My thoughts on photography

Some Photographers I like:

Daniel Arnold

Marcus Haney

Alana O’Herlihy

A friend of mine, who in fact was my swimming coach at the time, and I were pottering through a market in Melbourne. While buying groceries, he explained to me what the dials and numbers meant on a camera. Apparently they mean a lot.

I think you learn most when you’re mindful of what you are doing.

Many YouTube tutorials and Ted Talks later, I was made to move to Sydney. I started making movies about my friends, filming skateboarding, and just shooting them as they were. Whatever they were doing.

During this time, I remember someone asking me ‘what kind of photographer are you?’ I didn’t know you HAD to specialise?

I was fortunate and had a mentor who’s not only in the fashion world, but who’s an expert in film photography. She showed me loopholes, and rather than telling me what was ‘good’ and ‘bad’, she explained why some photos were more aesthetically pleasing than others. So I added her loopholes to my already accumulating loophole list.

I was learning more and being more mindful of what I was doing. Mindful of light, composition, and the settings on my camera. The settings became more natural, and my camera became an extension of how I looked at things, rather than a separate machine.

A film photo is actually pretty scientific; it’s a reaction between the chemicals on a small piece of paper (film) and… light. Hence, light is important for the well-being of the image.

Awareness growing, more things were being seen. By this time, I was in a friendship circle with similar interests and skills, with techniques being shared and understood.

I saw many photographer’s doing a similar thing. Their common denominator being the fact that sex sells.

Countless times I’ve seen photos with unnecessary nudity, overly sexualising a subject and not giving any context to the image. There’s definitely a place for nudity in photography, capturing the textures, shapes, sizes, the natural form, stories and memories of the human body.

Although, it stands out when a photographer isn’t mindful of the story an image tells, the emotion it evokes, the framing, the composition, the lighting, and the meaning. Declaring that “my photo is superior because my subject is naked”.

So that’s my issue. I have an issue with people not being mindful of what they’re doing.

My thoughts on photography, October 2018.