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December 27, 2020

Ep 16 – How Photography Become The Greatest Obsession for Felix Inden

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Ep 16 - How Photography Become The Greatest Obsession for Felix Inden
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Hey Wicked Hunters!

I can’t believe 2020 is almost gone! Well, it’s great to close 2020 with Felix Inden. In this podcast, we chat about how photography becomes Felix’s Greatest Obsession. Felix also shared his story behind his love for harsh weather and landscape photography. 

For those of you who’d like to know more about Felix Inden, you can find him:

If you want to watch the video podcast, head to https://youtu.be/2M0oMuAW4Ag 

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Felix Inden  0:00  
No matter when you have free time, you’re just thinking about photo photo photo photo. And then every break I had, I was thinking about that. And yes, I think it was the best obsession I ever developed so far.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  0:22  
Hey, wiki hunters, welcome back to The Art of Photography podcast. Now today I have someone very exciting. And you know that if you’ve been tuning into this podcast, our mission is to share our passion and how photography have given us hope, purpose and happiness. To most of us, if not to all of us, photography started off as something fun, something that makes us happy. And you know, one way to another, you know, we go through a lot of expectation, a lot of pressure, and so forth. And for that reason, sometimes we can abandon photography, or we get burned out from photography. So this is the whole purpose of this podcast. Now today, I have someone very exciting to introduce to you. And he is from based in Germany, and he is Feliks Indian. Are you doing Felix?

Felix Inden  1:20  
Yes. Hi, Stanley. Thanks for having me on the show. I’m fine. Quite smashed after the Christmas time with two kids, which is like exponentially making Christmas more tiring than ever before. If you don’t have kids, but I’m fine. Yes. And I’m happy to be here. As good. Yeah.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  1:38  
How is? How was Christmas back in Germany? I know you in Germany. You’re famous with the glue bind and the markets and?

Felix Inden  1:47  
Yeah, so in a normal year, Christmas has a huge tradition here. With the Christmas markets where people from all over Europe come in big bust groups just to join the Christmas market have a blue line and about wars, or what do I know. But in 2020, things are a little bit different. So there was not a single Christmas market in whole Germany, I think. But of course, in Germany, there’s a big Christmas tradition inside of each family. And my own family isn’t the craziest about Christmas. But still, we always have the Christmas tree in some decorations. And we actually also sing and stuff like that. It’s like gathering the family spending time together in this modern age. That often doesn’t happen so much anymore, that the whole family meets up. And this year, it was quite twit tricky with all these COVID regulation rules and stuff. So we split it up a little bit to avoid having too many people at home at the same time. And then for my wife’s family, I got some quick tests to make sure we are not infected. And yeah, different Christmas than I ever had before in these 36 years of life that I’ve had on this planet. But yeah, I mean, it’s Christmas. I’m personally not the huge Christmas fan. Like I go through it, I enjoy it. But I’m also quite happy when it’s over. And I can get on with my own stuff. Yeah.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  3:24  
Yeah, that’s good to hear. It’s good to hear that you’re enjoying. And, you know, I think the big thing about Christmas, for me is the family part of things. I think it’s, it’s a good excuse to kind of come together and, you know, meet with family and so forth. So, um, I’m very excited to have you here. You know, I come across your photo in Instagram, and while I was strolling, and it’s just going to your photo, and I just love the contrast on your photo and, you know, just the landscapes that you managed to capture. So tell us a little bit more about yourself maybe a little bit. background on how you get into this photography world.

Felix Inden  4:06  
Yes, that’s quite funny. It’s so my girlfriend who’s now my wife was into photography way earlier than myself. So my big hobbies in life have been cycling them. So road racing and mountain bike racing, which I was quite obsessive with. After that came a big phase of partying, like party hard while studying. And then I was in Paris with my wife, following her carrying her back and her tripod and she was taking pictures, and I thought it would be okay to stop taking pictures after two or three hours, but no, she went on the whole day. And at some point, I asked her if I can have her old backup camera and started taking pictures myself and realised I found that quite enjoyable. So we spent the next three days shooting together and Then I was already hooked to photography, and then all my free time reading about photography and then also going out to shoot mostly cityscapes. So I didn’t afford to go to some exotic location. And the evenings, I stopped going to parties and sat down at home at the computer learning to edit landscape and cityscape pictures. And then things kind of evolved, like the normal way I started using short social media and started communicating with a lot of people who had the same passion, like we’re doing right now. And from there, things just slowly kept evolving, somehow. Yeah,

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  5:45  
awesome. So what what really hooked you into photography, like, what makes you really love it.

