I found a consistency throughout his "life" section of photographs (where I found these below) in the main construction of his work where his subject tends to be on the far side of the image. This is called the "Rule of Thirds" technique which is believed to create a more balanced and therefore more visually pleasing photograph. I like his work however, I'm not sure if there is much meaning behind each of the photographs and I feel that a few of the are lacking in warmth and some emotion. I feel this way because I don't know the message behind the images.
My images were successful the first time I shot them because I did a lot of planning and preparation for each image. I really think this pays off and has been approach to a few of my shoots before but I think the more spontaneous a shoot is, the more unknown images you will get and that can be exciting if you don't mind having the element of surprise in your end result. However, this was not the case with this shoot.
I then emulated these photographs and added my own touch to them:
I do not own a pair of sunglasses so I could not fully copy the image, but I did experiment with reflection and the Rule of Thirds technique as he does to fabricate some symmetry between our images.
When I first saw his second photo, it reminded my of one I had taken back in 2013 for my design class pollution campaign. I tried to add a hint of that image in this emulated one and add that as a sort of token to my sense of artistry whilst emulating Sandersons' image.
You can find his website here.Contextualisation:
In Dave's latest email to me, I asked him to describe what his photographic interests were and his photography background. He replied with the following:
"I started photography in 1998, based on nothing more than my own photos from an old compact 35mm film camera being soft compared to my friend’s photos from SLRs. I basically wanted better holiday snaps. So I bought an SLR and the rest has grown from there.
Like all young guys, I got fully nerdy about it pretty quickly and taught myself a lot of the technical knowledge over a few years before starting what turned out to be 6yrs of night-school classes at what would be known here as a Polytech (called a college in the UK.) I was amongst the last years to be fully trained on film, so I spent a significant time in the darkrooms and worked on 35mm, 120, Polaroid and 5x4” film. During the last two years of those classes I also overlapped it with studying for my second degree in digital media (my first one was engineering) where I learned graphic design, animation, film editing and took my photography heavily digital.
It’s the combination of a wide photographic background (the film photography has been very valuable, if you get chance, shoot some, it’s good for you!) and engineering background that got me into designing how to run imaging and digitisation projects. The digital has helped too obviously and I’ve just grown it as much as I can.
Take every opportunity you get, work hard and remember you don’t always get to shoot exactly what you want when it comes to earning $’s. Sometimes applying your skills to work is a way to keep the bills paid, and then save the inner artist in you for your own personal work. Above all, keep shooting and retain a strong sense of what attracted you to taking photographs in the first place – that initial passion will be the core of what you grow and becomes your photographic style and identity."
Not only has Dave given me some great advice but I can really appreciate his "keeping work and personal life separated in terms of artistry" I think that is a smart idea in terms of keeping things clear in your own head.
Dave Sanderson now works at Auckland Museum specialising in Photography. Dave's official title is Project Manager, Collection Imaging.
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