Edition Fifty Three

An interview with @okayfoto

Substack is an interesting place.

You get a proper understanding of community when you scroll through the Notes feed. Plenty of people you follow or subscribe to tend to recommend their favorite reads or interesting posts they found. From there it is just a short stop before you find someone interesting and before you know it you’ve subscribed.

This is how I found Dan Helle (okayfoto) and his newsletter. I used to interview mostly photographers I found on Instagram and YouTube but for this round I decided to look a little closer to home, within the Substack community.

With that said, onto the meat and potatoes…

Hello Dan, the about page of your newsletter gives us a good introduction to who you are but what else can you tell us about yourself?

Well, first off, thank you so much for choosing to interview me. I’m humbled to have been asked. When I first subscribed to your Substack, I went back through a lot of the interviews you’ve posted - you’ve done so many, they were really great to read.

In terms of my background, I’ve been very lucky to carve a long career as an artist in a few different areas. I started out working in animation, but quickly moved into the video game industry, where I’ve been for almost 20 years (I currently work as an Art Director for a game studio in Canada).

My interest in and approach to art and photography is influenced by a lot of stuff I grew up with and still love today, like music and DJ’ing (particularly hip hop, downtempo, drum and bass), skateboarding and skate culture, and art in general (drawing, graffiti, photography, writing, etc.). I think all of these things influence each other and I have found that they typically resonate with a lot of the photographers I know and follow. There’s something about these creative influences (particularly skateboarding) that seem to have led a lot of people to photography.

It’s been in the last 10 years or so that I got back into photography, and particularly in the last three years that I’ve become super focused on it. Like so many people, I grew up using my parent’s film camera and my own point and shoots, and then moved on to the camera phone. While the camera phone was super convenient, I found there was a disconnect for me in using it to capture real moments of significance, so my interest dropped off for a little while.

I really didn’t pick it up again until my wife and I honeymooned in NYC in 2015 - the energy of that city was so awesome and I ended up taking a ton of photos with my camera phone, and it triggered me to start taking photography seriously again. Despite this re-found interest, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I graduated from my camera phone and invested in my first high-end digital camera, and most recently, a growing library of film cameras - so, pretty much coming full circle in terms of technology.

I’m really enjoying learning more about film and all the different generations of cameras out there. I also really enjoy getting to connect with other photographers, like yourself, and being part of this super encouraging community on Substack.

A difficult & often unfair question - which format of photography (film or digital) do you favor more and what motivates you to make the decision for one over the other?

I can honestly say, I have no specific preference - each has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. Over the last year, I’ve been shooting digitally in the same way I would shoot with film - taking my time, exploring a scene, and finding my composition before firing the shutter.

Slowing down has helped me enjoy photography more. I often don’t even look at the photos I’ve taken until I get home. I find it just helps me to stay in the moment, which in turn keeps me focused on taking the photo. I’ve missed many shots by reviewing photos in real-time, so I do my best not to do that anymore.

Making the decision to shoot on film or digital often comes down to things like the weather, where I’ll be going, and generally what feels more fun in the moment…honestly, that’s about it. Whatever is going to get the best results based on those few factors is all that really matters to me.

That said, I find myself choosing film more often lately, and I’m super enjoying learning to work with it again. I have found that trying different film stocks in my new (well, new to me) cameras, and just getting out there has been the best way to learn. It’s also just really fun - I love analogue everything, so film photography is just a natural progression for me.

Not gonna lie, I also find film more compelling, because it means not having to edit much, if at all. Film gives my photos the look I was trying to capture through digital editing anyway, so that’s a huge plus.

Digital photography gives us the ability to shoot hundreds of photos. We see more people move toward a traditional process when it comes to photography. Do you think shooting film is a type of resistance, almost a rebellious push against digital photography? And does a digital camera make a photographer a bit more reckless when it comes to planning since they have no limit to the amount of shots they can take?

For me, film and digital are interchangeable, and honestly I think they should be. Tying yourself to one thing or another, or being a purist is just not for me; I like options. For me, shooting film is less rebellion and more like school - teaching me the back to basics photography foundations (e.g., the nuances of different film stocks, learning how to shoot manually and use different types of cameras and shooting priorities).

