Workshop Wednesdays vol. XXIII

A great way to get motivated is to look back… Initially, we began this blog to inspire, entertain and educate… I have found that researching and delving into the world of photography has inspired my own work and reignited my obsession with this incredible art form. Can you imagine a world without photography? How lucky we all are to live in such an incredible age where we almost take for granted the fact that our memories and moments can be captured and treasured forever. Just remarkable! Get ready to fall in love with photography all over again…

Tip 1

Take some time to research iconic photographers and write a list of your three favourites. What is it about their style that excites and inspires you? Delve into their body of work!

Random Fact

In The News

Photo For Thought

“SARAH LEEN HAS a job most people in the world would envy. She looks at photographs for a living. And not just any photographs — National Geographic photographs. As our Director of Photography, Leen estimates she has looked at as many images “as there are stars in the sky,” so it’s hard to narrow down her favorites. But she does that every year — here are her favorite 100 of the over two million submitted to us this year, in no particular order.”

Above photo credit:

“These Maasai drive cattle and sheep from their village into Masai Mara reserve, reducing forage for wildlife hunted by lions and hyenas. The predators kill livestock, and herders retaliate by poisoning carcasses.”

From “Why Poison Is a Growing Threat to Africa’s Wildlife,” August 2018
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLIE HAMILTON JAMES

SOURCE

Iconic Photographers

Dorothea Lange

“Anyone who thinks art has no uses might consider the case of the great American photographer Dorothea Lange, who was driving through California in 1936 when she came upon a destitute pea-pickers camp. The crops had failed and the migrant workers were close to starvation. Lange fixed upon a woman of 32 who had trekked all the way from the Oklahoma dust bowl with 10 children and the photograph she took, of this mother staring into the empty future in all her beauty, strength and fear, became one of the most famous images in American culture.

But not before Lange had taken it straight to the San Francisco News, where its publication drew intense sympathy from the readers. Other papers followed and within days the federal government had rushed tons of aid to the camp. Through the free distribution of her picture – always her policy – Lange put food in the pea-pickers’ mouths.

Defiant, principled, tireless in her pursuit of the individual in every crowd, Lange (1895-1965) is a heroine of the lens. Her courage is evident from early childhood. She took her mother’s maiden name when her father deserted the family and studied photography long before she could even afford a camera. Of the polio that left her with a heavy limp, she wrote that “it formed me, guided me, instructed me”.

That instruction is everywhere apparent in the Barbican’s momentous survey of her work, the first in this country for many years. You see it in the tender photographs of powerful hands almost deformed by manual labour, of hard-worked feet still elegant in leaking shoes, of prematurely aged faces in which she finds a singular grace. There is a respectful empathy, and an exceptional closeness to her subjects, that distinguishes her from Depression-era contemporaries such as Minor White and Walker Evans. All her images are palpable collaborations with the subject. “I never steal a photograph,” she once said.

Please read on here…

‘A masterclass in modern photography’: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936). Photograph: GraphicaArtis/Getty Images

‘Her form of reportage is nothing less than portraiture’: Three Generations of Texans, now Drought Refugees (c1935). Photograph: Courtesy of Scott Nichols Gallery, San Francisco © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California

A family in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, are forced to leave their home during the Great Depression, June 1938. Photograph: Dorothea Lange/Getty Images

Tip 2

oin a blog or a podcast to keep your creativity alive… Here are a few that we’ve found that are perfect for anyone looking for inspiration:

 Project Rawcast
On Taking Pictures
Creative Live

Above photo credit:

At night gray reef sharks hunt as a pack in the south channel of Fakarava Atoll, in the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. Photographer Laurent Ballesta’s team, diving without cages or weapons, counted 700 sharks.

From “Frenzy,” May 2018

PHOTOGRAPH BY LAURENT BALLESTA

Tip 3

Compile your own body of work! Even if it’s your favourite 12 photographs from last year. Or maybe your photographs from a recent trip. Sort through the photos and choose ones that you would be proud to print on the wall. It’s always important to look back and review your work and acknowledge the images that are worthy. Look at printing a book, or starting an online gallery. 

Above Photo Credit:

Steeple Jason, one of the more remote islands in the Falkland Islands, hosts the world’s largest colony of black-browed albatrosses. Once used to graze hundreds of sheep and cattle, it’s now a nature reserve. About 70 percent of the black-browed albatross population nests in the Falklands.

From “The Falkland Islands Preserve Wildlife and Habitat After War,” February 2018

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN

Our Story of the Week

If anyone happened to drive past our shop in Norman Park, you may remember this image above of Matthew and Jack at the top of this blog. It is still one of my all time favourite images –  maybe the sparkle in Matthew’s eye… or Jack’s contentment, safe in the arms of his big brother. 

We’ve had the pleasure of welcoming the Potgeiter Family back into the studio a number of times over the years and I wish we still had a shop front to show off their images! (This blog will have to do…)… 

I can’t thank you enough, Kelly and Francois, for not only being amazing to photograph – but also for the countless referrals you have sent our way over the years… It has been remarkable to watch your family grow and I am so proud to know that many of the portraits are hanging on your walls.

Until next time!! XX

A sneak peek from our first wedding of the year: Anita and Javan… more to come very soon!

Thank you for getting this far! We hope it’s been a worthwhile read for you and we’ll look forward to checking in next week.

Please call or email anytime if we can help.

Best Wishes, 
The Hannah Photography Team:
Hannah, Olivia, Nic (and Charlie the Cat)