Interview: Arnold Despi

As I progressed, I slowed down and learned to observe! Interview conducted by Tzen Xing on Mar. 6, 2017

What inspired you to be a street photographer?
The streets have many stories and I see beauty of the environment and the people. If you just look closer and pay more attention to your surrounding you will see beauty anywhere, and I wanted to capture it in that certain moment. Freeze them in my frame and let it live forever.

What does it take to create a good image?
Anyone can shoot a photograph but not everyone can create an image that will communicate with a viewer. An image created with a vision and passion to create the mundane into unique, an image with a voice to deliver without words to evoke emotions, that sums up to a good image.  

​Which are your favorite images?  Why?

    I still consider my “Robert and Clarice” work as a favorite. It was a beautiful moment that I captured on the street. I was there at the right time and right moment when it happened.

   The image was selected as one of the 1,000 images for “A Day in the World” book publication out of 100,000 submitted images.

    At the time I captured the image I know less about photography than what I know now. I refer to that image as my game changer, that’s what got me hooked into Street Photography.

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​In an era over-run by so many photographers, how do you make your images stand out?

I self-curate my images, review my composition, analyze the content that I am sharing to my audience. Some good images that do not appeal to me the first time, I will let them sit in my hard drive for months and look at them again with a fresh mind and different vision. I only delete the real trashy ones where even if I looked at them a few times and still cannot convince myself.
I set my bar to the best shot I have and do better next.  

Your images of Las Vegas are really interesting. Why did you choose to photograph the people in Las Vegas? What did you learn from your experiences?  

I live here in Las Vegas so most of my work are created right here. The Las Vegas strip is a bustling area full of tourist and interesting people. When I started shooting in the streets of Las Vegas I was capturing from 1000 to 1500 shots in one walk. I was just shooting randomly without any thought process, but I realized my images were just mediocre. As I progressed, I slowed down and learned to observe. And now I have become so selective of my shots that sometimes in one walk I will only have fired one shot or even none at all. To develop my own style and consistency I set myself to a challenge and do a project. Las Vegas is an entertainment city and so I thought the nightlife would be a good concept for a project so I selected the location, the old downtown Las Vegas. And I embarked on my Fremont Street project that I did for one year, one location, one camera, one lens and one style of shooting- and that is how I evolved into flashed street shots.

The project was a great learning experience and gave me a good confidence in close range shooting with flash. I have collected enough images that are keepers and currently developing them into a photo zine and a possible a book format as well.

Do you travel a lot?  What other places fascinated you?

It is a sad note that before I got hooked into Street Photography my full-time job involved a lot of international travel that could have given me the opportunity to shoot. And now that I started to love this photography genre my job restricts me from going places. But on long days off I go to Los Angeles, San Diego or San Francisco to shoot. I’d like to go back to Europe and the Middle East if I will have the chance, those places are very interesting. I have some more places in mind that I like to visit and hopefully one of them will happen this year. 

Beyond passion and talent, the gear is also part of the process.  What do you use and why?

The tool is very important on the type of shooting that you want to do. I started with a Nikon D610 but due to its size and weight I shifted to Fuji XT-1. All my street images for the last two years were done with the Fuji XT-1 and 23mm lens. I like my Fuji set up because of its compact and lightweight characteristics, and the color that it produces is very nice that I do not need to alter them in post processing. Lately I have also been using a Fuji 18mm lens if I wanted more information on my street shots.

Please describe your workflow (post-processing, cropping, selection criteria, etc.)

I compose my shots to capture in my frame what I want to be the end result. Very seldom that I will crop my image. I shoot in RAW format and use Lightroom to convert them into JPG format for publishing. I shoot in color and in the process of selecting I see an image exuding a greater impact in monochrome then I work on it in black and white and it will stay that way. Selecting an image as a keeper as I mentioned above, I need to find a good content and composition and should deliver that impact. My post processing workflow is only to do minor adjustments in exposure, shadows, clean up spots that is distracting to the whole composition.  


What do you hope to accomplish in your photography in the future?  Do you have any regrets, or anything you would change?

I love and enjoy doing Street Photography and moving forward I intend to do more series and projects and develop them into photo zines and books. I should have done this earlier is the only regret or change that I can think of.