Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lainey Conant. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lainey, 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 started photography when I was about 16. My aunt took photos as a hobby and I ended up getting a camera from her. One of my friends and I started taking photos together when we first became friends and I ended up getting really serious about it. I have always been very interested in art and the creative process and I took several courses in school for art. I never actually took any classes for photography until college and by that time I had already learned more than they could teach me in the class. I learned to do what I do now just by trial and error. I just continued to take photos all the time and tried new editing and shooting techniques through YouTube. I learned everything that I know now about photoshop from Youtube and just pressing buttons and seeing how things worked. I may have been able to speed up some of my learning process over the years but I think that the time it took to learn my craft was essential. Trial and error works best for the way that I learn. Photoshop was the most essential tool when I began photography because even though I was not the most technical photographer, good editing can still shape your ideas well. I think often times obstacles are really just tools to help you become more creative. I didn’t have the most updated equipment or an extensive knowledge or budget to shoot the concepts that I wanted when I started. But you learn the ways that you can still communicate your concepts through other routes. I only photographed myself for quite a long time until I felt like I was equipped to lead a photoshoot and that helped a lot with my composition, color choices and concept ideas as I began to photograph other people. I think that learning other forms of art and design also helped immensely with the overall direction of my work and the cohesiveness of what I do.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am an artist born and raised in Oklahoma. My work has been described as a “technicolor daydream” and I think that is quite fitting throughout all of my body of work. I am a photographer mostly, but I also paint, make clothes and pretty much any other craft I can get my hands on. The most exciting part about my work and why I feel like people continue to shoot with me or follow my work is that it is very colorful and conceptual. It is feminine and nostalgic and can be also quite bold. I love to make clothes and props for my work so that it feels like I have truly created so much of what I am capturing in the photographs. Fashion is something I have always been passionate about, as well as music, so shooting musicians and people that love fashion are my favorite things. My work doesn’t look like most artists from Oklahoma, we don’t have a huge fashion or music industry here, but getting to work locally with other creatives is why I continue to stay here. I do travel a bit to LA to work with a few of my creative friends occasionally as well. Since I am a photographer of mostly fashion, I also love to style photo shoots as well. A lot of my clientele is young girls that love to take photos for instagram or with their friends etc and I love that so much as well as working with musicians and brand owners. Pretty much anything that allows me to be creative is exciting for me to shoot! I’ve done everything from weddings to product photography to seniors to full conceptual photo shoots and I love all of it. It excites me when I have clients that have a vision and they want me to help them bring it to life. The problem solving and ingenuity of that part of the job is super fun to me. I am definitely the most proud of a lot of my collaborations with other creators and some of my album artworks. I also run a workshop with one of my friends for photographers and aspiring models to come and shoot concepts that we design and that has been extremely rewarding to produce.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice
NFTS are something that I have weirdly dabbled in, I know that they can be quite controversial and hard to understand at first! I was definitely anti-NFT until one of my friends started a NFT based community and they are writing a book based on characters that I drew! After understanding more on NFTs and the community surrounding successful NFT projects, I think that NFTs and Web3 will be a solid part of the future of the internet. I have seen several artists finally make the money they deserve by selling NFTs. So I would encourage skeptics to research and ask questions about NFTs and be open to learning new things about them!
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I love that my creative journey is also connected to my job and what I get to do every day. I think that finishing a project and looking at what I’ve created after the process, especially when it’s something new, is very rewarding. Getting to fuel my creativity with my every day experiences and put that in to my work makes me excited to create. I also love getting to work with new people and especially when they are new to getting their photos taken. Seeing the progress of when a client opens up and gains confidence as a photo shoot progresses is so awesome to experience!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://laineyconant.wixsite.com/mysite?fbclid=PAAab_otglqFnWDpFwsOwIIP1gSJv0Xn7csPdXsA9vuCi5s4vIr-IchS3y4uA
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kittylouu/