We recently connected with Joe Howard and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joe, thanks for joining 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 began my photography adventure shooting on “Auto” mode, where the camera decides everything for you. I loved this mode as I found the camera to be extremely overwhelming at first. I actually had no interest in photography during high school, which is where some people usually take a photography class. I picked up my first camera a few months after high school, and I am a self taught photographer. The only professional help I’ve sought out was a workshop to Iceland in 2017 with two professional photographers who taught some of the core principles I use on a daily basis in my landscape photography. I would usually take my camera with me to work, and go out and take pictures afterwards, whether it was a car or light trails of the highway from the overpass, I just enjoyed being out with my camera. Sure I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was having fun. As time went on, I started to remember and observe what all the numbers on the camera meant, and what different numbers meant for different photos. Such as a photo taken at 1 second would result in a passing car looking blurry, versus 1/100 there’s a lot less motion blur. It wasn’t a fast process but I remember going out and trying new exposures, photographing my first waterfall and the excitement I felt when I achieved the silky water effect. I believe going out and taking pictures and trying and possibly failing is all such a good experience to have, and the persistence it takes to keep going back and pushing yourself to learn how to achieve that shot is such an important skill. I feel like it’s so easy to get caught up the research stage on Youtube and the internet reading countless hours of content but then never going out and actually doing it, that’s the part where it starts to stick, at least for me. I could read all about photographing light trails of a car but I feel like actually going out and seeing the results are so crucial for growing as a photographer. One of the biggest obstacles for me as a growing photographer was avoiding my social media envy, it’s so easy to get jealous over someone else’s photo online, but it’s always important not to compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter twenty.

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 background and context?

For the first twenty-three years of my life I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, until the beginning of 2022 my girlfriend and I uprooted our lives to take a huge risk moving to Connecticut for a career opportunity we couldn’t pass up. I worked at a camera store in St, Louis, and I currently work at a camera store in Connecticut. I’m not only a photographer, I get to talk about photography everyday at work. I’ve always been a hiker/nature lover, my dad and I were heavely involved in the Boy Scouts, and he pushed me to get Eagle Scout, so the outdoors have been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My days as a photographer begin about 6 years ago, I was fresh out of high school, I was working full time and looking for a hobby for my free time, mostly to photograph cars. So I bought a used Nikon D3300 camera and decided to try photography out, unaware at the time that it would turn into my passion and desire to travel and see all the world has to offer. At first I started taking photos of anything honestly, landscapes, cars, my cat, people, but as I progressed I realized I love landscape photography and I have a huge passion for nature, and no other subjects light the fire within. One of my favorite things to photograph are waterfalls, usually after a good rain when the woods come alive, the creeks are flowing, the only sounds are waterfalls and rain on the trees. One of my favorite things about being a photographer is everyone does it differently, if you have 10 photographers with the same subject, you’ll get 10 different results. Being a photographer is a perfect way to express your creativity, whether it’s composing the photo, or how you edit. We all have a different eye for it and it’s amazing to express your creative vision. I am proud of my photography style, in a world full of countless presets and Instagram filters, to try to replicate and copy someone else’s style, I strive to achieve a softer almost painting apperance with a touch of my personality to make it my own, I try to look for perspectives that aren’t as common, and I often utilize long exposures to achieve movements in my images.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

As a landscape photographer, I’ve had to do some crazy things to get “the shot”. Sometimes I get a random urge to go photograph the Milky Way, so I get in my car and drive 3 hours or so until I find dark enough skies away from light pollution to see the stars and photograph the Milky Way, only to get there and the sky is full of clouds or overcast, so then not only do I have to drive 3 hours home with no good photos, I haven’t slept and I have to go to work! I am the type of person when I see thunderstorms on the radar, I get excited. When it’s raining outside, I’m grabbing my camera bag and rain gear, and headed to my local waterfall, when it rains it means I get the trails all to myself as no one wants to get wet, plus the falls are flowing even more during the storm. I find bright sunny days more challenging days to photograph, and I often prefer overcast or rainy days for hiking in the woods. When most people go hiking, they’ll usually pull their phone out and snap a few pics here and there, and that’s it. For myself and probably most landscape photographers, it’s not that easy. First off once I get to the location, I have to get my gear setup, and then comes the difficult task of finding a composition I’m happy with. This could take 10 minutes or an hour, and the funny part is even if I like the photo on my camera, I could have totally different feelings once I see it on my computer.

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

By no means do I have a large audience, but I do feel like I have a small audience that enjoys seeing my work and supports me. I’ve been posting for many years, and I always try to interact with my audience. I try to respond to comments, and answer any questions one may have whether it’s about the location or the information behind the photo, I love interacting with people who show an interest in my work. I use Instagram’s story feature to try to take some behind the scenes footage of wherever I’m out taking pictures, I think it’s fun and also a cool little teaser for the audience to look forward to the official image! I love checking out people’s accounts and I’ll be sure to support those who support me. As Instagram coninues to shift toward being more of a video platform, I honestly have struggled to adapt. I find sharing photos to be what I enjoy the most. Maybe I’m just old school (Old school Instagram, who knew that was a thing?), but I just can’t help that I only want to post photos. I think the most important part of growing an audience and having support consists of a couple things. First off, make sure you are passionate and have the drive to share your content. I think if you don’t have the drive and passion behind your content, I believe your audience will be able to tell. I wouldn’t want to support someone who isn’t even passionate about their work and what they share, I’m not saying treat your social media like a job, but show your potential audience that you are having fun and enjoy doing this- imagine going and seeing a standup comedian who shows no signs of wanting to be there, it kind of ruins the experience. The other piece of advice I’d give is to find your niche and stick to it. In my opinion, people want to follow a theme, and if you want to grow an account, finding your theme is a must.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joeph0to.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joeph0to
• Other: https://vero.co/waterfalls

Image Credits
Joe  Howard