One of my favorite parts of being a blogger is getting to go out into the world and explore, capturing beautiful photographs as I go. The bulk of my job though comes in the writing and web publishing side of things. I love getting to speak with other creative professionals about what they do and why, so getting to sit down with a professional landscape photographer was eye-opening for me.
Colleen Miniuk is an award winning professional landscape photographer and author, but that wasn’t always her career. Her primary job is being my friend. Kidding, but she is a marvelous person in addition to her photography skills. Digging into why Colleen transitioned from software engineering to landscape photography is a fascinating story, and hearing how her approach to capturing meaningful images has changed over time is even more interesting.
Give a listen to this podcast episode and hear from Colleen Miniuk about what it means to her to be a professional landscape photographer and why she does the work she does. If you have any questions for either myself (Rob of 2TravelDads.com) or Colleen, please reach out. Both of us are happy to share more about what we do and why we do it!
Colleen can be reached through her primary website, ColleenMiniuk.com and her advice column. For information on her publishing company, books or in-person photography workshops:
- Publishing – Analemma Press
- Landscape Photography and Guides – Wild in Arizona | The Current Flows | Photographing Acadia
- In-person, all-women Photography Workshop – Sheography.com
Colleen is an inspiring individual. We have several podcast episodes with her available to download or listen to here on our site, including the Overlooked Side of Acadia National Park. Stay tuned, as I know she’ll be back on the podcast for even more conversation and storytelling.
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What Does a Professional Landscape Photographer Do?
I am a professional photographer, but my business operates on a specific assignment basis. So what does a professional landscape photographer do? ANSWER: whatever brings them joy and what suits their purpose. The freelance life is a complex one, whether you’re pitching stories to publications or working as a visual artist. As we listen to Colleen’s story and hear about her work and where she finds purpose, I myself am inspired by her life adventure. A professional landscape photographer could wander through life shooting sunsets and calling it a day, but Colleen does more, from bring awareness to current issues to publishing narratives. You’ll see…
Journey from Corporate Job to Artistic Career
Colleen never intended to become a landscape photographer. As an answer to being overly stressed in a computer engineering job, she took a photography class. That snowballed into something she truly loved and turned that love into selling images. Over time, selling images and meeting people turned into a complete transition into full time photography. I love talking about seeking out joy in life, and that’s precisely what Colleen did to become a professional photographer and transition out of the tech sector.
A big breakthrough for Colleen towards elevating her career of landscape photographer was getting to meet Jeanne Falk Adams, Ansel Adams’ daughter in law. This meeting brought Colleen into an exhibition showcasing her work capturing the sights and ecosystem of the Colorado River. This exhibition turned into a published book, The Current Flows: Water in the Arid West. Meeting somebody that is supportive, sees the value and vision of what you do, and makes space for you to share your voice is huge as a creative person. While some may consider photography to be more technical than creative, it’s the creative vision and skill that is brought full-frontal when an artist gets to showcase their work.
Through creating art and crafting a story through a body of work, it became more
Development of Style and Photographic Vision
For a landscape photographer, there are many avenues for showcasing their work, from galleries to image licensing, personal websites and portfolios to print publication books. Over the years, Colleen was able to find her way to the images she wanted to create that capture both the beauty of a place AND the story or feeling. Something I love about Colleen’s professional landscape photography body of work is how she is able to capture emotion in earthscapes and macro imagery.
With exploring and seeking out beautiful imagery that speaks to her, Colleen has let her vision and voice take control of the work she does. From using her photography to raise awareness about water scarcity to showing a different side of the desert, being a professional landscape photographer has evolved. With a fellow photographer, Paul Gill, Colleen got to create another book: Photographing Arizona’s Wildflowers… and THIS turned into self-publishing and creating a publishing company.
Personally, something that I love and can see in Colleen’s work as she progresses and creates more is her ability to capture emotion in landscapes. While, yes, rocks and light are not sentient beings, they express or personify emotions. Somehow, Colleen is able to capture this. Colleen said that when she started her goals were simply to capture beautiful photographs, but over time she’s learned that she needs to connect with the landscape to create, not just check off the box that she captured an image. Going out into the world to learn, whether it’s on a hike or a river trip, the goal is to feed the curiosity and find connection in what she sees, however basic or personal the connection is.
The Artistic Approach of a Landscape Photographer
So how do you work continually as a professional landscape photographer? I know that I personally struggle to force my creativity when I’m not feeling it, and I think it shows when that happens. Colleen has learned her own strengths and now goes with the autotelic approach: to become self-motivated if one’s target is to balance challenges and skills. This means to go out into the world without set intentions and to let the balance of the experience, the good and bad, the planned an unexpected, guide your creativity. “I’m just there for the good times” is the approach and the joy of that shows in the images Colleen produces.
Other Creative Ventures for a Professional Photographer
Publishing books is a messy business. I’ve written two books and published with two different publishers. Each experience was unique and also a bit frustrating on many levels. Colleen took her book creation from idea -> action to start self-publishing. She has since published her own books and books in partnership with fellow authors/photographers.
One of the biggest privileges of being freelance is being able to change course at any time. Being able to navigate out of stressful work and into joyful work is the key to keeping on going. Colleen takes the big picture business approach of managing her professional landscape photography career by both working on projects that she finds joy in AND taking time to get back to the basics of what brought her into this: photography.
Work that’s driven by passion and joy doesn’t feel like work all of the time. Yes, it’s work and there’s a lot to manage, but keeping passion and purpose at the root of the work allows Colleen to keep going to work through both stresses and creative dry spells.
In developing as a writer, Colleen has now ventured beyond the realm of guides and photography instruction, which both can be seemingly objective. With life happening and her own growth as a professional landscape photographer, Colleen has put her life onto paper in the form of a narrative memoir. Getting to be creative in different ways and express memories and feelings in multiple formats is the evolution she’s in now. Amazing to me.
Coming soon: So Said the River – Life, Loss, and Pie on the Colorado River
Sheography: Photography Workshops for Women
Colleen says that her Sheography workshops are educationally focused. With photography you do indeed need to understand a certain amount of technical stuff for operating a camera of any sort, especially if you want to manipulate the light or understand lens operations. There’s also the element of helping students identify what sort of creativity they want to explore. Colleen likes the Wallas creative process idea:
- Preparation
- incubation
- illumination (inspiration)
- verification
Being a professional landscape photographer means understanding how to capture the combination of what you see, what you feel and what your tools can capture. Teaching a bit of theory with a bit of technical understanding is how she guides people in their photography journey.
Creativity doesn’t always fit in a rectangular box. The tool doesn’t matter (camera gear vs smart phone). Creativity is celebrating the moments that are important to us. Connecting to the world with our perceptions, and how that gets expressed to the world doesn’t matter. “When you cook a great meal, you present a fantastic meal. People aren’t asking what type of pan it was cooked in.”
If you’re interested in joining a Sheography workshop, they do tend to book out a year in advance, so check it out NOW and make time for it!
Where you can Find Colleen Miniuk, professional Landscape Photographer
Colleen can be reached through her primary website, ColleenMiniuk.com and her advice column. For information on her publishing company, books or in-person photography workshops:
- Publishing – Analemma Press
- Landscape Photography and Guides – Wild in Arizona | The Current Flows | Photographing Acadia
- In-person, all-women Photography Workshop – Sheography.com
Colleen is an inspiring individual. We have several podcast episodes with her available to download or listen to here on our site. Stay tuned, as I know she’ll be back on the podcast for even more conversation and storytelling.
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