Damon Baker is a well known photographer who specialises in portrait photography. He works a lot with high profile celebrity’s. Baker is one of my favourite photographers, I had chosen to research him for this image making portraits because I lot the way he pulls emotions and new appearances out of his models.  During this unit I am going to include some portrait work so I thought it necessary to research at least one or two portrait photographers. Damon Baker works with celebrities and models like no other photographer I know of. He photographs them as if he is photographing their alter-ego, bringing out the darker and the inner depths of the sitters personalities.

As a photograph this is something I aspire to do. When looking at other photographers work I often see a lot of the same thing, however with Damon’s work we still see the model/celebrity that we all know however we as an audience are seeing them in a whole new way. Baker dropped out of school at the age of 17 and moved to New York to peruse a career in photographer. At the age of 18 he was spotted by Jet Root and made his debut as a professional photographer in 2008. He has since photographed numerous amounts of very well known celebrities and models.

Baker uses numerous techniques to get the photographs he wants, Baker said in an interview for TCD films that he often likes to spend an hour just talking with the model before he even begins the shoot, just get a feel for their personality and their background. Baker says that his ‘trick’ for getting the photographs he wants is to talk to the model, let them believe that they are best friends in order for the sitter and himself to feel completely comfortable with one another. I think this is a great technique to use in portrait photography as the sitter is more likely to feel more comfortable having their photograph taken if they feel a connection with the photographer. This is defiantly something I will try in the future in my own photographs.

Damon Baker is known for his use of black and white photographs, in an interview he stated that he thinks that black and white photography just has this time less look to it. This is something I can defiantly relate to as most of my photographs especially my portraits are mostly in black and white, I personally use black and white for my own photographs because I think it takes away distractions so the audience are just focused on the persons expression and facial features. For this image making unit I am going to take the work of Damon Baker as part of my inspiration for the portraits I am going to feature in my photo book ‘people and places’ I feel that I can learn a lot from Baker and will continue to look at and follow his work.

Tony Ray-Jones was a British documentary photographer who died in his early 30’s. In the short time Jones had he became a huge influence in documentary photography. Even though Jones career only lasted a decade his use of: irony, compassion, nostalgia and humor continue to inspire photographers such as Martin parr and many other documentary photographers. His aim as a photographer was to photograph everyday moments and highlight their sense of irony and British humour.  Ray-Jones was not recognised for his work until 2004 when his book ‘England By The Sea’ was published after Ray-Jones’s death. Ray-Jones focused his attention to busy areas such as beaches and towns, these were the best places for Ray-Jones to create his pictures because there was plenty of opportunity to capture out of the ordinary moments within everyday life.

I chose to Research Tony Ray-Jones work because this is the kind of work I personally aspire to make for this documentary image making unit. Ray-Jones’s work is relevant to my own project because i am also photographing everyday situations and trying to find something different or humorous about them. Ray-Jones shot his work on film, I like this choice because it gives his photographs a really nice contrast and a hint of grain to the images, This is the effect  want on my images, from researching Tony Ray-Jones I am going to shoot some 35mm around London to see what images I can get.

Robert Frank is a very famous Swiss photographer and film maker who’s career in photography started in the 1940’s. Frank is most well known for his book ‘The Americans’ published in 1958. The book features a sequence of images taken throughout America showing the irony of everyday American life. Frank’s book ‘The Americans’ was so revolutionary because it changed the documentary photography’s previous traditions. Robert Frank changed the game in documentary photography by not letting his feelings and emotions affect the work he was photographing, un like previous photographers. Robert Frank is an inspiration for me in my image making project because his documentary photography work is looked up to by most photographers.

Frank photographed his subjects in a way in which had never been done before, always adding a metaphor within his photographs. I can take inspiration from Robert Frank by really looking at my surroundings and relating the location around me to the subject I am photographing. During this project I am going to use Robert Franks work as inspiration by using the irony of everyday life and using that to my advantage when I take photographs.