Artist Spotlight: Blake Filley Capturing Beauty With Every Picture

Blake Filley, 30, was chosen by the Fine Arts faculty as this month’s artist spotlight.

Filley is a photographer that is finishing up his Associates in Fine Arts this quarter as well as an Associates in Business.

He grew up in Olathe, Kansas, a small town just outside of Kansas City and joined the US Army upon graduating High school.

After completing basic training, he was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in 2006. He lived in Washington for seven years and was moved to Hawaii for his eighth.

Filley was deployed three times to Iraq and Afghanistan where he worked as a generator mechanic.

“It was a great job to have considering everyone loves the guy who keeps the lights on,” said Filley.

After leaving the army in 2015, Filley started attending Green River College. He originally planned on pursuing an Associates of Science in electrical engineering. However, once he started taking higher-level math courses, he lost steam and started questioning if it was what he really wanted to do.

He didn’t “discover his affinity for photography” until after he took Photography 101 with Gary Oliveira. He learned that he has a natural eye when it comes to art. It is easy for him to tell when and what will make a good photo.

He then decided that he needed to change his career and educational path from science to fine arts.

Finding inspiration in Ansel Adams, a 20th Century photographer, an environmentalist, you can see Adam’s emphasis on his work. “I’ve always been a big fan of his black and white photography,” said Filley.

Adams photographed the American West, especially Yosemite Park. Filley uses that inspiration to go out and capture his art.

After he made his decision to pursue a fine arts degree his perspective on life had changed. “Many of us blaze through life heads down, and the path already set with a specific goal or destination in mind,” said Filley.

With his photography, he gets shots that are natural and different from other photographers. “I only started doing photography seriously three years ago after I started taking classes at Green River,” said Filley.

Filley now shoots with a Canon Rebel T6I. He always has his camera with him, because it’s better to have a camera and not need it than to need one and not have one.

“Photography to me, is a way of capturing the little beautiful moments in life as they flow around me,” said Filley, when explaining why he loves to take pictures.

With his fine arts and business degrees, Filley plans on starting his own photography business.

“I really don’t see too much of a change in my photography in ten years, but I can see my business up and going,” said Filley.

Though he doesn’t have a favorite type, Filley does admit that there are parts of photography that are unpleasant. He says that the toughest part of photography is working with film photography in a dark room and the time it takes to edit.

“The time that you spend touching up the images with Photoshop to get them how you want them is probably the toughest,” Filley said. “Once, you finally get the pictures to look the way they’re supposed to, the work pays off.”

Filley’s advice to those just starting out in photography is to always have your camera on you, take pictures all the time, and to remember that every photo is a learning experience.

Photography can be hard especially when you just start out. Filley’s advice to everyone would be don’t get discouraged when taking photos, just stay at it and eventually the final image will turn out fine. Just keep spirits high and don’t follow a set pathway, always leave new pathways open.