Felix Inden  5:52  
So from that moment on, I first, maybe I have to, I have to tell you and everybody that I was really bad in art. So in school, I never had good grades in arts. And I never enjoyed it. Because whenever I tried drawing something, I just instantly saw how bad I am added. So I, yeah, I taught myself I don’t have an artsy creativity in me. I always had some writing interest in writing. And I read a lot of books, like, huge amount of books, like I was sitting hiding under my bed. When my parents told me to go sleep, I was hiding there with a flashlight and kept on reading. And this moment, when I picked up the camera from my wife, I realised that I actually was enjoying something that you can at least call art in some way. Like, I think people can argue for years if photography is art, or it isn’t. For me it is. And this was like the moment where I felt I’m not totally bad at picturing two dimensional three dimensional scenes into a two dimensional image. And through photography, I even learned how to think three dimensionally, much more than I was able to before. So also in physics, I was bad in school in physics. And now I deeply regret it. Because I think through photography, I learned how interesting all these topics actually are. Yeah. So that’s, I don’t know if that answers your question.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  7:38  
Yeah. So like, it’s really interesting how you like that, I actually never heard that kind of how you fall in love with photography, that’s really interesting. And I think a lot of people out there kind of think and look at a lot of these photos, you know, there’s beautiful photos, they, they kind of thing, they started off, and then they kind of gave up because they feel like, just like yourself, you know, they feel like they don’t have that art sight of themselves. And they feel like they cannot do this. So even though they enjoy it, they quickly give it up. So that is really good to hear that from from you, you know, who already basically made it in the photography world, saying that you weren’t very good in, you know, in photography, and then you’re here you are. So that’s amazing.

Felix Inden  8:36  
It’s was around 10 years ago that I found this interest. And then I quickly developed that obsession that you you need to really get into something. It’s when you when you feel that no matter when you have free time, you’re just thinking about photo photo photo photo. And then every break I had I was thinking about that. And yes, I think it was the best obsession I ever developed so far. Yeah.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  9:05  
Awesome. Yeah. That’s, that’s one way to put it. Yeah, so what sort of what sort of feeling you get when you can, like when you capture this, you kind of give us a little bit of background on on the different different aspects of your life and how it’s so contrast to your to photography and how we cannot connect back. But tell us a little bit more about the feeling that you get when you you know, when you’re able to capture some of these images and present it in a way that is Wow, basically.

Felix Inden  9:40  
Yeah, so good question. So I think the thing that will probably you’ve heard that from other photographers, but the experience for me comes first. So I’m not so much about getting that picture, but about going through living that moment in which I’m also taking that picture So I was always driven by, like natural energy like storms, rough weather, rough landscapes, just places where I feel so different than sitting at the cosy home, enjoying the wind, getting blasted with hail, these are those moments that often push my creativity. When I have to force myself to go through something that’s not comfortable, that’s when I feel the most creative. Now, if you look close to my Instagram, you will see that I have quite a big amount of also typical iconic shots, for which I didn’t have to go through any heavy things, I just went there with a photo tour that I was guiding and took that picture again that 100,000 People take. So it’s a topic for itself. But when I talk about these experiences, I talk about being out there alone on my own, or with a friend or two at maximum. And then going out in moments where you might make where maybe before you go out, you look at the weather and think we should just skip it and stay home. Those are mostly the sessions where my favourite images take part, if you go if you endure the elements, basically. And that leads to what you were telling about the images that I sometimes show that are quite punchy, or contrasty. Of course, I’m also passionate post producer or Photoshop user, but most of that really comes from the circumstances from the weather while shooting. Yeah,

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  11:41  
yeah, it’s, it’s, I totally agree. I think some of my best photos are or my favourite photos are the one that are have a lot of memories in it. So I think the photo is kind of just like, like, like a, like an award or like, you know, like a, like a piece of momento that you can remember that experience juicer.

