Beckett Gladney

Utata Member

Bio

I've been a working illustrator for over 25 years now. This appallingly large number of years means that I've worked on a lot of very different types of projects, for many different companies in lots of different mediums in wild ongoing attempts to keep the bills paid. I've always loved photography but it wasn't until recently that I discovered that I really loved taking photographs as complete and finished images in their own right, rather than as a means to an end like reference for drawing.

I'm not heavily into the technical end of photography, so I'm always trying to learn more. I think that seeing the idea for an image and then wildly attempting to capture it is what I've been doing more than any deliberate planning and careful technical execution.

Having rambunctious twin boys has severely limited my time for things like drawing and painting these days, and photography has stepped in as a medium and provided a much faster way of creating art. Photography helps me capture fleeting moments; it also lets me step outside of myself and into that pleasant 'creative zone' where I can just see things in shapes, light and dark, color and composition without allowing everyday life to intrude. It's a sanity check in a busy life, while still being intimately connected to it; life provides an infinite number of subjects to photograph in new and interesting ways.

Testimonial

One look at Beckett Gladney's Flickr stream and you smile, you can't help it. Color abounds in her amazing photos of her family and friends. It shows both her true love of her family and of her photography. Her photo "Casey on the Rails" was one of the first photos I favorited here on Flickr. I would love to be able to look through her sketchbook and see all the beautiful art she can create with ink and pen as well as with a camera in her hands.

She says it herself, "All so quickly passing, it flashes by in a dream. I want to grab the moments, savor them, preserve them somehow, before I forget and they've gone by like so many fleeting glimpses of beauty as I fly past in my speeding car." Well Beckett, you capture it perfectly and we all thank you for sharing it with us! Your strength, courage and caring should inspire us all.

Testimonial written by B, K & G