This weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting up and having a conversation with Anthony V., or as most people know him, Ant. I was first introduced to Ant through his magazine, “Splat”. If you don’t know him, the first thing you need to know is that he is a creative artist, through and through. From his history of screen printing, direct-to-garment printing, painting, poetry, his book, and now his photography. He has been doing photography for around a year now, and his photos are stunning. One of the amazing things about Ant is that he simply goes out and tries things. I know for me, there are a lot of things I find interesting, but don’t want to try or commit to. Ant on the other hand, jumps right in and gives it a try. I think there is something pretty powerful in putting yourself out there and trying new things.

We spent a good amount of time talking about the written word. If you are reading this you can probably tell this is an area I am interested in, but do not have a lot of experience with. I am still finding my style, I struggle with a few things, one of those things is “crutch words” which I am aware of what my problem is, but I still end up using them, such as “Honestly” or “I am not going to lie” He apparently had a problem with the word “just” he mentioned with book “Last Call” he searched for a word count and the word “just” appeared in it just over 900 times while he was editing it.

During the conversation, we were actually on a photo walk down at La Chua Trail in Gainesville. So naturally, part of our conversation circled photography itself. I brought my old medium format film camera, and he brought his DSLR. During the walk, we made our way down near the water to try and get some better angles. As I was setting up my tripod I heard him behind me something along the lines of “Thats the one.” and I immediately knew what he was talking about. I can’t speak for all photographers, but I know exactly what he meant when he said it. When going out and shooting, if you're lucky, you will have a moment of 100% certainty right after you press the shutter release that what you captured will be the single best photo from the day. After that, we started walking back towards the vehicles. I had finished my roll, and it was getting dark.

On the way back to the parking lot, we talked about plans and projects. He has some photography work being shown on the 29th of this month at the Top Secret Space, put on by the @photocollectiveofgainesville , next to @woolydowntown . Go check out out, there should be some amazing photography and amazing people there.