Photography Article

Throughout our day to day business we often meet people who we believe have a talent for photography. Not all would proclaim to being professional photographers but we believe that they have something worth sharing.

Each month we aim to bring you a new photographer, who will showcase some of their work and hopefully pass on some information, on how to set about doing what they do best.

This month we are featuring the work of Caroline Hinch...Fashion Photographer who employs traditional methods with an exploited twist. Her work sometimes dark, full of tension. Certainly both interesting and striking.

Caroline has always had passion for photographing people, capturing those intimate moments between others showing Movement & Style. Growing up Fashion was a big influence in her earlier work as well as a love of natural light and rugged backdrops. Her Inspiration may not at first (or at all) be evident. It goes much deeper than the surface, exploring emotions & Feelings she experienced through her early adult life, this creating a level of intensity in her Images.

The style and stillness of Fashion Photographer Deborah Turbeville has had a huge impact in Caroline’s Fashion work. The apprehension in her models and the ‘not knowing’ expressions on their faces is beautiful, yet eerie. Her Self Portraiture was heavily influenced by Photographer Cindy Sherman. The “what if’s” and “who you could be” ..... The idea was to make the Photographs visually engaging, yet powerful and provocative.

With Caroline’s earlier work she experimented a lot with film photography, trying out various techniques to enhance visually the emotion she wanted to achieve in her images.

“I love the unpredictable results you can sometimes get from using film, but also watching it develop and manipulating the film process is very exciting!”

Her equipment is very minimal, using natural light, no flash, just camera, film, tripod and sometimes a Cable Release. A slow shutter or the B setting, helps create the movement to give the photo energy and as much light as you wish.

She uses fast film speeds, up to 1600iso to create a grainy effect or uses a 400/800iso and “pushes” her film to 1600iso during the development process. Other techniques she often uses to get interesting results are to Cross Process her films. ie, use a C41 chemical on a E6 chemical process and vice versa. This makes your colours unpredictable but often very striking! Caroline has experimented with different media types, trying to find ways of making her work more enigmatic. Filming her models using a Camcorder then shooting the footage from the TV screen gave her Images a different type of energy, light and quality to them.

“Photographing people can be tricky, but if you are willing to experiment with different techniques you can get some interesting results. I like my Photographs to have an edge of mystery to them....They need to be dramatic and reflect the people in them. I try and steer away from your typical Fashion Photography and try and create something with depth and meaning....Something a bit dark, something elusive, something that keeps the viewer interested and always wondering.....”

Now Caroline’s work is mainly focused around others and the closeness of Families and friends. She has her own business doing Shoots with lovely Families, in stunning Locations in and around Derbyshire as well as doing Weddings and Portrait Photography.

Thank You to Dents Photo in Chesterfield where I spent a lot of time in my College & University years getting advice and buying the best Photographic Papers and equipment I could to help make my Images the best I could. You can too....Please visit their website at www.dentsphoto.co.uk