I managed to get an afternoon walking around central london so thought i'd take my camera out and do some take a few photos.
On a recent trip to london I managed to get my camera out for a few hours and thought i'd try my hand at some street photography, something I really need to do more of but often. I noticed that I was almost drawn into the isolated figures on the streets that were all by themselves in this huge city surround by big empty spaces, the sense of space almost exaerbated the sense of isolation. I would like to continue this as a long running personal project as I find the themes of isolation and disconnection very intriguing.
alex telferAlex Telfer is Newcastle based advertising photographer that has managed to become one of the top photographers in his field. He has done shoots for companies such as Nike, Sony Music and the BBC and has agents in Milan, London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong. I love his environmental portraiture work, all of his photographs in this area seem to tell a strong narrative between the subjects and the background, the relationship between the two is used to give us more insight into the characters that he photographs. Anton CorbjinGregory crewdsonGregory Crewdson is an American photographer who is best known for elaborately staged, surreal scenes of American homes and neighborhoods. He is one of my favorite photographers, the amount of care and detail that goes into creating these freeze frame surreal moments is astounding. I love the way he uses lighting, the environment and his models to narrate an open ended story, with the narrative in the picture never being fully resolved and always leaving the image itself as an unresolved question.
So me and JJ went out to chopwell woods today to shoot my weightless image. We turned up around and hour before sunset 'the golden hour' to get the best possible light enhancing the orange and yellow autumn leaves that blanketed the surrounding woodland. Knowing we had little time to shoot we found the location I had scouted the previous week and we started to setup, I chose this part of the woods because I really liked the setup of the trees in this area, it gave me just enough space to fit the model(in this case JJ) into the environment without him interfering with the background and by placing him into the centre of the frame and using a low aperture I managed to keep him as main focal point without any distracting elements. After setting up the speed light we came across one difficulty that we hadn't planned for, the wind! Not wanting the umbrella to blow over we stuck a couple of bags on the legs to weigh it down and stop any movement, overcome and adapt! Once we started shooting, I knew exactly what shot I wanted to create, so after positioning JJ carefully exactly where I wanted him I started to take some shots. One thing I hadn't thought about was the reflection of the speed light on the mask, so to correct this I had to position JJ with his head tilting at just the right angle to minimise this. Above is the final shot that I was happy with and decided to use as my final image. And here is my final version after being photoshopped. I added a shadow beneath the model because without it, the character looked flat. All my other adjustments were to give the image an eerie feel to it, i adjusted the color balance to bring out more orange and red, upped the contrast, vignetted the edges of the frame and added two extra layers of trees over the top to give the image a dreamlike feel to it. I'm quite happy with how the image turned out, I think i managed to create the image set about trying to capture.
So we've been given a brief to shoot a weightless image that can be using in an advert. I've decided to shoot an imaginary album cover for an electronic group called venetian snares as I've always been interested in electronic music and the visuals that accompany it always tend to be quite surreal which is an area of my photography I like to delve into from time to time. Thinking about the name as a start point I instantly thought of venetian masks and that lead my train of thought onto the film eyes wide shut. With the masks being quite dark and sinister I wanted my image to seem like a dark fairy tale almost along the lines of some of the artwork for the show american horror story. I like the surreal and dark nature to these images, I want to replicate something similar in my shot, having an air of the un
Last night I went to the opening of fellow classmate Kirstie Mackin's Fair Isle exhibition. I was really impressed with the work she had produced after winning the Michael Omerod Award. It was good to see a strong set of images that worked so well as a compelling documentary series encompassing the sense of isolation, yet the sense of community there, the magnificent and dramatic landscape but also the sense of peacefulness and a little glimpse into island life.
Ok so to develop myself as a professional photographer branding is the first place I have to start. I thought about wether to create a brand or use my name and in the end I felt using my name would be better suited to my photography than using a nameless, faceless brand. I think if your client's know you as a person then it's easier and more likely for them to get in contact with you. I also decided that I didn't just want to stick photography on the end of my name as I think the market is saturated with 'such and such photography', so I decided to stick photographer under my name, not highly original I know but at least it's a little different! Here's the final result I'm quite happy with the end result as it looks clean, proffesional and simple. Obviously first impressions count and having a logo that looks professional will help me to be taken seriously by potential clients.
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