Following part one of Future Photomakers, which focused on Tim Lampe and Keith Weaver’s insights into their Artist Initiative project, part two focuses on the work and retrospective of the students.
Read more about the students’ thoughts here, and follow along on the Future Photomakers VSCO.
Presenting a series of creative collaborations with members of our global community as an ongoing effort to understand who we are.
Thuan Tran may confess that he doesn’t know who he is, but one thing is clear — he’s not who he used to be. After getting busted for writing graffiti as a teenager, Thuan’s punishment included teaching a video editing class at a local after school program called Movement City — an experience that furthered his interest in filmmaking and the arts, and cemented his determination to escape the limited options that were available to him after high school in Lawrence, MA. Coupled with that was the vision of being able to care for his mother, and of finding his own way to navigate the spaces of the country that she had immigrated to from Vietnam. His resolve would see him paying his dues in Boston, before eventually bringing him to New York City to work with an emerging director and mentor. Though that meant having no stable place to live, and hiding from his family that he was no longer pursuing a formal education, Thuan was chasing his dreams. At nineteen, he had grounded himself in a new city and was moving forward as a creative with so much yet to prove and learn.
Thuan’s undying hustle led him to land work as director of photography on music videos for some of the industry’s biggest names, including Beyoncé and A$AP Rocky. From the outside, his professional opportunities may seem glamorous, but he recognizes that success is fleeting and glamour is an illusion. Thuan knows the cost and sacrifice it took for him to be able to pursue his art as a career, and, aware it could end at any moment, is always thinking about what’s next. Fresh off a shoot for what he says will be the biggest music video of the year, Thuan found himself sharing a subway car with a homeless man at 4am, reflecting on the fragility and value of his work. “This is real life right here,” he admits. “You on the train home with this random dude asking for change. Like, things could switch so fast. Makes me feel like what I'm doing isn't important, maybe I need to try harder to do something that does matter.”
Thuan’s work ethic is matched only by his restless creativity, which led him to develop personal side projects during his lunch hour in the midst of commercial work. Free of client demands, Thuan says, “I was able to express whatever I was feeling, whether it resonated with anyone or not… It was for me!” But ultimately his art isn’t just for him — Thuan wants to see other kids from his hometown become equipped to navigate both the corporate and creative environments. “I feel like I owe something because I got put on so hard by so many people, and people have, like, showed me the path. I feel like I have a debt to pay.”
This drive to create, first in graffiti, and then through photography and video, is today pushing him to pursue new forms of expression. “Now that I’ve built a stable foundation, I’m starting to explore. I learned the game…now I have freedom to think.”
Photography and footage by Thuan Tran
Music by Steve Cool
Produced by VSCO
VSCO Originals highlights humanity — vast and varied, a layered collective of individual experiences. With exclusive editorial content that lives on the VSCO platform, VSCO Originals is comprised of a variety of titles, each offering a unique perspective that goes beyond traditional editorial coverage.
Created across a range of mediums and art forms, and in collaboration with seasoned writers, editors, photographers, and members of our community, these titles explore diverse perspectives and themes of humanness.
Content will be published on a regular basis — follow each VSCO Original title to keep up with the latest explorations.
Venue — documenting and exposing vital new music through video and imagery.
Photographs by Rog Walker
Cyclopedia — discovering and learning science, history, and culture through visually experimental presentations.
Illustrations by Josh Cochran
All Kinds of Human — celebrating the complexity and diversity of humanity, showcasing the moments that unite us.
Photographs by Jared Soares
Manifattura — featuring artists and makers in various fields from all over the world through collaborative projects.
Type by Göran Söderström, illustrations by Oscar Grønner
Coming soon:
23.5 — supporting and exploring global cultural perspectives.
Max — celebrating the journey of self-discovery and growth for young women striving to express themselves.
CBN — broadcasting the maniacal personas that exist in the recess of an everyday world. Viewer discretion is advised.
