Review: Discover the World of Fine Art Photography with Micky Hoogendijk

Wednesday 14 November 2018, 09:09 by Michelle Peeters | 8,631 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

In this article, my review of the From Image to Art course by Micky Hoogendijk on Photofacts Academy. I already knew Micky from television, of course, and I knew she was a photographer, but I had seen very little of her work.

I had hardly explored fine art photography myself, and I thought it was not something you could learn, more a gift you had to be born with. But after watching this course, that turns out not to be the case!

Micky gives practical tips to anyone who wants to create unusual photos. She helps you awaken your creativity, and you get a look behind the scenes during an exclusive photoshoot, where you see how Micky puts the model at ease and manages to draw out emotion.

Contents

1. Discover the world of fine art photography
2. Embrace your creativity with Micky
3. How did Micky get started in photography?
4. How can I get my model and make-up artist to align with my vision?
5. The similarities between actress and photographer
6. The role of a make-up artist during a shoot
7. The benefits of a good make-up artist
8. How do you build a bond of trust with the model?
9. The thinking behind the upcoming portrait shoot
10. Discover my approach during a live shoot
11. The story behind the photo Transition
12. How do you photograph underwater?
13. The story behind the photo Wandering
14. How do I find my titles?
15. Running a fine art photography business
16. Tips for international collaborations with galleries
17. What should be included in my model release?
18. How do you build a relationship with a gallery?
19. How do you determine the price of your photos?
20. How can you work with others?
21. How do you determine your target audience?
22. Seize your opportunity
23. How do I use Photoshop for my art?
24. What is the added value of a photobook?

Micky with model Fleur, who has to convey a kind of 'ice queen', including through her emotions. To do this, she has to go completely inside herself. It brings a lot to the surface!
Micky gives several examples of how things happened for her, to show how you can awaken your creativity. You have to keep working on that creativity. She also shows how she works and how her development has been an organic process.

As you develop as a person, you also learn to deal with people better and your photos gain more depth and meaning. The book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron was a huge source of inspiration for her. Many talented people have lost their creativity through unpleasant experiences.

Writing down frustrations

She first started looking before she learned to see. She began keeping a diary, in which she also wrote down her frustrations. Then, little by little, she learned to look differently. The artist child inside you has to come out, and you achieve that by going through life with wonder and curiosity.

On the street, she often sees someone who catches her eye because of a look, skin colour or a particular energy. She then approaches that person and asks if she may photograph them. The final photo often comes from dreams. She uses Photoshop to give the photo the finishing touch and the look she now has in mind.

She started taking photographs in 2009. She used a camera, a Nikon d500, that she received from her mother shortly before she died. In San Francisco, she photographed everything she came across. Bridges, buildings, lines, all very architectural.

Then came homeless people, who have a kind of rock-star status in Frisco because they dress up in such extravagant ways to have their photos taken. In Los Angeles, she met many old actor friends. She made headshots of them. This is very difficult to do, because a single photo has to contain everything that actor might ever play.

The basis of vulnerability

People often become insecure in front of the lens. Your job as a photographer is to bring them back to their basic vulnerability, which comes across as real and authentic.

In Texas, she started making things with all kinds of materials, which gave her more and more ideas and inspiration. She met many beautiful girls in shopping malls and took many photos inspired by paintings.

She used Photoshop for the finishing touch, sometimes going quite far. For one of her photos, she placed an entire series of diamonds on a face. Photographing vulnerability is what it is all about.

Models must not play a role. As a photographer, you have to want to see who they really are. You have to bring out an emotional event for them, then capture and record that moment. In some cases, that can also be a little tear.

At the moment of stillness, you let the model open her eyes and look. That is the moment you want to capture. One trick to achieve this is to tell each other your biggest secret, creating a tremendous bond of trust. Your model goes deep for a moment, briefly breaks down and then emerges clean and changed. Strong and regal sometimes.

Transition

The Transition photo was made with a Canon EOS 5d Mark II in her own swimming pool in Texas. She has never really had an expensive studio, but always used the things around her.

The swimming-pool photo was shot horizontally and presented vertically, turning the surface of the water into a wall of water. It became a deep image with a deep story.

The story behind it is that she nearly drowned as a child. It was a beautiful experience, drowning is not actually unpleasant. In life, too, you can let things go in that way. You always float back to the surface.

A good art photo always contains movement, a story and emotion. The viewer must recognise themselves in that emotion and see their own story in your photo.

Wandering

The photo 'Wandering' was made of a girl she happened to meet in a restaurant. Her blue eyes and milky-white skin caught her attention.

It soon became clear that she was of Dutch origin. Her ancestors were Dutch migrants. That is how the photo came about in the style of Vermeer, 'The Milkmaid'.

Looking at art a lot is enriching. You need to know what has come before. Her upbringing with her grandfather and his many art books certainly influenced this.

The business side of fine art photography

Finally, Micky gives some tips on the business side and the things you have to deal with as a fine art photographer. How you determine your prices, for example. She bases hers on the number of editions of the photo.

The title of her photos only emerges once the work is finished. A lot of beautiful work comes from negative experiences, which you turn into something positive. 'Take your shit and turn it into gold'. You make something beautiful out of painful moments.

Conclusion

This course is easy to watch and you absorb a lot of it without realising. It is great to see that it really is possible to make your creativity flourish, even if you sometimes seem not to have any or it has disappeared or been buried by all kinds of negative experiences, and to create artistic work yourself.

Micky shows how you can achieve this, and that it is closely connected to your own emotions and openness, and the courage to dive deeply into them. An unusual and intimate course that is definitely worth watching.

» Watch now: From Image to Art with Micky Hoogendijk

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