Topic 5 - Interdisciplinary Practice - Reflection

-       Other than photography, what art forms and creative media do you take inspiration from?

-       How have you directly draw from non-photographic disciplines to develop your practice?

I take inspiration from a range of different sources. When it comes to portraiture, I find painting and sculpture good sources for ideas. Painting mainly for how identity can be communicated and how people of different backgrounds were represented. With sculpture, the way that pose and power is communicated interest me. It makes me think about how these elements could be used in photography to represent a person or group of people.

I also find text more useful than I did previously, I believe that words can help guide an audience and can help set them up for the work they are looking at. I have tried to use text with images in the past to guide the audience but it has not always been successful.

-       How would you describe the distinctive, essential qualities of photography? Are any of these characteristics the reason for you choosing it as your means of expression?

Photography is the visual communicator. When I first started taking photographs I was fascinated by the machine and the idea of digital images. As I have matured I am more interested in the way a photograph can communicate different things to different people, which I appreciate is not unique to photography, but the forced perspective, rules for images and then the breaking of those rules makes me want to continue using photography to explore and learn.