LINK TO INTERVIEW (click here).
We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Weston Fuller a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Weston, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
Finding my purpose is still a part of my ongoing journey. With my experience on my path, there is not a finish line in life…. the line just keeps moving. I’ve had success and been acknowledged for my creativity, but the art world and creative industry is constantly changing and redefining the role of a creator.
When I decided to go back to school to pursue my MFA in photography I had already been out of school for a decade, so I was apprehensive in returning to academia. I was a new father and trying to hold down two jobs to support my family and adding school on top of it all seemed overwhelming, but I knew very early on that creating and working with ad agencies and larger productions to really develop a concept and create something unique was something that came natural to me. I loved the early stages of pre-production in a project all the way through to the end of post-production when the idea is visually revealed. It felt natural to me, as if it was something I had always been a part of but just recently discovering. I felt like I was doing something I was always meant to do. I FOUND MY PUPOSE, and my purpose was creating.
Discovering your purpose and pursuing your purpose are two different things and I think I’ve been pursuing my purpose ever since I discovered it over a decade ago. The pursuing of one’s purpose is where all the fun, and the sad, and the challenges are, which is why I’m still kicking my ambitions down the road in hopes that it will support me and my family a decade later.
LINK TO INTERVIEW (click here).
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I usually describe myself as a photographer, but that’s the one-word answer.
No matter what level of photographer you are, you can relate that taking a picture is the smallest aspect of your job. It’s all the other hats you wear or roles that you must fill to try and make it in this industry. On any given day I’m not only a photographer, but also a producer, director, retoucher, photo editor, account executive, camera operator, digital artist, publicist, marketing manager, etc. etc. etc.
The demands to create has never been greater with the world running off of visual content (not Dunkin’…sorry Dunkin’ Donut fans), through the constant streaming of photos and videos. Unfortunately, with this demand in content it has also diluted the value of who a creator is and what a creator creates.
I wanted to be an artist because an artist creates. He/she takes a simple thought and turns it from an idea into a visual asset that can been seen, held, sold and has value. I turned to photography because of my love of trying to create organization within a frame from the chaos of everything else around it. By focusing in and trying to capture an element of how I saw the world and how I wanted to produce my ideas became a passion. After a while it wasn’t just enough to just capture a photo, I had to enhance it by editing it, so I started to hone my skills in retouching and photo-editing and exploring the abilities that digital applications like Adobe’s Photoshop would allow. This has been a huge help in my carrier because it has allowed me to really develop my own ideas and when working with clients allow me to communicate all the steps and nuances necessary to produce the final results.
This is also my crutch because it truly is a process and it’s hard to rush the results. As a self-proclaimed perfectionist, I want what I create to really be different than just another picture or image that doesn’t have a purpose or hold any content. This might be one of the largest beliefs that I have. An artist creates for something to last a lifetime, while a modern day creator only creates for the moment.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
There are some defining moments in my life when I look back and try to figure out how I got to where I am today. The first was just my natural love to create, this is something I have loved for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if it’s something that was born into me or something that developed early in my childhood, but just making something from nothing is where I get a lot of pleasure in life. Another aspect of in my life has been my family, and more particularly my wife. She encouraged me (although she probably regrets it now) to go back to school, get my MFA and pursue my purpose. Now that I have kids, they love seeing what I create which gives me a ton of happiness to see the wonder on their faces and to think that I’m someone they’re hopefully proud of. Everything I create and all that I pursue is to try and provide them with happiness. Having a WHY or a WHO to provide for other than yourself is maybe one of the greatest motivations for getting up and doing what you want to every day, on the good days and on the bad days.
If I had to give any advice to others who are just starting out, it might be to understand yourself and the type of art you want to create. Not just art that is nice to look at, but art that can live a lifetime that speaks to who you are. It might be a single image or a body of work that tells your story as an artist.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
Opportunity. It’s hard to show someone what you can do, if you don’t have the opportunity to do it.
I spend most of my time when not creating trying to market and promote myself to businesses who I can partner with to create. As mentioned earlier, the industry is always changing and trying to reinvent myself gets harder and harder when I set out to perfect a single skill of wanting to be a photographer and take original pictures that held meaning.
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