Felix Inden  12:05  
And as soon as you look at it, even after five years, you will be in that moment, you just cannot forget it, it triggers all the memories. And that’s also what I really love about photography. Yeah, I liked that about photography, too, when I was just a tourist taking crappy tourist shots. 20 years ago in South America, I still look at these images and remember everything like it was yesterday. But of course, I curse myself for not having taken a good image, a working landscape photograph so to say.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  12:40  
So you do you find that you want to go back to a lot of those places that you’ve been before you’re into photography and wanting to take, retake them all or

Felix Inden  12:52  
definitely, definitely actually wanted to do some of that this year. Something happened and I had to cancel those trips. So I lived in Chile, with my parents from my 10th to my 16th year of age. So I visited insanely nice places in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia all around. So there’s a huge amount of super photogenic places that I can remember from my childhood or from a youth where I have to return to take pictures, not tourists, the pioneer or El Chalten that everybody knows with the Fitzroy, the cuernos, the pine, all these iconic mountains, but there’s amazing landscapes that just require you to go to areas that few people know about. And I would totally love to go there. And to go there as a landscape photographer and try to put my spin on these places that not so many people know about. Yeah, but you know, life isn’t that easy. So now I’m a father of two kids, I have to sustain the family somehow too. So I cannot just say I’m gonna go there for three or four months and return home once I have images that make me happy. So I always have to consider closely how I spent my time when I go to some faraway place. Normally I don’t go longer than two and a half ish weeks, maybe a maximum three. And for some of these places, you would normally need an open end trip where you just go and then stay there for maybe three to four month can happen that you that you’re done after two weeks, but normally it will take quite some time to to arrange everything.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  14:48  
Oh, that’s that’s crazy. Yeah. It’s it sounds it sounds like it sounds like fun though. Like, I think when I got into photography from travelling, so I used to travel and what I used to do back then is just take off places, right? I just go, go go to Eiffel tower, tower, take photo, go home, go next one take photo go home. And that’s what I find with photography, I find actually to slow things down and actually go deeper. So it’s really cool that, you know, you want to go to places that is not that everyone knows and actually go to the more unbeaten path and a unique kind of perspective. Yes,

Felix Inden  15:28  
that that’s, that’s kind of, it’s a little bit like an interior thing. Because the last two to three years, I’ve spent them mostly guiding people at very famous places, which is always great fun. And you can make sure that everybody gets some amazing shots, which is maybe your job during one of these tours. But from your from my personal point of view, as an artist, maybe I can say that this didn’t exactly make my images better. So I have a huge collection of images that are successfully usable in social media. Because as you might know, the popular stuff is what gets you the views and everything. But from the creative point of view, it’s not what will bring you forward if you do it for years and years. So I am that’s my intent. My secret plan is to break that up a little bit. For I listened to your podcast with Paul, this guy. He’s like, extremely inspiring to me. He’s just such a such a good guy. And he has like this unique vision on his own photography. And I think that’s also in part because he doesn’t spend too much time getting these photo tours to famous places.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  16:51  
Yeah, it’s I think it’s, it’s, it’s funny, because, you know, most of the guests that I’ve talked to, I think I would say all of the guests that I’ve talked to have that very have the same kind of take on, you know, about creating something one that is meaningful to ourselves. So I see that a lot of your photo or you have the love for ice and the winter scene as well. Definitely, yeah. So what brings that love, like, you know, what, why the winter? Why, you know, this cold, harsh places?

