We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bradley Lohman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bradley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I have loved painting and drawing since I was a little kid. I studied at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, MI. I was focused mainly on painting watercolor the entire time. I continued to paint for about a decade. Just for myself, I didn’t sell any work during this time. It was therapeutic for me.

In 2017 I started messing around with a cheap dslr camera. I wanted to learn more about the colors of light to improve my painting techniques. At the time a close friend of mine, Michael Mccluskey, was studying photography. We would drive aimlessly looking for interesting subjects to shoot around MI, mainly at night looking for old buildings, Americana in general, anything that spoke to us. I also enjoy camping, so I would always bring my camera looking to create interesting images. I learned a lot about the technical aspects of photography from him. What made the difference though, was trial and error. I knew absolutely nothing starting out, and failing over and over with a few happy mistakes taught me the settings on my camera, and what I actually wanted to see in frame. I tend to hyper focus on things I enjoy, so for 3 years I was driving around various areas in Michigan shooting almost every evening. Sometimes hours and hours at a time. Driving for 3 hours and never finding something to shoot was a common occurrence. Finding something, and having those eureka moments encouraged me to keep going. It became therapeutic much like painting was for me. My knowledge of design elements helped me improve, but just going out and doing it over and over was what really accelerated my vision and understanding of photography.

Bradley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started taking photography seriously, like as a career path, in 2018. Over the past few years I’ve sold quite a few prints of some of the fine art photography I’ve done. I want my images to tell an open ended story, sparking creativity and leading the viewer to relate in their own way, or create their own story behind an image. Shooting at night or in low light conditions is the most difficult way to create a good photo in my opinion. It forces you to know your camera very well. Learning how to do that first, has made most paid gigs I have done much easier. I regularly do freelance work, food, portrait, real estate, and wedding photography to name a few.

Lately I’ve been focused more on shooting images with people. My portrait work stands out because of the moody, surreal, dreamlike quality it conveys. I do a lot of my portrait stuff with my good friend Molly Tiesma. She is a talented artist/florist/athlete/cosplay enthusiast, that inspires a lot of my portrait work. We bounce ideas off eachother, and both appreciate the surreal experience of ethereal moments one might have in a dream. We met about 5 years ago and have worked together since. She is a huge inspiration, and helps me realize and execute a lot of projects.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

With the rise in interest of machine generated art, I really hope people will appreciate human made art in the future. I think graphic designers and illustrators will be most affected by “creative AI” moving forward. I try to see it as a new tool that will let you create something incredibly easier than it has been in the past, but it’s hard for me to see it as the same thing. It will allow people who are not creative whatsoever to someday create a highly regarded work of art. Movies, paintings, books, web design, illustrations, you name it… will be easily produced utilizing AI. I hope society continues to appreciate the emotion, and skill that humans provide in all forms of art.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I first started using social media to market myself it was Instagram, back in 2018 or so. At the time it was much easier to build an audience compared to the algorithm today. I feel into the trends at first, purposely setting out to take photos that I knew would farm likes on the platform. I would post nearly everyday. In a way I viewed it as a game, and it would motivate me to get out and create!

However, I realized after a couple years that I wasn’t being my genuine self. I wasn’t making things I truly wanted to make. My best advice concerning social media, is to be your true self, I still struggle with it sometimes. Don’t buy into the bullshit fed to you by the different platforms. If you post a photo for example, that you love, and it doesn’t get a lot of engagement on whatever social sharing app, don’t let it discourage you. Just keep going. Keep making stuff.

Contact Info:

• Website: bradlohman.com
• Instagram: @bradley.loh

Image Credits
Model: Molly Tiesma