Ewen Spencer

Spencer is a photographer, film maker and publisher who graduated from Brighton university. When he left university there was no Internet so what is popular now like Facebook didn't exist. The popular medium was magazines. Magazines had such a large influence on sub-cultures that it could often effect music, style and fashion. He decided to photograph the world around him; focusing on youth culture. This mostly involved images from parties and raves that he went to. Spencer then went to a magazine publication called Sleaze Nation where they employed him to attend raves and take images of youth culture for their back pages to emphasise style. This magazine would have targeted the youth culture since a it was about them.

An American publisher saw his work in Sleaze Nation and asked him to come to America to do the same task. However when he came back with 20 rolls of film to develop the publishers said it wasn't enough and really pushed him to use 100 rolls in one night, all in black and white. This really pushed him to achieve greater images and a lot more of them.

He later achieved some acknowledgement from another magazine called The Face who asked him to start taking pictures of the garage scene, teens and sex. At the time he would attend high school proms and house parties. If Spencer was to attempt this now he would probably be arrested.

This is very bold because this is the sort of scene that we would usually look at. Public displays like this often makes people feel uncomfortable so we might not have ever seen this before because they are trying to accept the reality but don't want to see it. I love this image because all these people probably don't know they are being photographed, making their expressions and body position completely natural. However most of these people are probably drunk since as it was taken at a party which might make the models more confident portraying them as someone different to themselves.

He wanted to be part of the garage and soul scene so that he could focus on youth culture. That's when he found a lot of people recording music and making films. He would have to take scrap books to convince people who didn't want him around to let him take photos.

To fund his own interests he found people who wanted to sponsor him and completed some commercial work for clients including an advertising campaign for skin, Nike posters with the French football team, lastminute.com, JD Sports and EA Sports with FIFA 15.

This is quite different to the normal party scene that he photographs because this was all set up and isn't natural, however Spencer has organised this perfectly to look quite natural. I think that because the tv show is called skins, Spencer has focused on skin touching and exposing as much as possible. this might appeal to teens and young adults as parties can end up looking like this.

This image is very clever because there are different colours on each side of the model showing the two groups of supporters that would be at a football game. They show the influence that the crowds chants would have on the player. the blue light it very bright and is the main source of light on the model showing how they support him however there is still red on the right showing that the bad chants still get to him. I really like the different colours being used to add more context to the image.

When he visited Italy he became fascinated in the culture so he wanted to photograph the workers however he was then drawn back to the youth culture again.

I think that Spencer may have been influenced by Martin Parr in some of his colour images because some people might consider some of the colours quite vulgar. This is because they are so saturated and bright, like the greens, blues and oranges in this image.

Overall I think that Spencer is a very skilled photographer. Even though he photographs in a different genre I think that compositionally he is on par with great photographers like Eggleston. Spencer seems to be able to very quickly determine the exposures and positioning of everything in the frame by moving himself. I don't think that many people have this sort of skill which in my opinion makes him a very talented photographer and is a relatable photographer for event, documentary and portrait photography.

Luke Waller

Weller is a freelance illustrator who has worked in editorial illustration for 5 years. Usually it takes him around 2 hours to create a draft/rough sketch of his work. Then after some emails to the art director to confirm his ideas, Weller will start working on his final piece. If Weller has a very small time scale like 24 hours he will often use Photoshop. However if he is given a longer period of time he will often use pencil drawings and monoprinting to add colour to his images. Weller only learn't how to monoprint after his education at Bournemouth university. His grade suffered because he was so obsessed with defining his style, he never tried anything new apparently.

He stated that this image was drawn from a very small thumbnail on google. Using pencil drawings and Photoshop Waller was able to create a full sized portrait. The style of this image reminds me of illustrations that would accompany a statement or article in a magazine.

Weller likes to think that he is good at talking to art directors because he treats them like gods, he states that they in essence feed him, cloth him and keep a roof over his head. Because of this he gets a lot repeat clients. Up until late last year he worked without an agent. Now he is part of JSR. Quarterly Weller uses social networking like twitter and instagram to display his work and talk to other like minded people. Weller is always careful though not to post anything bad about anyone or anything. To self promote he sends out some of his latest images with a letter and customised envelope. Clients and agencies would feel more inclined to look and read a letter than an email because you can select and delete them straight away.

I find this very inspiring because of the bright and selective colours. I have chosen to make a project where I would be using practical techniques like the monoprinting. Using monoprinting techniques are quite difficult and Waller has very effectively created a layered black and white image with shaded areas and then used a board with red ink to create shaded areas and new subjects in the image.

Brian Duffy

During the 60's he was one of the most influential photographers in Britain. However one day he just gave it all up and burnt most of his work. Recently his son has discovered what was left of his work and this inspired him to take it up again.

