Conversations with Josh Booth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Booth.

Josh, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin? 
Photography wasn’t even on my radar when I took an elective black & white (film-based) Photo 1 course at Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY, not far from where I grew up in Lexington. It wasn’t until I was considering transferring schools to do 3D animation that a portfolio reviewer at Savannah College of Art and Design looked at my animation and the photos from my Photo 1 course and asked if I had ever considered a career in Photography. Even then, it didn’t completely sink in, but the seed was planted. 

Fast forward to December 2003, where I volunteered with an aid organization to go to Iraq during the war to hand out food to displaced families and take photos along the way, not knowing Saddam Hussein would be captured while we were there! This was the first time I had taken photos with people in it, but there was an immediate attraction of finding beauty and human dignity amongst suffering and terrible situations. I remember the moment as we were driving back across the desert of knowing photography was the path life chose for me. I transferred to SCAD as soon as I could and finished out there with a degree in Photography. 

After graduating, I moved to Atlanta in 2006, where I worked in various roles as an assistant, digital tech, and photo retoucher for several photographers in the Atlanta area. Eventually, I landed a job where I had access to some of the best camera gear in the world, and ironically, I put the camera down for the most part in the name of providing for my family. I took a dip (ok – 8 years), where I helped write and create software for high-volume photo studios that are used by some of the top retail brands in the world. When I couldn’t stand staring a laptop screen anymore, I took up woodworking to scratch my creative itch. 

I started to feel the call back to art, and in May 2023, I left the corporate world to pursue full-time art & furniture design. Now I continue to find ways to combine my two passions – photography and woodworking – to create unique one-of-a-kind pieces of art. 

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
One of my favorite quotes of all time is, “If the mountain was smooth, you couldn’t climb it.” I don’t know remember who said it, but that quote has always stuck with me. Life in the arts definitely has its struggles – early on in my career there as a massive recession. As someone who worked primarily for other photographers, when the work dried up for them, it trickled down. I remember working from 5-1 pm at Starbucks then working 2-10 pm at Apple the same days. I was definitely exhausted – not even sleeping long enough for my contact solution to clean! This was definitely the beginning of a slow “death” in my artistic career. Survival became more important than establishing and providing for my family (with 2 wild young boys) once they entered the scene. While my wife built her own practice in mental health, I worked the corporate life. While this time of life was completely worth it, creating art was nearly dead in me, and I nearly deleted my photo website. But, as Billy Crystal says in “The Princess Bride” it wasn’t completely dead, just mostly dead! 

A couple of years ago, I got involved with an amazing woodworking community at Workbench Conference, a conference for makers and social media creators. Slowly art began to come alive in me again, as well as providing a new sense of clarity for who I was deep down that I had forgotten. Starting over professionally at 42 presents its own set of challenges, but I have the best partner that’s willing to navigate that uncertainty with me this time. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
It takes a while to understand your creative voice, and for a lot of creatives (myself included), it’s even more difficult to articulate it! While the subject matter of my work varies quite a bit, there’s always an underlying question of “Do you see what I see?” There’s so much we just pass over – little details like how the light hits a leaf just right at certain times of the day, or the smile and playfulness of a child even when disaster has recently struck. I don’t run off to war zones anymore (for which my wife and kids are glad), so these days I mostly shoot nature and other things that catch my eye. 

My favorite way to physically represent some of these ideas has been through what I call my Unique + Connected series. I first build a photo frame out of some hardwood, capturing its sawdust as I go. Later, I hand-make my own paper (oftentimes from my boys’ recycled homework) and put some of that sawdust into the paper. Then, I print my images using a professional printer and high-quality inks. Each piece is entirely one-of-a-kind and highlights the individual components – the frame, the paper, and image – which cannot be separated and represent the interconnectedness of our lives. 

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
As someone who mostly thinks in pictures, allow me to use other people’s words that I have found inspiring with a few quotes: 

“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler 

“Never let success get to your head, never let failure get to your heart.” -Ziad K. Abdelnour 

“Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams (Dilbert) 

“No book is a chapter, no chapter tells the whole story, no mistake defines who we are. Hope makes our lives page-turners.” – Bob Goff 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joshboothfineart.com
• Instagram: @joshboothfineart
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@joshboothfineart
• Other: http://barrelproofwoodworks.com