Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Coleman.
Thanks for sharing your story with us, Benjamin. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I have always been drawn to unique forms of imagery, whether it be through paintings, graphic design/illustrations, or any other visual medium. I was particularly fond of comic book art, graffiti, and conceptual surrealism. There was an edginess to all of these art forms that I have always been attracted to, and I think that influences a lot of my style today.
I moved to Dallas from Charlotte, North Carolina, back in 2013, and It wasn’t until about 2016 that I started my photography journey. I began following local DFW artists on Instagram because I just loved the images they produced, not because I had an interest in picking up a camera at that time really. I started learning more about the photography community in DFW and the photography culture as a whole that Instagram had helped cultivate. Seeing what photography and Instagram were doing on a broader scale is what lured me in, realizing that I too could contribute to this community is what hooked me. I purchased my first camera off of a friend’s recommendation and started attending as many meetups as I possibly could. That time was invaluable because I stopped becoming a spectator and put myself in the position to rub shoulders with many of the artists that I had grown to admire virtually. I have been fortunate to cultivate some sincere relationships with people who have been pursuing photography much longer than me and received some great insight from them. Though I still have a very long road ahead, I credit what I have learned and the experiences I’ve been fortunate to have from the community and network of creatives I’ve met over the past few years.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Anything worth having is worth working for, and that means there is bound to be adversity. I have certainly experienced my share of upsets and challenges over the years. I think my primary challenge is around time management. Photography is not my full-time focus. I have been blessed with a great career in IT, and I have a number of other interests that I am working to become proficient in. It’s because of this that my schedule can become pretty compact and forces me to be extremely judicious with how I schedule the time that I shoot. I sometimes envy other artists who can just schedule a random photo shoot the day of, an hour before the golden hour because they just have the free time to do so. I do my best to manage my schedule in a way that gives me 2-3 days where I can fit in a shoot but keeping that consistent can be rough. I’ve missed out on a number of meetups or hired opportunities because my day to day schedule just would not allow it. It’ll bum me out every now and again, but for the most part, I just keep it moving and make the most of the time that I have available.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
As far as photography goes, I consider myself an urban lifestyle and portrait photographer. Though I also enjoy street and travel photography, I really favor being able to connect with another human being and create images and concepts that reflect someone’s character and a story for the moment we are photographing. I consider myself to have a minimalist approach, where I don’t need high-end production or extreme post edit techniques to get my point across. Though I can definitely nerd out when it comes to camera/studio gear, or retouching, it’s not a necessity to do what I do. I am most interested in conveying the cross between my story (what I see and feel) with the character of the subject that I am shooting. I think that can be a lost art today because so many creatives just want to keep the likes up vs. tell the story.
What were you like growing up?
As stated before, I always gravitated to unique forms of imagery. I spent most of my childhood through my teens drawing. A lot. I was a huge comic book fan, Marvel and Anime comics mostly. Cover art was my thing; I would seldom purchase a comic book if the cover art was not on point. I had a pretty small circle of friends that had a mix of different interests. My best friend and I both had a love for art and drawing so we would spend our time recreating our favorite comic books, writing our own, and redrawing some of our favorite pictures online. I can even remember a time where we would re-draw Pokémon cards and Dragon Ball Z pictures and sell them to our classmates. We started a comic book company called “Jaws Drawings,” and it afforded us a very unique name for ourselves in school. “Hit up and Ben and Jhordan, they can draw it for you…”
In high school, I really got into graffiti or what we called writing. At that time, I was in a new school and really did not have a lot of friends in my freshman and sophomore year. Most of the kids had been together since middle school and had already formed cliques, and were playing sports, partying, or just hanging out on the weekends. It was a slow start for me because the friends that I had made through the years all went to different high schools. I kept to myself in school mostly up until around 11th grade when I made my jump into a more social scene.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.benjamindcoleman.com
- Phone: 7049537660
- Email: bdcoleman_4@outlook.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bdc.co/
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