Art & Life with Adrianna Winkler

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrianna Winkler.

Adrianna, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I guess my story starts in Tucson where I was born and raised. I was always a creative child who was entranced by the beauty of all thing’s music and art related. I also really enjoyed history and discovering the “how’s?” or “why’s?” of life. I attribute a lot of these qualities to my family and the endless amounts of encouragement I received from a young age to do whatever I wanted in order to express myself. Some of my earliest memories of my parents are listening to music in the car with my father or watching him play guitar and my mother showing me how to draw cartoon characters. But the biggest influence creatively would have to be my grandmother, from the time I was a small child to now she has been my role model and inspiration for the person I hope to become. She has made efforts throughout my entire life to share her love of art, music, and most uniquely, antiques, and gave me the ability to love what others no longer could. My love for photography began on a rainy day in an antique shop. I stumbled upon a basket full of old black and white photos that were for sale. I was instantly enchanted by them; in this box were hundreds of happy and bittersweet moments captured forever with no one left to remember. I felt like these moments needed someone to hold on to them—to remember them essentially. This started my collection of old photographs which piqued my interest in antique cameras and eventually led to me becoming interested in the practice itself. It wasn’t until my senior year, and I had planned to get a degree in film that I had enough money to buy the camera I wanted. After a semester as a film student at Grand Canyon University, I realized that my affinity for filmography was not something that made me excited as photography did. I also realized the structure of being graded by a professor for my art limited my expression and confined what I felt I could do in that I was scared of getting a bad grade rather than creating good content. With this, I decided my photography had to be something that I was passionate about for myself not for a degree and switched my major. Over the last year or so, I have begun to try and move in a more professional direction with my work and started managing social media accounts specifically designed to promote it. While at nineteen I am still in the infancy of my life as a photographer, I have never felt happier than when I get to go out and capture the chaotic beauty of the people and world around me.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
As a photographer, I choose mostly to work with people, but I also really enjoy doing landscape shots as well. I am lucky to have a large group of friends and family that let me parade them around to get the perfect shot. I really enjoy shooting with people as my subjects because it breathes so much life into photos and enables the ability to evoke emotion from the viewer which I feel is really powerful. What I really hope to promote with my work is the beauty of life. I want people 50 years from now to find my photos and feel like they were moments worth remembering. My inspiration is humanity in its broken unperfect self; I think the imperfections or flaws we find in humanity and nature is what is truly beautiful and that what I hope to capture.

Any advice for aspiring or new artists?
While I am not an extremely experienced artist with a lot of wisdom underneath my belt, I hope some of my advice can help other young artists. The biggest thing I would stress is that just because you do not have the best equipment or the nicest tools does not mean that you have to wait to create. Some of my favorite photos I have taken were taken on a smartphone. Just create, do what makes you happy. Another big thing for me as an aspiring artist is to not negatively compare yourself to other artists. Their success is not your failure; this is something I struggled to learn for a long time and honestly has helped me love my work even more in that I am not comparing it to others constantly. I feel like it is really easy to get swept up in how many clients you book, how many likes you get, or how many followers you have that it is easy to lose sight of why you started in the first place. The most important thing in this world is expressing yourself in a manner which makes you happy no whatever art form that may be—do not let anybody steal that from you.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
People can see my work on Instagram and Facebook. On Instagram, I can be found at @ae_winkphotos and on Facebook under Adrianna Winkler Photography. People can support my work by following my social media accounts and contacting me for a session!

Contact Info:

• Email: winkleradrianna@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ae_winkphotos/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aewinkphotos/

Image Credit:
Adrianna Winkler for all of the relevantly uploaded pictures
For the image of myself please credit Alissa Medina

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.