Meet Daniel Fox

We recently connected with Daniel Fox and have shared our conversation below.

Daniel, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

I believe creativity is alive as long as the artist has something to say.

We just use the language of painting, photography, poetry or music to express it. A jazz musician is saying something in immediate response to another performer using the language and tradition of jazz.  They could be playing a line that either mimics or provides counterpoint with what another musician is playing at that moment.  Or, in my case, if it’s a photograph, I may want to make a larger cultural statement – I’m using the medium of photography with a specific language (tone, color, composition, light, shadow and subject matter) to express something conceptually emotional or thoughtful.

If someone has a medium to work in, a lack of creativity could be seen as a lack of having something to say, or a fear of saying it.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Briefly, I went to school in the Midwest for graphic design and started a business focused on helping designers monetize their work online.

After I sold that business in 2017, I started photographing my friends when they would stop by my house. I loved it. I let myself be taken over by a bit of mania when I would shoot. There was so much good energy, excitement and fun.

But shortly after, I hit a wall. I didn’t see an interesting way for me to keep exploring. I’m not sure if the newness of the medium just wore off, or i was just satisfied with thinking I was “good enough” at the type of portraits I was doing, but the explorations in photography went underground for years.

I picked up the camera again when I was invited to Hawaii for a month-long series of shoots for a fundraiser project. The new work I did was so different conceptually. It was challenging in new ways (I was using only natural light and available landscape).

I’ve been immersing myself in the photography community in Denver, Colorado since then and continue to push myself to express new concepts in new ways.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

  1. Take a longer view – If you get bored with something, you don’t have to throw it out. You can stew on it for years, and explore other things. There’s often no real pressure to speed toward mastery. You can stroll forward and maintain the spirit of curiosity and wonder about the process.
  2. Everything is communication – Innovative aesthetics often come by accident either by someone who hasn’t learned the “right” way to use a medium, or a master who is trying to break the rules to innovate. But just as fundamentally, great aesthetics come from the unique expression of a concept (not just trendy, stylistic window dressing). For example, if you believe the world is a simulation, how do express that concpet in a photograph? Qhere do you modify the conventional language of the medium to make sure the concept comes through?
  3. Don’t try to make money with art. – Maybe controversioal, but for me, there’s a stark difference between business and art. Art has to satisfy my vision of what I want to say or explore. It’s self-expression and that feeling of self-expression IS the compensation. With pure business, you’re serving the needs of others and compensated with money. It’s very hard to mix the two worlds successfully and someone starting out will often feel tempted to betray their artistic vision for marketability.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

Developing a local community has been the biggest positive change in my life in the last year.

To get there I had to take a risk of showing up consistently and offering to collaborate. I had to decide that I wanted to showcase my photography. From there people started showing up slowly wanting to work with me and it continues to grow.

I have to admit, initially, I felt fear, scarcity and competition with other photographers. However, once I decided to prioritize it as my artform, the freedom I felt to celebrate my peers exploded and I felt so much more awe and excitement for what they were producing.

I want a life surrounded by people who are doing creative things, pushing their edges, and celebrating life. Putting money before that was foolish, and thank god, short-lived.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Daniel Fox of Studio Alti

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