I first knew that I wanted to photography when I was about 10 – my Dad was really into taking photos to document memories and adventures, and we went on a trip to Geirangerfjord + Alesund in Norway and, because of my Dad, had to take a million pictures. When we got there, I had to take a picture of my sister and her friend standing on the viewpoint in front of the Island of Alesund and I remember that in the photo, the sun behind them made a circular glare in the camera, framing them in what I thought looked like an angel halo, and I was so proud of myself and the picture I had taken. That’s when I decided I wanted to do photography, for GCSE level at least, and it has carried through to me now wanting to do it at University.

Living on the south coast has probably influenced my photography through my frequent exploration of landscape photography and still life. Being able to live ten minutes away from the beach, as well as being in a village, with lots of landscape, has shown that my strengths have developed in photography of objects and places rather than people. Especially abstract, as I like to experiment with angles.

However, saying that, my favourite type of photography is portrait. For me, conceptual photography is so much more effective through the use of people, because it can resonate with the audience, whereas abstraction and still life doesn’t quite tell a story as easily. However, being an introvert, my portrait photography is weaker because I’m naturally quite a shy person, so am not able to communicate with a model very well. Although I have ideas of how I want the image to turn out, it doesn’t quite come out the way I planned. It’s a skill I need to practice, as portraiture is an element of the career I want to go into; gig/concert photography and/or fashion photography.

Some of my biggest inspirations, or favourite photographers include; Adam Elmakias – a concert photographer for the likes of Warped Tour and the bands that are frequent on the lineup, Julie De Waroquier – a conceptual/surrealism photographer, Danny Suede – a semi amateur travel photographer (he experiments with light and exposure a lot, which I like, and also photographs his brothers band on tour). However, I also like to gain inspiration through the photographers I follow on Instagram, as I like to browse photography pages a lot.