Felix Inden  17:28  
I don’t know, maybe because in the places where I spent most of my life, I don’t have any real winter. It’s like here today it’s, yeah, it’s the end of December. Without climate change, we would have snow outside cold weather. Now we have a big storm going on outside. So it’s really rough weather, but it’s still plus five degrees. And it’s just rain, rain rain. And I missed these real winter environments. And they just I don’t know why but they kicked my creativity of and from the beginning of my landscape photography. The first time I saw the Northern Lights also gave me a big inspiration boost. That’s something I constantly miss here too. So I find it incredibly photogenic to have snow that reflects the light and the low standing sun or even the moonlight. And then ice features as a foreground. It’s just quite cool. So when I look at Paul’s images, I’m always like, think that’s heaven in Canada. With all the crazy icy stuff he has around it or YouTube, basically. Yeah, it’s

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  18:41  
it’s pretty crazy. And yeah, it’s, you’re right. It’s it is definitely, like, out of the world a lot. A lot. I mean, I’m from Australia, and a lot of the stuff I see here I just like I couldn’t believe it’s real. I thought it was you know, it was it was just like, What is this thing is real, like, people actually skate on the lake is like, I thought that’s how people like, drown and stuff. I was like, yeah, that’s that’s that’s fine. Yeah, how, how different things are, but that’s, that’s really cool.

Felix Inden  19:10  
How do you feel as an Australian in Canada in this very cold landscape? Well,

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  19:17  
it’s really interesting. Um, I like the cold better than the hot like, honestly, like when I’m back home. I think I have really high metabolism. So like, when I’m back home, even if I don’t do anything because it’s so humid and hot. I would just like start sweating and I really hate that I actually have allergic reaction to to the sweat. So if I would have need to like shower twice a day, if not more, to kind of get that like sweat off my body or otherwise I started getting like this reaction on my skin. And it’s funny because like, I actually could withstand the cold a lot better than most people, even those people that have been living here in Canada or you know, in Europe where they get the fourth. Always travelling with three people from Germany and one people from France, in Australia. And you know the desert get a little bit cold, obviously not as cold as here, but I’ll be honest, short and like, you know, on a t shirt and that’d be like, bundling others like, what are you doing? Like, I don’t know, it’s okay. So, okay, yeah,

Felix Inden  20:28  
it’s fun to hear because you clearly come from quite hot place. You live now at a quite cold place. But to to summarise this little bit. I just love seasons, I love to see how seasons change. And here where I live. So of course, we have places with harsh winter in Germany too. But those are in the mountains, not here in the river deltas. So here I have a nice spring with flowers. So you go out and you realise okay, it’s spring. Then you go out in summer, and it will be hot and quite humid. Also, you realise it’s summer and autumn looks beautiful with all the leaves and foggy weather and everything but the winter, you just go out and think. So this is no winter, this just grey weather. It little, very little sunlight and lots of rain. It’s just boring. So that’s what I love to escape to the north of Europe, especially Norway. during wintertime, yes.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  21:32  
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s very true. I actually, like the I mean, this place are so beautiful, isn’t it not not only the snow, but also the landscape. So it’s definitely been on my bucket list as well. Where Where do you get your inspiration for is that like, you know, is there anyone that you can have that really inspire you to to get some of this photo or you know, to basically drive your your creativity in the TOG photography as an art?

