Photography Personal Statement Example 2

Snap, and a moment is captured, forever still, saved for generations to see; whether it portrays a strong visual message, or simply an abstract composition. Whatever it is, I find it always stimulates something within my head, the urge to capture and portray the world as I see it.

Photography has always been a part of my life; I grew up in a house of photographers with both my parents having a dedication to photography, along with my granddad, and in turn his dad, being wedding photographers. Photography was in my blood from birth, so it was no surprise that when I bought my first SLR, a Canon 300D with 18-55mm lens, at the age of 12 I almost instantly had an eagerness to take creative photos that portrayed a message of some kind. Surrounded by this environment I have had so many opportunities which helped to improve my photography, shadowing my dad and following his techniques, helping me to find my own style and quirks. As my knowledge in photography expands, I still find areas and subject matters which I’m drawn to, and as the years pass, I Still find new ways to present an image, having it represent ideas more clearly.

I always find it particularly satisfying when I discover a new area of photography that I can really get my teeth into. One example would be when I discovered fire performance photography. From a young age I have always been keen on circus performing, and have a great deal of experience myself; ranging from diabolo and stilt walking. So when I was invited to perform with a fire performance group, I found myself constantly taking pictures of them, trying to find the perfect technique for each discipline. Testing and experimenting with exposure values, trying to get fire trails or freezing the flame, finding which worked best. From this experience I found my photography constantly growing and adapting.

Photography helped me to develop a keen interest in video production and web design. I found that the movement of video adds another dimension to photography, letting you portray messages and stories far clearer, even without the use of speech or words. When I first tried video I found myself thinking far more about my composition as subject can move in and out of the frame, I found this vastly improves my composition and timing of shots with stills photography. Web design made me think more about presentation and post production work in photography. I found this particularly useful when creating my portfolio website.

My subject set at A-level strongly reflects my keen interest in photography; choosing to take Art, Design Tech and ICT, all with applicable relationships to photography. Art helped me with my analytical skills, looking at artists’ and photographers’ work and relating it back to my own; helping me to pick out compositional elements that I enjoy and others which I would stray away from. Design Tech developed my skills at constructing and problem solving, taking a step back and figuring out what was required for the problem at hand. Finally, ICT vastly improved my ability to describe content and explain its purpose. This translates nicely into photography with subject matter and the reason for including it in a shot. Along with my A levels I also took it upon myself to achieve a NCFE level 3 in digital photography, studding though an online tutor and completing multiple assignments which gave me a further perspective into the world of commercial photography.

With my knowledge in photography as it is, I still find the urge to expand and polish my techniques. There are some areas that I would particularly like to progress in, such as film photography. The idea of learning what a camera produces, without a digital display fascinates me, along with the entire processing technique. It’s something that I’ve never really had access to and feel that this course would give me opportunity to try it. Given the opportunity and environment I feel that I could really excel and make a life for myself from photography.