Lessons

Lesson Info

Acknowledging Your Photography Journey

So yeah, I was just saying there about this picture and the way in which I've kind of added this thiss this little bit of subtext, I said they're about the meanings in the image and the representation so this image I put here on purpose because as I'd be mentioning throughout the workshop, you know, there are times where I've made images that I was saying to cannes earlier about him uh, the way in which you feel when you're making a picture and how what's going on in your life comes through your photography so I want to talk about my photography journey with relation to that because when I was planning this workshop in thinking about the relevance of my background to what I do now, I realize that any time in my life I've bean following something that is somehow paralleled to my lifestyle or what I'm doing in that particular time, so why I mean by this will become more apparent as I go through this a little timeline I put together so I got there my photography journey, self portraiture ...

as bored student so the images I created at the start of my journey is ms aniela were these as you may have seen the beginning ofthe my show, I showed you a few of these images why did always clones off myself on their very colorful they were my kind of initiation into the bold, surreal style that I was later to harness into fashion, but this was the reason I'm talking about this is because this is my this was my lifestyle. This was the locations I had around me, I was able to just go into these different roble places around me and just basically shooting them very free and whimsically, no equipment, very simple camera auto sayings on my camera, you know, just really was about just letting go and playing with the camera, not having any professional intent to go somewhere with my images on, also just increasingly playing with parallels between myself and nature. So for me again, just to reiterate board student, no professional intent, playing around passion, color and form, or being practiced and prepared and in an inadvertent way, I guess just becoming familiar with the camera and familiar with the whole idea of shooting and envisioning a scene weirdly enough with this picture, this sounds bizarre, but I didn't actually realize the parallel between the tree and myself when I made this image and that's how I mean, I I see I mean, I did manipulate the picture a little bit in the final picture, I manipulated my arms so it's in the direction of the tree and the original my arm is down, everything else is as shot but can you believe I didn't see that I didn't even see that parallel? It was very, very subconscious, and so as I've gone from my journey, I've got better and better at seeing things like that at the time, I was just acting upon this impulse to put things together that somehow I felt came together and so it evolved onboard self portraiture at home as matthew went out to work, so why? I mean by this is myself fortunate continued at this point, I'd actually become self employed because I've been given opportunities that allowed me oh, in fact, kind of obligated me to quit my job because I do support my holiday already, and so I had to quit my job to do them and also I got I'm not going to talk a little bit more about that a little bit later on when I, uh, talking about social media, so my self torture continued, andi, I'd met matthew by this time, so I was just continuing my self portraiture in new environments, so in the in the place in which I lived, so my self portraiture is something I was doing on a kind of professional level in a way in the way that I was exhibiting and selling it and kind of didn't really know where I was going with it, but I was just feeling my way into getting my workout there on also another clone picture this was taken on my first trip over here actually to know actually this is olympic peninsula on my first trip to seattle a few years ago so this is where we've continued those colorful clone images but in this new environment this one was made with matthew's help as well to show how he became increasingly part of the process. So the point of this I'm trying to make is that my self portrait show was continuing here but he was matthew was importing more on it to help the self portraiture come to fruition and that was part of my life style at that time because I was just left university I was with him I was starting my work in the world of finance self portraiture it's the next one self portraiture with massive matthews increasing assistance and input so as words before he was just helping here and there were necessary he kind of became more unintentional partner in crime so we'd be there was a few phases off discovery we went through together like abandoned buildings that was a little phase in itself a little adventure wait don't rule them out nowadays are shoots but they tend to be not so logistically appropriate for the chutes that we do at the time they were perfect because I was still in this mode off using myself as a go to model using kind of thes vintage thrifty thrifty shop dresses that you can see an example of, they're just like the low flying model yesterday on dh just using natural light in this case I did a bit of hdr or two bracketing job on I would go into the scene and it was very much interesting looking back because it was an exercise of collaboration between matthew and I could I would go into the scene I would just kind of pose and trust that he was going to capture the shot that I had in my mind come back check on the camera sometimes you just there's always an endless frustration of me actually want to see the image of him being like no, no, no, no hang on wait let me take it again and I don't know just let me look it I need to see it I need to see in the way that I did myself poor traits on my own I need to see the first shot so I can shape the next the next. So apart from those minor conflicts, we would think remarkably alike when it came to interpreting a room on knowing the same