Current Practice in Commercial Relam
My art and commercial practices currently feel at polar opposites to each other, this is mostly to do with the work that I am getting. It feels like there is only so far you can push headshots, event photography and making images for medical textbooks! I do want to be edging towards editorial or at least more creative portraits that involve more planning; ultimately constructing something that I eventually see as more recognizable as my work as opposed to what sometimes feels like plain and sterile commercial work. I understand that it is a necessary part of working as a freelance photographer to take on what you can get and I am grateful to get anything at all but the creative projects always feel a lot more rewarding. Moving forward, my preferred clients would be in the realms of editorial portraiture and ads. Ideally using my own vision to present my fine art practice in a commercial place.
The photographers I have chosen are Juno Calypso, Maisie Cousins and Alex Prager. All three of these artists/photographers have their own style and this style carries from their personal work into their commercial work. With each of these artists, there is an underlying sense that the work is theirs, regardless of who or what it is for. In a field where there are so many photographs, having the ability to make something that sticks out as interesting and individual, is what I am striving for.
What I enjoy so much about these images is that they are all completely moored in the artists visual language. I feel like I am still working out my own visual language although there is a feeling that I am getting closer and closer with each WIP submissions.
Whilst I am certain that my work so far has been very honest, I still think there is a more successful way of showing myself through the work and build on the language I already have. I think I will always be looking to build on this regardless of me thinking I have found my style or visual language.
I would describe what I have so far as being intimate, tender and stylised in the cinematic. I want to be able to mix this with the commercial work I have, however I haven’t really had the opportunity as the jobs have mostly been headshots, and corporate shoots for business. I would like the opportunity to shoot portraits or even products with the ability to put a creative stamp on the work.
Update on Headway East London brief
After a couple of meetings so far we are getting on well. There are multiple ideas to work with and refine, it can be difficult to have a clear goal when there are 4 different practices trying to communicate an idea with their own visual language. What I think I would have done in reflection at this stage is ask everyone in the group to present a couple of images from their projects and have a brief introduction to what they are doing. I think that would help the group to understand each other a little better.
We did decide on using Instagram as our main platform for the pitch
The group have agreed to weekly meetings to be chaired by each of us on a turn based system with minutes in a shared drive.
Our meeting ahead of our initial presentation with Anna and Jessie was pretty simple, we were still not set on what to do so I put together a mood board to show based off the different descriptors that came up in the meeting. Aside from that, I just searched for images that I liked and wanted to show the group in the hopes that something would take.
The initial presentation with Jesse and Anna was interesting, focussing on the content ideas, the editorial/fashion aspect of the mood boar, specifically the Alex Prager image was selected as an interesting approach to an otherwise documentary based area of photography.
CRJ 