We were lucky to catch up with Josh Land recently and have shared our conversation below.

Josh, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

Well I often wish I would have made the leap into making my photography my career path back when I had less responsibility. As a father of 6 I really haven’t been able to really get out there and invest in myself. I have always felt more locked into my stable Monday – Friday job and unable to take that leap of faith to jump-start my career. Having 7 other mouths to feed and keep a roof over our heads has been my burden for almost 20 years now. I have feelings of regret that I lacked the motivation and confidence that I could have done it on my own. While I was in college I worked for a very prestigious commercial photo studio in Cleveland, and a car accident and my final year of school, pulled me away from a major career opportunity there. I graduated right after 9-11 and amidst the economic decline and us being at war. Noone was hiring, no one was spending it was, what it was. I jumped around from meaningless jobs not even pursuing my art at all. Definitely not thinking that I could for one second, do it on my own. I know I haven’t given up on my dream, of having my own photo studio and making my art my career. I just wish I could have done it sooner. I encourage anyone to pursue their own craft or dreams as soon as they can. Do it, take the leap!

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

I was fascinated with photography as a child. While I am a product of what society would call a split household from divorce, I have grown to see it as a blessing to have two loving households. Both of my father’s, had elaborate 35 mm cameras. Let me tell you both of their camera bags were always the coolest thing to me. All I knew as a kid was they had all this gear and I couldn’t tell you what it was for. An array of lenses, flashes, tripods, film, the whole nine. It was like GI Joe, Transformers, and Inspector Gadget all in one bag. Yeah, there’s the Gen X 80’s kid in me coming out. I think I got my first camera around age 7, man I was was on cloud ninety nine. I was snapping pics of this and that on trips and around the house for years, and then it kind of got lost for awhile. I didn’t pick it back up until I got into college in an intro to photography 101 as an elective for Graphic Design. It was from that moment on I changed my degree path and knew I was a photographer. I miss the magic of the darkroom. Yeah I was trained OLD SCHOOL with film and developing and printing everything ourselves. That is where the newer generations have it easy to me. While their boundaries and limits are a full memory card after hundreds of images, mine was at best a roll of 24 exposures then not knowing what you even had until that roll until it was developed. This taught me discipline and honed my craft, in my opinion. I tend to be selective on shots I take, before I even put my camera to my eye, and I think that has a lot to do with how I learned shooting on film. Every shutter click was money, so I needed to make sure I made it count. Photography isn’t always viewed as an artform in the world, especially today as anyone and just about everyone has a camera in their hand 98% of the time thanks to cellphones and probably 99% of them think they are photographers. I beg to differ to both points. While I will say, sure anyone can take a great photo at any given day, even a blind squirrel can find a nut or two. I pride myself in capturing genuine moments and evoking emotion with my photography. I have had clients say “He doesn’t take pictures, he takes pictorials, because the shots all tell the story themselves.” Others have told me that my photos have taken them to the place I shot it to that very moment. They can feel it, or it makes them feel what it was like in that moment. I am an artist and photography is an artform. In a split second, I create photographs that allow viewers to share moments, evoke emotion and tell the story of a experience through one of my images.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Society needs to do better in supporting artists, and doing so while they are here with us. Too many, majorly talented artists struggle to make it simply because they lacked support. Art is expression and culture. We need to cherish that more than we do now. And we need to while artists are living, not when it’s too late. Give us our flowers here and now so we can all enjoy the moments together. Go to galleries and shows give the arts your support.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect of my art, is the reaction of someone when I deliver a single image, or body of work. I love it when I can give someone, something that brings joy to their day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lsquaredphotos.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/L2photosJLand
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/L2photosJLand

Image Credits
J.Land -LSquared Photos