Statement

I find myself being influenced by almost everything around me which is reflected in my work.  This particular collection of images shows a vast contrast between different concepts and ideas, both on location and in the studio. Like many photographers at the beginning of their career, I take great pleasure from photographing my hobbies such as sailing and skiing, and also taking my camera wherever I feel there could be potential like on walks and distant journeys.  I sometimes find that my original idea and outcome differ; however, I find this leaves room for the audiences own interpretation and allows my ideas to develop.  I find this really reflects how I work and my life in general, although I am very opinionated I like to debate, but still keep an open mind about other peoples theories and concepts.  I tend to spend a lot of time deciding on what would and wouldn’t work in terms of composition, tone, colour and lighting and am beginning to make my ideas more conceptual and provocative.  When choosing a model for studio shoots I spend a lot of time thinking about who would work best to really enhance my idea, and I find using the models attributes to my advantage can really enhance the concept that I am trying to portray.  In some photo shoots I brief my models about my intent and allow them to act as they feel appropriate, I find this works well because I am allowing them to do what they feel is natural which extinguishes any synthetic poses.  As well as being influenced by photographers I have looked at film makers and artists of other art forms, I recently produced a photo shoot to depict the idea that television wipes the mind and body of any imagination and emotion by getting my model to sit in front of the television for 24 hours whilst taking pictures every half an hour and recording what was on when each picture was taken.  This piece of work in some ways resembles film makers such as Andy Warhol and his five hour and twenty minute film called “sleep“ depicting a man sleeping, and Gary Hill’s disturbing and unusual films.