Finding Your Creative Voice

with Leah Horstman

Steve BrazillDecember 16, 2021

Usually, I struggle when I write these. To start with, I’m not a writer, but more importantly I want each post to convey to you how much I admire the guest I am writing about. Today however, I gained inspiration from my guest, Leah Horstman.

Leah is someone I have followed on Instagram for a long time, and a prime example of when Instagram helps me find new creatives to follow. She was a music photographer whose work I admired, so following her @lah_rockshots accounts was a given, but then the unexpected happened. I saw her @lahorstman account that focuses on her landscape and commercial work.

I want to talk about something Leah said to me that reminded me of something I mention on this show a lot, but let’s back up first. Leah Horstman learned to love photography from her father, who was an avid travel photographer, and who gave her a Minolta XRT101 at age 14. She studied photography in High School, and had a photo of Half Dome published in 1980. After college things changed. Leah traded the photographer life for horses. She competed in the event of “Cutting”, and even won a few world titles. Unfortunately, due to an illness, that life came to an end too. But, as he had done years before, Leah’s dad once again suggested that she pick up a camera.

I think her dad might have known how good she was, because just a few years later Leah entered the Nature Conservancy’s Annual Photo Contest – along with over 17,000 others that year. Her image “Xmas on the Merced” won the grand prize, and was named their “photo of the year”. That image went on to hang in the San Diego Natural History Museum too.

It seems that Leah was destined to get a lot of these awards. In 2018 National Geographic emailed her to say they were interested in her image of a longhorn steer in Gainesville TX titled “Quintessential Texas”. Seems they were working on an article about the history of Texas and felt this image would make a great addition to the piece. Her image “Ice Climber” won the International SD Photo exhibition’s Best of Show in 2019, and recently she was published in the Harper Collin’s pocket book, “Canada”.

Leah’s day job is working for Professionals Choice, a company that manufactures horse products. Her years of riding gives her a unique eye for the timing and composition needed for horse events. This is where her love of these two worlds collide, and while her horse riding competition days may be in the past, she was recently asked by 37X World Champion Bob Avila to take the portrait of him that is now hanging in the AQHA Hall of Fame for his 2021 induction. It’s almost as though life guides us to where we belong.

Her commercial work has led to her working with “Buggy Whip”, which still requires timing, but for dune buggies instead of horses. That connection led to her working with NASCAR driver Kyle Bush.

Leah’s path through photography is exactly as we often hear it described… do the work, and make the relationships. Be the person clients know they can call on and trust, and the the work will find you.

Speaking of relationships, I mentioned that I originally found Leah because of her music photography. That came about because of someone she was dating that was in a band.

And this brings us to that thing Leah said to me that I mentioned above. While picking the image for this episode we were mostly looking at her horse images when Leah said she had an idea. She suggested we could touch on “not being afraid of shooting iconic spots… just do[ing] it in your own style and put[ting] your own twist on it”. That resonated with me.

If you have listened to Behind the Shot for any length of time you might have heard me use the phrase “photographic voice”, or “creative voice” for those in areas other than photography. I firmly believe that when people talk about find their “style” that what they really need is to find their voice. Style, to me at least, leans towards the processing side of creativity. Your creative voice, on the other hand, encompasses everything. It’s how you express the creative thoughts you have, starting early in the process. As creatives, we need to be true to who we are, and to what we see in our mind’s eye. That is how I see Leah Horstman’s work. She creates from her own place, and in her own wonderful voice.

Join landscape, music and commercial photographer Leah Horstman and me as we take a deep dive into her image Grist Mill, and as we discuss finding your creative voice, on this Behind the Shot.