Tuesday 14th October - Introduction to Photography

I am rather inexperienced with photography on any formal level; I took part in a short photography course a few years ago, so I have basic experience with using a DSLR, but nothing beyond that. Fortunately the first lesson of this photography project assumed a zero knowledge base and taught everyone from the ground up. We learnt about the different features in a camera and their functions, such as aperture, ISO and white balance. I was interested to learn more about manipulating how images are captured with a camera, and glad that the time was taken to explain these functions in detail before research began.

After the introduction Othello began showing us different photographers and their styles in order to get us thinking about different approaches to our project. Many people found Terry Richardson's close-up personal photos of celebrities against a white background to be visually striking and interesting; however, I wasn't so interested in taking photos of people. I didn't want the focus of my work to be anyone other than myself, as it was intended to be a personal project that related to ourselves. Thus, I began looking for artists and photographers using the medium to express things about themselves, rather than highlight traits in other people.

Barack Obambo, as photographed by Terry Richardson. His close-up, vibrant images against pure white backgrounds are certainly iconic and memorable, but not what I wanted to focus on.