He was a lad of the war and caused a lot of trouble. He didn't want to do anything until he discovered art. And whilst at art school he discovered the textiles class and wanted to be a designer. When he got a job for design company he got his girlfriend at the time pregnant and needed money fast so he took an illustrator job where most of the time he just made tea. Then he was asked to photograph a composer he started photographing everything for them.

This image was taken during the 1960's. The model is Joanna Lumley who at the time was a struggling model and single mum.  Prior to this image being taken Lumley had become one of Duffy's favourite models and as soon as he found out she was a mother he told her to bring her son with her. I find this image very strange to look at because Duffy has used contrasting clothes for the two models and the hair colour is different. Lumley is also wearing quite dark eyeshadow. This amount of dark areas in the image is surrounding the face of the young boy; which is emphasising his importance in this image. The fact that Lumley is holding the boy close to her and to her face is also showing the emotional attachment that a mother would have for their son and the importance that they have in their lives.

After 3 years at vogue he was restless so he went into advertisement and set up his own studio. He then moved to France and they loved the 'dodgy' images because they considered it to be a different way of visual expression, whilst the British would just say that the camera is broken. 

I think that this image was used as an album cover which I think is trying to show David Bowie as both the creative artist through the face paints and show that underneath when its all washed off he is still a human being. Just like us he has feelings which is shown in his facial expression and skinny structure of his shoulders. I think that this is very similar to some work produced by Annie Leibovitz of John Lennon.

His home based studio would consist of the living area being in the basement and the studio was upstairs. Whilst working in his home the elite would visit like John Lennon.

Taken in 1965; this image shows John Lennon looking very relaxed and happy for the image. The black jumper is the classic look for all the members of the Beatles. Whilst they were on stage they would also wear dark suits. The background looks like it would have been a dark colour as well; using the right lighting even a dark backdrop can be used to create tonal variance that looks really smooth for black and white photography. The simplicity of this image and casual feel to it would suggest to me that it might have been used in a magazine as the image for an interview with the singer/song writer.

Annie Leibovitz

She photograph's everything from royalty to pop and rock. she has no fear of the controversial like the John Lennon image. Leibovitz's life is her subject, her kids are very important and they are also a main subject. Coming from a large family taking photos and videos was natural and most of her childhood was in the car. Which already puts the world in a frame. She has been set up from childhood to put things in frames.

Her first images were taken in the Philippines, in a war zone/riot like community. Her ambition was to be a teacher but realised that she had to be an artist before she would be qualified to teach the subject.

Cartier-Bresson was her first influence, which is clear by the documentary style of her early images.

Rolling Stones magazine was her first photography job and she discovered that a magazine gives her a canvas to fill and a chance to travel. She begged her boss to let her photograph john Lennon's first in depth interview. Rolling Stone bosses decided to give her space and she flew with it and did all work for the photography. She would travel with specific people for up to a week taking photograph's of there life making all there images intimate. to help with this she would adapt so that she could talk to anyone and be part of the 'gang'. Leibovitz joined the Rolling Stones on tour and became part of the team. she became intrusive and everyone trusted her especially behind the stage and the bands personal life's and habits.

This is the last image ever taken of John Lennon and was very controversial because this image shows that he was still vulnerable even with his fame and his unconditional love that he had for his wife. He could give up everything he has as long as he had her. I love this image because it is so passionate and honest with his feelings. The Rolling Stone magazine is targeted at music lovers for indie, pop and rock genres which Lennon fits into. His death and fame of this magazine is a recipe for controversy and huge sales of the magazine that they may have never experienced before.

She would always call her ideas stupid and simple even though everyone else would call them fantastic and clever. Up until this point she was massively on drugs, this massively influenced her work conduct. Vanity Fair magazine put her in rehab and took her in. This is the start of her set up scenes and extreme use of natural and flash light. Vogue also employ her which gave her the budget she needed to create the masterpieces of fairytale stories. However she also takes images of famous people to humanise them. She shows the insecurities and their personalities.

This image is very bright and uses lots of models including famous faces like Keira Knightley. It is very effective because a lot of the references to the movie are accurate, the yellow bricks, Cairn Terrier, people in the background to make them look small and the good witch in a large, very bright gown. I think this image is especially great because of the number of models to control and complexity of the layout including the floor, dresses and thorough lighting through out the whole image. This image is obviously part of a magazine article shown by the text in the upper left corner. This might be to promote movies that the actors are in or maybe a celebration of the Wizard of Oz.

A large amount of her work uses natural light to create shadow and tone therefore I am going to attempt to create one with natural light intruding into confined spaces.