We were lucky to catch up with Gabriel Finlinson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gabriel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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 started learning in high-school. I took a few photography classes from my favorite teacher Derek Miller. I didn’t even want to take the photography class at first I just wanted to take a class he was teaching. During my first couple classes I realized I had no idea what I was doing. My good friend Aiden let me borrow one of his cameras for an assignment. When everyone else was using a $300 camera I got to use his $1500 camera which was an amazing experience. It’s like being able to drive a sports car as your first car, it’s exciting and new and fun. That’s when I first fell in love with taking pictures. Once I started to get my first clean images I was so excited and wanted to learn everything there is to learn about photography. I went home that night and started watching YouTube videos about how to use a camera to its fullest potential. I slowly started to learn what I would need to build my own studio lighting, backdrops, stands, etc. After about 7 hours of YouTube videos I went to class next day knowing more about my camera and started to teach other students how to theirs, remembering a week prior I had never touched a camera. It was a cool experience.

Gabriel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Right now for digital I shoot on a nikon system. I really love photography and I really love the automotive industry so I knew I wanted to find a way to put the two together. My favorite photoshoots have been working with clients and taking pictures of their cars. One of my go to techniques for these photoshoots is called light painting. This is where you set your camera up on your tripod, use a long shutter, a small aperture, and use a light source like a flashlight paint light onto the car the same way you would paint on a canvas. This is usually done at night. I look to highlight all the body lights and curves to give it a surreal lighting affect. I take multiple photos and then put them all together to create one beautiful image. This technique is what really sets me apart from other photographers. I’ve been doing digital for abouy 5 years and I’ve recently starter to get into film photography. With film there is something really magical about the delayed gratification. It’s beautiful going through the whole process of taking a photo, sending it off to get developed, getting your scans back, and finally seeing your work. I now have a decent collection of film cameras, I have the X series of the Pentax line which is really fun. I plan to keep collecting them and learning how to use each individual camera I come across. I even got my wife to start taking photos on film so now we both want to continue doing this together.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I was in college I took a photo class and we had an assignment, I choose to do light painting as my project for thus assignment. I needed 15-20 images for the final project. With 3 days until the deadline I was 2 cars short of finishing. A family friend offered to let me use his grandpa’s Dodge Challenger but it was over 50 miles away, almost in another state. So I dropped what I was doing and immediately started driving, got up there and did the shoot, got home around 2:00am. When I started editing the photos I realized all of them were blurry, I didn’t have anything in focus. The next day I went back and they were kind enough to let me borrow the car again to reshoot the pictures. I double checked every photo to make sure it was in focus, to this day I’m always double checking my photos. It was a good lesson to learn.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

My favorite part of being an artist is going out, taking a photo, taking time to edit the photo, sending it out to be printed, and then getting that final photo back to a client. The process of creating something out of nothing is one of the best feelings in the world. Especially when you see how excited your client is about it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gabrielphotos2019.wordpress.com/
• Instagram: @ghf.photos

Image Credits
Derek Miller Photos