Academy — informing and helping people of all levels, through tutorials and interviews, to learn, be inspired, and engage in the art of photography
As the VSCO Artist Initiative™ program continues to grow, we want to make sure we highlight the artists in addition to their projects. After all, these are people who, amidst their project challenges, hold down jobs, tend to loved ones, and have stories to tell.
By day artist Ruairidh McGlynn is a product designer, but recently his photography has become an integral part of his creative expression. McGlynn’s work explores breathtaking landscapes while capturing the compelling relationships of humans and their surroundings.
With his Artist Initiative grant, McGlynn is documenting the Bothies that freckle the Scottish countryside. These rural structures are a safe haven for hikers as they explore the vast wilderness of Scotland.
Presenting a series of creative collaborations with members of our global community as an ongoing effort to understand who we are.
Musician, producer, photographer, and self-described “hyper-creative” Ta-ku revels in the process. He’s not interested in presenting a perfectly polished version of himself or his work to the public. Instead, he most appreciates the progression that an individual makes over time as they work at their craft. In Ta-ku's eyes, too often the public, and aspiring artists themselves, expect perfection straight away, which can place unreasonable demands on the artists.
We have a tendency to approach art with such a serious tone, but Ta-ku wants to change that perception, for both the artist and the audience. He believes you can have fun with the process, enjoy yourself, and still produce quality work that resonates with others. Ta-ku further describes his viewpoint on this dynamic: “Art doesn’t have to be as serious as we make it out to be. You can put stuff out there that people don’t necessarily like; you can be loose with it.” Public opinion can be restrictive, especially when concern arises about retaining followers or catering to what those followers want. Ta-ku produces work that’s authentic to him and that he personally connects with, trusting that others will connect with it as well. “I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I’m always trying to learn new things. I think that’s why I never take anything too seriously, because the moment I do is the moment I disconnect from my deeper emotional and real state.”
His emotional honesty, put to music in EPs Songs To Break Up To and the most recent Songs To Make Up To, is also translated into other creative fields, like photography and design. On his tour last year for STMUT, he conceived a live show where “visuals are king, and music is accompanying.” Ta-ku’s passion for photography has grown in recent years, a reflection of his continued evolution as an artist. He finds the visual element to be refreshing, and his colorblindness contributes to his distinct aesthetic. “I’ve fully embraced the vision I have and think it helps define me and what I see and perceive,” he says. “There certainly is a definitive mood and feel to my photos and visual choices that help tell my story and also define my style. It oddly helps and accompanies the more emotive storytelling that I love to tell.”
Ta-ku understands there will always be a group of people who don’t like your work, but that shouldn’t be a hindrance to taking risks and communicating honestly. “Creating art takes courage — sharing it with the public shows even more courage. This translates with my work, I feel — whilst I’m never sure of the actual outcome, I do subconsciously create with very little fear.”
Photography and footage by Ta-ku
Music by Ta-ku
Produced by VSCO
Our latest VSCO Original, Academy, is a place for photographers of all levels to learn, be inspired, and engage in the art of photography.
Follow Academy to stay up to date with weekly episodes, tutorials, and interviews.
Presenting a series of creative collaborations with members of our global community as an ongoing effort to understand who we are.
Lilli Hymowitz, 17-year old home schooler from Manhattan, sounds like many teenage girls when asked what’s most important to her: “My family, for sure, always. My horses, riding. My friends, for sure, always. I have a few best friends, my boyfriend now. Hmm what else? Photography I love, for sure. And that’s, like, mostly it.”
Naturally, she’s interested in social media: “This whole social media platform is, like, weirdly important to me,” but she continues, “I really like it [and] how it’s building things in my real life, but I never want to like it to the point where I get too caught up in it.”
It’s easy to get caught up in social media when you have a lot of followers. But Lilli’s less interested in her online followers compared to her real-life experiences and close circle of friends. “My friends will be like, ‘Lilli, you need to post less, you’re losing followers.’ I’m like, honestly, I don’t care; if I lose followers, I lose followers…. I don’t try and fake anything.”
