Master of photography episodes 4 – 6

Last month I reviewed the first three episodes of master of photography.  As I am still really enjoying the series, I thought I would share my thoughts on the next three. This time for my own amusement I am illustrating it with my own interpretation of the themes taken from my archive. It has been fascinating looking back over my old images and seeing where my photography journey began!

Episode four was all about telling an erotic story in three photographs. This is a tricky subject to get right but I think the contestants did really well. I loved the abstract look that Gillian Allard produced and thought this was an interesting take on the theme. The other favourite from the judges was from Souvid Datta. It was good and I did appreciate the amount of thought he put into the storytelling, I’m just not sure it really said “erotica”.  Yes he told an interesting back story on the history of erotica but were the images themselves erotic? I guess that is why art is subjective, and probably erotic art more than most.

 “levitation” was captured for a competition in 2015. I had recently upgraded to the Canon EOS 70d and was having a bit of fun with it!

In episode five the contestants were introduced to a Paralympian and ask to capture the essence of who they are and what their sport is about.  The judges said at the end of episode four that it was going to get tougher and they weren’t wrong. Their expectations have certainly got higher but I guess that is how people learn and improve. I couldn’t have picked an overall winner this week as each of them produced at least one image that I liked. This is also why I guess the competition has got tougher, as it is always much harder to produce a photo story rather than an individual piece.

British Paralympian Hannah Cockcroft during qualifications at the London 2012 games. Captured on my Fuji Finepix S3400 bridge camera.

Episode six got the contestants taking a closer look at Street Fashion during London fashion week. Again they had to create a photo story, this time capturing the mood on the streets of London. There is always some debate about how much setting up of an image is acceptable and the contestants certainly had different approaches to this. My view has always been to capture the scene in front of me, but it has to be said that the superior images this week were captured by those who “set up” the scenes. Gillian Allard again impressed the judges, and although I was not as clear about her “story” as the judges were, I did like what she produced. I also feel she is finally showing more of her true personality. Previously she came across as very confident and self assured and it was lovely to hear she doubts herself too!!

In 2015 I won a competition where the prize was a place in the photographers pit at London Fashion Weekend. This couple decided to leave the show early and ended up walking the catwalk!

With only two episodes left of this series the competition is definitely getting harder to judge and the standard of photography continues to impress me. I look forward to finding out who will be judged “master of photography” in two weeks.

Sara Sadler

Photographer

I am a fine art photographer based in the South of England. I enjoy sharing my photographic adventures, hints and tips.

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