Andrew Moore Interview

by Greg

Andrew Moore, a 17 year old living a few moments from San Francisco has put together a collection of first-class photographs showing off his keen eye to the world around him; doing all this before finishing high school. Andrew is currently selling some of his work over at RedBubble.

So I am pleased to bring you his answers to my questions; photographer Andrew Moore enjoy.

Photos

You mentioned to me that you’ve gone on some photo walks with Thomas Hawk. Explain a little bit about these walks and what it was like for you to shoot with him?

Yes, I try to make it to all the photowalks Thomas puts together, although I also try to go to other photowalks that some Zooomr members put together. I find it’s best to involve yourself with all groups of photographers, and all photographic websites. I believe the first photowalk I went on with Thomas was Photowalking 7 in Chinatown, San Francisco. Since I had not previously shot with a large group of photographers, I was very intrigued with the slow pace Thomas had shooting the streets of chinatown, the group probably moved one block per 30 minutes, something I really wasn’t used to. This helped me get more shots out of less space, increasing the amount of images I would shoot in a day. Not only did this broaden my image range but also helped me get to know the technical aspects of photography by talking to other frequent members, Jeremy Brooks, Karen Strolia and of course, Thomas Hawk.  You can view the photowalking vides Scoble and Eddy have put together, over here. 

Your a Nikon guy. Tell us why you decided on Nikon to be your camera of choice?

I am indeed a Nikon guy. It’s not necisarily that I chose Nikon to be the camera of my choice but I was younger and had little to no knowledge of photography, I searched Flickr images for NikonD70s photos, liked what I saw and bought the camera. It was that simple, but now that I look back at it, I almost regret it, I didn’t know there were better options out there like the improved D80. I don’t have any preference over Canon or Nikon. Now that I know a bit more about photography than I did when I bought the camera, I know that both Nikon and Canon make amazing products that are well worth buying, and I have no idea why I chose the NikonD70s.

If money wasn’t an issue and you can have any camera system in the world which would it be and why?

If money wasn’t an issue for me I’d have 2 options, although I’d love to spend more money, I would much rather go with a more compact and practical camera. I’d go for the Nikon D300 or the Canon 5D, they are both relatively similar but I find Canon’s lens selection to be outstanding. The Lseries lenses canon puts out are expensive but incredible. Both the 5d and the D300 have a great ISO range and images shot at ISO 1600 are mainly usable but tend to be more usable on the D300. So, Although I’d love to have a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III I also wouldn’t be willing to spend $8,000 on the camera, even if money wasn’t an issue. It just isn’t a pratical camera for the shooting I do. If you are a studio photographer or shooting something you must set up for, then it’s worth buying.

Out of all of your photographs which is the one you are most proud of and why?

To tell you the truth, I am not proud of any ONE particular image. I have a similar belief to Thomas Hawk in that I find it’s better to publish and process as many photos as you can. Although I can’t nearly publish 20 good photos a day, I try to publish 10 a day, 5 in the morning and 5 toward the evening. I have a setup so that the first 3 photos people see when viewing my Flickr and Zooomr are always the better images and the other 2 are normally just OK, nothing special. Although I only publish an average of 10 photos a day, I keep thousands of images for myself, normally the worst of the batch, being the Class C images, these never get published but I keep them as my own collection. I might go back to these class C images one day and use more modern photoshop skills and eventually publish them. 

I’ve noticed you have many photos that have a really shallow depth of field. Tell us what you enjoy taking this types of photos?

I notice I do have a lot of shots with a very shallow depth of field, this is probably due to the simplicity of most of my images. I don’t like to have too many objects that distract from the main point of the photo, and if there are too many objects I normally use some photoshop tools to blur most everything except for what I want the public to see. When I think of a photo, it is normally coming straight from what I’m seeing through my eyees, and through my eyes I don’t see busy streets , I see isolated objects and details of cities. 

Out of Portraits, Landscapes, & Still Life. Which is your favorite to shoot and why?

Out of Portraits, Landscapes and Still Life, I wouldn’t say I really have a favorite. I try to mix up my photography. When I go out to shoot in the streets I look for a bit of everything, capturing what my eyes see. I try to capture candid portraits of people in the street, no set up portraits with fake smiles, cityscapes of busy streets and most often than not, isolated objects that may tell a story. Although I should do more landscape nature photography, I don’t find it that interesting. I’m more of a city dweller. 

Do your friends and classmates ask you take their photographs for their myspace & facebook pages?

Yeah, I normally bring my camera everywhere I go with my freinds, and with Facebook’s unique tagging tool, I can tag them in any photo I take while I’m out on a trip with them. I also get a lot of people at school that ask me to take their senior portrait which should make some good money going into Senior year this coming school year. I don’t mind at all, if they like my work enough to ask for me to take their portrait, and I benefit with a name and money, that’s fine with me.

If you can hope to leave one impression with your photographs what would that be?

If there is an impression I want to leave behind in my photographs it is that any person’s eye captures a days worth of images, but to find those images one must be more observant and curious than your average person. To find the best shots, you must observe all that is around you, look at things like you have never looked at them before. I find it so sad and pathetic that people do not seem to care about the beautiful planet we live on today, they take for granted where they are and what goes on around them. They are the people who walk to work on an exact schedule and have things planned on a pilot palm for the next year, making time only for short breaks at a coffee shop. Completely and utterly ignoring where they are, the environment they are in, plugging their ears with headphones and ignoring reality. Observe everything, it makes for better images. Photograph the world the way your eyes see it. And pay close attention to what your eyes see.

Linkage:

• Andrew Moore Prints  ( on RedBubble )
• Andrew Moore’s Photostream ( on Flickr )
• Andrew Moore’s Photos ( on Zooomr )

I truly see a bright future for this young photographer and I can’t wait to tag along on a “photowalk” when I move to SF later this year.