Eli Vega has a different take on teaching photography. People have other places to learn the nuts and bolts of how to get the right camera settings. As he explains in his book, Right Brain Photography: Be an Artist First, the left brain can be engaged when dealing with the mechanics of taking a photo. But the right brain, the creative part of the brain, allows you to see something with your imagination.
“I don’t see with my eyes; I see with my imagination,” Vega said. “Be an artist first, and photographer second. A lot of photographers don’t understand we need to think and see as an artist. And, if you can do that, you will be able to see something before you see it. You can make the common uncommon and the mundane insane.”
Vega said once his right brain sees something with his imagination, his right brain shakes hands with his left brain and says, “I have an idea, and this is what I need from you.” In other words, his right brain tells his left brain what settings he needs.
Vega, who teaches digital photography classes in Colorado and Arkansas, got interested in photography in the mid-1980s. He was living in Texas and joined the Fort Worth Camera Club. “That was when I knew this was my calling,” Vega said. “I was primarily self taught by reading magazines and books about photography and looking at work of photographic masters. After joining the camera club, I entered photographic contests and learned a lot listening to judges talk about what they liked about my photography. There is a big annual contest between Fort Worth and Dallas. It only took me about a year and half before I won the big Best Photograph of the Year.”
He knew he was on the right path when he won for a photograph of a construction site. He saw the site and wondered what it would look like in the morning with the sun coming up. He got there before the workers, and waited until they started working on the top of a freeway overpass. They started walking, they stopped and one guy went down on his knees. “I knew that was the photograph I’d been looking for,” Vega said. “Most people would not have gotten that shot because, who wants to photograph a construction site?”
Vega tells his students that he doesn’t photograph subjects. What he photographs is shapes, form, design, texture and shadows. The subject itself becomes secondary.
Vega started teaching photography in 1993, after a long and successful career in human resources. His specialty was training and development. “I loved that,” he said. “I love being in front of people teaching them something that is new to them or that they didn’t know was possible. I was teaching classes in stress management, customer service and leadership development. When I decided to start my start my own photography business, I decided to borrow from the Human Resources skills I had developed to teach photography.”
He moved to Colorado in 2002 to be close to the things he liked to photograph – nature, mountains, streams, rivers and lakes. He began teaching photography workshops primarily at the Rocky Mountain National Park. He also did a lot of hiking including hiking six “14ers,” mountains more than 14,000 feet high.
Three years ago, he decided Colorado was getting a little too expensive. He wanted to downscale and have a lower cost of living. He was very familiar with Eureka Springs because he used to come up to visit Arkansas on three-day weekends or vacations when he lived in Texas.
“When I decided to move from Colorado, I’m going to move to another nice place,” he said. “Eureka is a very nice place.”
In addition to teaching people to see with their imagination, another mantra in his book and teaching is introducing eastern philosophy into his photography. “Part of my Eastern philosophy includes the fact that we put labels on everything, which is what holds us back from being creative,” Vega said. “When we have a label for everything, it prevents us from seeing with our imagination.”
This month Vega is teaching a two-day workshop at Rocky Mountain National Park, and will have a half-day workshop at Red Rocks west of Denver. He will also be teaching a class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “OLLI is all over the country,” Vega said. “It is for people 55 and older. The mission is to keep people active as we age. Because I’m in that age group myself, it is a great venue. It is a great audience.”
Locally Vega has taught at Berryville Community Center, the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, North Arkansas College in Harrison, Northwest Arkansas Community College, and the Rogers Community Center. He has also taught members of the Northwest Arkansas Photographic Society in Springdale.
He organized the National Photography Exhibit held in Eureka Springs in May 2018 that had about 380 submissions from all over the country. Photos from the top 100 winners were exhibited at Auditorium.
Vega initially published Right Brain Photography in 2015. Now in 2019, he is up to the fourth edition. The book is for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Vega does private lessons in addition to teaching workshop and classes. He also has a free monthly photography e-mail newsletter. For more info, see the website www.elivega.net or send an email to vegapphotoart@gmail.com.