interesting artist

I follow a dozen of blogs about photography (well maybe two dozen, haven't counted them). Some blogs are interesting to read (things to learn), but a lot of them just (re)post pretty pictures from different sources.

Usually I quickly scroll through the latter, it's a quick way to see what other people are doing, what's interesting, hot, ..
A lot of them are similar: fashion, landscapes, .. while technically most are very good, not often I come across that really is great and different from all the others.

But today I came across this post about the work of
Ben Heine and I really like it !
I actually took the time to look at each picture in detail.

It's an original idea (well at least as far as I know, probably someone else will be doing something similar as it's a very large world and the chance of 2 people having the same idea is quite big). I like it as it combines photography an drawing (I've done art school myself until I was 16, also like things like Escher). It has a bit of surrealism to it. The work has a great quality and is of a high level - the photos are technically good (sharpness, exposure, ..) and the drawings are also nicely done (ie it's not a series of bad snapshots with some drawings that everyone could produce).

It also shows you need to have an original idea and be consistant with it.

A 365 project won't make a photographer famous or published in a photography magazine (except in lists of 365 projects). A 365 project is good to learn a lot of different aspects about photography. But once you master the techniques, you have to stop copying others. You have to come up with your own style and technique. Your own portfolio. Your own idea. When people see your picture, they know it's made by you.

The last year I've seen a lot of different photographers published in magazines - I'm too lazy to look up the links, but I've read articles about photogs only taking only photos of flowers, of animal skeletons (with black background), of water drops (or ink drops), of fruit slices, of pinball machines, of drunk people on saturday nights in a city, of soap bubbles, of machines taken apart in layers, ..

As all these magazines need to be filled each month with new ideas, it won't surprise me if this work is picked up by some editors and showcased (so all amateurs can start copying it).