Walter Ioss was one of the big reasons I got into photography.  I saw his book “Diamond Dreams” one day while at a local bookstore and my jaw hit the floor.  I had no idea sports photography could look like this.  Iooss probably one of the most famous Sports Illustrated photographer…ever.  You have no doubt seen his images on their pages.  He is known for his iconic portraits of Michael Jordan and for SI swimsuit covers.  But what I love about Walter Iooss’ photos is his point of view.  When you look through his body of work you typically see photos that are shot from a perspective that no one else thought of.  I remember seeing one of his photos of a World Series celebration and his photo so clearly illustrated the “agony of defeat” as it showed the dejected losing team ballplayers heading to the dugout with the celebration of the winning team happening in the background just out of focus.  I thought that was brilliant and I was even more hooked with his work.  Take a look at just a sampling of his work by googling is odd greek name to see more what I am talking about.

Here is another of my favorite shots of his that he took while he was doing a story of Cuban baseball in Havana.  Really take a look at the photo.  You will notice that he took this shot at the absolute critical moment and every single eye in the photo is focused on that ball.  Iooss says, “even the dog is looking at the ball”.  Awesome!  Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I am an animal lover, but I was never into wildlife photography.  Nothing against wildlife photographers because I know how difficult it is to get a great shot of a wild animal…but it never really resonated with me.  That is until I saw Nick Brandt’s photos from Africa.  These are some of the most stunningly beautiful portraits of the animals that roam the African plains.  Nick didn’t use super long zoom lenses to photograph these animals, most of them were taken within a few yards of the animals (don’t ask me how he accomplished that…I would be shaking so hard I wouldn’t be able to focus the camera).  There is so much drama and personality in each of the photos he shows and having them all done in a sepia tone gives them a unified body of work.  I am constantly inspired when I look at Nick’s work and I hope you are too.  To see more of his work go to www.nickbrandt.com

This is one of my all time favorite photographs.

Yes, we all know Ansel Adams is a photography GIANT.  His photos are iconic and often copied (rarely to any type of success).  There are amazing stories of him waiting months or even years to get the perfect photo of Yosemite, and hiking for miles for that perfect perspective.  Without a doubt he alone has inspired thousands to pick up a camera and learn photography.  But the photo I want to show you today isn’t this story of daunting patience and persistence.  It is more of simplicity and awareness.  This possibly my favorite photo of Adams.  The Rose on Driftwood.  He didn’t have to trek into the wilderness to take this photo.  He took it in on his kitchen table…the rose is from his wife’s garden.  All he did was notice the beautiful light that was streaming in through the kitchen door and took advantage of it.  So look around you…what is near you or something you see every day that you are missing?

So simple, but so beautiful.

I want to feed you a little hit of inspiration on a weekly or maybe even more than weekly basis.  I’ll do the research for photographs and art that I think is inspirational to share with everyone.  I would also love to hear from you too.  If you have run across an amazing photo or piece of art online let me know about it and I will put it up on the blog.

First up is Vivian Maier.  If you haven’t heard of Vivian don’t fret…her story is pretty amazing.  All of her work was discovered at an estate sale after she had passed away.  She was a nanny to many affluent couples throughout the years.  On her days off she would take her camera to the city and capture what she saw.  I think it is so cool that her work has been found and is being published.  She had no formal training…took no classes but she had an amazing eye.  Her name will be mentioned with such photography greats like Bresson and Eugene Smith.  Here is one of my favorites from her.  You can see more of her story at VivianMaier.com.

To me this looks like a ghost out walking on the streets. I would hang this on my wall.

Have you heard of Pinterest?  If you haven’t you need to go check it out (after you finish reading this excellently written blog post).  It seems like there is so much new stuff on the web that you must do or must download or must follow that it can be a little overwhelming.  Trust me, I know.  I don’t admit to be the hipster who is on top of all the latest and greatest the web has to offer, but when I heard of Pinterest and what it was about, I must say, it really peaked my interest.  The best way I can describe what Pinterest is all about is imagine having an unlimited amount of bulletin boards in your office.  Once board for a specific category (style inspiration, vacation ideas, gift ideas, DIY projects, craft ideas, recipes to try etc).  That is the basic premise of Pinterest.  When you see something on the web that inspires you or you say, “OH, I have to try that!” or “What a great idea”.  Then you can “pin” that photo to one of your boards that you can organize into your own personal categories.  You can also think of it as visual bookmarking which is sooo much nicer than to have 74 bookmarks on your web browsers favorites list and you can’t remember for the life of you why you bookmarked that specific web address.  Now you can SEE why you bookmarked it before going on to the website.  Once you pin a photo from the website onto your board, Pinterest also pins the website info with it so you can go back and visit that site if you want to.  Does that make some sense?

Here is a sample of what my Pinterest stream looks like

What’s the best way to use Pinterest?  Well, that depends on what you are into…but I use it a lot for finding inspiration on several different topics.  Let’s say I want to create some art and maybe make a canvas print out of it.  You can go to Pinterest.com…log in and search other people’s pins for ideas.  Be careful because it can become uber addictive to keep scrolling down the seamlessly never ending page of amazing ideas and images.  To give you an idea of how I split up what I look for here are a few of the categories I pin stuff into:

• photo inspiration
• design inspiration
• creativity
• ideas
• DIY
• inspiring words
• foods to try
• wants
• places to go

The list can go on but I will spare you and myself.  Within each of these categories I have several images to browse and pull from for inspiration.  Whether you are looking for art inspiration for that next canvas print or the next amazing appetizer to serve at your party or where to take your next vacation go check out Pinterest and get inspired.

I thought this would be a cool idea for a canvas print in a child's room