Meet Abigail Mueller

Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today. You can include as little or as much detail as you’d like.
My story with photography starts when I was around 11 or 12 when I got an iPod touch. I took a photo of some building in some rural Texas town while I was on a trip with my family and my mom gave a sweet compliment, as moms do. Looking back, it was just an ordinary snapshot but it was those words of encouragement on that day that gave me a boost of confidence to keep taking photos. Eventually, I got my own DSLR in high school and really discovered how much photography meant to me at that time. From that time until now, I feel like I’ve tried a little bit of everything but found that I was most drawn to travel and street photography. With these types of photography, I’ve always really enjoyed how I’m able to capture fleeting moments in time and represent the world through perspectives of my own, whether in familiar spaces or places I had never been before.

During high school, my photography teacher John Skees taught me everything I know and really helped me grow as a photographer and I can’t express how thankful I am. Now I’m taking photo classes in college for my photography minor and was lucky enough to have such dedicated professors who also saw my ideas through and helped me grow. At this point, photography is a part of who I am thanks to these individuals and I can’t wait to see where it will take me.

We’d love to learn more about your work. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?
Over the past several months, I’ve solidified myself as a music photographer. I would say that I jumped into this style of photography simply because I really like music and enjoy going to concerts. All it took was bringing my camera to a small show and I felt an instant connection with this type of work. Although I still love fine art, travel, and street photography, which is what I’ve done much of in the past, I’ve found that music photography is what I’m truly drawn to. There’s truly something special about creating art out of another person’s art, especially when it’s an art form that is being performed to a crowd full of people. It’s not only the energy present on stage but also the smaller moments that can be forgotten in a split second that I strive to capture in my work. Using photoshop and in-camera techniques, I also aim to create atmospheric and otherworldly perceptions through my work, which I feel better represent the feeling of being at a concert rather than just a regular snapshot.

The two sets of photos that I’m most proud of are from the ‘Sports’ concert at Club Dada in January and the Blue Feel studio portraits that I created recently. For the ‘Sports’ concert, I experimented with a new lens that I had rented, not sure if I would like the photos, but ended up taking some of my favorite concert photos of all time. These images felt much more intimate compared to many of my other concert photos. The other set of photos is of ‘Blue Feel’, a Denton-based band. Taking portraits was a completely different experience compared to live music photography since this involved settling on a concept, conducting research, and completing extensive planning. Where concert photography is based around your own spontaneity and observational skills, studio portraits very much ride on your own creativity and your ability to carry out an idea that you and the artists want to bring to life. I had never done band portraits before ‘Blue Feel’s shoot, so not being used to this newer process came with its own challenges. However, I learned so much and absolutely enjoyed seeing this project through from start to finish. I absolutely would love to work with more artists and do more shoots like this in the future!

What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?
My plans are to graduate with a degree in Integrative Studies next spring, and look for work as a UX Designer. So far, my plans with photography are to keep pushing forward, try new things, and see where this takes me! Some goals I have are to shoot at a music festival before I graduate and continue to take photos for the talented artists in the Denton and DFW music scenes. I hope to do more artist/band portraits as well, sell my own prints, and ultimately get my name out there. This is what I love to do so if I could one day go on tour as a photographer or make enough money from this as a career, I would do this as my job in a heartbeat.