thing that we wanted from it a few of you and homer asking about yesterday how'd we work together, do we do we conflict? We clash on a shoot this is the beginning of that harnessing the coalition if you like between his interpretations of mine in any given situation and then we also have, uh, going from abandoned buildings to something similar, but not necessarily with abandoned buildings, but just kind of landscapes, especially barren landscapes and interesting kind of dystopian scenes, as we call them using nudes myself was a nude model. This is a fairly tame example because there's a lot more with more nudity in that obviously don't want show in great life, but it's just an example of one of those where basically you've got this this use of the fine art nude, this is a color example, but did loads of black and whites as well on also when we go on road trips, well, kind of, you know, just park the car and strip off as in thiss image here, which has taken during a californian road trip, I think last year or the year before, and so this is part of our adventures world just kind of interpreting the landscape in the same way that we'd interpret abandoned building have him take a short on me, come back and check and definitely a collaboration because he would have a lot of input directive on lighting and composition as well, so it was more than being a human tripod as he was in the beginning and they've got the fashion shoot experience that's what fsc stands for the shooting, all the models and fashion and building experience. So we've talked already about fashion to experience more than I even expected to, but this is though this is an event that we started a few years ago when after we had done workshops for awhile on we wanted to build actually let me just go back a little bit. So you've just seen there I've left off from when matthew was assisting collaborating with me in two thousand ten, we started doing workshops together because we were trying to find new ways to be creative and to monetize ms aniela is a brand was starting to become a brand with between matthew and I, but matthew wasn't completely working independently with me, I think he's still in his job, and then gradually we started to work together properly when we started to get a proper form of structure to ms daniella, and that began with workshops. We're doing workshops for a while, but then it started to flower into something that we felt our heart was in, which is putting on a bigger production where we would hire a location that was more. Outof the budget that we'd have for workshops normally a location with enough room to have five models on dh lots of photographers come and just basically shoot all day and there to be no particular teaching former just shoot so hence we called it the fashion shoot experience so this started when we wanted to make something happen that we both wanted to do. We both wanted to start shooting mohr interesting things interesting places on we wanted to create something that we would go to and we wanted to put it on ourselves and then obviously invite all the people to share the experience that we would want to go to. So this is how it all started and so these air very old picture of matthew and I were matthew had shot her on dh some very early pictures that I first started to take fashion show experience has got a lot of strands to in terms of how our experience has become expanded through it it's not possible to talk about all of them up once, but here are a few pictures of where I started to shoot other models for the first time because this is where I shall start to shoot all the people other than myself on dh and also it was us working of team too the first time as well, so that was all very new and interesting for us to do um but but then again looking back it's funny because we've had so much experience over the last three over three years now that the beginning you know even though when when we pulled our first one ofthe pressman first when matthew first said we're going to use five models and to make up into hair and stylist and we'd never worked with people before and I thought my god, how the hell we're gonna do this on dh then ten photographers would split into pairs and shoot with a model for an hour and after after we did our first one it was so amazed and so relieved and just the feeling of pride and exhaustion and it was amazing it was such a wonderful experienced too to make it happen and so we continued doing more and more in london and then a year later we did our first one in new york on that a bit later in l a and since then we've done a couple in in new york and l a and this year we're doing one in iceland that's going to be a bit more of an outdoor adventure but so it's grown and grown to a point where we're really confident doing what we do with worked with stacks of models now and we've just bean plummeted into this whole new world of experience because of this thing that we've made happen so the point I'm trying to make is that you find ways you will, and you should find ways to harness what you want to do because this is part of our this became part of our lifestyle, and this is how this is the way in which we have go out there and just done something that we wish someone else was doing so it's about looking for that gap in the market of someone, something that someone else is not doing and thinking, how can you how can you bring something to the table instead of waiting for someone else to do it? You go out and make it happen yourself, and then the fashion shoot experience expands abroad, becomes more of an adventure on utilizes experience, utilize our experience and commercial jobs. So this I've just been talking already a little bit about this. I've talked about the expansion of the shoe experience, how its going abroad has become a definitive part of our livelihood outs, the structure of the way that we works throughout the year, we usually have a certain amount of events going on through the years become basically a business arm off ms aniela and that's