Chapman and Miles

The available light portrait workshop was a bit disappointing compared to the big print one, but it was going to have to be stupidly good to beat it. We were just sent out with digital SLR's, reflectors and light meters and told to experiment. Then we came back and showed him what we'd done. It was a chance to practise what I'm not so confident on, but I don't feel I learnt too much. It was worth it just for the teacher though. Andrew Chapman, what a legend! He's a photographer who specialises in portraiture, who's come in to teach a few lessons, and he really is the loveliest guy. Here's some of his work:


He was telling us how it's extremely difficult to get a photo like this right, because they have to have every single bit of their body in the right position. They use them in their portfolios and if their foot is at slightly the wrong angle, they could lose jobs over it.


He also showed me this one. I think the way he's played with highlights and shadows is really effective.


Finally, this one fits in with the style I tend to love. Dark, eery and atmospheric. Good job I looked him up, he never showed me it!

A photographer called Tom Miles also came in to give a lecture. Again, most of his photography isn't really my cup of tea, but he gave some really good advice. The one thing that stuck in my mind was not to worry about what grade you get at University, because the most important thing is to experiment while you still can. If something goes wrong, the worst that can happen is you get a bad grade. If you experiment as a professional and it goes wrong, you stand to lose a lot of money, a job and possibly a client completely. To follow this, he then went on to say that people have asked him if he has a degree, purely out of curiosity, but have never once asked what mark he got! I was quite relieved when I heard this, as I was a bit disappointed after my last project went wrong because I'd been a bit too ambitious and tried to do uneccesary things.

Most of his work is sport photography, particuarly golf. Although, he takes all sorts, like the cover for the Gossip Girl books and posters, with the leg shots in high heels (for some reason I can't find any examples and I'm too tired to carry on looking). These are a couple of others he's taken...