The Work of Daniel Hellerman

When and where were you born, where did you grow up, and what things did you enjoy from a young age?

I was born in NJ, in May of 1987. I am a twin, and currently live with my parents. The first 2 years of my life I lived in NJ, and the rest of my life has always been in PA.

From a young age, I always enjoyed computer and hiking. While some people may see the 2 as polar opposites they both fill me with the same type of adventure and wonder that I try to capture in my photography. I believe computer games especially try to bring their audience in to another world. I try to have the same effect with each of my photographs.

I really liked hiking from a young age as well. My parents used to be very relaxed when we grew up and as long as I promised to be back by dark, my mom would often let me go explore the woods by my house alone, or with a friend (imagine any mom letting their kid do that nowadays.) �I would go out into the woods and just explore. The woods were always changing and became such a fantastic place. As a kid it didn’t matter how big the area was, it was all about the exploration, and the wonder that filled you as you set out on each new adventure.

What influences your photography?

A lot of random things influence my photography, but I will try to give some examples from every medium.� Internally, a lot of my photography is ruled by emotion. I can look at any photograph and tell you exactly how I was feeling as I shot the photo. I think my photography’s biggest “tell” is its mood, and my shots have run the gamut from loneliness, to happiness, worry, excitation, you name it. The colors I use in my post-production work are also usually selected based on my mood as well.� If you look through any of my portfolio such as :

My Portfolio

You will see that I use many specific shades in different images. This is done usually almost sub-consciously even though I do tend to mess with all my photos though and adjust the hue, and luminance values a bit, I don’t even realize I use the same hues over and over till I sit back and look at my work.

I also have had inspiration from movies. My favorite movie is a movie called “Millions” which is based on one of my favorite books written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (also called “Millions.”) It is directed by Danny Boyle, and every time I watch that movie the colors and angles of the shots blow my mind away. I do not know how it was done, but the movie really makes me feel like a kid again every time I watch it. I believe it is one of the few “perfect” movies I have seen, that I can watch over and over again.

Visually, I also draw inspiration from other photographers as well. My 2 favorite photographers are Trey Ratcliff of stuckincustoms.com, and Rebekka Gu�leifsd�ttir of rebekkagudleifs.com. �Seeing their style of photography really drew me to photography, before I thought photography was a color or black and white thing. I never understood how color truly worked, and the depth of emotion one can draw from a single image, or a single color pallete.

Finally, one of the largest things that motivate me is my faith.� To quote my site “There is nothing I value in life more greatly than freedom. Being a photographer gives me the freedom to travel and to express complex ideas through visual imagery and manipulation. Being a Catholic means having the freedom to share Christ with others, and being myself means having the freedom to walk out under the stars, look up and wonder, or go on a long hike and get lost in this beautiful world we have been given. Friends are as close as family, life is short but if you accomplish one special thing every day to make this world a better place, you can never look back with regret, and that is true freedom, in the life you led, and the journey ahead of you.”

What are some of your photographic achievements?

I have won a few flickr group awards. Quite honestly, I am not a huge competition person so I tend not to enter. I have won the anandtech forum monthly photo contest 5 times out of my 6 entries though.

I tend to mark achievements by view of my images. My flickr page as of writing this is at 71,341 views, and my website danielhellerman.com is at 976,000 hits, and just over 38,000 unique views.

I count my achievements also in the comments on my flickr. Seeing a positive comment makes me feel better than any ribbon.

I also like to help people, so I created the a sister site to danielhellerman.com which is photographyminded.com. I do not write on it too often, but I do post tutorials a few times a year to it. The comments I get from that site thanking me for finally telling people how to use their camera are incredible. I am just glad I can help out a next generation of photographers, and I want to push people to be even better at photography then I am, cause I consider myself far from a master!

What are your photographic techniques?

Most photographers never tell their methods of post processing, but I believe that you cannot copyright the appearance of an image. Styles are great, but I believe the photo is really about the mood, not whether some other photographer vignettes in the same style you do.

My main techniques are HDR, and high contrast imagery. For a description of hdr, let me steal a few paragraphs from Trey Ratcliff at stuckincustoms.com:

“HDR is an acronym for High Dynamic Range. It is a post-processing task of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed. I would say that about 75% of my images use the technique, and if you are new to it, then you may notice a slightly different �look and feel� to the photographs. There are all kinds of nerdy technical things I can say about HDR, but in case you are like me, you can learn best by example. I posted a bunch of my HDR photos below.

To me, the HDR process helps the photos look more� let�s say� evocative.

I can talk a little bit more about the philosophy behind the photography style here for a quick moment. You might consider that the way the human brain keeps track of imagery is not the same way your computer keeps track of picture files. There is not one aperture, shutter speed, etc. In fact, sometimes when you are in a beautiful place or with special people and you take photos � have you ever noticed when you get back and show them to people you have to say, �Well, you really had to be there.� Even great photographers with amazing cameras can only very rarely grab the scene exactly as they saw it. Cameras, by their basic-machine-nature, are very good at capturing �images�, lines, shadows, shapes � but they are not good at capturing a scene the way the mind remembers and maps it. When you are actually there on the scene, your eye travels back and forth, letting in more light in some areas, less light in others, and you create a �patchwork-quilt� of the scene. Furthermore, you will tie in many emotions and feelings into the imagery as well, and those get associated right there beside the scene. Now, you will find that as you explore the HDR process, that photos can start to evoke those deep memories and emotions in a more tangible way. It�s really a wonderful way of �tricking� your brain into experiencing much more than a normal photograph”

For my high contrast images, I tend to bring down shadows and darks to increase the amount of clarity in the image. I then tweak the color levels, hue, and saturation until I find the balance of colors that I believe is the most pleasing to the image and the mood I am trying to convey.

My photography workflow is something like this and can get a bit confusing:

Camera (Rebel XTI) —> Adobe Lightroom 2.0 —–> Photomatix (For HDR) ——-> Lightroom ——> Adobe Photoshop CS4 ——> Adobe Lightroom ——-> Flickr

What education do you have in photography?

A majority of my portfolio shots were taken without any form of photographic training. I had read Trey Ratcliff’s HDR tutorial and a few other master photographers tutorials on styles and shooting, and then just did a lot of experimentation. I used to hang out at a lot of places with my camera and tripod and just experiment. Its something I really encourage anyone to do to learn how their camera works. ALSO always look at the EXIF data of shots you like on sites like flickr, as it gives a lot of info on how the shot was taken.

What are you happy about, that you have gained in your life through photography?

I believe first and foremost, that my faith in God has increased. Whenever I see a favorite image of mine, I not only am grateful for him for giving me the ability to capture the scene, but also for creating the scene I captured. I really believe photography is just man’s attempt to capture a glimmer of a the beauty of God.

Finally, I think photography has allowed me to work out many of the issues of my life. While I am a very happy person there have been more than a few bumps in the road in my life, and I believe that photography allowed me to express myself in pictures when I felt I could not do it anywhere else.