Talented Photographer Cierra Benavidez Interview

Today's interview is with a young photographer that in my opinion will have a bright future with the amount of talent and creativity she has,

Closer look to Cierra,

Introduce yourself:

Hey, I'm Cierra! I'm turning 18 years old on May 20th and I live in the Santa Barbara, California :)

Who has inspire you the most in terms of photography?

In terms of photography, I am most inspired by pretty much everyone on flickr. I also have the common favourites Annie Leibovitz, Edward Steichen, etc.

What is your favourite style of photography?

I love many different styles of photography, but my absolute favourite is conceptual. There's something about being able to create something that I see in my head into real life that makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside, it's an amazing feeling to finish a piece that I'm really proud of!

What style of photography do you find challenging?

Self-portraiture, hands down. I'm a strong believer that everyone on the planet can take a decent photo of themselves, and I believe that about myself, too. But most of the time I dread standing in front of my camera knowing that I'll have to photoshop things later on. I also have a hard time connecting my emotions to my work.

What do you look for in a model?

Confidence, singularity, and versatility. If a model isn't willing to do something a little crazy for a piece I'm shooting, I usually move on to something different and save the concept for another day. It really irritates me when a model tells me they're interested, and then backs out last minute due to fear of getting looked at by strangers or getting a bit dirty. I also really love when a model has a different look about them, something that really sets them apart and puts all focus on them. The last thing I look for in a model is versatility. Being able to pull of two completely different looks/emotions is really important in what I do. I like to mix things that wouldn't normally go together and find a way to make them benefit each other:)

Name other photographers you admire.

The list is too long to name all of them, but some that popped into my head would be Kirsty Mitchell, Sarah Loreth, Kiara Rose, Alex Stoddard, Karrah Kobus, David Talley and Robby Cavanaugh.

Who are your biggest supporters?

I would say mainly the Flickr community:)

What do you enjoy doing other than photography?

I absolutely ADORE writing! I started writing when I was really young, and every so often I'll write a story or poem to go alone with a photo I've taken.

What are some of your favourite films, books and musicians that keep you inspired?

Films inspire me in visual way. Sometimes I'll see a scene in a movie that I absolutely love, and I'll try to create an image based off of the location the film was shot in or the even that was taking place at that time. I love finding quotes/lyrics in books and songs too! I love looking up the lyrics to a song and trying to decipher what they could mean, and then create a photo off of it.

Do you think that you have your own personal signature ?

Hmm, I can't say I have one! A lot of the time, the photos I create are just snapshots of a scene being acted out in my head. People have told me my work is very cinematic looking (which is what I aim for some of the time), but mostly I just want to create a visual story and know what the audience is thinking.

What scares you the most?

failure. criticism. death.

Tell us a weird fact about you,

I have pretty bad OCD when it comes to numbers. I really love the number 3 because it has a beginning, middle and end. But when I'm driving, the radio volume has to end in a 5 or 0.

If you could create the perfect camera what features would it have?

PERFECT auto focus ALL the time. It irritates me to no end when my lens doesn't focus correctly! (which is why I focus manually for everything now)

Do you recommend any websites for photoshop tautorials?

I'd say Google and Youtube are great places to learn new things or get help on something that you're stuck on!

What is your favourite photo taken by another photographer?

I can't choose just one!

What is your favourite photo taken by you?

This one!

Do you think its hard to be unique and have your own style in photography? how do you manage to stay creative?

I think it can be quite hard nowadays with all the technology and Internet stuff that we have. A lot of inspiration for me comes from other's photographs I see online, and sometimes I worry that I won't be able to come up with concepts all on my own, but in the end I realize that I do:)

Do you think photography websites such as Flickr can be unfair in terms of comments and followers to some people sometimes?

I've seen some streams that have thousands of views and, well, not-so-fantastic photos, but I can't say it's not fair. If you're good, people will find you eventually. I don't mind too much about he AMOUNT of attention I get, I really only care about whether or not I get a GOOD response:)

Some people say that pretty girls who take lots of photos of themselves make it easy, what do you think?

I think, to a certain extent, that being attractive does play a part in creating the photo that you want. But does being attractive mean you'll always get the better hand? No. I would much rather pick a model who is confident, easy to work with and not as attractive (in the society's mind) than a supermodel who isn't willing to trust me in what I'm doing and take my direction. I always prefer a model who is more focused on the art and concept than one who is focused on how her face looks.

