photographer spotlight - david dalton

Born in a small mining village near Rotherham, U.K., David Dalton joined the local camera club and began working in a darkroom at a young age.  Inspired by his mother, also a photographer, Dalton studied photography at the college in Rotherham and began working at a press agency as well as for local newspapers.  Some of his first work include photos he took of his Aunt’s rough collies as well as his first yellow labrador.  Dalton’s photos range from commercial art, media, public relations and animals.  Out of all of those, Dalton’s favourite subject matter is dogs. 

His serious dog photography began in 1978 when he attended a dog show and requested to take photos from fellow exhibitors.  After two years of photographing the different breeds at dog shows, Dalton took “dog photography” up as his full time job.  He has shot for “Our Dogs” in England and then for the next twenty years took photographs for “Dog World”.  

Whenever the opportunity arises, Dalton snaps pictures of his canine friends.  He prefers to take pictures of the dogs in natural surroundings, and thoroughly enjoys when the dogs are being true to their breed ancestry.  He has captured whippets racing across the terrain, german wirehair pointers ready for the hunt and newfoundland dogs waiting for their water retrieval.  Dalton makes sure to always take a patient and loving approach with each picture and because of his love for dogs and all animals, is able to capture the true beauty and soul behind each of his subjects. To see more of my favourite work by David Dalton, please click here.

all images in this blog entry are © David Dalton Photography

website: http://www1.clikpic.com/daviddalton/

extra source: International Photography

photographer spotlight - andrzej dragan

"And for all those who look for inspiration - this is my advice: do not take any advice. Just please yourself."

Andrzej Dragan was born in 1978.  He studied in Warsaw and received scholarships in Amsterdam, Oxford and Lisbon and went on to get his PhD in quantum physics in 2005.  His school career is extremely impressive, from contributing to scientific seminars, to receiving grants for his research, Dragan seems to have done it all and received amazing acknowledgement for all of his work.  Along with his schooling, Dragan has been the winner of many national and international music composing competitions.

In 2003, Dragan took an interest in photography as well as photoshop.  His work was an instant hit and began being published in magazines and books in twelve different countries.  In 2006, Dragan was published in Luerzer’s “200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide” and went on to receive awards and nominations for numerous other awards, including the Corbis Photography Awards and the Cannes Festival.  By 2007, Dragan was deemed the “Photographer of the Year” by the Digital Camera Magazine in the UK.  He has worked with many different companies, creating unique advertisements, including Converse, Energizer, Playstation and XBox.

Dragan’s work is extremely unique and easy to recognize.  As an artist, Dragan will not explain how he achieves his final products, stating "the tools do not matter when you are convinced to what you want to achieve. It is straightforward to have the same effect using many completely different ways and tools." He goes on to say that among the tools available in Photoshop, "there is one I really love and use very often. A magic tool behind all the greatest results. It is usually hidden under this shortcut: ctrl+z.”  To see more of my favourites from Dragan, please click here.

all images in this blog entry are © Andrzej Dragan.

website: http://www.andrzejdragan.com/

quotes from: Ronnie Rocket Projects

photographer spotlight - randall slavin

"All you want is people to have a bit of fun with you for a day. I mean many people can do what we do, but you have to have people skills to make the job work. It doesn’t matter how good your photos are, if they don‘t want to spend six hours with you, you won‘t get anywhere."

Randall Slavin was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California.  Growing up, Slavin was a typical Californian, spending most of his time surfing, skateboarding and attempting to pursue a career in acting.  Throughout the beginning of his young adult life, Slavin hitchhiked his way around the United States and ended up in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he started working in a carnival booth to make some extra money to get himself back home.  Once back in Los Angeles, Slavin started working at the family gas station.  Located across the street from his family gas station was a small photography studio.  Seeing all the beautiful woman walking in and out of the studio, Slavin decided that he would wander across the street and talk to the owners.  Before even asking if he was interested in taking photos, the owner of the store started taking headshots of Slavin.  The conversation progressed and the owner of the studio then asked Slavin if he was able to take a good picture.  It only took one shot and Slavin was hired on the spot.

Throughout his glamourous career, Slavin has photographed such celebrities as Sharon Stone, Dennis Hopper and Charlize Theron as well as musicians Alicia Keys, Leona Lewis and Rilo Kiley.  His beautiful work has appeared in  magazines such as Esquire, Rolling Stone, GQ, Black Tail and FLAUNT (and many others).  When asked about his favourite pieces, Slavin is quick to talk about his photoshoot with his good friend, actress Charlize Theron.  Although many pictures were shot that day, there is one in particular that holds a special place in Slavin’s heart.

"That picture will stand the test of time. I mean you can look at some pictures
 and say you love it, but a couple of years later, they don't hold up. To my dying
day, this picture will still be remembered and stand out in my portfolio till then."

Randall Slavin is able to grab personality and truth from all of the subjects that he has photographed.  His work is unique, artistic, flawless and dramatic; each piece has it’s own story to tell, making each photoshoot a beautiful portrayal of Slavin’s creative and undying love for taking photographs.  A few of Slavin's work are posted below, and to see more of my favourites of his, please click on this link.

all images in this blog entry are © Randall Slavin.

website: http://www.randallslavin.com/

source of quote: LA2Day Talk.com

about me - laura bernard

My name is Laura Bernard and I am a 23 year old photography student at Seneca@York in Canada.  Ever since I was a child I have been exposed to photography.  Growing up, my father always had a camera in his hand and there are many family photo albums to attest to this fact.  I became used to being the subject matter and remember countless days in Florida where my sister and I would be playing on the beach or watching the sunset, and my dad was there capturing our happy expressions.  I received my first camera as a gift from my parents for my birthday.  It couldn’t zoom or do anything remotely special, but i loved it anyways.  I mainly took pictures of the animals in my life at the time - my rabbit as well as my Aunt’s dog - and i remember waiting anxiously for my pictures to be developed to see what kind of shots I had managed to get.  For a while I left the world of photography and started focusing more on trying to become a Veterinarian.  It wasn’t until my dad borrowed a digital camera from the school where he worked that I started to get back into photography.  Shortly after that, I was given my first point and shoot 3 mega-pixel digital camera, and since then I haven’t stopped taking pictures.

Animals have always been a major part of my life, so in order to get pictures of more animals I started attending dog shows.  I took hundreds of photos of show dogs of every breed, colour and size.  From there, I started walking dogs and would exercise the dogs for an extended period of time and then sit them down for a photoshoot.  I’ve always felt like I’ve been able to capture the essence of the animals I photograph and I believe that is shown in my pictures.  Along with animals, I thoroughly enjoy taking pictures at concerts or larger events.  I started attending many concerts and through this learned how to tweak the manual controls on my camera.  Although I was there for the music, I was also there to try and capture an emotional moment in the artist’s lives as they sang the songs that made them who they were.

I try to expose myself to as many different forms of photography as I can and because of this, I’ve never truly settled on the type of photography that I would like to get myself into.  I’m constantly looking for inspiration and trying to learn new things.  As long as I am able to capture that one moment in time, a moment that makes someone smile, think, feel moved or leaves them with inspiration, I will feel as though I have succeeded in being a photographer.  To see a few more pieces of my work, please click here.

     

all images in this blog entry are © Laura Bernard