Symposium - Guy Martin and John Spinks

10th February 2016

Websites:

Guy Martin http://guy-martin.co.uk

John Spinks http://east.co/artists/johnspinks/

Before the symposium I carried out some basic research on each of the photographers, mainly visual, looking at their photographic practice and the areas in which they work within the industry. Guy Martin is working on his personal documentary projects in Turkey, looking at the Turkish soap opera culture and how that has effected traditional Muslim culture. John Spinks is best known for his fashion and portrait photography for clients such as Vogue. Spinks also had some personal projects such as Factories which also incorporated still lifes. Notes from these two artist’s talks to follow:

Guy Martin

After a quick glance at Martin’s website I assumed the majority of his works were personal projects, self funded and made for his personal collection. Now I see this to be a very naive way of viewing a photographer’s work. A lot of his work is sold as photojournalism pieces for magazines all around the world. Although photojournalism has never really been an interest of mine, it was great to see his process. The presentation he showed us whilst he spoke laid out his methods of finalising image choice and how he finds links between completely different styled images. It allowed me to relax a bit as Martin emphasised the long duration of this process and that as an artist you do not need to know for definite where a project is heading or what the images are conveying while you’re taking them. Although I am leaning away from actually becoming a photographic practitioner, it is helpful to know that if I did decide on going down that route, the way I work best does not detriment my ability to be sucessful.

Martin also spoke about different means of accruing money to fund personal projects. He first mentioned that the St. Brieuc Bay Photo Reporter Festival paid a grant to fifteen or so photographers to exhibit the work created off the back of that money. This is how he was able to start his on going series ‘City of Dreams’. Another was the Magnum Emergency Fund, set up to support independent photojournalists. Although none of these grants are directly linked to my interests, it was useful to find out that there are grants set up for new artists wanting to pursue personal projects.

The next part of Martin’s talk was about getting your work out to audiences effectively. He really pushed the idea of using social media as, in his opinion, publishing photographic work has moved on from books. Martin’s top tips, if you were to find your audience on social media, included always publishing images around midday for maxiumum viewings and utilising Instagram as a tool for testing images and finding your own style. He mentioned the photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind, whose work labelled Through the Viewfinder features on her Instagram page, showing the process of the actual image taking. This individual style is what has gotten her work noticed. See web link for her work.

http://blog.instagram.com/post/82228805704/anastasiatl

John Spinks

John Spinks’ career path in photography is one I was already familiar with. Starting with assisting a photographer to gain finance and experience wihtin the commercial world, which is then used to further individual practice. Something I did learn, however, is that even the top British fashion magazines such as Vogue only pay £150 per page, barely covering the costs of the shoots. I always assumed the big money in photography was within commercial fashion, however according to Spinks this is not the case. He informed us that the most efficient way to earn is taking jobs that will reuse your photographs, meaning that you get paid more than once for the same images every time the employer wants to republish your work.

Spinks’ main advice for getting into the industry was to assist either a photographer or a studio to gain well needed experience and familiarity with working in that kind of environment. He really praised Shoreditch Studios as they allow you to gain contacts and experience on shoots in a relaxed friendly environment. See web link.

http://www.shoreditchstudios.com

This information has almost solidified my feelings about not wanting to go into this industry of photography. I don’t feel I have the right temperament to be a professional fashion photographer, or even that of an assistant. The unsteady pay is a big issue for me, I need to know I have a steady income each month that will cover all my costs. The idea of one month being completely comfortable and the next not having any jobs and as a result no money is terrifying. I want to work within the photographic industry without being the photographer.

Notes from the Talks