Her honesty translates into her photographs that capture candid moments hanging out with friends in the city, behind-the-scenes moments at equestrian competitions, and intimate glimpses into her family life. She attributes her candor to a life-changing read of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. “I was, like, really always controlling, wanting to control every situation around me, and like, hated change and things changing. I just wasn’t in a good place.” For Lilli, changing her philosophy on life “just changed everything.” Her take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards appeasing her followers reflects her attitude towards new age thinking: “I never tried to push it on anyone…. If it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, you don’t read it.”
Ultimately Lilli’s living her own life, not for approval from others, and not to project a certain image. She’s doing what she loves, with the people who matter most to her, in a city that’s like no other. When she describes those she admires most as, “People who speak their mind and say their opinions and aren’t afraid of what other people are gonna think or bully them,” she could be describing her own defining characteristic as well — confidence. But she’s the first to admit she’s still finding her way: “I'm still young and growing up and trying to figure myself and my passions out day by day.”
Photography and footage by Lilli Hymowitz
Music by Insightful
Produced by VSCO
Today, we’re kicking off Academy, a place to learn the ins and outs of photography.
Each week, Academy explores different topics, from photographing people to finding beauty in everyday things. Check back each Wednesday on Academy’s VSCO for new tips, interviews, and video lessons.
This month, explore the topic of Photographing People. Check it out, and share your photos to your VSCO and tag them with #ACADEMY. Be sure to follow Academy’s VSCO to see selected images from the community.
This month on Academy, Max and Katy shared Lesson 1 on Photographing People, which was a fun and quirky video with tips on how to take portraits and capture candid moments.
The hosts of Academy, Max and Katy, are likewise colorful, whimsical personalities, whom we’d like to know more of. Read Academy’s interview with Max here, and Katy’s interview here.
Follow Academy on VSCO to stay up to date with weekly episodes, tutorials, and interviews.
Presenting a series of creative collaborations with members of our global community as an ongoing effort to understand who we are.
Yours Truly knows it’s important to get the narrative right. A creative collective committed to telling musicians’ stories on musicians’ terms, Yours Truly was founded in 2009 by longtime friends Babak Khoshnoud and Will Abramson, ardent music fans and advocates of the “slow story.” Here, we peer behind the curtain on the duo to hear the perspective of the storytellers themselves.
Photographs by GL Askew II
For each of the musicians they profile, Yours Truly understands there’s something of the artists involved and something of themselves revealed in the process. Will shares, “We’re obviously looking out to the world to identify musicians and artists and people that we want to champion, but it takes looking inwards to turn that into the product, into art, if you will.”
Photograph by Lindsey Rome
Started as a creative side project, Will describes Yours Truly’s beginnings as, “Let’s take a band and figure out how to put them in a space that brings their music to life outside of the venue that they’re going to play that night.” They chose to profile only musicians they loved, as Babak explains, “We weren’t in it for criticism, we were in it for collaboration.” They work closely with each artist to tell an authentic story that not only gives you a sense of the music, but a sense of the person as well. For their piece on Miguel, they toured his hometown of San Pedro and revisited the apartment complex where he grew up. They followed Wet to the Massachusetts countryside for a week of solitude and reflection. And when they met Robyn and La Bagatelle Magique, they witnessed an intimate and vulnerable performance of friends still grieving the loss of their close producer.
Photograph by GL Askew II
Addicted to the inexplicable magic that happens when artists perform their music for you, Yours Truly has refined their storytelling since their debut to have a greater understanding of the humanity in the artwork. “After the jitters of meeting and starting to collaborate, we settle into that part where you look across the room and you see someone who’s excited to continue sharing with you, who values the fact that you’re there listening to them, and that something shifts and they want to give you what they have,” Will says. “So past the handshake phase, it happens almost every time; no one says anything, but something is revealed or something is removed. Like, the wall comes down, and then things start flowing more freely, and we start sharing more about our experiences, which turns the conversations from a question/answer into an actual exchange. And that’s my favorite part. Now I’m looking for it, and I can tell when it happens. And when it does, it’s great.”
