30 Days of Inspiration! Day 25: Erin Graboski

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"The Butterfly Queen"

1. Introduce yourself and the style of photography you think best represents your work.

I'm in Erin Graboski and I am a fine art photographer who concentrates on conceptual, dark art, and portraiture themes with in my work.

2. How did you get into photography?

I got into photography when I was about 15 years old. I started out really exploring and experimenting with nature and landscape genre photography and then as I discovered more and more about the art and finding other photographers to follow I started to incorporate self portraiture into my work and then after I got Photoshop, I really started to concentrating entirely on conceptual, fine art work.

3. What inspires your photographs?

Dark themes, dream states, fairy-tale, mythical ideas, story-tales are definitely words that come to mind when I think about what inspires my work. I am really big into having a dark art concept into my images while pushing the ideas of whats real. I love to make surrealistic, fantasy type ideas look real and possible in my work.

"If You Can Stomach Me"

4.Where are some of your favorite places to shoot?

I really love shooting outdoors on location. I go to a lot of open space areas around where I live and have little places that I find and go shoot new images in and finding other awesome places to explore around and create in.

5.Do you like to photograph other things, or just your main work?

I like to photograph my main work a lot. Its what I'm most passionate about with in my craft. I do like to photograph landscape and nature images still, not as often. I find myself shooting those types of images more so when I'm traveling and when I'm exploring new places.

6. What is your favorite photo you've taken and why?

"Dust to Dust"

"Dust to Dust" is probably one of my most favorite photos I've taken. It is the image that most defines my style I like to create in. I love the colors in it and how the pixie dust in the image just is exploding right off her body in the image. I just love everything about how that image came out.

7. What do you want your viewers to take away from your work?

I want viewers to take away a sense of fantasy and escape from my work. I always describe my work as a way to escape, dream, love, and inspire which why I create my work and that's what I want viewers to experience as well.

"Down by the River"

8. What gear do you use? What's your most used lens and why?

I use a tripod, a wireless remote set up, a Canon 60D, and a 50mm f/1.4 lens for shooting. My 50mm is the only lens I have in my gear right now. I love using that lens to create a shallow depth of field and its great for compositing images.

9. Who would you say is your favorite photographer? Why?

Brooke Shaden is my favorite photographer. She was the first fine art, conceptual artist that I discovered and followed when I was developing my own conceptual style. She is an artist that I definitely look up to and admire immensely.

10. Have you dealt with any negativity as a photographer, if so, how did you overcome it?

I haven't really dealt with any blatant negativity as a photographer. The only real 'negative' input I have received as a photographer is people saying stuff like "you need to do with with you image to make it better" or 'this needs to be done to it" and I just take comments like that with a grain of salt. I don't let any negativity towards an image ruin my confidence towards my art.

"The Underworld to Wonderland"

11. Do you plan on doing anything with your photography or do you shoot just for fun?

I plan on becoming a full time photographer. My absolute dream would to host workshops and own a gallery space one day. It would be so awesome to release of a book with my images in it too. The list I have created with regards to what I want to do with my work is always being added to.

12. Do you have a favorite inspirational quote? If so, what is it and why is it your favorite?

"Do what you love and do it often. Live your dream." This quote is my favorite because it is exactly what I am working to being able to do to one day.


13. What is one experience from shoots that you will always remember?

"Skeletons in Your Closet"

An experience from shoots that I will always remember is just loving the stillness and quiet that comes around when the sun is setting. I shoot pretty much all of my work at magic hour so especially in the summer it is so amazing just to be out in that as the daylight ends.

14. What would be the best advice you could give to a new photographer?

The best advice I could give to a new photographer is to have a lot of fun with it and just go for it. I taught myself a lot of what I know today just by going for whatever inspired me to try to something new with my images and just going for all the ideas I could dream of when I thinking of new concepts to create. I still try to practice a lot of that today.