Do you prefer shooting indoors or outdoors?

Outdoors! However, I have come to find that I really love shooting in crappy indoor lighting. I love the grunge feeling it gives to a photograph!

Is fame important to you?

In my opinion, being recognized for your work is something everyone strives for. I do hope that one day some of my work will be featured in vogue or shoot professionally and be well known, but most of all I just want to be happy with my life and always create because I love to create, not because I'm paid to.

When you first started at photography, what were the mistakes you made a lot?

One of the mistakes that I often made was over-editing. I still do sometimes, and I have to remember to take a step back from what I'm working on and come back to it later. Sometimes I get so caught up in what I want, I end up forgetting that I need to be flexible and let whatever happens, happen naturally.

(my first photo I ever fell in love with)

Name people you enjoy working with models or other photographers, or people you wish to work with both models or photographers.

I love working with almost every single one of my models! I hope I can work with more photographers later on!

Any new project you're working on?

I've been trying to get my next short story series together, but it's proving to be quite difficult.

Is there a photo you regret posting online?

I honestly cant think of a photo I've regretted posting. I've only ever posted 1 nearly-full nude, but it didn't receive any perverted or sarcastic comments so it worked out quite well :)

You were a part of a collaboration with David Tally and Conner Allen, how did it go?who do you wish to collaboration with next?

It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life so far. I had never collaborated with other photographers before, so I was really nervous! But David and Conner are both absolutely amazing and kind and it was amazing to hang out with people who share the same interests as I do! I plan on meeting with them again in June/July and hopefully I'll be going to the Midwest Meet up in July! :D

Links you should know:
Cierra's Flickr-- Formspring-- Facebook

Photographer Hannah Interview

one of the most down to earth talented female photographers I know,
feminine, soft and dreamy... a whole new world where everything look dream like!


closer look to Hannah,

Introduce yourself ,,,

Hi ! my name is Hannah and I’m a

passionate photography rookie

from the land of milk and nordic light;

Sweden.

Who has inspire you the most in terms of photography?

* i take inspiration from so many things, ~ & as i lived for 

30 years before starting doing photography it feels like,

as a complete image, ~ & photographyamorado, i have 

collected a lot of inspiration, more or less consciously 

for a long time, so it is really hard to pick one person that inspires me. 

but today i marvel over, ~ & love the work of paolo roversi and 

i’ve always felt very connected somehow to the work of sally mann. 

What is your favourite style of photography?

* i would say portraits in general, ~ & the style of those 

mentioned above in particular. like roversi who, for me, 

takes fashion photography to a whole other level;

giving it more soul, i think.. perhaps by his vintage kind 

of style combined with modern fashion; that creates a depth

& personality beyond the clothes, for me. perhaps it is his own

soul that comes through in his work. i believe a lot in that, ~ & if

i were to narrow this answer down; that pretty much sums up 

what style of photography is my favourite; soulful. carrying a story

beyond the image. 

What style of photography do you find challenging?

* i find food photography truly challenging. 

as i have grown up in a food, ~ & wine loving family

i would love to do more of it ! the challenge is to make

it look as tasty as it does in real life; bringing in the 

scents & the flavors as much as possible into the 

photograph. 

What do you look for in a model?

* connection .. that’s key, i think. 

and to connect we both need to be open.

open to possibilities & chance & serendipity 

in the shoot we do together. 

Name other photographers you admire?

* besides paolo roversi & sally mann 

i truly love the work of francesca woodman,

~ & think anton corbijn is another that can

bring out soul in a person and into the photograph

in an amazing way.

i also love old school photography like the work 

of  jaques henri lartigue, ~ especially the portraits

of his muse renée perle. 

Who are your biggest supporters?

* that brings us back to muses, my muse lina 

is one. she claims i’m 

"one of the few who can manage to scrape brain slime

from a reindeer skull, build a device that looks

like some crazy experiment, and then make it work
and look completely natural." *smiles* 

my family is really supportive, ~ & my man as well. 

I love them for that. 

What do you enjoy doing other than photography?

* there’s other things than photography ?!? *smiles*

no, but really it takes up so much of both my time 

& mental activity that i don’t know where photography

ends & i begin anymore. i love spending time with my 

beloved ones, ~ & i am passionate about books and movies.

lately i’ve also come to realize how much spending time

outside means to my well being .. and even sanity.

nature; the ocean or a deep forest, birds flying; 

those are the only truly perfect things there are, i think. 