Photographs by Ryan Lowry
This give and take between the artist and the interviewer ultimately amounts to each party bringing all they have to the experience. Babak contends, “If they want us to make something great, they need to give us everything, and if we want to make something great, then we need to give them everything.” As they hone their style of slow, rich storytelling, the duo are eager for the collaborations to come: “We’re starting to get even hungrier and hungrier to go deeper and deeper.”
Photography and footage courtesy of Yours Truly
Music by Sam Wishkoski & Steven Cheung
Produced by VSCO
Aether Apparel is a manufacturer of high-end, technical outerwear, offering functional pieces for extreme weather without sacrificing a clean, modern design.
As a purveyor of both form and function, Aether Apparel partnered with five photographers from around the globe to show how they explore the breathtaking outdoors in extreme climates. From now until midnight PST on Mar. 6, share your own images of exploration to your VSCO with #TheOuterLimits, and be sure to follow Aether Apparel to see if your work is highlighted.
Image by Konsta Linkola
Image by Stian Servoss
Image by Arlena Armstrong
Image by Eliska Kubikova
Image by Jovell Rennie
Thank you for all of your submissions to #TheOuterLimits. There’s no one way to explore the outer limits of this beautiful planet, and the images shared were breathtaking in both composition and content, contributing to several pages of amazing imagery in AETHER Apparel’s Collection.
See below for some of AETHER Apparel’s selects from this challenge, and be sure follow their Collection for more explorations.
Cover image by Benjamin Lee
Image by Digi Von Douglas
Image by Anna Jones
Image by Stian Servoss
Image by hmariam
Image by Matt McIntosh
Image by Konsta Linkola
Image by Valerio Capitani
Image by Marcin Stempień
Image by jinerous
A central hub for news, CBN reports on the issues that matter. Brought to you by a team of regular contributors: Ronald (vsco.co/ronaldisdead), Natalie (vsco.co/ieatmainelylobster), and Harold (vsco.co/thisisbreakfast).
Follow along for the latest news coverage from CBN at vs.co/cbn.
We work hard so that you don’t have to.
Taking its name from the axial tilt of the Earth, 23.5 (vsco.co/twentythreepointfive) is a VSCO Original title that explores global cultural perspectives, and just how dynamic and rich the human experience can be.
I & I , the first project by 23.5, was created in collaboration with writer Anicée Gaddis and photographer Alessandro Simonetti. I & I examines the Rastafari faith and how it is expressed through modern cultural leaders, both young and old, in contemporary Jamaica. The title of the project originantes in Rasta semantics, in which the pronouns ‘you and me’ are replaced with ‘I and I' to express oneness among people and a direct connection to God.
Utilizing a range of medias, from in-depth interviews, creative non-fiction essays, and immersive photography, I & I seeks to provide a lens into a unique cultural perspective.
Follow 23.5 for a deeper look into I & I, and to explore new projects and collaborations.
Cover image of reggae artist Kabaka Pyramid, photographed at Bull Bay in Jamaica by Alessandro Simonetti for the I & I project.
Inspired by the mission of conserving nature and promoting sustainability, VSCO has partnered with Apple and WWF to work together to protect life on our planet. The new WWF preset for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch enhances the lights and colors of natural settings, and is ideal for landscape and wildlife photography.
This limited edition WWF preset is available for purchase in the VSCO app from now until April 24, and WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from your purchase. Follow WWF on VSCO, and share your images with the tag #AppsforEarth to help bring awareness to the cause.
Download the WWF preset for iOS now to support the mission for conservation and sustainability.
Images by Dianna Mertz, August Ortiz, Steven Turville, JP Chookaszian, and Yuan Liu.
Thank you for all your submissions to #AppsforEarth, which showcased Earth’s natural wonders, and aided in WWF’s mission of protecting life on this planet.
The limited edition WWF preset for iOS is available for purchase in the VSCO app from now through April 24, and WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from your purchase.
