Jerred Zegelis spent 25 years following photography's unwritten rules before deliberately breaking them. The OM SYSTEM photographer from Nebraska built his career on principles like always shooting RAW, maintaining neutral settings, and saving creative decisions for post-processing. He dismissed in-camera filters as amateur tools. That all changed when he invented a fictional town called North Hawk, Nebraska and documented it using creative filters he once considered cheesy. Zegelis now calls the results the best work of his career and says 2025 became his most creatively fulfilling year.
The transformation began after Zegelis transitioned from teaching high school photography for nearly two decades to full-time creative work. He noticed large batches of his RAW photos remained unedited, trapped in digital archives. His creativity felt strongest in the field, not behind a computer screen. When he started using the Creative Dial on his OM SYSTEM OM-3 camera, everything shifted. Seeing creative effects in real-time changed how he perceived scenes and reignited his passion for photography.
Zegelis developed seven principles focused on creative permission rather than technical specifications. First, he advocates diving into projects, even fictional ones. His North Hawk series assigns invented histories to real Nebraska locations—abandoned buildings, rural churches, and dirt roads become sites of mysterious incidents and redacted reports. The project transformed his approach from taking individual photos to building a universe. He plans a gallery show featuring photographs alongside "artifacts of power" like rusty tools and faded documents.
Second, Zegelis emphasizes committing to a look before shooting. During a difficult trip to Marfa, Texas, after his mother's cancer diagnosis, he shot everything using Art Filter 16 with a border. The dark aesthetic matched his emotional state and forced him to compose intentionally. He captured the desert's surreal isolation rather than generic beautiful landscapes. The unedited JPEGs created a cohesive vision that required no post-processing.
Third, he urges photographers to embrace dismissed gimmicks. Filters, borders, and heavy color grades can unlock creativity. Zegelis pushed his camera's Color Creator to maximum red saturation, creating ethereal, otherworldly tones. He realized his audience isn't other photographers who might criticize techniques, but the 99 percent of people who simply want to feel something. The OM-3's Creative Dial makes these experiments physical—twisting to select monochrome, color profiles, art filters, or Color Creator before framing.
Fourth, shooting from meaning rather than moment transformed generic scenes into personal portals. While photographing Christmas lights for an assignment, Zegelis struggled until he returned to his childhood neighborhood. The memories unlocked emotional resonance. He added saturation to capture how the lights appeared to his younger self—brighter and more magical. Music helps access these memories when locations lack personal connection.
Finally, Zegelis insists photographers stop creating for other photographers. Making work to impress gatekeepers filters out uniqueness. He abandoned his Instagram-focused approach when he realized he was performing for algorithms rather than expressing himself. Quoting producer Rick Rubin, Zegelis emphasizes finding signal rather than noise. With advancing technology threatening human stories, personal narratives become more crucial.
