no interest to anyone...

A different story is inventing an interesting idea, finding a true-to-life and appropriate location, an appropriate model, clothing, outfits, thinking about poses, plot – all this is challenging and requires a lot of strength, time and money. Yet, believe me, it’s worth it. 

This is also applicable to retouching. As I was searching for – to be more specific, creating my own recognizable retouching style, I spent numerous hours at the display studying Photoshop, plugins and the art of retouching.