What are some of your favorite films, books and musicians that keep you inspired?

* i love love love typical British caper films like 

’snatch’ and ’lock, stock and two smoking barrels’ 

& also American ’o brother where art thou’ by the coen brothers.

i also love almost anything mafia; the godfather films and 

also kind of neo-noir stories; like ’bound’, ’the usual suspects’

& ’seven’.

i grew up with a film lover father; with fellini 

for everyday food, ~ & still find his schoolteacher scenes 

of ’amarcord’ to be some of the best person’s portraits ever. 

’cinema paradiso’ by giuseppe tornatore is another 

Italian gem. 

we also always read a lot in my family, and i matured in

the company of roald dahl, virginia andrews & françoise sagan.

today i am inspired a lot by poems & lyrics; especially sylvia plath,

virginia woolf, anaïs nin, & mary oliver. 

music i devour in diversity. at the moment i am very inspired

by angus & julia stone and ben howard. 

In your photos we see soft tones and femininity. Would you call that your personal signature?

* it is only lately, as people; especially strangers, amazingly enough

always seem to define my ’style’ or signature with more or less three words,

soft and feminine being two, dreamy being the third, ~ that i have even started 

to think about that myself. i only try to create photography that is

as close as possible to my inner images, ~ & the ’product’ of those seem 

to be in that style, so yes, in a way i guess that has become my personal 

signature. but it makes me truly happy when i receive comments & mail

about people "being able to spot a photo of mine from just a thumbnail-size"

{over on flickr’ for example} even when i do ’darker’, and a bit ’heavier’ things.

that is my hope; that i have a voice of my own, and a language that is 

distinguishable. my red thread. 

and i think the fact that i myself haven’t labelled my work is because

i want to leave the door open to evolve & change, be open to new things.

in photography as in life.

i have no idea where it’ll all end up.. and it is not so important; the way there 

is more significant, however clichéd that may sound. 

What scares you the most?

* darkness, in the sense of .. not living, 

~ be it death or just standstill in life; that there are places

or times {concerning death certainly a time}, ~ somehow 

out there in all our lives, where there are gaps, darkness; where i or we

might loose our way. i fear that for me, for the ones i love, 

~ & for mankind on the whole; that we don’t use life 

in the manner that we truly should. that we are so blind 

sometimes. darkness, blindness. 

Tell us a weird fact about you?

* ha! i love that .. um.. 

i have ’associative movements’ which my mum the 

psychologist says ought to disappear at an early age 

{on which i can conveniently put it back on her; raising me *smiles*}. 

this means i for example turn my head when i turn the

steering wheel of a car {i am also speed-blind so you should all be 

very happy i don’t have a drivers license.} i have made quite a few

people laugh, and my baby sister anxious, innumerable times when i spill 

yogurt, expensive lotions etc etc as i turn to look at something. 

What is your definition of beauty?

* soulfulness 

If you could create the perfect camera what features would it have?

* time travel possibility, indestructibility, ~ & a special,

optional setting for unpredictable flaws like light leakage or grazes

that would take me by surprise every time.

Do you recommend any websites for photoshop tutorials?

* i don’t do them much myself, so that’s hard, but.. 

i like ’sanna's photoshoprecept’ 

[http://www.photoshoprecept.se/]. that’s in Swedish 

though. 

Do you read books about photography? if you do, what's your favourite?

* not so much about photography .. i’d rather read, or look really; at 

images, so photo books of that kind then.. on my wish-list are;

’on verra bien’ & ’les amies de place blanche’ by Swedish photographer christer strömholm,

’architecture’ by hiroshi sugimoto, ’backstage dior’ by roxanne lowit, 

jerome gautier’s ’chanel, the vocabulary of style’, 

mike disfarmer’s ’disfarmer : the vintage prints’, 

mary ellen mark’s ’seen behind the scene’, 

sally mann’s ’the flesh and the spirit’ & many many more .. 

What is your favourite photo taken by another photographer?

* oh this is just torture. *smiles*

it’s impossible to choose one. 

but if i’m gonna try to narrow it down it probably 

would have to be one of sally mann’s photos of her children. 

i feel so close to her vision somehow, ~ & those photos

could be from my own childhood, so almost anyone in her

series of family pictures. 

don’t make me choose. please. *smiles* 

What is your favourite photo taken by you?