See below for selects from this movement of conservation, and be sure share your images to VSCO with the tag #AppsforEarth to continue bringing awareness to the cause.
Image by Ewerson Crispim
Image by Ananya Ray
Image by Sarah Irene Murphy
Image by Konsta Linkola
Image by Natalia Horinkova
Image by joon
Image by Emilie Newsome
Image by Winze Chuang
Image by James Frost
Cover image by James Frost
Celebrating the journey of self-discovery for young women, MAX is a new VSCO Original title that explores the many facets of being female.
Created by women, MAX will cover a variety of topics, including interviews with creative women, poetry, recipes, DIY projects, fashion, music and more.
Follow MAX at vsco.co/maxjournal to discover inspiring peers who are striving to honestly express themselves and participate in a dynamic community.
Since its launch in 2014, VSCO Artist Initiative™ has been providing artists with the resources to pursue their creative vision. We are incredibly proud of what the program and its artists have accomplished — to date, Artist Initiative has funded and promoted over 30 artist projects, enabling those artists to tell their stories in their own ways.
Now, VSCO Artist Initiative will be broadening its scope, and expanding its editorial voice as the newest title under VSCO Originals. It will continue to elevate the work of its current roster of artists, but will also explore different perspectives from guest writers and content creators.
Thank you for your continued support of the Artist Initiative program, and for the diverse artists that make it a reality. Follow Artist Initiative’s VSCO for more details and new updates from the artists.
Music by Burnt Ones, “Pulse"
In celebration of the opening of Apple Union Square in San Francisco, VSCO is partnering with Apple in a special collaboration called Creative Sessions — a series featuring influential artists and creatives that take you into their stories and their craft.
From May 26th until July 7th, Apple Union Square will host four Creative Sessions, each led by an established photographer from the VSCO community. Each photographer will share their story, inspiration, and creative process, and will lead a hands-on lesson based on their unique style and techniques.
Learn more about each session below, and join us for one or all four.
Cover image by Benjamin Heath
Benjamin Heath, a lawyer-turned-photographer who left the corporate world to pursue his passion, will share his unique take on capturing the hidden moments happening around us. With a passion for portraits and the stories they tell, Ben’s session will focus on how to create portraiture that reveals something about who the subject is.
Thursday May 26, 2016
Photography by Benjamin Heath
Khristopher ‘Squint’ Sandifer is a Bay Area photographer who has worked with an impressive roster of clients, including Stephen Curry, Jay-Z, Nas, and Leon Bridges. A documentary-style photographer, Squint’s work shows a genuine connection with his subjects. This session will focus on how to create a compelling portrait by getting to know the real story behind your subject.
Thursday June 9, 2016
RSVP for Squint’s session here
Photography by Squint
A San Francisco-based art director, Olga Montserrat will share her unique perspective on style and shooting for the trifecta: beautiful composition, color, and humor. Olga’s session will lead you through a fun, hands-on portrait session with various backdrops, props, and lighting.
Thursday June 23, 2016
Photography by Olga Montserrat
A San Francisco-based editorial photographer, Nirav Patel has a knack for detecting the quiet in the chaos in the world. He defines his visual language by turning these hushed moments into breathtaking photography, and his session will focus on how to isolate beautiful moments using light, exposure, lines, and symmetry.
Thursday July 7, 2016
Photography by Nirav Patel
VSCO has always been a community for expression; what started as just a photo editing app has since turned into a place to create, discover, and connect for a diverse, passionate community.
We’re excited to share that we’ll be rolling out a redesigned mobile app for iOS and Android, which focuses equally on both creating and discovering on the VSCO platform. Move seamlessly between a space for editing and publishing, and a space for consuming great content from the people you follow and VSCO Originals.
The same inspiring community and superior tools of VSCO, now with a new face.
Create and shoot with the native VSCO camera, and edit with our superior mobile presets and advanced camera controls.
Discover great content from people you follow and VSCO Originals. Search for specific people and curated content from the community.
Connect with the VSCO community. Find and follow friends and people from around the world.
#NewVSCO coming soon.
