There are photographers and then there are PHOTOGRAPHERS. David Alan Harvey deserves the full caps. If you’ve never seen his work your world is about to be a lot more beautiful. I could go on and on about how he fills the frame and finds the sweet light and pulls expressions out of people but you should just look at it and see for yourself.
What Harvey has done in the last few years with a blog is an amazing thing. He’s created a thriving, interactive and, I might add, enormous community for photographers from all over the world. They review each others work, give each other assignments, compete, criticize, compliment and support people they’ve never met in person. Well, some have never met in person.
Because Harvey may be one of the most open and inviting people in the business some of these people have met because they’ve attended workshops or parties or photo reviews in Harvey’s New York loft or at various destinations around the globe. He encourages people to stop by. He plans photo trips and invites anyone to join him. He’s willing to look at work. He gives feedback for free. This doesn’t happen often in this business. But Harvey does it and through his blog he’s given photographers an amazing place to learn and be inspired every day without paying a dime of tuition cost. To top it off, he tries to get people published. This is a hell of a guy.
I was lucky enough to hear Harvey speak at the Photo Expo Plus in New York last fall. For two hours I sat in a small room with about 20 other people and had the great honor of looking at his photos while he explained how they came to be. He shared stories and jokes and very helpful tips that I will not soon forget. Early on in his life he learned to shoot while dancing with a beer in one hand and a camera in another. Don’t think he hasn’t gotten beautiful shots with this method, by the way. Harvey has also mastered the art of using a beer bottle as a tripod when in low lighting which can really come in handy.
More than beer and dancing (certainly two very important elements of being a good photographer), Harvey stressed the importance of knowing your subject, of respecting your subject, of doing research ahead of time about the culture and place in which you are shooting. He talked about the importance of being involved, of listening, of waiting, of sometimes not taking a photo for days until a relationship has been forged.
You can see this clearly in his photos. You can see it in the eyes of his subjects. And for those of us who dare call ourselves photographers, this is the power of a camera and what we can do with it. This is what we strive to be.