For instance, I’d never shoot my digital camera in manual. I figure, why did I spend all that money just to forego the best parts of that camera - its automatic modes. So it’s nice to have film and digital on hand - you get the best of both worlds.

Obviously, being able to shoot more freely on digital is great, but I generally try not to. I want to train my eye, my reaction time, and my foresight whenever possible, and picking the best frame from a burst of 20 or so shots doesn’t really help me do that. At the end of the day, I just appreciate how film keeps me honest as a photographer - the scans are the truth, whether they are in focus or not, whether your framing and composition need work, if you nailed the exposure, or if you pressed the shutter in time…film doesn’t lie and it’s helped me grow as a photographer.

As someone doing photography, what are your thoughts around Instagram? Do you think it still has a place when more people are moving away from traditional social media platforms and opting to have a website?

I think it definitely has it’s place; it’s a great way to start getting your work out there and seeing what other photographers are doing. In terms of growing your community or potentially your business, it may be helpful to think more broadly as well. If you’re focused on getting your photography seen and trying to stand out from the crowd, I think there was a time, if you got in early enough, that Instagram was great for that, I saw it myself with another non-photography account I have.

However, with my newer photography account, I was late to the game and have not seen the same kind of progress, not for lack of trying. I find it requires a lot of work to grow and maintain your relevance (e.g., keeping up with algorithm changes, the volume of posts and content formats/types you need to create to build engagement as a photographer -i.e., making reels, videos, etc.). I wrote a Substack note about Instagram vs. Substack; if anyone is interested they can read it here

But to answer your question, yes Instagram does still have a place, for sure, I just don’t rely on it solely. Instead, I use it as a place to sometimes share my favourite photos and spread the word about my preferred spaces, like Substack. For me, a place like Substack is a far more effective way to present my work, providing a setting that is more personal, collaborative, encouraging, and pushes creativity that lives outside of what might be popular. Substack gives people a place to talk about their work (at all skill levels), find a community, and then use that to build a base of people to learn from and with.

In my experience, I’m encouraged and rewarded for posting thoughtful, personal and genuinely me things, and I’m not required to do so with any regularity, or bend to the latest trends to stay relevant because I have a community of subscribers who will always see what I put out there.

Currently, I kind of treat Substack like a website. It’s how I would use a website if I had one, as I’ve learned that I really like blogging and presenting pictures alongside personal stories and creating fun narratives to accompany posts. If Substack also offered a format to present photography as a portfolio, I would just host everything here.

Overall, photography is just friggin’ cool. I love it, I love cameras, and I love being able to expound on that in whatever way I want. It’s great to have so many people here along for the ride. I feel like we’re all in this together and that’s just the raddest thing to be involved in.

In the social media age, sharing photos has become something we do almost without thinking. It goes on our status, on our Substacks or our social media pages. Do you think there is shift away from the “algorithm” type posts (certain time, certain day, certain topic) and a move towards more personal photos, photos which speak to the photographer more than the audience?

I like to think that a shift is happening; I’m starting to see it more often with a lot of the photographers I follow or subscribe to. I think there are going to be inherent differences depending on where you spend your time, social media wise. I personally find most people use Substack in ways that are fundamentally different than Instagram or even other new spaces, like Foto.

That’s not to say that there aren’t Instagrammy things happening on these other platforms, but at the end of the day, we make the choice about what we want to see. I can say that on most platforms I still participate in, I’ve curated spaces that cater more to the type of photos you are talking about. It’s what I would want to see.

I say, put what you want out there, do your own damn thing and try to do it in a way that no one else is - that’s my personal photography ethos. Chasing algorithms is not part of that, it’s not fun, and I want every part of photography to be fun, to be exciting, to be a challenge, and to give me experiences that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have a camera in my hand.

Overall, photography is just friggin’ cool. I love it, I love cameras, and I love being able to approach it in whatever way I want. It’s great to have so many people here along for the ride. I feel like we’re all in this together and that’s just the raddest thing to be involved in.

In closing.

If you’re unsure about what to read on Substack, dive into a Notes feed. You’re likely to find a few interesting newsletters and some even more interesting people. If you find nothing ( o_0 ) then check out Dan’s Substack and let me know what you think.

Stay Focused

Thanks for reading : )