Friday 19 April 2013

Photography Delights

    I like making lists. For a short while a list can provide me with order in the chaos that is my mind. I read somewhere that our thoughts are made up of 'mind' and 'intellect'. The intellect analyses and the mind is like an internal voice that can cause confusion and sometimes negativity. But by making lists I like to think that [my] intellect is taking control of this horse driven carriage galloping out of control round a dangerously winding mountain road... And I digress. This was so not the reason that I started typing this blog entry.
    
    So, getting back on track.

    Today I would like to share with you a list of photographers who have inspired and influenced me. There are so many wonderful photographers out there and I wouldn't even know a tenth of them. When I first started peeking my head out of my mole hole and looking at the world of photography I was happily surprised that it was not an entirely male dominated industry. In fact, some female models have even made the transition to being behind the camera.

    And so my list begins:

Copyright Carla Coulson
    Carla Coulson was the first person to make me see that a creative dream is possible because she is proof of this. Carla took the most extreme sea change possible, leaving Australia and starting over in Italy. She lived simply, studied photography in a whole other language, struggled, laughed, cried, fell in love, and has never looked back. She even has a few published books to her name. It is because of Carla that I am not afraid to set my camera 1/60 - there is beauty in showing a little movement.

    George Seper has worked over thirty years with photography and has been a long time contributor to Vogue with his food and lifestyle photography. Additionally George is my tutor through the photography course I am doing so I have learned a great deal about using my camera from him. I feel very lucky to have his insights and perspective. George's food photography is a definite inspiration point for me.

    74 Lime Lane blogger, Kellie, is someone whose photography captured my attention a year or two ago. The objects she captures are such simple things you would find lying around the home. Yet through her eye those objects becoming something more than what they are.

Copyright Annie Tao
    Annie Tao is a San Franciscan lifestyle photographer. The lighting in her photos leave me spellbound. She has a real eye for this field of work. And the families keep coming back to her for repeat photo shoots.

Copyright Alexia Sinclair
    Alexia Sinclair is a fine art photographer who fantasy photography has found a place in the world of advertising. Her photography, incredibly, doesn't feel like photography. They are more like the paintings from bygone eras that you would find at art galleries. Alexia is very much involved in every step of her own projects, from the development, sewing, set up, photography, editing.

Copyright Katie Quinn Davies
    Katie Quinn Davies of What Katie Ate is [if you can't already guess] a food photographer. And I swear her photography makes me feel so hungry. And it's not just the food. There's just something romantic about her visual layouts, colour and texture choices, and lighting that so hit the mark for me.

    Helen Mclean has a vintage inspired photography studio. She provides women with an opportunity to have a retro/vintage fantasy glamour photo shoot - think Hollywood pin up of the 40's and 50's. Over the years she has built up her business, finding vintage garments and backgrounds for her clients. She even works with make up artists and hair dressers who specialise in vintage style.

    And there are just so many others - Mario Testino, Sølve Sundsbø, Howard Schatz, Norman Jean Roy, Athol Shmith, Ellen Von Unwerth, Lillian Bassman...