We recently connected with Edsger Studio and have shared our conversation below.

Edsger, thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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?

Photography is a competitive field to be in. Everyone of us has all the tools they need to take great photos, just like everyone has all the tools they need to write Pulitzer-prize winning stories. What it takes to be great though is what far fewer of us have, and that is determination and the never-ending quest to learn more and more about the craft. You can take two images in the studio seconds apart and one immediately strikes you as amazing, and the other is just standard. It can be hard to put into words what the difference is, but the quest to find that out has been with me from the start. I don’t think that this drive is something you can learn — it’s either in you or it’s not.
To get a good sense for what makes a great portrait, or a great fashion shot, it helps to study the top photographers that came before us, often working with far more primitive equipment than we have today. For me that includes people like Edward Weston, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon, but there are many.
Looking back, the one thing I have learned is not to be discouraged by anyone or anything while you try to perfect your craft. When I just started out in photography my photos weren’t very good, and others would have been quite justified in pointing this out in great detail. But to get better you need the determination to push through that and keep working at it, so that you can slowly get better and better.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got interested in photography as a teenager, in the days of film photography and darkrooms. I started out doing street photography, often going to large events, taking photos and rushing home to develop and print the photos and then knocking on the doors of the photo-editors of big newspapers to see if they would print my photos. I think this had a couple of benefits for me. First, I learned to get a thick skin in hearing the photo-editors comment on the newsworthy-ness (or lack thereof) of my photos. A photo could artistically be amazing, but not be worth putting on the front page of the paper.
Second, happily was that I did get my photos on that front page enough times that I was encouraged to continue. Even though at first I pursued a more regular career by going to college and becoming an engineer, the passion for photography has always been with me. I thought for a long time that I could not have been as successful as photographer as I was as an engineer, until my wife convinced me that it was the passion and drive that I had that would make the difference in whatever profession I pursued. At that moment I switched careers and became a photographer, doing what I love the most, and determined to become the best portrait and fashion photographer in Los Angeles. And that’s what I’m working on today, one image at a time. The best feeling I get is when a client tells me that the headshot I just took of her is the best one ever taken of her, and wants to share a quick screenshot of it with her mother. Each time that happens I know I’m, in the right field.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I started out doing portrait and headshot photography I worked with a small magazine to shoot photos to go with an interview that someone else would conduct with a somewhat notable person. I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I do always want to get things right. It does sometimes happen though that the stars are not aligned to help you get a great shot, and sometimes it doesn’t even take the stars to do that, it can be simply that you messed up something. I now know that when you are commissioned to take a portrait for a magazine interview you make sure that you don’t just shoot photos once: you try to get as much time under as many different circumstances as you can. If one of those sessions doesn’t work out, you have lots of others. But I did not know that at the time and would be devastated to have missed my opportunity to produce a good portrait. Resilience though is not required when things go well: it is needed when they don’t, and everyone has those moments. So yes, I’ve shot whole sessions with my camera accidently setup completely wrong, for instance with a very high ISO ratio that was needed for an earlier shoot. Rather than being infinitely embarrassed, and giving up, all it takes is to ask for another shoot and make sure you do it right. Resilience means not giving up, because you know the goal and you know that you don’t reach it unless you persist.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Selling images or artwork in general as NFT’s (non fungible tokens) is a fascinating new phenomenon. It is true that there is only one place that has the real Mona Lisa, yet everyone of us can own astonishingly accurate reproductions of the same and hang it on our wall. What then is the difference between owning the original and owning an exact copy? This is pushed to an extreme with a digital image. Every copy of a digital images is absolutely identical to the original, yet there is only one original that was created in the camera of the photographer. By turning the image into an NFT people have now started selling the pseudo-ownership of an image. It is a uniquely modern phenomenon. Is it merely a way to make some money of bragging rights of ownership? I’m convinced the phenomenon will fade, and so it should.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://edsger-studio.com
• Instagram: @edsger.studio
• Other: https://modelsociety.com/Photographer/edsger https://modelmayhem.com/edsger

Image Credits
Mikayla @mikayla_dreams Aiesha Eser @thehomie_ike Brent Butler @brentbutlermusic Dakota Simone @twerkita Elena @__helen_vv Mina Bednarczyk @mina_bednarczyk Nata Jones @nata.jones Natalia Woit @natalia_woit Ashley @tatasfornow