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October 9, 2022

In his latest column for AP, nature photographer Marsel van Oosten reveals how facing his fears and leaving his comfort zone led to success

I often hear that I have a very recognisable style. When asked what it is, people often use words like ‘simple’, ‘clean’, ‘graphic’, ‘uncluttered’, and even ‘sterile’. I agree with all those words because they perfectly describe the artistic form that I am trying to create in my work.

As a photographer, you not only need to decide what you want to photograph but also how you want to photograph it. Every photographer has his own preferred way of shooting – one that gives the best and most pleasing results. For me, that means simple, clean, graphic and uncluttered images. As a result, I always find myself drawn to subjects with a strong, graphic shape, in a habitat with as little distractions and visual clutter as possible. For that reason, I prefer photographing deserts over grasslands, and dead trees over live ones. I didn’t always know this.

Golden snub-nosed monkeys, Qinling Mountains, Shaanxi, China. Nikon D810, AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, 1/125sec at f/11, ISO 3200

If you have a particular style, it’s usually the result of certain preferences you have as an artist. Then, once you’re very comfortable with that style, you become extremely efficient and almost go into autopilot. Everything is easy because you’re in an environment that fits your photographic style, so you immediately know what to do. You work fast and efficiently and become very productive. Whereas if you’re suddenly in an environment that you are not very familiar with, or even dislike, that’s a whole different ball game.

Abandoning the comfort zone

Many years ago, my wife Daniella and I went on a trip to Costa Rica. We both love the wilderness and a rainforest is as wild as it gets. I had just started in photography and was excited to photograph the wildlife. But, as much as I enjoyed the experience, I wasn’t inspired to take any photographs. I checked my Lightroom catalogue to see how many images I shot on that trip: ten. It was a pivotal moment in my development as a photographer as it forced me to figure out why I was not inspired. Conclusion: too much visual clutter.

Self-portrait in Shaanxi, China, at the exact location where Marsel van Oosten shot the award-winning ‘The Golden Couple’ image

For the next ten years I stayed far away from forests. The ‘cleaner’ the landscape, the more inspired and happier I was. But, after a while, my decision started bothering me. Every now and then I saw beautiful images taken by other photographers in dense forests and realised that I was running away from a challenge. Years later, I saw a very bad photograph of golden snub-nosed monkeys, in a brochure, somewhere in China.

They were the most fascinating looking monkeys I’d ever seen, and when I learned that they were endangered I knew I had to photograph them. Lichens are the main staple of the monkeys’ diet, and dead trees have the greatest lichen coverage. Unfortunately, those are being taken by the timber industry. The monkeys are also eaten by the local population. Anyhow, the problem was: they live in dense forests.

I absolutely love forests from a nature-loving perspective, but a forest is nothing but clutter. For the first time in my career, I had to think long and hard about how to face my fears, and how I could overcome my ‘clutter-phobia’. No more relying on intuition… it was time to get way out of my comfort zone.

Golden snub-nosed monkey with baby. Nikon D810, AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, 1/250sec at f/5.6, ISO 160

In an effort to get control over the immense clutter in the backgrounds, I decided to use a polariser to limit the amount of reflections off the leaves, and to use flash to create separation between the subjects and the forest behind them. Flash enabled me to control the ambient lighting and get sufficient light on the monkeys while, at the same time, being able to underexpose the backgrounds using polarisers, decreasing the amount of reflections.

This proved to be the recipe for my project, and many of the images I shot there are among my favourites. One of them even won me the grand title Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Had I decided to stick to my standard routines, and comfortably continue on autopilot, this would never have happened. If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.

Marsel van Oosten at work in China

As told to Steve Fairclough

Featured image: ‘The Golden Couple’, overall winner in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2018. Nikon D810, AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, 1/320sec at f/8, ISO 1600

Marsel van Oosten

Marsel van Oosten was born in The Netherlands and worked as an art director for 15 years. He switched careers to become a photographer and has since won Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Travel Photographer of the Year. He’s a regular contributor to National Geographic and runs nature photography tours around the world. Visit www.squiver.com

Further reading

Whether you’re new to wildlife and nature photography or looking to improve your skills, we have plenty of tips and techniques to help you on your way. Take a look here.

