014 - Published

YEAH cover shoot

This morning YEAH released an image of latest magazine which I shot the cover for.

As soon as I saw my photo like this I suddenly went from not liking the project to it being one of my favourite pieces of work. Which I suppose reinforces the point that the output of photography is vital to the way it's read. A point that had been brought up a lot recently at uni in essays and presentations, but what I have missed is that the context will change the visual power of the image. I think a major aspect of the original shoot that I didn't like was the large portion of negative space at the top of the image. It's only been cropped a little, but now that the title is there I think it add's to the image. Or, at least covers the part that detracts from the image!

But I'm proud. It's been a new genre, a new style and a new context. I think it's gone well

Magazine is out on the 15th Feb. Can't wait!

013 - Shoot

YEAH cover shoot

Today I was in the studio for, well, my first ever portrait shoot. Up until now I haven't shy'd away from the studio, but I've avoided photographing people. I suppose that's part of the reason I came to Bournemouth, to learn new things, expand my abilities. When YEAH Magazine asked me to shoot the front and back cover for the next issue, with a theme of 'Girls and Boys', I jumped at it.

I first got some great inspiration from Edward Weston's classic nudes, as well as Andreas Bitesnich, who I discovered through this page of amazing images. The idea began as having two models (a girl and boy) shot nude, one facing away from the camera, and one towards. Then reversing the directions for the back cover. However, with a last minute drop out from a model I had to change things around. Unable to find a nude model in 6 hours I pulled in the housemates. But as they were uncomfortable with being photographed naked I had to rethink the shoot. So I decided to try and create a bed scene within the studio, quickly realising the difficulty of lighting 2 models on a white floor with white linen. The differences between the front and back cover transferred to having one model turned over/asleep whilst the other was awake.

It was actually a really good, fun shoot. I got lucky with my housemates actually turning out to be pretty great in front of the camera. Now I have the next 20 hours to edit the shots and get them over to YEAH HQ. But here's a behind the scenes look of my feet and the lovely Camilla:

http://yeah-magazine.blogspot.com/

http://www.bitesnich.com/

012 - Essay

Why People Photograph - Robert Adams

After a new year break I've managed to be the only one of my housemates to come back to Bournemouth so early, perfect excuse to pick up with my essay. Surrounded by 5 different open books and about 10 tabs of online research I found a brilliant piece in Robert Adams' Why People Photograph, as he discusses artists' reluctance to write about their own work:

'...photographers, like all artists, choose their medium because it allows them the most fully truthful expression of their vision. Other ways are relatively imprecise and incomplete. Why try the other ways? As Charles Demuth said, "I have been urged . . . to write about my paintings . . . Why? Haven't I, in a way, painted them?" Or as Robert Frost told a person who asked him what one of his poems meant, "You want me to say it worse?"'

An extract which I feel may not excuse my inability to explain my work, but it sure does give a good reason not to. But it's certainly a target of mine to work on. My photography has always failed academically due to my reluctance to discuss and explain the thought processes in my work and my general omittance of them.