* almost equally as hard, as i see my own photography

much more as a journey; and i leave the images behind

somehow.. and i am so self-critical; i find it hard to 

enjoy my own photos as i tend to just see the flaws & what

i would have changed, perhaps that is why i prefer to move 

forward instead..

.. but i like ’roots and wings’ 

which is a simple self-portrait in a way, but says something about me. 

i like ’unison’ 

& ’n° 68’ 

 from both from a shoot with a friend of mine, for it’s bit of mystery. those come close to 

the kind of photography i’d love to do more of.

i like ’behind the wings’ 

a portrait of my friend dennis getting ready for stage for .. just that i got to be there 

for his seeming ’transformation’ from man to woman, ~ & that one particularly because that face is really his. 

.. and i like some of my portraits of my family, but that could also 

be because of my love for them of course, sometimes it’s hard to tell..

my baby sister

her son 

her daughter 

and my mum and i have had some great, spur of the moment collaborations. 

she has such beautiful hands, ~ & we have often simply put an object in them

one of my raised butterflies

pinned butterflies

yarn

ivy

hope

and many more .. and they always seem to be popular,

for art prints and book covers. 

Do you think its hard to be unique and have your own style in photography? how do you manage to stay creative?

* the hard part is the same as in life itself, i think; sometimes it’s a challenge to stay you, you know? 

but no, not so much with my photography. there it seems i have more determination & less insecurities 

than in other parts of my life, i believe in my language & voice when it comes to photography, i think. 

and if, or when there are things surfacing that could mislead or delude me, i literally talk to myself; 

and simply say; keep following your own vision. that is so important, i think. 

creativity is another matter .. *smiles* but i think perhaps i am blessed with quite a lot of creativity

in the sense that it is not often that i don’t have ideas or inner images  

.. but i think perhaps i am blessed with quite a lot of creativity

in the sense that it is not often that i don’t have ideas or inner images  

to draw from. for me the frustration lie in not having the person 

or the place to realize the idea, ~ as i preferably want to do jump right

at it as i think of it. 

You take a lot of black and white pictures, why is that?

* it’s simply because i love black and white photography. 

perhaps for its timeless feel. 

that being said i actually most often ’let the photograph decide’

& try to find the time to experiment with every image i edit, 

~ sometimes a photo, when converted into black and white just

feels right; like that’s the way that photo is supposed to be. 

and sometimes i feel it before i click the shutter;

that this is a black and white one. 

In skin retouching when do you think enough is enough?

* the short version answer would be that enough is enough 

when, ~ or rather before, you take something away from the 

expression of a person. if i get to choose i want to leave 

for example scars as they are; as i find that so beautiful 

on a body or as face. like a map of that persons life. 

the more self-revealing answer is that this topic is quite a 

hot one for me at this very moment, ~ & the very area of

editing that i am working on evolving with right now. 

i am autodidact in photography & editing, and 

i find my learning curve to be very steep and also think 

that it can be very deceptively tempting to go over the top 

with retouching, as it is even suddenly possible to ’perfect’.

for me it is also a question that has me feeling a bit 

contradictive in myself, as i truly think it is the imperfections 

that makes people especially beautiful.  

right now i am in the place of wanting to do less of it, and learn more about it.

Where do you get most of your textures?

* from flickr’ or i scan them myself

Do you think photography websites such as flickr can be unfair  in terms of comments and followers to some people sometimes?

* i don’t think it’s my place to determine what is unfair regarding popularity,

~ & i don’t give it much thought. i focus on what i am doing, and comment 

others in an honest way in the sense that i don’t ’comment just to comment’.

Some people say that female photographers can be recognised a lot easier than male photographer, what do you think?

* i’ve never heard that, and haven’t thought about it. 

i think i want to stay in the belief that that is not a 

gendered issue, but that it is about the imagery.

perhaps i’m naïve, but no, i don’t see that as an issue. 

Any new project you're working on?

* mm, i have some conceptual shoots planned 

with my favourite girls, that i really hope to

realize this summer, ~ & an idea that is forming

for s series of photos that need some more 

intricate costuming. and i’m working on a

exhibit scheduled for Stockholm in the fall.

Is there a photo you regret posting online? 

* je ne regrette rien. *smiles* 

Links you should know ...

Hannah's blog ; 

http://honeypielivingetc.blogspot.se/ 

flickr’ ;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/honeypielivingetc/

søciety6 / shop ; 

http://society6.com/hannahlemholt