See more of Marsel van Oosten’s columns:

You need better backgrounds

Why scale is important

How to pre-visualise a photograph

Making the most of bad weather

Why planning is important in photography

Why you should photograph wildlife at low angles

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The Top Ten Aaron Reed Photography Blogs of All Time

Is Aaron Reed’s Fine Art Photography Blog the most interesting of all time? Do you think blogs are a waste of your time? No one reads blogs anymore right? If you answered yes to any of these questions you need to heed the famous words of ICE CUBE and Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself.

Currently, roughly 409 million internet users read about 20 million blog pages monthly. 53% of marketers prioritize blogging as their primary content marketing strategy. When it comes to fine art photography, EVERYONE knows Aaron Reed is the business, even the most interesting man in the world.

Searching through an extensive catalog of blog posts can be quite boring though, so I have gone the extra mile (I’m always looking out for you guys) and have created this list of my top ten photography blog posts of all time. No time to read? Too Tired? No problem, I’d be happy to read them to you for $250 an hour. Call it the worlds most expensive bedtime story.

Okay, without further ado, the moment you have all been waiting for, here is my top ten list as determined by you, the sad lonely people who actually read my blog posts.

1. Fine Art America? I Don’t Think So.

Fine Art America is a POD (Print On Demand) company and online marketplace that sells the work of more than 500,000 artists around the world. Fine Art America offers various forms of art including wall art, prints, posters, tapestries and apparel. Have you been looking for a shower curtain with a boat powered by butterfly wingsfor your newly renovated bathroom? You got it! A rainbow zebra coffee mug? Of course you can, go treat yourself!

2. Aspen Tree or Birch?

Where do we come from? What is the meaning of life? Is it an aspen tree or a birch? These are the questions that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time. Without a doubt, both are beautiful trees, loved by nature photographers, hikers and all seekers of fall color around the country. But what is the difference? Is it the way they taste? The sound that each makes when they fall in the forest and no one is there to hear their cries? Let’s dig a little and see if we can find out.

3. What Are Peter Lik Style Prints?

In reality, there is simply no such thing as Peter Lik Style Prints. There are acrylic face-mounted photography prints, produced by thousands of photographers around the world and there are acrylic face-mounted photography prints produced by artist Peter Lik. These truths are separate from each other, as one style does not belong to the other.

4. Ansel Adams | Black and White Photography

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was a landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph.

5. Imitation Is Not The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Flattery, is often used in a dishonest way, as a means to achieve what someone wants for themselves. An employee, hoping for a promotion, may compliment the bosses new suit. A waitress, may use flattery to increase the chances of being tipped. Even laughter, when used correctly can flatter and therefore influence a person’s opinion of you.

6. My Scandalous Affair With The Sony A7RIV

As described in my previously released, highly debated and riot inciting story about the FUJI GFX100 and Sony A7RIV, I explained my history with the Canon EOS system and a little bit about myself as a landscape photographer. I have been a Canon shooter since I began my adventure with photography, beginning with a Canon 40D, then a 50D, a 5D2, a 5D3 and finally a 5DSR.

7. How To Light Artwork In Your Home

You have a fair amount of choices when it comes to lighting, each having its own set of benefits and considerations. The best lighting enhances the artwork, without distracting from the rest of the decor in your room. Before we go any further, lets discuss the various types of lighting available to you.

8. Creating A Custom Las Vegas Photography Gallery

Since then, Helga & Vlajko have continued to add even more fine art pieces of mine to their collection. Now with 35 total pieces of mine on the walls of their home that really does rival any Las Vegas fine art gallery. Please have a look below at some of their choices for this project!

9. The Great American Landscape Painters

Many landscape photographers today, including myself, have found beauty and inspiration in the works of these masters. The composition, light and overall mood created in many of these paintings hold the same allure to landscape photographers of today. Please read on to learn more about the Hudson River School, the movement itself and more about three of the painters who helped cement these works into history.

10. The Best Fine Art Print Mediums Explained

These days, you can have your photographs printed onto almost anything. Care to see your photos printed on a natural plank of wood freshly cut from a tree? No problem. A slab of cold steel? You betcha. How about a t-shirt, coffee cup or a backpack? Consider it done my friend.

Congratulations!!

You did it!! You have officially wasted a signification portion of your day today reading this blog post and I just want to say thank you! Now grab another cutoff coffee and get back to work!!!

Today on social media, girls flaunt perfect lives: styled hair, trendy and fashionable outfits, picturesque backgrounds, flattering but casual poses. The snapshots curate a particular image of effortless beauty, but behind the scenes, even the most casual selfies take tens of tries and a full face of makeup. Posed photos are the result of a million pieces falling into place, making one photo the one that outdoes the others: the background, the pose, the outfit, the hair are each good enough. Aesthetic shots of cities and landscapes are carefully chosen to match a color scheme and curate the feed.

