Welcome to the new Greg Inda Photography!

It brings me great pleasure to welcome you to my newly designed website.  I am really excited by the opportunity to share my work, and hopefully collaborate on your ideas as well.​  As you can probably guess, photography is really important to me.  Reviewing old pictures always takes me back to the moment it was taken.  Its like a steroid boost to my memory and helps me tap into all kinds of emotions that I felt.  And that's one of those most powerful things about photography.  It's a trigger that's linked straight to your guts and your heart.  

So with that in mind, I offer to you a gallery that has never before been released.  It's from early in my career and really marked one of my first "breaks".  My friend Noah Ginex filmed a music ​video for the Barenaked Ladies.  Noah asked me to grab stills of the process so that we'd have a record of events, and this is that record.  In addition to these images, I was also called upon to puppeteer briefly.  The whole shoot was such a memorable experience and these images take me back to that night.  Below you'll find the video followed by the gallery of images.

​As always, I welcome any comments and look forward to hearing from you.

Work, Sleep, and getting your picture made

Prereq: This ted.com video talk by Jason Fried called "Why Work Doesn't Happen At Work."  Just over 15 minutes.

So the long and short of the video is that work is like sleep.  When we sleep, we slip from one sleep stage to the next. You can't rest your head on the pillow and start your REM stage, you have to pass through other stages to get there. And if you’re woken up, you re-start at the beginning.  Work is no different.  You can't clock in, sit at your desk, and be brilliant.  You’ve got to meld into your work and focus at a deeper level. And you can't do that if you're interrupted every 5 minutes with unrelated issues to solve.  If you work retail or you're an administrative assistant you have probably run up against this.

Allowing yourself time and space to focus on your work at a deeper level is beyond valuable.  When editing photos, I'll settle into my own world away from distractions.  Turn off my phone, close my internet browser, and turn on some music that I’ve marked as white noise.  Then I can really get into a file and go through all the minutia of cleaning it up.  Removing sensor dust or moving a hair ever so slightly.  It becomes relaxing once you get really immersed. In the same way that driving out on the open road is more relaxing then bumper to bumper traffic.

So now what about you getting your picture taken?  Would it surprise you to learn that most people are nervous about getting their picture made?  Thinking about how a headshot will generate work, thinking about all the people who will be looking at it and judging it.  It really clouds your mind and offers ample distraction to keep you from achieving great work.  Or to put it differently, once you give yourself over to judgement you are taken out of the moment. You're on the outside looking in.  Imagine trying to drive a car from the outside.  That's not driving, that's pushing.  Consider this, if you're outside of the moment you can't live that moment truthfully.

So picture all the thoughts you have in front of the camera.  "Am I doing this right?"  "Is there lipstick on my teeth?"  "How obvious is my pimple?"  Each one is a distraction that takes you out of the moment.  And every time you stop, you have to restart.  These thoughts are actively inhibiting you from creating amazing images.

Self Portrait from when my hair was at the absolut longest and worst it's been in 14 years.So how do you combat this?

1) Accept that as you stand in front of the camera, you are who you are.  We all wish pimples didn't pop up the day of a photoshoot, but that's life.  The more you try to hide it, the more focus you're going to bring to it.  In post production I can edit out a pimple, but I can't edit your feelings towards that pimple.  Accept it and move on.

2) Make bold choices.  If you want to smile in the shot, smile.  If you want to stick out your tongue, commit to it.  If something doesn't work, the image gets deleted and we move on.  There is NEVER A REASON NOT TO TRY SOMETHING.  Following your inspiration in the moment IS living the moment.  And that's when the real "you" comes out.  Be silly.  Be stupid.  Enjoy yourself.  Peter Gwinn, an improv teacher I studied under, once said "If you arn't having a good time, do something immediately that makes you happy."

3) Focus on the task at hand.  When you're in front of the camera you're a participant in the act of producing something.  Which means some of the responsibility falls on you to follow direction and learn how to make every shot better than the last.  It means paying attention and putting a value on your time commensurate to the product you hope to produce.  As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.  I'm very thirsty, and if you take me to the trough I'll guzzle it down.

It boils down to this.  Together we can produce amazing images.  When we push distractions aside and relax into the process, we get to a place where magic happens.  As a photographer and artist, that's where I want to spend my time.  

Be Insanely Sexy


Donna TouchSexy is a word that gets thrown around in photography studios quite a bit.  You might hear someone say “pose sexy” or “in this next shot, try sexy...”   What is that supposed to mean?  What is "sexy"?  A pouty lip?  Puppy dog eyes?  Should I have brought my Cosmo to the shoot for reference?  And who's definition of sexy do we use?

In the early 2000’s I was taking improv classes at the Annoyance Theater.  Joe Bill, the instructor, was absolutely phenomenal at taking everything you believed to be an improv "truth" and questioning why it was a thing and how it relates to you, or in many cases why it doesn't relate to you.  To me, Joe Bill was like a book you have to read twice, once to enjoy and once to really understand.  Consequently I took his class multiple times.  But through all that training, one class really stands out above all others.   

He got us all up (a dozen students or so) and walking around the classroom.  The classroom was used mostly for dance classes.  So it had a raised floor, floor to ceiling mirrors, and lots of space.  We all had to walk around the room and embody different characteristics that he'd call out.  Anger.  Grief.  Joy.  You can probably see it in your mind, students yelling at each other, crying with each other, and hugs and handshakes like someone had a baby. But then he called out insanity, and that's where the real lesson started. 

