We recently connected with Erin Graboski and have shared our conversation below.

Erin , looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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 learned most of my photographic craft through teaching my self and through trail and error. I enjoy taking my camera with me and throwing myself into it and figuring out how to set up the shot on my own and expierimenting with what works and what doesn’t. Knowing what I know now, I could take more classes on it but with photography, I really do think that figuring out your own niche and style is what really makes your own work unique to your own. Skills that I think that are most essential are lighting, learning your gear, framing and composition. Obstacles that stood in the way of learning more are definitely financial- it can be very expensive to invest in your own gear, if there are classes available – they can be difficult to get into.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Erin, I’m based in Denver, Colorado currently. I have a background in photography, specifically fine art photography. I have a BFA from Metropolitan State University of Denver. I discovered my passion for photography when I was a teenager. I was using my mom’s camera on a trip to California and wanted to use her camera to photograph everything and everywhere we were visiting. When I was looking at the pictures when I got home, I found that I really enjoyed taking pictures and then from there I really honed in on my craft. As I kept discovering more about photography and finding others that were photographers too, I discovered other artists that were creating self-portrait fine art photography and I found that really captivating and start to explore that more and more and from there I became a self-portrait artist. I loved crafting images that were like a still out of a story and then using Photoshop to edit and create those images. I’m really proud of being able to put my own voice and vision into images and making it a portal into crafting new worlds in my art.

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

Society can support artists and creatives by directly purchasing from artists or small business that are hosting the artis’s work. If purchasing isn’t fesible for people, doing something as simple as sharing their work that you find on soical media so that they can reach more people. Sharing and liking helps artists from being shadowed. (And it makes us feel really great too!)

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Like I mentioned before, being able to create worlds within my work is what really drives me to create and what exillerates me when making art. It’s so much fun to pull different elements together, whether it be using fun props, finding interesting dresses to wear, being able to layer together different settings, the list goes on to make different worlds in my work and craft different images together.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.eringraboski.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@eringraboskifilms
• Other: Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eringraboski/