really important to mention come up trying, I'll sell it all to I'm not trying to sell it to you necessarily I'm just trying to talk about how this it's been a passion of mine that I have made happen with matthew collaboratively on all of that kind of background that we've got in working together has become uh this is a way to make it flourish and for us to work a team doing the things we want to do which is working with models and looking the fashion and trying things you're making our vision happen and having the control to pick a location we want t pick stylist in tow meet people all of these things have been talking about that important in the fashion scene meeting people networking experience that growth that you get naturally when more more you shoot so this um this is just an image from a recent showing the evolution of where I've gone with my fashion that I've shot on these shoot experiences and this is from last year in the hamptons one of my favorite show experiences where are they really brought together everything we also had the weekend filmed as well and made into a documentary siri's so it was really fantastic to be able to have that little adventure in in the house in the hamptons with all these other photographers sharing the energy sharing the passion doing something that we love and that they love on an experience that we felt originated from a desire to give something to people that they couldn't get somewhere else so then there's a question of future I'm talking more later about what I want to go in the future but in talking about the journey, your photographer journey is an expression of you, and I don't just mean that in a kind of platitude in this way what I mean is there any one time in your life you want to be doing something that relates to the lifestyle you want to be living? So when I was doing my self portraiture is aboard student, it was a way in which I feel the time it was a way that I kind of went out on me. I didn't really have any friends at university, so I just kind of went out by myself making clones, and they became my friends so so that that was my expression that time. Then when I met matthew, he became I don't want to. It was not was not that I just wanted him to be part of my business for the sake of it. We found this commonality tapped into each other because he had a background in photography and it kind of became revived through working on projects with me. And then now we're doing things together that we kind of live and breathe and want to make happen. So it's important to think about the lifestyle you want to live on, what you want to be doing and how you're photography or whatever it is you wanna do for a living because it applies to everybody expresses what you want to be doing. Do you want to be traveling? Or do you want to be working in a particular place? You want to be in the city? Do you want to be in contra side? What do you like as a person? Your lifestyle is your life. So, like I'm saying how you spend your time where you want to live, how healthy is a lifestyle you seek what is important to you, how much your life change so just complete this slide so how you want to spend your time? I used to think that I wanted to be a I used to dabble with the idea that I might want to be this kind of businesswoman. You still, you know, one of my favorite program does the apprentice on dino there's, another conversion under an english version on dh. So I watched that and I always enjoy it, but when I first like watching it years ago, I used to think you know is this meek and I'd be his kind of rat race type person that's racing around london in a stupid pair of heels kind of sweat sweating away and just kind of really desperately trying to sell whatever overpriced thing I'm trying to sell and I I kind of thought you know is that what life is about his life is life about kind of getting out there and being kind of suited and booted and being part of I guess corporate scene is that me? Andi it's weird how many for how many years I was watching the apprentice still thinking that before I came to the realization a few years ago that that definitely is not me because I'm just not bullet enough about setting something that I really don't necessarily believe in are not interested in lifestyle where I'm kind of rushed what's the word worked to the bone doing something I want time to be able to breathe and to appreciate projects I'm doing on to put myself into them but ultimately I want a lifestyle where I can be kind of what I consider to be healthy and what I mean by that is having time to kind of rest to be at home in my home environment being being nature on dh teo be ableto eat today would have time to eat properly and tio take care with the food that I buy for myself not to be kind of rushing my lunch while trying to do something else, which is usually well actually do anyway these days but I do it in an environment that I like to be and I'm at home being self employed is very important to me because it means I can call the shots of my own schedule my own itinerary I don't have to ask him someone's permission to go on holiday you know all of these things are quite important to me, so despite the fact that I didn't know I wanted to be a photographer necessarily I just maybe knew in my heart that that's the direction I wanted to go in and then it became apparent as I reached out for that particular lifestyle and decided here this is me also where I live at the moment I live just outside london so I'm not in london itself I find that you get more for your money outside of london. I liked living somewhere where I could enjoy the place I live in and not be out you know, racing round doing something else outside of my home all of this sounds like kind of incidental stuff, but this is important to me as a person because I wouldn't want to live in a city necessarily where I was just well I think if I was single and I was alone maybe it would be different but the lifestyle I have with matthew in the way that we live together in the way that our