Felix Inden  22:03  
Yes, there’s a bazillion of people that keep inspiring me, some through their imagery, some through their personalities, some through that spirit, or the combination of it all. But I also get inspired by movies quite a lot or series. It’s kind of cliche, but for example, Game of Thrones, or Vikings or these series. I think just their directors of photography maybe have a similar way of thinking that I have, or at least they have a similar style of things they like. So whenever I watched those series in TV, I instantly feel inspired again. And then especially Game of Thrones, I keep watching how they set the light on, on set. So then you can try to replicate that in real life. Like look for situations where the sun comes from a certain angle, and stuff like that. But one of my biggest inspirations has been Steven, clue. Clow K L oh, he’s a friend from Norway, who lives very close to Lofoten and we started photography, I think we started at the same time. But then I could watch him skyrocket very quickly with his photography, because he was living so close to all these so photogenic places where you can, as a beginner, it’s gold if you have a super photogenic place around because no matter what you want to learn, you will have the prime locations to do that. I didn’t have that I was shooting mostly in my city, or close to the city. So that allowed me to learn all the techniques that I wanted to learn. And to understand how depth works in an image. You don’t need an epic peak in the background and a frozen lake in the foreground. You can learn that at the plaza of your local town. So you put something in the foreground, even if it’s just a statue or I don’t know, even a brick wall would work to learn how the the how the dynamic of the image changes. But I think having this guy still posting all these images inspired me to keep on going myself to and from there on. I think it’s important to just surround yourself with people that inspire you. It’s different to difficult to put it into words to say this inspires me it’s just more like a mindset. And also, I know your podcast talks about these things more than others. I’ve also been demotivated when I couldn’t travel and have been demotivated when I see my images all look the same. But then I think photography has the power of make you break out from all those thoughts if you if you allow it. And yeah, so some of the best inspiration settings for me is just going out, no matter if with a camera or without go out of your place where you live and walk around for one or two hours. And I bet there will be some inspiring thoughts coming all by themselves.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  25:30  
That’s awesome. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I think that’s, it’s really good for a lot of the listeners out there to hear that. And, you know, I think you’re right, I think most a lot of people are really having a hard time sometimes with all the stuff that’s going on. And it feels like, you know, their creativity is gone. But it’s actually it’s still there. So I think that’s a really good advice to just go out there. And then just, you know, just don’t set any expectation for yourself. Just go out there and see what you get. Yeah, that’s very cool. Like, so you were you’re talking about? I kind of lost I lost my train of thought this is like so in tune with what you say there is so cool. Yeah, so what what, what would be some of your most favourite moments in photography? Like, it’s something that like, probably you, you know, until this day, you go like, yeah, that was probably one of the coolest moment of experience.

Felix Inden  26:34  
I think. It’s, there’s like many like that. Let me think so I think one of the really coolest moments was when I saw my first aurora borealis or the northern lights for the first time, I, I thought, Wow, this looks insane. I need to take pictures of this. And then I realised I wasn’t able to. So the pictures I was taking were crap. They didn’t look like the way I wanted them to look. That’s because I had no idea about how to shoot the northern lights and everything like that. So I just stopped taking pictures and enjoyed those lights and returned a year later, with a much bigger skill set. I knew how to approach that. And then I took pictures that I saw on the back of my screen, the camera screen. And I was like, that’s how it should look like this setup was like the feeling of accomplishment for myself, was a big motivation. And that’s one of those moments then I also had some trouble some hikes where I doubted I would even reach the point that I wanted. When I was starting to hike, I thought this will never work. Then if you make it through, if you take a picture that you really love yourself. And I don’t love many of my shots. I gotta say I’m super critical, super nitpicky with my own work. Those few images that I really liked myself often have like some form of challenge that I had to go through. And those are then also my favourite moments. But I think it was ilaya locality who said it like What is your favourite moment in photography? The next one I’m going to have, you know, so I don’t want to think too much about the past. I just hope to get more nice moments through photography as soon as possible. When it’s possible again.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  28:38  
Yeah, that’s, that’s really cool. I think it’s, that’s very true. I think, you know, like, maybe looking forward is probably one of the best thing we can do, especially when we kind of, you know, in this situation and you’re gonna lose motivation, I think looking forward, you know, being having that hope is really, really important. I remember now what I was gonna ask you, you know, you’re talking about your friend in Norway and how he is in a prime location or photography. And, you know, like, I mean, I kind of live where, you know, the, like, the jewel of Canada at the moment, right? And what I find is that I think sometimes because it’s so beautiful. We get quite lazy because you know, it doesn’t matter where you shoot it’s almost impossible to take a photo that is horrible, right? So almost some kind it’s kind of always kind of good. Do you think what are your What are your thoughts on this? In terms of improving your photography will it actually help you to be in a prime location because there is a lot of beautiful thing around it? Or will it actually work the other way? Because you can just start pointing and shooting at everything because it’s just so beautiful, right?

