If you are lucky enough to be different don’t ever change

In the first part of the evening Eddie showed us how he used a compositional tool he had first learnt about when studying art called harmonic armature.  He showed us the grid and during the first part of the evening he would overlay some of his images with it, showing how he had applied it when deciding where to place objects and people in composing his images.  Eddie also discussed his learning from the grand masters of art, particularly Rembrandt, which was apparent in a number of the images he showed us.  He applied some of the techniques they had used to make their images appear to be 3 dimensional.

Eddie showed us via short AV presentations how some of his images were put together.  It is fair to say that, when he later informed us that some of them were composed from as many as 90 layers in Photoshop, these presentations were not fully comprehensive but were inspiring nevertheless. Eddie sees creating composites as the practice of painting with light and most of the AVs illustrated what he meant by this. Particularly intriguing is how he created dragons from various textures but I think most of us will need to experiment a bit to achieve anything like his images.

Eddie also presented a few disturbing and thought-provoking images which I would term creative documentary in that they illustrated the harsh reality of the situation and feelings, including domestic violence and suicide, which had been experienced by people he knew and cared about. In my opinion he had achieved this with sensitivity and compassion while not minimising the pain experienced and the horror of the situation.

In the second half Eddie talked about how, in the last three years, he had moved on to photographing sport. He has a background working in the world of football, including coaching the junior team at Manchester United. When asked he confirmed that his was his team. In the last three years he has photographed arial gymnastics using hoops and ribbons, boxing, swimming, diving and gymnastics as well as various athletic events including long jump, high jump, pole vaulting, running, hurdles and throwing events. He has photographed when the athletes were in training and also at events.  He had some initial contacts but has clearly made many more in recent years. He uses his 70-200 f2.8 lens for most events so he can keep a distance and also because some events are in low light. He talked about knowing the event and phases of something like a pole vault or a dive which would inform the shot he aimed to obtain. He did say he still does not feel he has achieved that “Wow!” Shot in football or the shot he dreams of in hurdles, his favourite event.

It was very apparent that has made strong relationships with and cares about the people he photographs.  This has enabled him to obtain many of the images he showed us. He stressed how important it is the photographer not to “become the event” if they wanted to be allowed back and the importance of not getting in the way, getting somewhere early and fading in the background, this could be applied to many genres of photography, not just sport. 

Eddie gave us a strong and inspiring presentation and, if we don’t go out and photograph sport, we might download the harmonic armature grid and learn how to make our own dragons.

Jayne Brooks