Hopes & Fears The first photographer I became engrossed in was Martin Parr. I love his approach to documentary photography. There’s a humour to his work that isn’t used often in documentary photography. He is a photojournalist who focuses a lot on British tourists in society. His technique is important in the outcome that he wants to portray because of the critical approach towards his subjects; the high saturation of his photographs certainly helps to do this. He is one of the reasons why I fell in love with documentary photography. Last year I went to Florence in Italy and my passion for documentary photography grew even more. Being in a foreign country surrounded by a different culture and society inspired me, trying to find the perfect image. There were two particular images that I took which I am proud of. One of which was of two nuns walking side by side and to me that was a beautiful moment because I had never seen it before. Another was an elderly couple mirroring each other without realizing it and that image portrayed beauty and love; they were so perfect for each other.
Music Photography is extremely unpredictable because you never know what will happen or even if it will happen at all with some bands. However I love doing this because of the spontaneity of this type of imagery because anything can happen at all and it can be extremely raw and natural. One of my favourite photographers in music photography is Roger Sargent, who is best known for his work with the The Libertines. I love his work because of the energy he captures within the audience and band. It isn’t just his live band shots that are particularly striking but his portraits of both the lead singers; Carl Barat and Peter Doherty. These photographs are very beautiful and poignant images of their time together. He manages to capture emotion and love between the two people involved. Music photography and Documentary photography are the genres that I love working towards now. This is where my passion in photography lies
I have also recently become intrigued with the David Attenborough series ‘Life’ and the photography taken for the book. This possibly falls under documentary photography. I recently saw an exhibition in Brighton this year and feel in love with this type of photography due to the beauty of each image. During the next few years I would like to try this sort of imagery. However I fear it would quite difficult due to the environment the more exotic animals live and travel. It is something I am planning on looking into. In this kind of photography colour is extremely important because it makes the image that much more visually appealing. This will be different to what I’m used to since I tend to use black and white. Doing this will help widen my creativity and not just stick to the genres that I know and feel comfortable with and that’s what I think this course and university is all about.
Gemma Richardson
. I hope this course will develop my skills in Photoshop so I will be able to get the best possible image that I can without the image being overdone. Over sharpening is my biggest worry because the end product can end up looking extremely unrealistic and then it will be unusable. Especially in the area of photojournalism I will need to be more careful and wary when it comes to Photoshop, due to implications and worry people have when it comes to documentary photography. There are a lot of contradictions when it comes to what should and what shouldn’t be manipulated on Photoshop. This is something that worries me because when going for a job you can never be sure if there are too much or not enough altercations done on Photoshop.