Felix Inden  30:09  
Yeah, I think it’s, let me think it’s maybe two sides of a metal with with this reply. So in the beginning, as a beginner, it definitely will help. That’s my opinion, because what helps you in the beginning is satisfaction and the feeling of success for yourself. And if you’re a beginner, that success will be to take a picture that you really like. And as we are super extroverted, that was wrong. So I’m not extroverted, but the way we show our images to the whole world is some form of weird extrovert ism. So if you are beginning with photography, and you have a cool shot to show your friends, every few days, you will be more motivated to get more of those pictures than somebody who has to wait for two years until he can go to some of those places where he may be is dreaming of going. So, but they will be coming to the point where you may be where this being at a spectacular place will not be doing you any service anymore, because then it goes about what is photography giving you? Is the kick still coming? Like, are you still excited about photography, if you’re not, you can be I don’t know, you can live in Iceland and still get bored by landscape photography. But if you still have that passion, and it gets stronger and stronger and stronger than I think you will profit from such a place because it will keep you going. Now, there’s a huge amount of people who don’t live at such places, and they develop over the years and get very good at photography. It’s not needed to live at such a place to to be a good photographer. Absolutely not. But I think it can be beneficial. Yes. Yeah, I think you’ll surely also know many people who start photography, they develop a really nice style, and suddenly they stop that the name disappears from your online list of people whose work you keep seeing. And that’s mainly because they got bored of photography, and picked up another hobby. But yeah, I don’t know, when I go out here into my local forests, I also get very inspired. And the challenge to get a picture that satisfies me is much higher than in Lofoten Islands, where you can put your camera wherever you want and take a picture that will be at least like a three out of 10 You can’t go lower because the landscape is so beautiful.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  33:07  
Yeah, that’s very true. Do you find that when you do that, you know, you find that when you go on your, on your local florists where it’s more challenging to you know, grab a photo that satisfy you. But when you actually get it, do you find it to be more fulfilling compared to those photos that are, you know, arguably easier to get right?

Felix Inden  33:33  
Yeah, I think so too. I think so definitely also because maybe also in your place like I’ve never been there. But I guess to get unique pictures you need to do quite some hiking climbing or you need to be super lucky with the conditions at an easy place. Like this is how you can set yourself apart from other people it’s either getting super unique conditions at the easy places, or putting in a lot of effort to going far away from the crowds and in a place that’s so mountainous if that’s an English word, like if you have so many mountains like where you live, you will have to go hiking and climbing quite a lot to get away from the crowds I guess. So for me here I tried finding other landscape photographers in this area but I haven’t found any at the moment so if I find a nice tree that like the chance is very high that’s not been taking photographs ever before. And this is also somehow it’s satisfying to to know that I’m taking a picture that maybe is unique to myself like those pictures never create much interest online, but it’s more about your, your inner self and what motivates your so these pictures are generally the ones that I print for myself, or that I give as a gift to my mom or whatever. Because she’s from the same area. And then you if you show these images to people that also live in the same area as you, they will ask you Oh, where’s that? Where’s that? That’s where you walk every day. But you don’t, you don’t see it, like I see it when the light is right.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  35:30  
Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s great to hear. For you to hear that. I think as, as a human being, it’s very natural for us to take it take things for granted that are easy to get for us. And you know, and that’s why one of one of my mission, when I first kind of left my full time job for photography was to actually explore my own backyard, which was Indonesia, and Australia, actually drove around the continent of Australia, which was pretty, pretty cool. Like, yeah. But yeah, that’s, that’s really cool in take on that. And I think, you know, the listeners out there should take that as an inspiration where, you know, even if you’re in a place where you think it’s not a very good place to put that as a question mark, because I feel like everywhere you go, there’s always a good place to take photos, just what type of photography you’re gonna get. So that kind of brings me a question. Why landscape photography? You know, you kind of start in Europe, which has a really strong kind of urban and as well as street photography, environment, how do you actually fall in love with landscape?

