I really like James work and am going to enjoy watching him grow. James don’t go down the route of super retouched work. It’s a pain in the ass and the images wont hold up over time.

Big ups James!

Shane, I had a similar thought on seeing these. Looks like he has some quality gear and lots of people willing to pose for him. Cameras don’t shoot great pictures on their own, but sometimes it’s hard to know if a specific photographer would be able to capture compelling images without having the coin available.

I think that’s what Heather’s last paragraph is getting at. The question is, if you gave anyone the gear that was used to take these pictures, could they do something similar? The answer to that tells you how much influence the photographer’s vision and voice has on the final product — and I can’t come up with that answer.

I can say that these shots have a “flickr aesthetic”; the wet hair shots, the comped “extreme sports” multiple exposures, swirling smoke. You see these all over on flickr, they are very popular, and they are almost exlcuively “look what my camera can do” (or, “look what my strobes can do”) photos. Not “look what I can do”. But there’s some great composition and a knack for timing here. I can’t say if any of this is good or bad.

In any case, I wish him the best and hope he flies past his goals in the upcoming years.

I often get down on myself because I’m quite a bit older than these phenoms and think I should at least be on their level because of my advanced age, but a friend recently enlightened me. He said, “you shouldn’t worry about where you are compared to others because we don’t all start off in the same place.” That’s very important to remember. I’m thinking these kids have to have some sort of benefactor that funds their cameras, computers, photoshop, travel, etc…a benefit most of us don’t have. Maybe that’s jealousy talking, I don’t know? All I know is you can’t become a great pianist if you don’t have a piano.