Photo Profile : Alex Minkin

I’m really not your typical photographer. I didn’t get my first camera as a child and get ‘hooked’, no darkroom-chemical-smell memories, and I didn’t have an artistic background past fifth grade.

I like to think I started late and made up for lost time. What I did have was a moment where I stopped, looked, and said, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to be a photographer.”

That just happened to be right as I was about to graduate with a degree in business and marketing. It made sense to just apply what I had spent all that time learning in school to do photography as a business.

I had been doing freelance jobs for three years when I finally made that decision though, and I went to school for photography to refine myself more so I could get the clients I wanted.

I love doing studio lighting on location, so I have more than just a few big heroes that I really look to for inspiration. Chase Jarvis, Gregory Heisler, David Hobby, Joe McNally, Gregor Halenda and Doug Sonders;

They all know how to light anything in any situation, and for me, that’s where I have the most fun in my job. They’re also all exceptionally good at business, and creating opportunities that didn’t exist till they got there.

My style is definitely derived from a few common themes they all share, and of course my post processing has some remnants of trying to deconstruct the Dave Hill look. I took bits of that and others, then realized I had finally found my ‘style’ once I gave up searching for what was supposed to be organic and came through experience. That took me those first three years, and it’s changing by itself anyways.

Photography has to be one of the fastest evolving fields out there. There’s new technology every 18 months like clockwork, new techniques every hour, and nobody knows what the next big thing is going to be, or how to do it until they go out and create it. Even film is evolving along with digital photography. I don’t see it going away anytime soon, just changing into even more of an art form.

People tell me I should be scared about starting a career in photography right now, but with all these tools free for the taking, there’s no better time for someone like me to fill in the gaps being created. I’d never have gotten this far without digital photography, instant internet exposure, and tons of information being thrown at me from every direction. There’s no other thing I’d rather be doing.

Links:

website: www.alexminkin.com
twitter: @alexminkin
tumblr: alexminkin.tumblr.com/