Sometimes you don’t have to look far for artistic inspiration. Often, the answers you seek are right around the corner.
I just returned from a morning jog. Now, certainly, I don’t run as far as I used to these days. I certainly don’t run as fast. Fewer antelopes and more arthritic turtles. But my long runs were never intended to set world speed records. An extended journey across town, along the coast or even around the backlot of my old studio is the most useful opportunity to unplug. Aside from music and/or podcasts streaming into my headphones, my runs are a tech-free zone. No emails. Don’t post my progress on social media. I don’t take any calls (partly because doing so would inevitably cause me to stumble awkwardly due to my inability to do two things at once). Distance running is my chance to disconnect from the world.
But at the same time, doing so still allows me to form a different kind of connection. A connection to my city and my surroundings. Experiencing a city on foot is a far cry from witnessing it from the back seat of a tour bus or taking a virtual tour online. You can hear all the stories you like from your friends, but actually placing your own shoe leather on the sidewalk and feeling the gravel under your feet will give you a unique perspective that only you only can it be fully understood.
The places we live in tend to seep into our subconscious. They inform how we see the world. They inform our goals and expectations. Our ideas of right and wrong. Our vision of beauty.
I remember once listening to a lecture by a great cinematographer and he mentioned how many of Hollywood’s great DPs came from outside the United States. That’s not a quantitative comparison. Rather, what he is pointing out is that many great images are the result of an artist looking at the world differently. See something that most people never see. Those things go unnoticed because they’re not interesting. Rather, for those who are used to staring at them every day, they become a bit more like a habit, while someone coming to that scenario for the first time can still see the majesty in the moment there.
I think a lot about how the city I live in influences me as an artist. I live in Los Angeles and have spent most of my life here. The places I go and the people I meet at the grocery store tend to resemble places you often see on television or in movies. That doesn’t mean I’m an insider. My experience isn’t even unique. Rather, living in LA, you can’t help but interact with Tinseltown in one way or another. It’s like in the DNA of cars coming to Detroit or technology coming to Silicon Valley.
But I think about how living here has influenced my own aesthetics and ambitions. How I determine the beauty of the subject I decide to photograph. What I consider to be an interesting scene to use as a backdrop. All of this is greatly influenced by my easy access to actors and actresses, models and supermodels, beaches and mountains, and everything in between that makes up the fabric of my city. There’s no way to avoid it affecting me one way or another. From my preference for other people’s work to deciding what type of work to do myself.
When I was a child, my family lived in Boston. The other day, when I went to dinner with my mother, I asked her if she thought that if we had stayed in Boston, my life would have been different. I’m pretty sure I’ll still be an artist. Ever since I was in elementary school, I have always been less interested in living a certain life than in turning the lives I saw into art. So to some extent, that die was cast long before I moved west. But maybe instead of becoming a screenwriter, I would become an author. If I were in the literary world instead of Hollywood, I probably would never have thought of becoming a director. That would never lead to filming and photography. I may still be some version of the artist I am today, but the specifics may have changed. That is the influence of my fateful environment.
But when I go for long runs on weekends, walking to my hometown, one cannot deny all the gifts this city has given me as an artist. It has helped shape the way I see the world. Both the good experiences and the bad experiences I have gone through here have inspired and strengthened me respectively. The people I have had the pleasure of interacting with, the diversity of thought that comes with living in such a cosmopolitan city, has given me access to millions of interesting stories to tell and shared experiences to understand. My house is as much a part of my work as my technique. And that’s a good thing.
Reading this article, one might think it is simply a love letter to Los Angeles. And, while I’m definitely partial to my hometown, the point isn’t to say how cool it is to live in LA. Rather, it is what a joy it is to recognize the uniqueness of all the places we call home. I’m sure if you think about the place you call home, those thoughts will immediately be associated with a series of feelings and emotions. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult for you to recount a series of “firsts” that happened to you around town. First day at school. The first time he met his wife. The first time you hold a camera.
What did you point that camera at? How does it make you feel? Think about the landscape of your town. Do you live in a big city? A small village? How does that affect the way you see? How would you describe the personality of your town? And how has that personality affected your work? How has the environment itself influenced the way you compose your images, your color palette, and the way you see light?
It’s human nature to sometimes consider whether the grass is greener on the other side of the fence or not. But it’s worth taking a moment to enjoy the beauty close to home. Consider all the gifts your homeland has given you as an artist. Let it inform the work you create. No matter how far you go, there is no place like home.
