How ILL GANDER Influenced Me
When I was in college, a friend of mine had a beautiful canvas print of a Vietnamese jungle hanging on his wall. I asked him about it, and he told me it was a gift from someone named Everett. It wasn’t until I pressed a little further that he showed me Everett’s website, “ILL GANDER.”
I was blown away.
I used to spend hours browsing his site, completely entranced by his photographs. The images he captured with his Leica were some of the sharpest and most striking I’d ever seen. I vividly remember sitting in the library during finals week, casually scrolling through his work, daydreaming about doing something that cool after college. His site transported me to distant lands.
His website encapsulated everything I wanted mine to be — a personal gallery space on the internet filled with life experiences and creative projects. What I admired most was the intentionality behind it. The design was smart and refined. You could tell he obsessed over the smallest details — from the font choices to the layout.
In his twenties, he had already built a premium brand. He had mastered editorial photography. His content was next level. I looked up to him because here was someone only slightly older than me, out photographing celebrities and collaborating with some of the world’s biggest brands.
His video editing style was just as distinct — quick, sharp cuts layered over trap beats, always finishing with the unmistakable sonic branding of his logo.
Just visit his Tumblr page and you’ll immediately see the kind of impact he’s had on young creatives.
“What’s good? I was jus lookin at your most recent shots and I realized that you can literally make any shot look good and it’s dope. Any advice for making photography a career?”
“Thank you! If there was 1 thing to tell you I’d say developing your own voice and presence is the biggest contributor to being able to shoot full time. How you shoot, edit, dress, eat, think, speak, etc. All that contributes in the long run. If you know who YOU are that will translate in your photos.”
ILL GANDER’s New Year’s Eve photo collection is part of what inspired me to bring a disposable camera to nightclubs. Looking at his photos, I realized there’s something electrifying about exposing people in the dark with flash photography. People come alive at night.
To see more from ILL GANDER, follow him on Tumblr and Instagram.