own evolution has grown together and the fact that we've met and become this kind of alliance the way that it turned out I'm really happy to be kind of a little bit in my own space and had that piece that I have in the place that I live so it's important for me therefore to have that job where I can be anywhere I want to be and to be able to work from anywhere and have that freedom which wouldn't definitely work without the internet and the advent of the internet has given us in so many respects in our businesses and also how much your life changes really difficult to answer these questions when you're young especially at any age to be honest because we can change any age and we you know evolution is is something that goes on and on you also have to consider how you how your life might change I mean I'm thinking about family you know, making a family and having a family and how that's going to attract in my life I don't want there to be necessarily this polarization between my career and my family life ideally I want to to kind of blend into each other a little bit I'm inspired by people who can do that, you know, people who have had children and continue to actually do things that involve the children a little bit don't necessarily mean that the children have to be completely absent from whatever they're doing artistically, I love that, so these questions can be thought about no matter what your age. So glimmers of you shine bright in the childhood on get encrusted into pearls of wisdom in older years. So all of these things I think, are actually in us these things are important to us are actually there already because, like I was saying before in the earlier presentation on the day one, I think it wass are saying about being a child and looking back to when you were a child and things you enjoyed. I think a lot off those characteristics you've gotta kind of like you will stay faithful to even if you do try lots of different things. I think when we get to our teenagers, we kind of tend to go wild experiment with things because that's, when we're breaking out of that cage, if you like and it's important to make those mistakes, if you like or those crazy experiments, even if it's just with your hair color or whether it is I started to do when I reached her. The asia I could find a ground box by box of heard iver the way way in which you actually and then come back down to who you are when you get beyond your teenagers and you think actually who am I what was relevant about those things I did as a child the way I wass the way that I am the things I spent my time doing on do you find that bits of those come back relevant to when your when your group when you come of age and you're able to make things happen in a lot more powerful away than when you were a child that's really exciting because it means you can ultimately put your dreams into reality so my hopes for my own future so for me um well we talked about earlier with the journey continuing the trends of bigger productions as on this creative life workshop I've being presenting one of our shoots it was important for me to be able to do a shoot on my credit fly workshop that shows us on location that shows is working with the ingredients that we use nowadays, which is you know, good styling and I just find that the more I shoot fashion the better and better I want the starting to be, the more extravagant I've got a particular taste for, you know things are a little bit crazy and over the top and so I want to continue that mathew and I both are in the same vein of wanting to continue that on and on on dh to make productions even more lively. Um, I'm finding in that same, that same topic I'm finding that were becoming more interested in set design, set design with something that was very barely existent. You know, in my early work, the set design was more about just finding a place that was already ready, made set, but as you get to a point where you want to control the vision law, you want to actually put something on that's in your mind, rather than just coming across something, then you obviously then have to employ set design, who was going to make your sets. You're going to get actual set designer, you design it yourself. Do you start collaborating with people who can bring that new strength to your recipe? So that that's really that's from something? That is a trend? Like I see that's continuing on? Hopefully this year, they're gonna have some really great opportunities to do that physical adventures. So even though I really love the experimentation on the things I do in the digital stage, off my photography, when I play with my images and folk shop, I also I'm interested in how I could make how we can make our adventures in photography more physical and riel so I know all about doing everything in postproduction not well, not that everything is done in postproduction, as you saw, we're doing the shoot yesterday, but I'm interested in how that could go further in terms of king into the last one making sets that actually riel and not necessarily all things that you do in folk shop. I love my cereal fashion siri's and proud of it and all that, but I feel like a lot off the images could well be here, kind of like a hint of what's to come that could be more of an epic rendition off that same thing, but in rial so like instead of cartoon to consider riel toucans or, you know anything else I've used in my images that is figurative like water and and ships and what have you family have already mentioned? How having family's important to me, you know, it is just as important as my photographic creativity, it's certainly not something I'm just doing. I'm just thinking about because everyone else thinks about it. Everyone thinks about family because family is important and I think it's important to think about how that's going. Fit into your vision of your future and your vision of your lifestyle. It may not be something you can answer now because everyone's out prickett particular stage in their life where they have to think about