I have been inspired by the work of Laurence Crossman-Emms, a Freelance photographer and also a bike enthusiast. Laurence focuses his line of work in the form of promotion and advertisement, producing advertisement for a wide variety of companies. Laurence is mainly based in North Wales but has also travelled around the world, spending quite a lot of time in Canada. Laurence believes that his success is due to hard work and pushing the boundaries of his creativity He believes that his success is down to capturing “the” moment in a unique style. His focus is biking and he travels the world to photograph competitions. Laurence also enjoys working and playing in the snow and capturing the two together. He is an up to the minute raring to go kind of photographer who takes delight in capturing the moment but will also spend time on projects set up by various companies. Laurence was previously working on a project called; “365 days 365 photos”. This project consists of him taking a photo every day of the whole year. He typically takes photographs of bikes in this project but also captures photos of still life. You can almost feel the clouds and sea moving when looking at the photograph but at the same time there is the stillness of the mountains and the robin perched. It is a moment in time, a quick glance of a different perspective of life captured in the moment. You are there with him looking at the reflection of the building in the water, the vividness of the purple in the flowers and the stare of the gecko that draws you in to his gaze. The pictures demonstrate that Laurence is as skilled as he is spontaneous using the light to enhance his photography, engaging the person looking at the photographs. We can see life as he sees it in that moment. “Laurence’s work is fresh, bright and exhilarating, he captures movement so well” Joanna Kinch 2011 I have been inspired by the work of Ken Paul because he specifically focuses his photography work on action/extreme sports, mainly on BMX. In 1999, Paul became the editor and art director of Chase BMX magazine, later to also become a photographer for the same magazine: “It all went hand in hand and before I knew it, I was behind the lens as much as I was in front of the computer.” This is a quote from his blog on his own website demonstrating his passion for photography and capturing action, movement and motion in his images. Ken Paul has travelled the world taking a wide variety of different types of photos, mainly capturing the movement of BMX tricks in mid-air. He’s taken photos in locations that contrast from as far apart as Eastern Europe and Japan. Ken Paul’s work links into my work very similarly as I take photos of action/extreme sports in motion. This is why I have taken a particular liking to his images. Ken has produced some effective images by using the thirds rule; he captures the fore-ground, middle-ground and back-ground all in different thirds of the picture, then by using a high shutter speed setting on his camera he captures the object or figure at the peak of action creating a satisfying and interesting result. His techniques are quite rare in the present days line of work because its difficult to capture a image of movement in such a simple way, yet still making it look so interesting. I have been inspired to use Ken Paul's work because it is interesting and related to my project. I have decided to experiment with his ideas by using my own photographs and using Photoshop techniques to create different effects that portray movement and stand out by being unique. I have been inspired by the work of Ray Demski. He is a sports photographer and he was born in a small town in the mountains of western Canada, Ray spent much of his formative years sailing around the world. At the age of 15 he moved with his family onto a 45 foot sail boat with nobody having any clue whatsoever about sailing. During the 7 year voyage Ray discovered his passion for photography. Forty countries and a lot of learning later he started a new adventure into being a photographer. A life long athlete himself and action addict, Ray focuses on Action, adventure, sports and dance photography. Shooting with some of the best athletes and dancers in the world. Ray is currently based in Berlin, Germany. This above image is a fine example of some of Ray Demski's work. This is one of my favorite pieces of his work because it clearly demonstrates a figure in motion. The snowboarder has been captured at various angles. In the background he apperas to be quite small, as he comes into focus you can really see the movement progress. The boarder lands perfectly at the end and you can see him head off into the background. The compositional lines start from the far left hand side of the image. He leaps high into the air , falling into a diagonal direction into the foreground. This is a pleasing arrangement to the eye. I would like to compose an interesting arrangement/composition in my own work. Ray Demski has used the technique of high-speed photography, capturing the figure in multiple positions in the air. High speed photography is when you use the burst or continuous high speed is a shooting mode in still cameras. This allows several photographs to be captured in quick succession by either single pressing the shutter button or by holding it down. This is used mainly in mixed-light conditions or when the subject is in successive motion, such as sports. The photographer can then select the best image of the group or arrange them in a sequence to study the transitions in detail. He has then used photoshop to clean up the image and arrange the images into a composite.A composite is when layers of images are overlaid and blended together to create one image. The figure's motion is captured by using continuous shots, the figure is followed through from the background to the foreground, contrasting from dark to light which adds to the affect of a moving figure. The figures colour tone changes as it becomes closer because of the position of the sun. This also casts shadows in the background making the background darker than the foreground. I have been inspired to create my own images of sports photography using a similar technique. I would like to concentrate on an interesting viewpoint with my model travelling across the image I have been influenced by this photographer to capture motion and movement by using the technique of continuous shooting. |
About Me!I am a sixth form student at Ysgol John Bright currently studying fine art, photography and engineering. On this website I will demonstrate some of my photography work and the techniques I use. Archives
January 2013
Categories |