These posting rituals speak of long-held beauty standards, modeled by popular accounts and cascading down to the normal person and 16-year-old girl. If you’ve been wondering “why is everyone famous on social media so thin/attractive/white?”, you’re not alone. It’s widely speculated that the TikTok “For You” algorithm scores users by euro-centric standards of attractiveness, and Black influencers find it significantly harder than their white counterparts to secure brand deals and make income. The fact is algorithms boost well-performing content, absorbing an entire human history of white and thin people imposing standards on everyone else.

While beauty standards aren’t new, one might argue that social media promotes them in an especially harmful way. Research isn’t yet conclusive on how social media’s unique interactivity affects perceptions of beauty. Social media does contribute to negative body image; however, exposure to traditional media has a similar effect. Meanwhile, the nature of influential content is shifting from aspirational to relatable, as increasingly digestible media forms connect with audiences in more casual ways. Marketers know this, so marketing has moved from traditional advertisements towards influencer sponsorships. For example, Doja Cat made a Tiktok jingle about Mexican pizza for Taco Bell, and Duolingo is known for its “unhinged” social media persona.

The shift is noticeable. Gone are the aspirational bloggers of 2014, posting DSLR photography and expensive foreign destinations — my current feed is girls about my age, who look like me, holding photoshoots on city streets and parking garages. Instead of VS Pink models, my “celebrities” are influencers like Helen Peng, a girl who could basically be my classmate, except that she’s an incredible dancer with 1.8 million Tiktok followers.

Embedded in the rules accompanying this shift is a gendered expectation, always the message to girls: Try, but don’t try too hard. Look polished but relatable, model but not unnaturally, wear natural makeup but not full glam. Blur your photos so they look taken in the moment.

Instead of aspirational lives that only rich celebrities who evidently have very different circumstances can attain, we constantly view “relatable” content from people just slightly ahead of us. Productivity YouTubers are just like you, but they have a perfect system for studying and note-taking. Fashion bloggers tell you exactly which clothes they bought, so you can buy them and achieve the same look. The standards are subtle but demanding, asking why we can’t do it if they can.

In many ways, the beauty standards of relatability are more far-reaching than before. Instead of being limited to the sphere of physical appearance, an entire lifestyle is idealized and projected. In every aspect of life, there’s relatable content for you to aspire to: diet, outfits, travel, workouts, work, home decor, nights out, nights in, friend groups, even crying. So we strive, because we believe we can recreate these idealized scenes. They make it look easy.

What makes the standards more insidious is that they’re never spoken, only understood by a sea of girls finding their place in the digital age. Influencers often don’t take the stance of a brand selling you a product; they approach their audience as a friend giving an honest recommendation. It doesn’t feel like conforming to a beauty standard when an online persona you trust recommended you a new study system, or a different brand of hair product.

Young girls — the generation we say look like 23-year-olds when they’re only 16 — grew up looking at perfect pictures of others online, and they understand what the digital world asks of them, learning social rules analogous to the ones they pick up in school. Naturally, they learn. They don new haircuts, draw on freckles and eyebrows, learn to pose in photos (perhaps by watching a modeling tips video), get outfit inspiration from 25-year-old bloggers, and wear blazers to school. They become photographers and social media managers. It’s second nature because these are the rules of digital society.

This is the world my little sister will grow up in. Still, I won’t tell her to delete social media and recover some past innocence from before digital standards permeated our consciousness. These are the new rules, and if any girl enjoys engaging with lifestyles portrayed on social media, she deserves to try as hard as she wants without contempt. (No one is telling boys to stop hitting the gym every day in their pursuit of an ideal body type.) Obviously, take care of yourself first, and take whatever measures you need against social media’s many physical and mental negative effects. When your health is spoken for, then curate your Instagram feed if you want, go out with your friends and have a day-long photoshoot if you want.

The act of revolution is not necessarily ignoring standards entirely, rejecting the supposedly frivolous pursuit of beauty in the name of feminism. I think it’s finding a way to love yourself anyway — whether it involves makeup or fashion or fitness, or posting on Instagram, or not posting on Instagram. It’s coming to terms with who you are, both your physical and digital selves.

Elizabeth S. Ling ’23 is a Computer Science concentrator in Eliot House. Her column, “Alone Together,” appears on alternating Fridays.