Guest speaker Paul Hartnett

PAUL HARTNETT PHOTOGRAPHER
‘RAW STYLE, REAL STYLE’

Guest speaker AT NEW COLLEGE, Swindon
Paul Hartnett is a photographer of Street culture and the club culture scene, his work can be viewed at http://www.paulhartnett.com

He describes himself as a ‘Cool Hunter’ a ‘Social History researcher photographer’. Paul Hartnett started his photographic career in 1976 taking pictures of the punk scene, although his fascination with the camera started at a very early age.

His style is a’ Disco Mix of Visuals’. Looking for the unusual within people, if you see something that at first you find shocking, you should not move away from it, you should move closer and take a closer look.

Paul Hartnett visiting Foundation Degree students at New College

Pauls motto is ‘Less is more’ strip down you image then strip it down again until you reach the bare minimal. Choose only one accessory be it a single earring, a tie laces on shoes. Too much information is distracting.

He also gave useful tips on how to take a street photograph.
Most street photographers take straight on shots. Paul suggested taking a full length, then the middle section then the head and also focuses on the back where at times a lot of information about a person is hidden. The back is often forgotten. And to take your shots at different angles, from up high or very close in, if you want to focus on footwear.

Paul does not believe in ‘tarting up image’ with Photoshop, it should be seen as it was taken, which is something I strongly agree with. He said a cheap £1.00 camera bought in a car boot sale and using out of date film is just as worthwhile as any expensive camera.
Thinking out of the box and using your creative side sets you apart from others, again something I would strongly agree with.

During his talk he gave a fascinating insight into his childhood, information about London Fashion week and how ruthless fellow photographers can be regarding model release forms.
And how to ‘blag’ and ‘wing it’ as much as you can to get to where you want to be. But always do it with respect and politeness, act in a professional manner.

He also gave helpful ideas on how to sell your work. Don’t publish on the internet unless you want to sell. And suggested selling on Ebay but consider the title as this will draw the attention to your work first.
He also suggested sending the work to magazine and newspaper picture editors in the post rather than by email.

Picture Editors get a lot of work through email and tend to ignore them but by sending an envelope they are taken by surprise.
Apparently Wednesday is the best day to have your work looked at; 1 in 10 may get to hear back from them.
There are 14 000 photography graduates leaving Universities each year, and want to make it as a professional photographer, this makes it incredibly hard to get noticed, so try and come up with new and unusual ways which may get you noticed.
You have to be resourceful both within your work and how to get work.
Find your own voice and keep listening to it. Also something I would strongly agree with.

I found the talk with Paul incredibly worthwhile, he gave a lot of useful insights and gave some worthwhile tips for our future careers
I found him to be funny and full of character. I enjoyed listening to tales of his personal life, and a joy to listen to someone with a ‘human factor’ rather than just a professional businessman.
I found the talk touching at times and could relate to some of the things, I guess we all could

Thank you to Paul for his lecture and for taking the time to look at our work and to give advice and suggestions.

By Niki Cannon 28.02. 2012

“The three things I am taking from the day with Paul Hartnett are the importance of choosing the right sitters (people that viewers want to look at and who carry the idea forward in a more intense way), paring an idea right down to its essentials and building an audience for one’s prints.”
Barbara Dixon

“Insight into a practical and competitive market as well as the brutal truths affiliated with it, knowing your audience and how to approach them and to have a niche demographic and a personal motif ready.

I think the main thing I took away is that bending the rules is sometimes the best way forward, in a world of ever changing consumer needs.”

Lee Heaven

“I found the talk very interesting, it was really great to get an insight into such a character’s life and his ways of seeing his subjects. The three things I have taken away from his talk are not to photograph the “expected”, push yourself to achieve the best of your ability and that selling your prints is the way to go!”

Dom Hunter

“Strip it down, strip it down and strip it down again” was a quote that Paul kept repeating through out the talk. I feel this is an interesting sentence, and will bare it in mind when producing further work. I learnt that the simple photographs challenge the viewer a lot more than busy ones”.

Suzie Mercer

“For God sake, F*CK IT UP” Is perhaps the one thing I took most from Paul. He repeated it so many times that I feel thats what I want to try out in my own work. Forget about typical conventions and the normal things done in photography, thats been done before. Why not screw around with angles, lighting and compositions – mess it all up and create something new and exciting.

Gemma Bird

I found the talk really interesting and inspiring as Paul had his own style, his own interests and I don’t think it bothered him about what others thought of it, as long as he thought it was working. He wasn’t all into the different professional camera kit and stuff but was all into the experienting with not so great equipment which I thought was very interesting. I really liked his work and how he presented it

Vicky Scipio

Was a good talk, and learnt a lot from it.

Jordy Day

The definition of a perfect moment

And that is literally the best way I can think of describing Nick Turpin’s work…

All you need to do is look at his street photography and you wont be able to not agree with me. I must say, I was blown away by the perfect composition of his images and the humorous nature of how they appear. It is almost hard to say that these are candid street photos, they just look too well done to have not been set up.
Too keep from waffling on, I’ll let his work do the talking.

Those photographers out there who focus on the streets should take a little read of Turpin’s mini article on Undefining Street Photography. I found it interesting, hopefully you all will too!

Street Scene, New York City, 2011.

Street Scene, London.

Street Scene, London.

Posted by Gema @ gemakatherine.wordpress.com

Norman Parkinson

People are talking about…

An Eye For Fashion

Norman Parkinson Photographs
British Designers 1954-1964

21 January – 15 April 2012
Bristol M Shed.

Norman Parkinson is most definitely a photographer to be celebrated. The photographs at this exhibition are taken from the Angela Williams Archive ‘Designers of British Fashion’ portfolio. Angela Williams who is giving a talk at the M Shed on March 17th, was also the assistant of Parkinson in the 1960’s. So that will be something not to be missed!

What struck me most (and perhaps everyone else) about all the photographs is just how seemingly effortlessly glamorous they are. Of course when you see these photos were highly featured in Vogue magazine, you just knew there would be an extreme touch of glamour in the portraits to begin with! They all have a striking natural beauty within impressively but subtly staged settings.

Here are a few of Parkinson’s photographs:

Posted by Gema @ gemakatherine.wordpress.com

Augustus John: A Life in Portraits Exhibition

If anybody is up for going to a Portraiture Exibition up until the 18th March 2012, this will be a very interesting one to visist!

Check out the website for more details by clicking here.