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photo.net Interview: David Julian
learning photographers did.
I went to Trinidad in 1982 and Venezuela in 1984 for vacation, and fell in love with the tropical
rainforests there. They excited my spirit and revealed a plethora of endless opportunities, both for
personal explorations and for documenting a threatened environment. I made several trips back to
the tropics over the next few years using every bit my staff job's vacation time. I began to market
my tropical rainforest images locally, and created a traveling slideshow and wall exhibit, which
donated to the Rainforest Alliance in NYC for use in conservation education and their
fundraising efforts. That launched an avenue for funding my trips and writing off my expenses at
tax time. It was a win-win situation for both of us.
Since then, I've steadily added many thousands of images of nature, landscapes and experimental
images to my files, choosing to remain semi-professional, in that I do not consider Photography
to be my main business. It is mostly a personal pursuit and an integral part of my full-time
profession as an illustrator and designer. This arrangement takes the pressure off of having to
make 100% of my living at photography and possibly losing that personal freedom to shoot or
not to shoot when I am motivated to capture what is before me. It also allows me to express
myself in other ways that photography cannot fulfill. I could have easily gone full-time pro and
become an environmental photographer or fine-art photographer, but my interest in illustration,
design and financial stability veered me away from that at the time. I probably also felt that the
commercial pressure would make my photography less than always enjoyable, which it now
definitely is.
2. What advice would you have for other photographers who are considering becoming
professional?
My advice to beginning photographers is to first forget
about the endless miasma of technical details of today's
devices and train your eye to respond to and compose your
favorite subjects. Learn to listen to your inner impressions
and to make the kind of pictures YOU want to make, rather
than emulate the scenes made by others. Become the filter
in front of the lens, as a decision-maker and an artist. Where
ever you go or whatever you shoot, endeavor to find a
personal way of interpreting what you see. Experience your
subjects without a camera first, making mental or written notes as to what you find interesting or
moving. Allow yourself to react emotionally and artistically before reacting technically. Enjoy
this simplicity as you learn how to make better images. Then, as you thoroughly learn your
camera's technical features and how it manipulates and captures light, you will instinctively make
more personally "filtered" images and not as many artless recordings. Take courses in
composition and "seeing" if you need to. Study paintings, watercolors or other art to cross-train
you aesthetic mind to see beyond physical reality. I spent a lot of time studying the early
landscape painters to learn about light and composition. Later, I also studied the images of
advertising photographers like Pete Turner and Eric Meola; compositional masters David
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