A New Start For 2022

Wow, so here I am at the start of 2022 with a new part of my personal photography endeavour. A blog. But not just any blog, I have a bit of a purpose for this.

Over the past year (or more?) I’ve been contemplating my own photography and what I’ve been getting from it. There have certainly been some high’s and some low’s, but there has been this overall feeling of something missing from what I’ve been doing. For the past couple of weeks during the holidays I’ve taken some time to think about what I want to do next. Interestingly, it didn’t have to do with the act of actually taking a picture, but more of what was involved in creating a picture and what was influencing my thoughts at the time.

My website (brandonlukphoto.com) was a way of expressing my thoughts in the form of photographs. But it was geared more towards the actual photographs rather than the thoughts behind it. I needed something a little more. This is where the blog part comes into play. I plan on using this space to talk a little more on the thoughts and feelings behind my photographic travels and using the website to illustrate some of the pretty and inspiring stuff that I see along the way.

So what drove some of this?

Looking back at social media in the past year, I’ve come to the conclusion (as many others have done so prior to me) that I basically see the same thing over and over again. In a recent podcast that I’d been listening to, the speaker (a former photographer) was talking about how photography today has gone for a bit of a nose dive and that much of the work we see now is a derivative of past work. While true in many instances, I do believe there is still good work to be produced. But that wasn’t what got to me. As I pondered the contents of the podcast I began to think about the older photographers. I mean, those that truly blazed the trail in photography in the years and decades past. How many of the photographers today truly know about the photographers of the past? While I’m sure there are many who do know or have studied the past works of many, there are still many more who take up photography as a hobby or a profession, that really know nothing about the history of the craft.

…and this means what exactly?

I’m glad you asked. I’ve decided that for myself, I wanted to learn more about the history of photography and of the photographers themselves. I wanted to know more about their lives and the influences that shaped their works. In doing so, I want to use that to help me understand the things that shape my work. I plan on studying one photographer per month and then (hopefully) doing a small write up of that person at the end of the month that I can post through the blog. I do have a list of photographers, but there’s a bit of tweaking still to be done. I’ll be sticking with some of the larger name photographers as it will be easier to research them (though there are so many more I would like to study and research later on my own).

In addition to my 12 Photographers Project, I am planning on doing a long term project for myself with the hopes of turning into a book. Likely something just for myself, but maybe it will grow into something a little bigger down the road.

12 Photographers

Like I said, I have 12 Photographers planned, but I won’t release the names ahead of time. You’ll just have to follow along to find out. For now, I’ll give out the name of the upcoming Photographer that I’ll be studying for the coming month.

Up for January - Vivian Maier.

Thanks for reading!

- Brandon