Levi Ely
Ely Brothers Photography
Homepage: http://www.elybrothers.com
Feature By: Lauren Kastner
Photography By: Levi Ely
C-buz: Tell me about the big changes going on in your life right now. It sounds like you have a new addition to your family and are also getting a business off the ground.
Levi Ely: Big changes....yeah. Well, my wife Valerie just gave birth to our second child, first girl. Her name is Piper. Unfortunately we have been in the process of relocating to Columbus, Ohio. I have moved there already and my wife, Piper, and our 2 Year old son Jude will be moving in a couple weeks. It is very tough to not have Valerie and my family near me, but I am looking forward to all being under one roof very soon.
CB: How is your life split between Columbus, IN and Columbus, OH?
LE: Ely Brothers Photography consists of me (Levi) and my brother (Caleb). I have lived in Columbus, Indiana for 4 years, and my brother lives in Columbus, Ohio. About a year and a half ago Caleb talked about starting a photography business. We have been traveling back and forth since, but It no longer makes sense to be that far apart and run a prospering business.
CB What is your background in photography? Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school, and for what degree?
LE: I would like to say that from an early age I used to love playing with cameras and taking photos, and that I was in a photojournalism class in high school, and I helped with the yearbook photos, and blah blah blah. But that would be a lie, and to tell the truth, I am glad I didn't do any of these things. Caleb and I grew up in Williamsburg, Ohio. A town of 2,500 people and no photographic inspiration for miles. Photography didn't take any part in my life until 2005, when I purchased my first Digital SLR. From that time until the end of 2007, I had not advanced in taking photos, lighting, composition or any of the aspects that one should get better at over such a period of time.
It wasn't until 2008 that I started learning about photography. I picked up a book from the public library, most likely "Photography for Dummies" or something similar. After going through the book and realizing that I know nothing about exposure, lighting, composition, aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, rule of thirds, etc....I set off to learn everything that I could. Since that day, I have learned everything, that I know about photography from online tutorials, magazines, interviews, videos, blogs, flickr and most importantly from Strobist.com. I have never taken a class on photography, and as of right now I don't plan on it. I have all the information I need on the internet.
CB: Did you ever have kind of a "wow" moment with your art when you decided that this is what you wanted to do with your life, and describe that experience and how it has affected you thus far.
LE: I have a hard time calling what we do, ART, but I guess that is what it is, in a sense. As for "Wow" moments....these started happening when we first started using off camera flash. Like every other person learning photography, you use the pop up flash on your camera or you buy a hot-shoe mounted flash and this is supposed to open up new worlds of what you can do with photography. These ways of using your flash is referred to as "On-camera flash. We very quickly realized that On-Camera flash....sucks! Off-camera Flash opens up Unlimited possibilities as to where light can come from. We trigger our flashes using radio triggers, which sends a signal telling the flashes to fire when we press the shutter release button. This single aspect has rocketed us from people who take photos to Photographers. You will never see us with a flash on top of our cameras. If you do see us committing this unforgivable sin, you have permission to take the camera and throw it on the ground. Sorry to be so dramatic.
CB: What are your plans for the future and how does photography fit into that plan?
LE: Our business has snowballed since we started in June of 2008. We went from having two weddings in 2008, to booking over twenty in 2009.
“Our goal is to never reach a place in our photography career that we are 100% satisfied with what we are doing”
As soon as you hit that place, you become boring and stale and you will be trampled by the thousands of other photographers who are willing to keep pushing themselves. We have set a goal that will allow Caleb and I to give up our "day jobs" and make Photography our sole income, by 2011. The future is bright, and we have no reason to not reach our goal. Looking back, I can't imagine doing anything else for the rest of my life.
CB: Do you prefer taking posed vs. candid photos or the other way around? And do you ever feel like you are sacrificing your artistic integrity by taking certain types of photos?
LE: Candid for the most part. We shoot mostly weddings these days, which means we are not working with professional models. So instead of shooting people who are pretending to be in a moment that isn't actually happening, we are shooting people in actual situations. And you just can't fake some of the moments that you end up capturing. And as for sacrificing our artist integrity, people usually hire us because we are different than a lot of the stuff they are used to seeing. If they want something completely different than what we do, then we'll recommend someone else.
CB: I didn't realize that your interest in photography was so recent. Do you find that you see the world differently with photography constantly on the brain? In other words, is your eye trained to see the world in 4x6s and 8x10s?
LE: There are a couple of things that are always on our minds:
a) We are always noticing possible locations for shoots.
b) Sometimes I wish that I wasn't always thinking about photography related things and topics. We love it, so it's hard not to look at things differently. We are always making mental (and physical) notes about new locations to shoot, new lighting techniques, and ideas.
CB: Where do you look for your inspiration?
LE: Each other mostly. One of us will mention an idea and if it might work then the other will expand on it and it usually turns into something great. If it might not work, well, the other Ely brother is there to make fun of you for mentioning something so stupid.
And we aren't completely original. We admire other photographers bodies of work. We have studied them to help us get to where we are. And we will continue to study them because there will always be someone better than us.
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Reply #2 on : Sat December 31, 2011, 15:51:37