Saturday 21 November 2009

Inspiration and Influence

The end of another week and it's been a frustrating one. I put in an order for my iPhone which you would have thought would be a simple process these days. Nope. It's ended with me having to wait a potential ten days for the money to be refunded. Ten workings days!!!! I am NOT a happy camper. Still, never mind eh!

I've been reading a rather fascinating series of posts which ask the reader to think about where they got their early influences from and how they developed. The answers can be very revealing. The photoblog author, Gordon McGregor, gets a lot of his early influences from paintings, a common area of influence for many photographers including greats like Henri Cartier-Bresson. Painting has never really influenced my work that much though. Photography and the cinema are where the vast majority of my visual influences stem from. My landscape work is influenced heavily by the stylish 1940's black and white films, a good example of which would be David Lean's classic Oliver Twist made in 1948.

This great series of posts really does make you think about your influences and inspirations. Is it paintings or something else that inspire and influence your photography?

The blog posts can be found here 1, 2, 3, 4

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