Felix Inden  36:45  
This was funny, the, I went to Norway the first time with my wife, before I even had this moment in Paris that I told you about. So, and with my parents, I travelled to incredibly beautiful places in South America. So I had seen a fair amount of beautiful places in nature, before I was interested in photography. And then when I realised that photography is super fun, instantly, I wanted to go to these places in nature and take pictures of them. Like, as I’ve been always passionate for nature, and landscapes just clicked together very nicely. And I also went to Dubai last year to shoot cityscapes. And with some email trickery. And some, I don’t know, some moves I made, I got to some pretty cool rooftops that are not accessible. And I have all these images, and I look at them, and I don’t edit them, and like they don’t give me that adrenaline kick. But when I look at the landscape images, that’s what kicks in drives for inspiration. So it’s, it comes down to personal likes, I definitely learned almost everything I know, from the basics of photography, while shooting cityscapes and street. But then, when I was able to afford to go to beautiful nature, it was the purpose of photography, that is more expensive than going to some place to chill out. Because you will need a rental car and this and that and what you know, all that stuff. But nature. And photography was what clicked for me and this quite early. So I knew I don’t want to spend time shooting portraits. I don’t want to walk around the city and take street candidates or how it’s called, I just want to go somewhere nice. In my preference, rough and dramatic landscape and take pictures there.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  38:58  
Yeah, that’s, that’s cool. That’s probably like, no, no, no, many people wanted to do that. As I know, most people wanted to go out and during a nice blue blue sky, instead of this rough condition that is blowing. You tried to stand and you tried to survive. Yeah. That’s amazing. So going back to what you kind of started off in the beginning. What are your thoughts in photography? Do you think it’s an art? Or do you think it’s, it’s not and why?

Felix Inden  39:32  
I think it’s both art and no art. So because obviously photography is a medium. And a camera has a tool that you can use for many things. You can take your camera and take a picture of a contract, and then you pretty much scanned the contract. I wouldn’t call that art. And then the comes the moment where you as an artist, walk out with your camera and take pictures yours. Not every picture will be what people define as art. But I think the activity that you are doing with your camera camera is still something artsy. It just depends what you create in the end. Like, if you shoot commercial architecture that I’ve done, I wouldn’t call that artsy. But if you look at the work of some of the most popular architecture photographers worldwide, they most likely have something artsy in their architecture, photography, because that sets them apart from the rest. And that’s why they became so popular. Like at the moment, I don’t have any name present, but there’s certainly some that take artsy architecture photography commercially. Now, there are nature photographers that are generally more artsy than we typical landscape photographers. We often or I also guilty of this, I often follow some form of formula that leads me to an effective picture. I don’t know, following a formula, it’s really artsy anymore. There’s just so many. I just can never decide. So for me, it’s a form of art. Not every picture that I take is art. Definitely not. But some of them are. I can never decide what to think about this, I don’t know, for me, personally, doesn’t really matter to me, I will let others decide if they see me as an artist or not. Yes, it’s weird to think about it. Because, of course, it’s so easy to reproduce, reproduce everything that we do. And a painter is certainly more perceivable as art than photographer. But I know so many people that I admire that are super artsy in their photography. And those are what inspire me nowadays. So I hope to, to get to a point where people look at my stuff and think that’s art. I would be happy then. Cool.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  42:17  
So well, just wrapping up to the hour mark here. One last question that I usually ask all my guests, you know, what can you share with the listener? One advice that you think is that you think is very important to other photographers, or artists in photography out there, on, you know, either how to, you know how to start or how to get inspired in photography, or even, you know, how to master photography, it’s, you know, what are your best advice that you have learned throughout your career in photography that you feel like other photographers should know?

