glee glee glee gle-ason

My high school photo teacher is basically one of the biggest factors of truly chiseling me into a photographer, and I think it's because he let me do what I want. He geared my path for a tad bit, but left the creativity and exploration of perspective through a lens to me. He set me free artistically speaking, to the point where I had to create my own voice completely through photography. I accidentely made myself a flickr last summer, and until recently sent my photo teacher the link, which than lead me to catching up on his paintings, and to my surprise, his tumblr. I've seen a handful of his paintings, but some were new. These are some of my favorites, old and new. And here's my flickr for shits and giggles if you're ever bored.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wecutthelegsoffofourpants

I think what Gleason helped with was making me feel okay with weird, or cookoo, or wild and absurd, hence his theme of sharp items like knives in his paintings. Most of what I like to capture are the small things in life and observations made about the world and people, but when it came to projects I needed or wanted to set up, I felt okay with doing something absurd. The projects always helped me interpret what he assigned differently and shoot it in my perspective.

Here is his website for those of you interested in browsing:

http://www.markgleason.net/

It's funny because when I go back to visit him, he talks about how he'd rather teach painting than photography. Nonetheless, his ability to let students literally do whatever the hell they want, was what was helpful, and is the kind of teaching style I'd want and wanted to do if I decide to teach photography.