family, how family is going to fit into their life will come to that question later, but that is important to me. I know it is that's just something I bear in mind independence. When I mentioned independence, I'm talking mainly about financial independence, so even though money is not like this main drive that keeps me going with my, uh I don't do what I do for money, I've certainly wouldn't pick photography if that was the case, because I would pick something that allowed me to like I say let less of a kind of tricky industry to to make money from, but if I had any goal with money would be financial independence so that I can at least be able to choose where I live on dh you know, I have more control over certain aspect of being able to make things happen, but I'm certainly not expecting to be rich or anything from my photography and that's, certainly not my goal on legacy as well, matthew and I often talk about how it would be great to leave a legacy, too. Our children so, you know, in what we do, maybe if we did, like, build our business to a point where it can be handed down or or even just legacy in the eyes of people enjoying my work or what I've done for them commercially off from as an artist with my fine art pieces, I think everyone really likes the idea of being remembered by something that's, certainly not something unique to myself. It's just all these things that I have mentioned are important to lots of people, not just myself, but these are the things that come to mind when I think of future on what's important, so continuing to feel rather than know my way. When I first started out in photography, I was, you know, almost absent of intention of being a professional photographer like I say, I wasn't really looking at other people's photography even on then as I've gone on, I've become a little bit more conscious, bit by bit of a ce to what I want to do with my fine art. It was ultimately about thinking, why am I making this piece? Is it how is exciting me? What what? How do I relate what I'm excited about to the commercial world? That translation is ongoing, it's never quite complete, everyone creates fine art to be ableto hint to that potential commercial clients the kind of work you want to be doing so you're fine art is an ongoing thing is not just a means to an end. Obviously, it depends what kind of photographer you are. Some people do find out on commercial on the two kind of interact some are completely fine art, and they make a living from that fine art is interesting because it it's also a tool to get tau get you to where you want to be commercially, and it makes more more of an impact than you think on your potential commercial clients who often look at your fine art work when they're taking their photographer for what who who they want to do their next project. Because it's, in your fine art, that you put the ideas and more of the imagination on more of a free level, I don't want to say this it don't ask how you produce the answers. Um, let me create a fly with a platform that's made up of questions, questions and answers, people saying about their experience and that's what that's, really I find so interesting because you actually get to look inside of photographers mind for three days, I find a fascinating former and ultimately and I hope that the inspiration I give you gives you the inspiration to go away on dh, to know that ultimately, you can find the answers to all your questions, because you are the one that will produce those answers. When I look back at my career realized that there was never a time where I kind of sat down and said, how do I do that? And then kind of just I forgot about it, because I didn't know how to do it it's up to you to find out, you know, if you, for example, it's given example, if you want to start fashion magazine, and you've no idea where start or you want to submit to fashion magazines, for example, something that I have done myself in my own kind of, like experimentation and research. Well, the question is it's about doing the research going out there and see how other people do it, giving yourself some time to do that research? Um, I think with me, when I first started looking at fashion magazines, I wanted to plunge myself into them on dh I would go a bit impatient too quick, we've getting my images out there when I first started shooting fashion models, I thought we were going with this and then giving myself time to home and involved my style or the application of my style to or the subject and then to give that chance to evolve and develop and then to see what fashion magazines want. So going back to that diagram where I had you your work, the client and situation how do I put myself into my work? But how do I put my work into the situation as well? That's in a way that's appropriate so all the these things are lined up because too often their these mismatches that cause or necessary offense I think we get offended that someone doesn't like our worker doesn't want it but it's because I haven't got a situation to put it in they need to know how it's relevant to you that you are the one that answers those questions and you answer them through experience and you answer them through making mistakes as well I don't really like the word mistakes because it implies that something really definitively has been done wrong it may just be that you did something in a different way than you would have done with the benefit of hindsight and those are the things that we learn about as we go on through life and we better and better ourselves and that's part of the wonderful evolution who you are what you do career is not separate from your life or who you are so just like so many facets of life art is about expressing here's where I get a little bit philosophical so okay just like breathing, inhaling and exhaling like eating like grief like exercise it's all about allowing energy in and out so I was driving the day I was thinking about this and I was thinking about how making art is like this process like breathing like eating where