Paul Wilkinson

Paul Wilkinson is a commercial photographer from the United Kingdom. According to his website he is 'one of the UK's most sought-after photographers'. He is a known family/wedding/portrait photographer who makes anyone feel at home when completing a photoshoot with them. His clients always comment on how relaxed they felt during a shoot as well as commenting on his fantastic work. I went through the portrait section on his website and found my favourite 3 which I felt related to my project the most.

The first one is a portrait of a guy with an electric guitar. I chose this image as it stood out to me as good inspiration for my shoots. I like how the image includes something which is obviously special and an important part of the guys life. By seeing this image you immediately think about whether the guitar is a part of his life in a career way or as a hobby. It says a lot about his person as it physically shows you a major part of his character and life. I like the composition of the image as its very simple but its also effective within the way they man is sitting. You can see his love for the guitar and that part of his life by the way he's holding it and sort of cradling it with his arms. By looking at this image I would automatically assume he has been playing the guitar for many years, it looks like he has a very deep love for it and the way his skin shows his age and wrinkles adds more sentimentality and emotion. The other thing which adds emotion and a moving quality to this image is the tone. By making an image black and white you can often get a lot of emotion from it and it give it a deeper meaning.

The second image isn't the same style portrait as the first but it still does the same thing. I really like the way the two different sized hands are linked as the small baby hand is grasping onto what we think is a parents finger looking for support and a loving character. The hands connecting is a symbol of a loving, family characters who are physically showing affection. The image is composed very beautifully and delicately as the hands are just coming in from the edges and connecting in the near middle. The tone in this photograph adds a lot of affection and mood to it which makes it very moving. The contrast between the shadow and highlight in this image stands for the difference in ages between hands. The younger hand is lighter and the shadowed is older. In my work i'm going to try and grasp the idea of hands giving the audience information about the persons lifestyle and/or character. Skin often helps you identify a rough age as wrinkles help you notice and elderly person. The colour of the skin helps you identify a race or nationality and the state the hand is in could tell you about a possible job, hobby or regime.

The last image I chose to look at is the one to the left. I really like this image as her facial expression gives you a big idea as to what her character is like. You can see by the way her eyes are wrinkled and her mouth is open ad laughing that she has a positive, happy attitude. She looks like she's laughing which makes her seem like a humorous character. The tone in this image highlights certain areas which you as a part of the audience should focus on. The lightest points in this image are on the woman's face which points out the facial expression and her personality which is being portrayed. I'm going to try and grasp some images like this when shooting for my project to show a similar personality trait.