A Project Based Approach to Photography – Guest Speaker David Keep

A Project Based Approach to Photography – producing images with the Wow factor – Guest Speaker David Keep

Week 16  28 Attendees

 

Our guest speaker last night David Keep described himself as an image maker. He is an Amateur photographer who belongs to a photographic club called Rolls Royce Club near Derby.

He said “I try to create images that incite emotion and tell a story. 

David went on to say, “my view on photography is that it is an art form not a record keeping activity.”

He explained that as his background was engineering, he liked to produce a workflow system that he could use to produce his images. This put simply was Visualise (the final image), Plan, Shoot, Process.  David went on to explain the intricacies of each element.

 

David sets himself work based projects which he explored with us during the evening. He said he likes to have two projects going at a time. He is extremely interested in entering and winning competitions, so chooses subjects that excite him but were less common in club Photography. 

He enjoys Underwater Photography, Sport and has a passion for Dance and Music. 

 

David’s objective is to produce images with impact. As you can see by the photographs supporting this blog, he has succeeded in this. He studies other photographers in the genre he has chosen and uses Pinterest to create mood boards to inspire his models and himself with poses. As he explained many of his pictures are of sportsmen, local boxers, swimmers’ groups not people who are used to modelling and this helps if they can mirror a pose and see clearly how to do this.

 

David made himself a website and then having identified his projects he began to contact local clubs, introducing himself and his objectives. Two of his projects involved boxers, and the second project dancers. One of his most important tips was to put your ten extremely good photographs onto that website not twenty good ones.

 

David spent time explaining how he contacted clubs took time getting to know people, offered them portraits of themselves as well as pictures for the club websites. He explained this must be a win-win situation for the clubs, people involved and himself. His networking and easy personality as well as the quality of his photographs lead to more and more opportunities for photographs.

 

He is very methodical in his work approach as well as having a strong determination to succeed. He can take he told us up to eight thousand pictures in one shoot. 

David explained that it took him five attempts to be able to be accepted by the British Athletics Association to photograph at top athletics events. 

 

David’s presentation was inspiring not only for his hints and tips in producing a’ Wow’ factor image, but his meticulous way of working, his drive and energy to fulfil his visualisations, his patience in clearly explaining his post processing methods, but also his genuinely nice way of presenting. This is a talk well worth booking.

His presentation was supported by his wonderful images and some videos showing his methods. 

 

• Next week:

• COMPETITION: Club Challenge #5

Theme: SIMPLE + OPEN
all entries PDI