Felix Inden  43:03  
Yeah, so I think in the beginning, let’s make one for beginner and one for more advanced. As a beginner, you should just listen to your inner voice. And don’t listen to social media. Don’t be don’t let social media be your main advisor. Because this can trigger you the wrong way to pursue a happy life as a photographer, you know what I’m talking about? Like? There’s so many things that can happen once you focus too much on social media. And if you do that, because you have to promote your products to make a living, that’s fine. It’s your job. But if you’re just starting out as a hobby amateur photographer, forget about that and listen to yourself. You will notice what inspires you and you will know what was right and what was wrong. You don’t need to count the likes that you picture got to make your decision for a way to pursue. That’s one point. And the next one would be just practice. So there’s a good portrait photographer and editor Joelle Grimes and I think I saw him many years ago on Photokina. And he was saying on stage, hard work will outperform talent every single day of the week. And I don’t know if I agree 100% But 99.9 I agree. If you want to learn and improve, you need to do things. You can only consume tutorials and read books for a certain part but that will not make you improve. If you don’t grab your camera, go out somewhere and try practice photography. Also, I know quite a mount of quite a big amount of people sit at home thinking, Yeah, but I cannot go to place x or place y. So I cannot advance, wrong way of thinking, no matter where you live, if you have a camera, you will profit from just going out. And even if the pictures are taken on a junkyard, you can use that junkyard to learn the basics of photography. And once you make it to one of those places that you want to take pictures of, you will be prepared and take much better pictures than if you spent the last year just dreaming about it without touching the camera.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  45:39  
Awesome. Thanks a lot for the advice. I hope the listeners out there gonna find this inspiring, because there’s some good advice there. Going back to kind of what you say, around the social media, I think the social media have a lot of have a lot of responsibility to a lot of the burnouts out there. And I kind of feel that myself mentally well, I feel like you you kind of have that expectation, right? And that you have to create that photo and you’re no longer taking photo for yourself. And that kind of take away the fun of photography. You know, you say that to your a lot earlier today. You know, the photo that you’re most proud of? Are the photo that actually mean something to you. So exactly. That’s a really good advice to share. And I think going back to what you were saying earlier, as well, I just want to point out that you know, what you say about your friend in Norway and how we compare these two? Is it good or bad to be in a place that are more photogenic is that just go out there and find a little bit of result. I think that’s a you know, going back to what you say it’s really good way to get that moment to him in your photography. So that is definitely one thing that he should consider and think about if he just started so perfect. That’s, that’s, that’s amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing that. Felix and yeah, look, it’s been fun. And I had a lot of fun listening to you. Very inspiring, as well to hear some of your perspective and your point of view. For the listeners out there who you know, want to hear more about you and also want to see more of your photos, your your beautiful landscapes and all that stuff. What is the best way to find you and connect with you?

Felix Inden  47:37  
Yes, so I’m Felix in them. i n d n is my afternoon. If you Google that you will find all my homepage Felix in.com or IG Instagram slash Felix in so that way you can find everything about me. And I encourage I would like it, if you check out my homepage, there will be a magic little pop up coming telling you to subscribe to my newsletter. And this is something quite new to me. So I haven’t been working much on a newsletter subscription list. But I started now and I’m just finishing my own little ebook about how to improve your landscape photography that you’ll get if you subscribe to my newsletter. And all this is done by many. But I put a lot of thought into this little ebook and just go check it out or have a look at my pictures on Instagram. You can also DM me I go through every message that I get and enjoy communicating with people. Then I also hope that my English was understandable. In this podcast like because I’m a German. I guess I have some form of accent in there. But yeah, I enjoy to be here to talk with you. Stanley was really good.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  48:58  
Fantastic. Yeah, well, we’ll put the link on description below. So if you’re interested to subscribe, go to the homepage. But also, Felix is really good in social media at socialising, I suppose. Social media. Yeah, he’s, he’s quite enjoyable to follow and to learn from so highly encourage you to Instagram and Facebook. Yeah, so well. Thanks a lot for thanks for your time. And thanks a lot for setting setting aside some of your time especially with the BC kids and the holiday season. But yeah, look, we Qantas Thank you very much for tuning in. And it’s been very it’s been a lot of fun talking to Felix here and let us know in the comment below what are some of the best, you know, insights that are Felix have shared with us and For those of you who join us in YouTube, don’t forget to subscribe. You got the subscribe button down here and then hit that notification button so that you get notified next time I upload the photo. But hopefully you guys have the rest of 2020. And I mean, we’re, we are literally Yeah, we’re recording at the last week of 2020. So I will see you guys in 2021. Well, Felix, thank you very much for being here. And thank you very much for all of your insights, as well as your wisdom. And hopefully you have the rest. Good rest of 2020 and an amazing 2021

Felix Inden  50:51  
Yesterday, thanks again for having me. And I wish you and everybody who listens this happy new year. Let’s just all sit tight. We’re going to back we’re going to see each other on the flip side Sunday. Stay safe everyone.

Stanley Aryanto – The Wicked Hunt  51:09  
And yet everyone and I’ll see you guys next week. I mean next year

 

The Wicked Hunt by Stanley Aryanto Copyright 2020 All rights reserved.

The Wicked Hunt by Stanley Ar