Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jack Daniel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Jack thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

What an interesting question! Perhaps, I should say necessary!
I hear from feminist friends that they don’t like to be “judged”, yet the species homo sapiens sapiens has evolved based on criteria of judgmental reasoning.
Therefore, denying the human nature of judgment is childish.
We are judged all the time and we judge all the time.
The question is: Should we publicize our judgment or keep it to ourselves?
The answer for me, who follows the classical Austrian school of economics and principles of freedom, is that we must be mature to face the fact that we are not unanimous and, as the actor Robert De Niro said: “we are all replaceable”.
So, I am replaceable, and therefore my art.
And that doesn’t depend on whether it’s high quality or not (although I feel it is high quality).
I like to make things difficult, though.
I like my perfectionism.
I like to try and remake my art as much as I can until it’s near perfection and then make the job of replacing it as complicated as possible.
I accept, despite everything, the criticism, and I accept the fact that some people who judge me do so for the wrong reason.
It’s part of the process.
You can’t demand that everyone who judges you has technical knowledge about your art and your business.
It is the constant case of the alleged “use of Photoshop”.
My photos take place at extreme times and extreme moments, and that involves extreme colors or extreme nature situations from the elements.
It is common for people not to understand that the human eye sees it as a lens of more or less 35mm. And if I use a 450mm lens, I’m getting so close to the main subject, for example, the sun, that the colors portrayed are much stronger, because the perception of the vision changes, since with a wide angle lens the number of colors involved and elements is much larger.
Easy for the human eye to get lost with so much information.
But with only the information about the sky around the sun, the colors are restricted, and with that, one has the impression that they are false, which is a lie.
They’ve always been there. I’m just exploring them in a larger space of photography making them the entire frame sometimes.
Another thing that happens is the worst compliment I get.
And I often get: “what a wonderful photo, it looks like a painting”.
Damn it, I hate this.
Painting and photography are not the same thing, not even when done on the same subject (natural landscapes).
In painting, the artist creates a particular universe from his memory (and if the painter limits himself to copying a photo, he is a terrible painter).
In photography, the artist seeks to portray the best that the universe has to offer to human eyes, at its best moment (and this can be very difficult to do).
So, if I were to photograph every location that Van Gogh painted, my works would be totally different from his.
Nothing makes me angrier than having my works compared to paintings.
I will thank you, because it is part of the artist to know how to absorb the judgment of others, but I will do it shaking with rage.
It is a constant exercise in patience with the observer.
However, if one is mature enough, one will understand we are just homo sapiens sapiens evolving by judgement.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a landscape photographer. I do exclusively nature photos and present them in wall prints and NFT.
I got into this business while working as a mountain photographer on a sky resort in Maine, US.
Suddenly, I realized I much more prefered to shoot the mountain itself and the trees rather the guests.
As an independent artist I don’t do commissioned photos.
I don’t take photos because others like them, I take photos I like and put them up for sale.
Which is an added challenge.
I don’t tend to use modern marketing to say that I solve other people’s problems, because I deal with art and in this case what I do has to do with aesthetics, harmony, well-being and at the same time investment.
It is different from offering a product from a pharmacy.
When you offer a piece of art, you are reaching very subjective items of the human mind that are secondary.
It would be unprofessional to say things like “I will solve your self-esteem with my art”.
There was a time during that period working at the resort that I came to a realization: Nothing I would photograph with the guests in would ever be considered art, because it lacked the context of timelessness, since people rarely offer this context in photography.
And although among the 10 most expensive photos in history we have some photos with people, these images are there because people became famous and the moment was specific or because the buyer simply identified personally with the subject.
Like, for example, the famous “falling man” from 9/11 that the singer Elton John bought.
The reality is that most great works of photography are not about people, they are about moments.
But it wasn’t always that I had this insight, because I hated photography.
I hated being in pictures.
I never had that narcissistic urge to pose.
So I walked away whenever there was a camera.
In fact, I still do.
The point is that once I was a photographer, I could see the potential of being able to choose the subject myself, and from there eliminate people from the photos, making them perpetual.
I used to pose the resort’s clients with a perfect frame in the background and in a few moments, I would slide the camera to the side to see how it would look without them.
I always preferred the second version.
As I always say, you excel in the arts when you meet all 4 prerequisites to be a professional artist:
1- Intention (it takes commitment and responsibility and for that it is necessary to have the intention of being an artist, because nothing happens by chance).
2- DNA (the photographic gaze that is either born with you or not).
3- Study and train your art to exhaustion.
4- Have a finished, completed and polished product or set of final products.
As for what I think that would make me stand out from others: I don’t think.
I don’t photograph for others. I photograph for myself. So I don’t care about the others.
I take the photos I want and because I like it.
I never photograph something because someone or some group apparently would like to.
It would ruin my art in the long run.
More than that, I entered the world of art because I can, because I’m good at it, because I like it and because I chose to.
So I don’t think that any great painter or sculptor became great to please others.
Unfortunately that might mean dying poor like most of them.
If people like Van Gogh knew what they would become… Maybe they wouldn’t have become so talented.
That way, things like pride in what other people might think don’t even cross my mind.
Again, I don’t recommend that every artist follow in my footsteps, but if you do, you can at least be sure that this alone will guarantee you originality.
And perhaps that originality gets more attention than the rest.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

The emergence of NFT caused me to stop selling my arts for a limited time. I needed to review the way I was selling them.
The same happened with the emergence of large portals for buying and selling photography such as Flickr, Getty, istock, Shuttersotck, Fotolia and others.
But this time, the NFT made the artist solely responsible for his work, which is different from receiving cents for a print of a copy.
NFT has a lot more artistic appeal than the websites I mentioned.
Marketplace portals for NFT need to improve, but until then, I decided to adopt the method 1 sale = 1 painting + 1 NFT of the same work.
This means that each of my photos has only one owner, as I don’t sell numbered works, my works are unique.
And the NFT allows me to offer a work to a collector so that it can be heirloomed for eternity to their descendants.
Just as it has the advantage over painting that the collector, upon noticing that his printing unit has deteriorated or reduced its quality, can destroy it and simply print another one.
Forever.
I’ll explain more about this on my website over the course of the next year or two, when I’ll roll out the system and get back to selling.
I’m currently taking wait list names from people interested in future purchases.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

It is a good question. But it’s a better question to ask generically about my artistic method.
As I do my photos for myself, as I explained above, it makes no sense to create a mission or goal.
This happens every time a person is lucky enough to be good at something and manage to work on it at the same time.
You simply do it because you want to and because you like it.
However, it is possible to extract some objective from the artist, especially if he makes extra effort on his creations.
This shows that he wants his own excellence, and then it is clear that there is some objective or force that pushes him forward.
The force that pushes me forward is to see and show in my art the best that the universe can be, in its best moment.
Even if this moment is simple, being aware that between greatness and simplicity, there are eternal moments in both in the universe.
Having the opportunity to watch those moments is something special.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jackdaniel.mypixieset.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followmetofloripa/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JackDanielPro
• Other: https://linktr.ee/jackdaniel

Image Credits
Credits to the images to Jack Daniel – https://jackdaniel.mypixieset.com/