We all broke out into our best Vietnam vet and Gollum impersonations.  Running around the room, screaming loudly, talking about 9/11 being an inside job, and what color a guitar plays.  Then he told us to walk normal, shaking off the insanity.  He then told us to act sexy.  Suddenly everyone started walking around the room like Jessica Rabbit.  Really laying on the sex appeal.  For that minute we were all one part Alexis Texas and two parts bad Roger Moore impression.  He stopped us and we all came together for a class discussion.

Stage Door Johnnies

He asked us what it was like to play with insanity, and we all agreed that we felt like we could do anything.  When you’re insane, you are completely confident that you are correct at every moment.  If you see little green men tearing apart your plane, then it's a fact.  If you're yelling at a tree, it doesn't matter if someone else thinks it's crazy, you've got your reasons for it. You approach it with no fear, because you know you’re right.  Through your insanity, you are confident.

Then, he asked us what it was like to play sexy.  We all agreed it felt stupid.  The closest analogy I can give to how it felt is when your belt doesn't match your shoes, and you're really scared that everybody around you notices.  But then you get through the day and nobody knows or cares.  Your entire experience is focused inward.  You're not in the moment, you're outside of the moment looking at yourself with judgement.  Not a single one of us achieved sexy.  We all failed miserably.    

Titi Touche of the Kiss Kiss Cabaret

And that was the point.

Sexy isn’t something you can act, it’s something you are. Sexy doesn't care what the world thinks and ironically insanity doesn’t care what the world thinks.  Which takes us to Joe Bill’s motto,

“Be Insanely Sexy.”

Confirming this is Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.  Merriam-Webster has Sexy listed as:

sexy
adjective \ˈsek-sē\
sex·i·er sex·i·est

1: sexually suggestive or stimulating : erotic
2: generally attractive or interesting : appealing <a sexystock>
— sex·i·ly adverb
— sex·i·ness noun

Sexy isn't a verb.  It's an adjective.  It’s your state of being. It's looking in a mirror and knowing the person looking back. It's having the capacity to laugh at yourself and sharing that laugh with others.

In my studio, you don’t act sexy.  You are sexy.  When you're in front of the camera, it's you that's being photographed.  Not an external vision of you.  So relax, be insanely sexy, and lets capture that. 

*Joe Bill, thanks for being a great teacher and supporter of improvisors everywhere.

Lensbaby Meets Burlesque -or- Double Take: Looking at something familiar in a new way (NSFW below the drop)

Last time out, I decided I wanted to try something a little different when photographing the Kiss Kiss Cabaret.  I brought out the lensbaby, a gimmick lens that has a small point of focus, but then gets gradually more and more blurry as you move away from it.  I've always liked the effect, but haven't found much practical use for it outside of the occasional portrait.

Using the Lensbaby in the studio, with Paris GreenIn a studio setting, the lens handles great.  You have to move the focus point manually around the frame by twisting the lens itself (as well as focusing the lens), so when you take your time to nail the focus you can get some really cool results.  But using the lens during a live performance is a lot riskier. There are so many intangibles to creating the shot (focus, exposure, composition,) that sometimes you just miss the moment.  Sometimes the focal point is just a hair off from where you'd like it to be.  Other times the focal point is in the right spot, but the image is so blurred that you miss the reason you took the shot.  I imagine it's like trying to fly a plane with walleye vision.

So why bother?

Because once in awhile you're photographing a subject matter and it becomes too familiar.  I've been photographing burlesque for some time now, and I've got that mental checklist I go through as I approach the work.  I've got a pretty good idea what shots I want to get and how to get them. But that's boring.  I felt like it was important to keep digging.  Finding a new way to look at the work and find new ways to voice my feelings about it.  And for me that came in the form of the Lensbaby.  It reminds me of something Jack White said:

I keep guitars that are, you know, the neck's a little bit bent and it's a little bit out of tune. I want to work and battle it and conquer it and make it express whatever attitude I have at that moment. I want it to be a struggle.  -- From It Might Get Loud

With the Lensbaby, you're forced to struggle.  Follow your instincts, follow that moment, and make quick decisions for better or worse.  As a result I feel that the images show something that I hadn't been expressing in my previous work.  And seeing that, I can hopefully bring out those themes in my more traditional work.  Or at the very least, make something look instragramy enough to trend.

Anyway, you can check out some results below (click below to expand), or check out the full gallery at http://www.greginda.com/live-gallery/burlesque-experimental/ .  Big thanks to Chris Biddle and the Kiss Kiss Cabaret for allowing me the freedom to try some stuff out.

Also, if you're interested in some more experimental burlesque photography, check out what my friend Brian C. Janes did compressing an entire act into a single image. 

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Venice Bridges

So one self assignment I gave myself in Venice was to photograph the bottoms of bridges.  I was very surprised how much character each bridge had, built out of completely different materials than the bridge before it.  I used a slow shutter speed to de-emphasize the actual construction and to bring out more of the color and pattern each bridge had.  Check out the gallery right here at http://www.greginda.com/personal-work/venice-bridges/

Or enjoy these two samples here.