we're actually taking things in just like all those inspirations are saying about internalizing them on then they kind of going to scold rin and then we produce the end product and that is a process and when you make a new picture you'll find that you get this, you get this little bus, you know, and then you want to make another one shortly after because it kind of dies down you two do again, you need to do again and that's basically like in and out it's like breathing that's like that's like any form of energy flow in everything that we do so anybody and everybody needs this regular release is not just about being a photographer when we realize the bigger picture realized that everyone needs to be able to feel this this going in and going out this outlook for the energy that they're producing on his regular level but they want to be able to express in our and that's what our is it's a sign of that release of the energy that we're putting into the work and that he's back into what I was saying about inspirations when you strip it all down it's not about the stuff that's in your pictures, the props, the costumes of pixels, it's about the way you've arranged them all on the way you've put your signature on them in the way you've rearranged them from the original source inspirations outpouring your energy in the form of passion is important no matter who you are photographer or not so it's all about outpouring it's all about basically remembering that you need to be able to express yourself through what you do on constantly finding ways to do that as your tastes change. And abby, as your lifestyle changes that's the importance in photography and that's what gives us happiness as well as that commercial success once we start getting commercial situations to put back in because that's still what it is this is not just about fine I'm talking about this is fine art uncommercial this is everything that we produce visually so just want to read this out that I've written a little bit of like um just my own kind of quote that I've put on a slide myself photography is not about achieving some kind of superficial excellence in one picture on being lauded forever for that one single effort photography is about the energy and story you put across repeatedly across the siri's across bodies of work across a lifetime of bodies of work about you is a soul constantly trying to express and evolve through your work. It sounds like it's going a bit kind of way with fairies with the language amusing, but I really mean it. I really mean that when, like I was saying about being authentic rather than original that's ultimately your reign and this this, like I say it's, not just about being an artist in the fine art sense it's also about creating work, but you're putting out there in advertisements, in fashion, in the stuff that you create after all, we choose this career because it's something I'm supposed to make us happy make a satisfied and also, even if we're doing something commercial, the end product is going to reach people who were going to see that image in that whatever commercial context that is, and they're going to appreciate consumer image for themselves on that energy goes into them and comes out in the way that they're inspired by it as well, and express themselves through their creations. So when I talk about photography and style on all of these claims that we can get without photography, winning awards, being featured in certain places, having this level of popularity, it's not just about achieving this label of as ofthe photographer. That's just the kind of superficial commercial sense is also about your feelings if you're constantly trying to attempt to make sense of everything around you that inspires you. So going from that point, I want to make a point that fashion might not necessarily be what you're passionate about, but it's great, because fashion might be a litmus test when you're shooting fashion models, you might find that you have these inclinations to turn the shots more into beauty into natural portraiture, so more candid images, like the image is, I'll show you earlier that weren't so processed fine art out on documentary, so this's going back into a more practical point that fashion I've seen photographers on our fashion shoot experience who seemed to be sometimes not necessarily completely a fan of the whole heavy retouching, making everything look like perfection kind of thing because they're doing something a little bit more candid, or they're doing something that interacts with the models personality more, and I find that really fascinating because it tells me that maybe they're just finding their way in fashion, or maybe they're actually hinting at there being something else they enjoy mortar than fashion. Maybe fashion is the way that they're going to discover themselves in terms of taking document pictures that are more related to reality pictures that law related to photo journalism or documentary, or maybe images like I was saying about fashion being the flavor of my fine art driven work so fashion for me has bean ex an accessory to play with in doing something that's a little bit more fine are presented in the way that it's presented as stand alone piece is so on this no, I want to look at some off your images some of the students images here here they've bean sending me I've asked them basically for five images each from them I just wanted to get a sense of flavor off, you know who they are, who you all are and what you wear you're out with your photography I wanted them to send the images that were just images are closest to your heart whether that to do with fashion. Ah, now I've looked at all those images and I've really enjoyed learning more about you through these images on also and reading about your dream job as well, which we're going to be talking about it later, but I've just pulled out five images that there's no particular kind of like preference to these images it's just five inches that speak to me in terms of where I feel it might belong was a