As a photographer the two questions I get asked most frequently are what gear do you use and what inspires your work; as my answer to the latter question is a bit different compared to what I hear from other photographers I thought I’d write a blog and cover it here.
I barely look at other photographers. It may be odd to hear a photographer say that but apart from a few very select examples such as the incredible Nicholas Fols the only other photographers I follow are people I know personally or are in my network. The vast majority of my inspiration comes from two places; the model her/himself (I may write another blog post about this later) and film / music / non photographic art.
In terms of shoot planning and creating moodboards I’m nearly entirely tonal, when I send a moodboard to a model before our shoot the moodboard exists to give a model an idea of the type of tone I want to create on the shoot, the feel, the vibe, the energy as opposed to anything that’s prescriptive such as outfits, locations or poses etc. I use a combination of the moodboard and pre-shoot communication to let the model get as good a grasp as possible of this so we both know what we’re looking for once the shoot starts.
Here are examples of two very different shoot types to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Refn
Nicolas Winding Refn is one of my favourite film directors because his tone is so striking both visually and in the way that he compliments those visuals with interesting plots, music and sparse dialog. I find myself drawn to his work often when creating shoots.
Let’s take a look at some of his visuals.
Neon & noir.
Whilst watching these movies I was also listening to a lot of Bohren & Der Club De Gore who are a German jazz-noir band. These films / that music combined inspired a wave of photography I shot predominately in 2016- 2018 that heavily focused in on these elements.
Here’s a selection.
2. Renaissance
The second set I’m going to share is more up to date and is focused around my current little experiment with editing photos in a way that combines them with works of classical art. (I know all of these aren’t renaissance pieces, I just liked the alliteration, don’t @ me.)
The idea for this came when I did a shoot with Courtney Baldwin in a couple of different art galleries in Birmingham. Once I got home I had the idea to combine with photos taken next to works of art with actual works of art and it all went from there.
Here are a few example of pieces that inspired me.
And here are a few examples of some of my recent edits that incorporate classical art within them.
As opposed to the first example where the film / music influenced my photography style this second example shows how an influence can affect my editing style. Most of these photos were not initially taken to be used for this purpose but once I decided I wanted to incorporate these elements into some pieces I went back through the archive and pulled out shots that I thought would suit the idea.
Hopefully this gives you some insight into how I think about photography / producing work.
The photography world is an echo chamber and although it’s good to check out other peoples work I’d advise being cautious about only consuming that sort of content or you run the risk of only shooting models stood next to neon window signs or 90’s inspired California grainy film photography for the next few years.
Bartley - www.instagram.com/bartley.photo