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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Photography Culture

John Kingston: The Psychology of a Lifestyle Portrait Photographer

Chris Gampat
No Comments
02/13/2016
3 Mins read

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All images by John Kingston. Used with permission.

When it comes to lifestyle portrait photography, photographer John Kingston is one that lives the dream of many. He gets to travel, come up with creative concepts, work with cool people and use his creative vision. Lots of his work finds a way to combine landscapes and portraiture into one, and beyond that he’s also incredibly conscious of color palettes.

In fact, John really isn’t a fan of blues.

Phoblographer: Talk to us about how you got into photography.

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John: Well I got into photo by running out of art classes to take junior year of high school. I was heavily into painting and what not. (I did a lot of graffiti back then) so I was always in the art rooms trying to avoid any other classes, ha. My teachers suggested photo after I ran out of classes to take. Then from there I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life!

Phoblographer: What made you want to get into portraiture?

Nikki Howard0230

John: Shooting friends was always the easiest so I did that a lot. and over time traveling and what not I did more landscape stuff but I will always love portrait work cause it’s definitely a favorite since I started.

Phoblographer: So walk us through a typical portrait session. Is there storyboarding involved for you? Is it spur of the moment? How does your creative mind come up with concepts and ideas that don’t really tend to repeat?

John: It depends on what I’m trying to do, but to use an example my favorite type of portrait work is environmental. so i usually start with what they bring style wise. then i pick a awesome backdrop to put that person in. Sometimes it can be entirely spur of the moment. but over time I’ve tried to plan my shoots out a bit more so its well thought out and whatnot.

Phoblographer: Much of your portraiture is very environmentally encompassing. They’re not environmental portraits but you’re very much trying to give the viewer a sense of the person in a location. What motivates you to stick to this?

John: I think it has a lot to do with combining landscape photography with portraits. Visually it’s very complimenting most of the time. So it’s fun to take two different things and put them together.

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Phoblographer: Which photographers influenced the work that you’ve done, and how do you feel they’ve done so?

John: I don’t really follow many photographers. But I love Ansel Adams, he’s the king of landscapes. And fashion wise Mario Testino is a favorite. His work is so inspiring. I have many coffee table books. Id love to shoot more stuff along the lines of fashion.

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Phoblographer: What do you feel is very important for all of your images to have for it to be a Kingston signature photo vs someone else’s? To that end, as you’re editing the images, what do you try to ensure each photo has?

John: I hate blues, I think a lot of my images have very minimal blues haha. It might not be super noticeable at times but I almost ALWAYS turn those down. But also I love lines in images so I always try and get those vanishing lines.

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Phoblographer: How do you go about figuring out which images you should share on Instagram?

John: I actually just go for whatever looks cool out of my sets of photos. I don’t really have any process on IG, just post and let it do its thing!

Phoblographer: Talk to us about the gear that you own. How does it help you to achieve the creative vision you’re trying to put forward?

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John: Well digital is very manipulative so it’s an easy and cheap tool. But with Film I don’t touch a thing. maybe edit out dust or whatever. but I purposely don’t retouch any film photography. I definitely am a advocate of you pay for what you get. For example I was using alien bees for lighting and finally went to Profoto. huge quality difference. and you can see it. you just need to find what works best for you.

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Written by

Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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