We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel Newcomb . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel below.
Hi Daniel, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience takes form of necessity. I create art out of necessity, not out of choice. I don’t typically cry during sad films or seek solace to alleviate my despair.My emotions rarely surface, but I still need to release that burden like everyone else in the world. At a young age, I discovered that I could capture my darkness, my light, and my nostalgic longing through a lens and focus them onto paper.
Arranging these collections of photons on a surface other than my own keeps me grounded and present, preventing me from spiraling into a dark corner.
My art is my way of saying I love you, I hate you, I’m happy, or indifferent today. I pursue these shadows and light for selfish reasons of self-preservation, hoping that you, the viewer, might share some of the emotion of my life.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Daniel Newcomb
American Photographer (b. 1973). For 25 years, Newcomb has worked as a commercial architectural photographer for world famous interior designers and architects. He has shot properties for clients like Tommy Hilfiger, Kenny Rogers, David Ortiz, and Hard Rock International. All the while, his fine-art lens has been exploring the world, focused on forgotten architectural sites.
Daniel starting creating images at the age of 15 when his parents gave him his first 35mm camera and a darkroom. He was shy, but found solace in books, painting, music, and writing poetry. He felt a kinship in the works of Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Miles Davis, Raymond Chandler, Charles Bukoswki, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and all the jazz and rock poets he could consume. His camera became a way to express his emotions, and he was soon mixing his poetry and historic info with his art. He states, “I found this extra engagement with the viewer which could nudge a person’s feelings towards how I felt at the time of creation.”
From different formats of film to digital, his tools are ever-changing, but he always has a camera and journal book in hand. “This keeps my mind from just exploding. I have all these images and words in mind that I must continually have flowing out like a rambling jazz solo.”
Daniel shoots all forms of beauty in the world, but always finds himself drawn to the historical architecture of the world.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I would say the study of my craft. I still to this day learn new ways to approach my art. Always try to stay on top of my creativity as a learning tool, this helps keep me motivative and excited to shoot that next project. I would say to new photographers their worse enemy they have is the temptation for short cuts in the modern world. Most use these short cuts as the easy way out rather than additional tools. I would say always Learn the basics, Film, Printing, obsolete technics. These things will give you an understanding in the art to separate you from the pack..
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Im always looking for artist and models to collaborate with. I find their approach to art lets me see new avenues I might not have found on my own. Nothing worse than to be stuck in a creative rut of repetition. Working with new points of views can force me to work outside my comfort zones. I have been working on a project called “Lines and Light” for over a year with a life long artist friend of mine, Aaron Lepley. His main focus is Musical composition, but he is also an artist in many fields. We have been exploring my work with some specific project outlines, while using multimedia approaches with sound to add new levels to the work. It’s been a lot of fun and kept me behind th lens with new subject matter to hunt down. https://www.danielnewcombphoto.com/lines-light
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.danielnewcombphoto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniels_photo_art/
- Other: My commercial business: https://www.architectphotography.com
Image Credits
My portrait image is taken by Kevin Jantunen. All other images by Daniel Newcomb
