We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sean Haselden a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Sean, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
– I’ve learned photography over the years through many different methods. I’ve always been curious on how things work so my curiosity lends to ask questions like “how do you achieve that result?”. I read some basic photography books explaining aperture, ISO, and shutter speed when I got my first digital camera. I’ve always been more of a technical person, so the formula behind exposing an image came fairly naturally. I had a good friend that had been a photographer for many years, and they were also willing to answer a lot of my questions out in the field. We would go on a number of photography trips and each time I would learn something new and try to apply it. Understanding how to “properly” expose an image, and how to modify the variables (iso, shutter, aperture) to achieve a desired look or result have been some of the most essential skills. Honing composition skills are a bit more subjective. At times I think I’ve really struggled to progress in post-processing. I think it’s one of the biggest skills to improve your photos overall. Taking the image from what you capture, to how you envision it can be difficult if you lack the knowledge and skills to get there. This is one of the biggest obstacles I’ve had. Many times I have an idea of what I want the final image to look like, but struggle to edit it and get what i’m looking for.
Sean, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m a landscape and Timelapse photographer living in Portland, Oregon. I’m actually a full time Support Engineer with a passion for travel, the outdoors and photography. I originally got a digital camera to document my travels. It quickly turned into a passion, especially for capturing moments I wanted to remember. I don’t always have the best memory, but I can look back at photos I’ve taken and remember how I felt in that moment. Now photography is an excuse for me to get outside. Half the time I don’t even process photos, I just love the adventure. While I primarily photograph landscapes and provide prints and calendars to those that want it, I do also shoot people from time to time. I’ve done weddings, proposals, engagements, newborn and family photos.
I think I find the most pride or satisfaction in the messages I get from people on how some of my photos have brightened their day . That feels very self centered to say, but I really do appreciate knowing my photos and work can bring a little joy to folks, especially those that may never be able to make it to a particular location or country. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to 29 countries and bring back some of that to friends and family through photos.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
There is a particular location that is a 6 hour round trip drive from where I live. I’d wanted to shoot the Milky Way over Mt Adams reflected in a small lake up in the mountains. The particular alignment I wanted only happens during a particular month, and requires the road leading up to it is melted and open after the winter. To photograph the Milky Way always requires a particular phase of the moon, along with clear skies. A number of things have to align perfectly for this shot. It took me 4 attempts over a couple years to get the right things to line up. The previous 3 times I’d encountered fog, or clouds up around the mountain. Finally one day the weather looked good, but it was in the middle of the week and I had to work. I got off work, drove 3 hours one way, stayed up all night to get the shot along with a timelapse, drove 3 hours back home and went to work. It was a pretty rough day at work, but absolutely worth it.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding thing about creating photography for me is just being outside and adventuring. While I would do these things without it, there’s a new dimension added especially when it comes to planning. There are a number of shots I’ve planned, especially for Milky Way, that are incredibly rewarding to see my vision come to reality when things line up.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://seanhaseldenphotography.com
- Instagram: @seanhaselden
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seanhaseldenphotography
- Twitter: @haseldensean