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Unless you live an entirely analogue life, you pick up a phone and things appear in front of you. An ad, a feed, something. If you make a living creating photos, how could you not be inspired by your visual input?
The rebrand can begin with just owning it: this made me do that.
There's a film at the end of this post from a day in Hälsingland. Before you watch it, here's what made me shoot it the way I did.
Early 2025, FujiFilm challenged me with a project. I've been an X-Photographer with them since 2016, and some of my favourite work has come from their briefs. This one was simple: create something with the GFX100RF camera.
I'm not sharing this to market that camera. What I'm sharing is the thought process behind the output, and how my input at the time made me do that.
The brief was open-ended, which is how FujiFilm operates. They're trusting. Aside from budget, they stay hands off. So I decided to focus on Hälsingland, the region in Sweden where my wife is from and where we live part of the year with our family.
I was deep in an Ingmar Bergman phase when this project came about. I'd watched Wild Strawberries in my cabin a few months prior, which led me down a rabbit hole. His cinematography steered me somewhere I wasn't expecting.
Bergman became the core inspiration for the Hälsingland project. Your output is a direct result of your input. My input for this project was Ingmar Bergman. Stark compositions. Wide ratios. Faces half in shadow. The cinematic feel I wanted to convey throughout this road trip around Hälsingland came directly from his films.
Step one in creating a project like this doesn't begin with the camera being marketed, quite the opposite. It's asking myself what itch I want to scratch creatively. In this case, conveying something cinematic. Input: Bergman. Output: Hälsingland.
Years ago I hosted a conference for photographers in Cologne. My main business is Way Up North, which I started in 2015. Five hundred guests in the seats. The challenge for presenters was to interpret the Chuck Close quote: Inspiration is for amateurs.
The room was full of professionals who'd spent years building their craft. Most of them railed against it. But I think Close was saying something simpler than it sounds: amateurs wait for inspiration to strike. Professionals recognise it, own it, and get to work.
That's the rebrand inspiration needs. Not pretending we're above influence, but being honest about what steers us. So when you see something that moves you, don't dress it up. Just say it: this made me do that. Then go make something worth showing.
The full gallery from this project: Ines + Michi • Hälsingland, Sweden
