Statement Of Intent

Whilst at University, I have spent the last two years working with digital photography. It has been a passion of mine since before college.
During the first year I spent most of my time experimenting with ideas. As I began the second year, I worked on developing my ideas and seeing how far I could take a subject. This produced some interesting work, but I found that if I worked on an idea too long I became unmotivated and distracted, and my projects often didn’t come to a pleasing conclusion. This helped me realise I needed to focus on generating ideas. As I progressed through the second year I gave myself short deadlines to keep to, keeping myself motivated and generating images.
During the summer period, I began thinking how I wanted to progress. I found this difficult, as there isn’t one subject in photography that stands out to me. I enjoy most types of photography; just working with my camera gives me motivation to find something to shoot. I began writing all my ideas for shoots down in a notepad, planning to experiment with how to work the ideas to the best of my ability. I wanted to start the third year with as many ideas I could come up with so I am always motivated to develop work, even if it doesn’t transition from my previous work.
As I begin the third year I plan to use my time to further develop my photography skills, experiment with new techniques and build my portfolio. I want to use my time to develop lots of imagery of different types, such as landscape, portrait and still life, researching photographers such as Ansel Adams, David Bailey, Art Wolfe, and David LaChapelle. I’ve never really experimented with shooting portraits before, but after researching LaChapelle I’m inspired to create some interesting portraits.
I plan to use the University photo studio at some point, though I have a recently bought a home studio flash kit I can use to shoot at home and outside my house. This freedom of not needing to wait for my time slot in the University studio means when I have an idea and motivation, I can create work, even just rough images, to portray what I want to create.
Last year, I didn’t see my tutor much as he was only in the studio a couple of days a week, so I found it hard to meet with him, and when I did, it always seemed like he was pushing me in a different direction to where I wanted to go. This often discouraged me and sometimes made it difficult for me to progress. This year I would like a tutorial with my tutor every couple of weeks to help me with ideas and assess my recent work, but to listen to what I want to work on and help me develop the ideas I have, rather than push me in a different direction.

After graduating, I hope to get a job working with photography or in a similar field. I have contacted a professional freelance photographer, Ian Beesley, and will be spending some time with him in the next couple of months to gain experience, see how a professional works and get some ideas of what is involved in working in that field.