Josh Hejl, Interviewed by Brandon Russell.
First, tell readers a little bit about you. Where you are, where you came from, and what makes you happy?
I grew up in Palmer Alaska, a small town in a large glacial valley between the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges.
Now I live in the northwest of Reno, Nevada, occasionally I miss the adventure of Alaska but the weather here is just so nice and conducive to being outside.
Lots of things make me happy, I love to be outside and I love to spend time with my family, the two dominating forces in my life.
Describe your photographic style in as few words as possible.
Scenic, dynamic and emotional
How did you get into photography and more specifically, wedding photography?
I began photographing my life to hold onto memories. Wedding photography came naturally as I began working to capture the essence of a moment. Wedding photography is amazing because we are allowed to interact on such a personal level with a bunch of very happy people. It’s great!
How do you think your background growing up in the Alaskan mountains has impacted your style of outdoor portrait photography?
I hope that’s obvious by looking at my work. Outdoor photography is not comfortable, it’s cold and wet, tedious and frustrating. Alaska taught me how to suffer.
How does living in Reno influence your portrait photography in terms of style and shooting location?
The great basin structure in northern Nevada makes for amazing light nearly every day year-round, that combined with the diversity of geography and stable weather and Reno is a perfect place to shoot. Being the Biggest Little City Reno has a diversity of urban environments to use as textural backgrounds.
When not shooting weddings and portraits, what else do you shoot?
I shoot many of my skiing adventures, and outdoor stuff as well as some commercial work and fine art. I enjoy photography no matter the season or the theme.
When not shooting photos, where can you be found?
I spend a lot of time in the outdoors looking for inspiration and traveling through the mountains in aesthetic ways (skiing, mountain biking and hiking). Occasionally I also visit the pub-n-sub on my cruiser bike to eat pizza and enjoy beer with my friends.
Where do you look for inspiration for your photography? Other photographers, artists, musicians, filmmakers…
Most of my inspiration comes from light and form in the mountains.
However, I find modern cinematography and drawing to be very inspirational.
If you chose another path in life and ended up working in some other field than photography, what would you be doing?
Probably something a bit more labor intensive, I enjoy working with my hands and creating things.
However I’m not sure it would matter as long as I was able to find happiness.
What’s more fulfilling to you, a blue-bird powder day shredding KT-22 at Squaw Valley, or capturing a shot in the backcountry you’ve envisioned for weeks.
Capturing the shot, hands-down.
Fill in the blanks:
In a perfect world, I would live in a place that is similar to Reno and spend my time shooting pictures of landscapes.
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