It’s amazing what you can find on the internet once you’ve finally ‘completed’ facebook (and no, it’s not what you’re thinking).  I was sat in bed last week and I stumbled across a link that took me to the London Photo Festival’s website; it’s definitely not a massive event, but it looks like it’s been running for a while and it attracts a fairly healthy following.

Now, when I decide to do something that requires me to put myself out there I normally think about it long enough for the self doubt to talk me out of it; however, being ill, sat in bed for hours on end and loaded on all sorts of painkillers apparently gives you the same sort of confidence you find when you’re cutting shapes on the dance floor on a shady Friday night.

Having received confirmation of my entry, the fear starts to set in; I find out that the theme is ‘the four elements’ and I need to submit the photo within a week.  After a quick Pinterest search and scrolling through hundreds of conceptual photos I immediately start to regret my decision, this is not my style at all; I like taking pictures of people doing weird stuff or looking a bit edgy.  A few more photos scroll by and I come across a pretty cool photo of Steve McQueen smoking in a bath tub with a very attractive lady friend – gives you an idea of what inspires me.

I immediately message a friend that I feel I can easily persuade to have some photos taken whilst potentially being semi-nude; 5 minutes later and she’s said yes.

D-day… it’s immediately obvious that we’re both super apprehensive about the whole situation – why did we ever think this was going to be an easy ‘thing’?  We take a few test shots for lighting and positions and she goes her way; we both know that we won’t be doing the semi-nude shoot that’s for sure.

This leaves me without a model and about 3 days left to take and submit a photo.  I decide to jump in the bath myself; here’s the result…

Going back to the theme for the exhibition, the four elements could be interpreted through different items and focal points in the photo (tedious links so bear with me); air and fire through the cigarette and lighter, water through the bath tub and earth from the view through the window.  The pitch to the exhibition is that this image symbolises how mankind has harnessed these four elements to make ‘comforts’ out of them… or something like that.

So we’ll see how the exhibition goes, I doubt I’ll be selling or winning anything soon but the main purpose of this is to get out there and start forcing my hand to learn from and meet some people in the industry.

Key things to remember so far;

• Don’t ask your friend to pose in a bath, it’s awkward
• Taking a self portrait without a remote shutter is also awkward
• Don’t sign up for things whilst under the influence

The exhibit starts on 19th May and ends on 21st May 2016 so I’ll be back with an update on this one soon after.  More details about the exhibit can be found at http://www.londonphotofestival.org/.

Thanks for reading.

I’ve been trying to figure out what to post first; it’s never easy when you have to contend with so many other blogs and profiles that will inevitably be a lot more interesting than mine.

So I ask myself, “what’s the aim?”…  As the ‘about me’ section states, this is a bit of a creative space for myself; now you could say “well why do you need to create a wordpress broadcasting all of your boring crap?”, and I’ll say it’s probably because I actually think I might want to be a portrait photographer (don’t worry, this internal/fictitious public dialogue will stop now).

I was walking through Berlin and noticed a small photography business in the corner of a department store; nothing out of the ordinary, just the standard setup with clean walls and lighting, a table of props and an iMac.  As I stood there watching, I couldn’t help but notice how many people were waiting, and more importantly how happy and confident they looked.  It’s amazing how such a simple idea creates so much attraction.

Ever since I got back from that trip, I couldn’t stop banging on about having an idea or doing something in my spare time.  This is where my mum steps in (yep, that’s her in the picture above), being the creative/arty type that she is, she’s a constant reminder of why I feel like I’m a jack of all trades.  I seem to have inherited a creative nature from my mum, but have gone down a road that is fairly technical; more often than not it’s an awful place to be, constantly being told even by friends and loved ones that “you can’t do this” or “you can’t do that” because you haven’t studied that ‘thing’ or you haven’t got experience in this ‘thing’.  However I like to think my mum (and you too dad because I know you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned you yet) is a symbol of why you shouldn’t listen too much to those types of comments (I won’t go into their experiences because this blog isn’t about them…), and because of that I’ve finally got off the pot and started doing something about it.

I also need to credit my mate a little bit too for constantly reminding me that we need to have a passion, or at least pursue our passions more seriously outside of work (yes, I know Harris, we seriously need to start discussing what the joint project is going to be..).

So my thinking is that through showcasing some ideas through this, I’ll get the ball rolling into what will hopefully result in a mobile studio that visits all sorts of events, using you guys to create some interesting portraits.