24 Mobile Photographers Til Christmas 2014: Rob DePaolo

Following on from last years successful ’24 Mobile Photographers Til Christmas’ series and to celebrate the forthcoming festive season and another year in the timeline of Mobiography I have decided to repeat the series and showcase the work, thoughts and insights of 24 talented mobile photographers. Each featured photographer has inspired and supported me in one way or another during the course of the past 2 years and I will be asking them to offer an insight into their photography, to reflect on their year gone by or plans for the coming year ahead.

Each day until Christmas Eve we will be featuring one photographer in a sort of online advent calendar so to speak.

Today’s featured photographer is Rob DePaolo.

My biggest takeaway about mobile photography this year is…

Over the past year or so, when it comes to my photography, I have learned to listen more closely to my inner muse and follow the whims of my imagination. To grow as an artist, I can’t allow myself to get stuck in habits and workflows that ultimately hinder my creativity. This photo (“Death Takes a Holiday”) is a great example of this change in my approach.

I have long been a fan of surrealism in all art forms—from Magritte and Dali as painters to pioneering surrealistic photographers such as Jerry Uelsmann. By pushing myself to learn new photo compositing techniques, I have lifted a creative block from my mind and have allowed my imagination to truly soar.

Over the past few weeks in particular, I have found myself entertaining all manner of new ideas for conceptual images. I have even started to pre-visualize my photos by sketching them first in order to better work out the details before I even start to capture the necessary images with my iPhone. This approach, while a bit time-consuming, and requiring more planning, has been very fulfilling for me in that I have been very happy with the results so far.

This change has also resulted in my pursuit of more color work as well. While I will never abandon my love of black and white photography, I am developing a new love for muted, darker hued color photos as well. In many cases, I find that color works better for the composited images that I am creating.

While developing a single “style” can be very beneficial for one’s art, I truly feel that we have to constantly experiment with new approaches and techniques in order to grow as artists. We will likely abandon many things along the way, but those that we keep will play a crucial part in our evolving individual styles.

Connect with Rob DePaolo

robdepaolophotography.com  |  Instagram