genre, so I thought it will be interesting for the audience at home to see some of these pictures from you guys but also my reactions to their reactions to where they feel these images belong as a genre because I don't want to be the one that kind of critics your portfolio or tells you what's right and what's wrong you might have a completely different intention for them but I just want to say what I feel instinctively my opinion on on where they lie as a genre on dh for you to consider whether that's something you're interested in or or not appropriate so I'll go straight into showing the first image from student which is sam's some reach so here is an image from one of the five that you sent me when I first saw this image it struck me as a very strong conceptual image I think it's I mean first of all I think it's really well done the way in which you have thie effect of snow around this scene very powerful character image but it struck me as something very relevant to advertising andan image that could be using that kind of context on also it has that compositional layout was well where you could imagine it being a kind of advertisement for something. So that was my reaction to that image in terms of genre on dh potential direction just derived upon first glance off your image I have an image from dallas on this image for me kind of struck a sense of being in a magazine in a kind of context maybe as an illustration to um article also you know you have this kind of double page spread layout was well which again could came to advertising kind of sensibility as I saw in sam's picture but yeah I mean when I saw this image I thought of sentiment I thought romance is very touching image but it's also kind of graphically relevant for being used commercially in the way that you've got all this well negative space in the form of the truck and c and the field there and the sky now I don't know if you were going to do this after but it would be really cool to hear if you're what you interpret it was similar to what their intentions were okay cool breeze taiking should I go should I finish them and then we want tio okay? I'm just giving my opinion than just moving on so good of curren's pictures here on dh I mean I should've just picked these images you know, obviously out there's there's loads of other images I could talk about but these the ones I just kind of standard representational of something that I want to say this struck me is a very, very fine art lead image I almost imagine seeing this in a magazine like foam a magazine very very it that kind of that kind of fine art sensibility of their particular style that what that is characterized by their style anyway this use of negative space like in the pictures I've just looked up which but for me it's different it doesn't come across to mia's advertisement it comes across to me as a kind of fine art documentary siri's that would be highly appreciate in the context off, you know, gallery setting rather than a commercial straight commercial setting because it's just so mystical and so sober, so so bring in the way you can barely see anything of the girl on the mystery around that so that that was I know you've got all the picture in your portfolio that with the one we looked at earlier with the dog as well, which I could probably say different things about, but this one stood out to me is being at that particular aesthetic that I think is is particularly invoked as well at the moment with them, with galleries and find out magazines, and this is one of eva's pictures, so on dh, they struck me as being kind of image I'd expect to see in a magazine, especially if it was kind of like an interview with the particular famous celebrity and there's there's a shoot that's done off the family in their home and they presented in his kind of slightly crazy way, but I thought I thought this was very reminiscent of that you've got these neon suddenly neon colors going on, you've got you've got everyone presented us, their individual kind of character. So it comes, comes across very definitively like that. So, like, for example, compared to the last image, you don't have that mystery and intrigue, you have been presented very boldly. Not to me. Speaks off that kind of magazine, magazine language where your room presenting something, presenting riel people as an interesting character for the purpose ofthe, for example, an interview with a famous person, are at home with such and such family. Honestly, we have linds. So this image I find very fascinating, probably for a few different reasons, in terms of genre, I would relate it to I love first of all, I love the kind of composition of it, it's, slightly kind of like widescreen, presented, which I find really fascinating, especially going back to the hole on the double page spread thing, graphically a lot. These pictures are so well composed in terms of the way they might be used commercially. And I see this as being as having that similar strength, as in sam's image with the advertising element. But also, I like the potential further fashion as well, especially with the woman in the background of the way she's presented and comes out, and she in particular, is looks very much in that kind of presented in that language of fashion the smoke around her the way in which he's coming out from a smoke very dramatically with her dress but because we've got this woman here it's more about narrative so that's why I was thinking not just fashion but also maybe something a bit more conceptual or something a bit more character lead but certainly and probably a mix of those actually been but I find this yet I find him this image vory interesting for for the questions it raises in the mind of the viewer so I'm going to skip back that's the end of my five it's just five five I wanted to use as a starting point really for conversation because you could potentially discuss all the students images but I'm going back to sums image so um I took this image just over a year ago they actually took it as part of a challenge on