Jason Lee : A Creative Photographer

Q: How did you get into photography?
A: I picked up my first digital camera a year before my first daughter was born, which was about 8 years ago. I really enjoyed taking photos and getting the immediate feedback from digital and it just grew from there.

Q: How do you come up with such creative photos of your daughters? What's your creative process like?
A: Most of the ideas come from the girls, from observing them play, or hearing the funny and outrageous things they say. Their day to day life also plays a big role for my inspiration. Creative process, hmm, thats a tough one. After coming up with an idea, I then 'set up' the scene, and often use artificial lighting to enhance the images. It helps to plan out the shoot before hand, so at most, I only have them in the shoot for a minute or two.

Q: How has being on Flickr helped you with your business?
A: I generally use Flickr to share photos of the kids, but I have had several inquiries for wedding work after people have seeing my child photography.

Q: Any inspirational stories you'd like to share?
A: Well, not sure if this is inspirational or not, but I'd like to share a little bit about why and how this project came about. In 2006, my mother was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. The girls were constantly sick, with colds and coughs so I couldn't always bring them to visit her. I started a blog http://kristinandkayla.com as a way to keep my mom up to date with things that were going on in their lives, and hoping to cheer her up with pictures. I still try and keep it updated with photos, but it's at a far less frequency than when I first started.

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring photographers?
A: Don't be afraid to experiment. Take notes. When you have an idea, jot it down somewhere for later. Practice, practice, practice. Start a 365 project, or at least try to shoot something on a consistent basis.

Q: Any quotes you live by?
A: Like in Finding Nemo, Dori advises "just keep swimming, just keep swimming." Replace swimming with taking pictures and I think you have a winning formula : )


Jason Lee's website