Bryan Sheffield

I like how neutral the colours are in this, with the bright green parrot in stark contrast.

Bryan Sheffield is easily my favourite photographer right now. Although he uses a digital camera, his pictures have a really retro, filmy quality to them.

He's worked for American Apparel, Vice Magazine and Nylon Magazine.

The use of grain and colour and flash in this shot is especially beautiful.

Laura Taylor

I find Laura Taylor's work to be interesting as she only uses ambient light in her shoots, which are part portrait and part fashion. The models she uses have a real natural beauty, which is well highlighted by the use of mostly natural light.

She also mostly photographs women, and her use of colour makes for very captivating and striking images.

(she probably used flash in this, despite her love of natural light)

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus is one of my favourite photographers because she captures her subjects in a way that is not only interesting and new, but particular and personal to the subject. This is probably her most famous image. The expression on the child's face is brilliant.

The parallels between the poodle ornament and the woman's hair make this a humourous photograph. Although Arbus was often criticised for her subject matter - the unusual, the borderline and the strange, she approached her subjects with sensitivity and a fresh eye.

Arbus' images have a good range of mid tones. Most of her images have no black in them at all.

Ryan McGinley

I am a huge fan of McGinley's work, and he's a huge influence on the pictures I take. I really like the timelessness of his pictures, and the way he incorporates nature in all of his images.

A woman holds a buzzard. The scratches on her suggest that this shot was quite difficult to get.

These are all photographs from his project "Somewhere Place". I like how scratched up and bruised the models are: it shows how carefree they are, like children with scraped knees.

A young woman holds a kitten in her mouth by the scruff of its neck, much like a mother cat would do.

Ryan McGinley mostly uses nude models, which really highlight the closeness to nature all of his subjects share.

A young man falls out of a tree into a pond. The angle of this shot makes it unclear as to what exactly is going on.

His pictures really capture a sense of youth and freedom, and his use of natural, muted colours is really beautiful. He has a clear sense of composition and colour - two things I think are very important to photography.

Update

Okay so it's been a while, so I'm going to make a lot of posts, sorry!
Firstly, what I've been doing photography-wise recently. As ever, I've been taking photos of family and friends, but those were all taken with my traditional camera and haven't been processed and printed yet.
I've also bought myself a digital camera, for the first time ever. I saved up all year and finally can take pictures in this century. I now have a Canon 1000d, which isn't the best, but works fine for what I need it. I've also got myself a flickr account to upload my digiphotos to.
Shootwise, I've not really been that productive. I've mostly been learning how to use it, which is terrible, but I think I'm there now, so lots more pictures to come, I'm sure. I have a few shoots planned, it's just a matter of getting organised (argh)

Uh, recently I went on a march in Cambridge against the EDL, although I was there on a strictly photojournalistic capacity. I only briefly spied the EDL, and wasn't able to take satisfactory pictures. The photographs of the UAF march were alright though, I feel. I've uploaded them to flickr, but as my flickr isn't all sorted yet, I'll just post a few here:

This guy was speaking at the beginning. He was very passionate, and I tried to capture that.

Marching through Cambridge.

A young woman tells her son about the march as it passes by her house.

I tried to shoot the march with the idea of "community" in mind.

Trying to get a sense of scale of the march.

Okay so those were the best ones. They're not great, and I only really have myself to blame for that (although the weather was very odd all day - bright sun then rain, then sun again). Still, I learnt a lot about my camera and I hope the next shoot - whatever it may be - will be better.

I also shot some pictures at a local dog show, before that. These are the best ones: 

I have alway wanted to take pictures at a dog show to not only show the bond and familiarity between dog and owner, but also to show off a few of the different breeds of dog. No other animal has so much variation in a single species, and I find that completely fascinating.

I hope to shoot more soon.

Hello

Introductory posts seem a bit redundant as most of you know who I am so I suppose I should just get down to the serious stuff.

INSPIRATIONS:

Ryan McGinley
Bryan Sheffield
Laura Taylor
Alec Soth
Richard Avedon
Leonn Ward
Rineke Dijkstra


I'll probably elaborate on these photographers in a later post. I'm also inspired a lot by cinema and even television. I love the work of Jean-Luc Godard, Wes Anderson, Terry Gillian, Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock.

I'm planning on doing a lot of photography over the summer; I'll also be looking for employers and all that jazz... but mostly I'll be gaining experience and practicing what I know and trying out some things I don't.