google plus cristo rey scavenger hunt and then the the theme of it was snowflake so we were asked to take snowflake pictures that represented that and I really wanted to tell a story with this image of this woman who had bean stood up for so long that she kind of become frozen on and one of the reasons I said I I at the time of in my past would be more sort of trying to do find out imagery but this I felt I've never tried to sell this is a fine art image because like you say, it feels more commercial in in the end result and this is one of the few occasions where have actually managed to get a location with my shoot. Most of my pictures have taken outside in nature where it's easier to find a vacation but for this one the model actually I knew a bar and there was owned by her friends so we were able to shoot in that location which made it much easier for me to set the scene for this story that I had so that's the story behind the image that's very interesting to hear the yeah the the the reality behind the making of it I think is very well made a swell when which you've got the snow in the background it looks as if you have created intricate set I got fake snow the stuff that you put water in it puffs out I placed that and I took my dust pan and brush with me to the rest of you know the bar was very conscious of not leaving a mess and that kind of thing the snow in the air is actually done in photo shop afterwards yeah that's what he that's what he well might I think think in the on a technical level I have seen you mean about fine art I've bean we're either with fine art people might not want to kind of bike is a print because it has such an office facing it and they know who is this person? Why would they want this person in the wall? I find that a lot final images it's about mystique generally I'm not saying that's kind of a given it's justin tendency I find so I would that's why? I think like you said it lending itself to a more commercial edge because of that explicit presentation of the face. Okay, so this was shot about two years ago it's the engagement shoot of this lovely couple here and see the bride to be heather was very worried about the weather conditions who she was tracking them for three weeks in advance but I told her no matter what happens we'll make magic together. Eso thank god my mom was there with me because she's actually holding an umbrella over my head at this moment because that's this image is essentially straight out of camera I think I might have bumped up the contrast a bit, but that's really rain. So this image meant a lot to me because of the romance that this couple shares that they share and the fact that um my client was an artist is a painter and photographer herself and she has a really romantic sensibility, so it meant a lot to me to be able to I guess give them something approaching their wedding that showed them like, you don't have to stress about things you can make the best of what? What happens and, uh and we'll make you can make magic together and that was kind of the mood of the picture I guess describe uh, so this is something I shot just a few weeks ago. Um and ah, I agree with you that it's very fine art and with obscuring my face with my hair and I I really I was going off of the location that was at the the grass was moving in the wind, and I kind of wanted to replicate that with my hair and so moving across my face and obscuring my face is something that I definitely do a lot of my work. Okay, good. Thank you. Uh, we have eva this is my christmas carol. I make one every year is that allison, we don't have any spaying way don't make for the lower self increased mass. So we're first time living in london in ten years, we went to england, don't have this kind of tradition is about english are very off the everything about cars, so when I write to america and I start to see that on the first, I think there may be a little t c but I really like the evolution off all the peoples and make cars every christmas and see that so I said to playing around with my kid on I realized every year you people ask me for what is the next idea for the christmas card so two years ago we make that on reflect a little about our self mikey myself my husband and I love out of for the show because they gang is no graham the the third year it's also with for the shops and a lot of the stuff was like in my friend's house which is our british on is a little business I take of things if I know that going the things I know now I will feel better, better quality but again just for my turn I really liked thank you on dh lastly lin yes so this is ahh photo that, um ah hatched an idea with my friend who's actually both models she's also a designer and we were trying to think of what it would look like if the same character both the good side on the bad side of the same character was in the same image and how they would interact and it's a photo that I'm really proud of logistically because we had literally had a black money we had a white cat we had a fog machine um but I I also sort of still feel like it's unfinished so yeah, okay, thank you. So I've given you my feedback on your images, and you've talked about your intent as well. So we're thinking about these concepts of style about labels and audience, how audiences important ultimately, why you create your images and why you want to be, you know, professional photographer are professional artist. Why you want to actually be involved in putting your picture's out there? Two other people on this comes feeds back into what we're gonna be talking about with branding and marketing after the break. So these like this concepts of genre labels and style, the purpose of what you do on dh making. They're kind of halfway house, the meeting point between what makes you tick on what you actually want to do for the people and how you and how you kind of juggle both of those often conflict, often conflicting aim mes on. We're going to be continuing along that line, talking more about social media in particular when we come back.