The Decisive Moment

This is a tricky one! I can’t tell you anything about this photographer, other than their name. I don’t know if they are male or female, what nationality, age - nothing!

What I can tell you is that this photographer has a real talent. The photographs have a deep, rich quality and they are beautifully and thoughtfully composed. Each image is a story which immediately absorbs you.

Stunning. Someone, please tell me more!

Matt Stuart describes himself as a “street photographer”. He has a wonderful talent for spotting and capturing people inadvertently interacting with their surroundings. Some of his images are quite surreal, many are amusing and most are thought-provoking.

I personally like his black & white work the best. I don’t know if he works with film or digital, but his black & white images have that fabulous look of perfectly exposed film, expertly printed onto Ilford paper.

I’m going to have to find out more about this photographer. I thoroughly recommend a visit to Matt’s website, although you will need to have Flash installed first.

I got talking to my mate Jason the other day, about our kids and how they handle a digital camera. We both commented how, in spite of being only five years old, they have both surprised us by taking interesting photos with a simple point-and-shoot camera, seemingly without any real effort.

It occurred to me that it isn’t actually in spite of being only five, but precisely because they are only five that they are doing this. Nobody has taught them how to compose a picture; they simply look at the little screen on the back of the camera and when they like what they see, they fire the shutter. Okay, so I realize the picture above is not about to set the art world on fire. My point is not that our five-year-olds are brilliant photographers, but that they have a brilliant attitude towards photography.

Of course, my son has plenty to learn about the technicalities such as exposure and focus, but he can learn that when he is ready. For the moment at least, he can let the technology take care of all that while he concentrates on looking for things to photograph.

Sometimes I think we tend to over-analyse what we do. Be a kid - if it looks good to you, take a chance and take a shot. Maybe you will capture something better than you were expecting. Maybe you will expand your horizons a little. Who knows?

The EOS Discovery Tour is a series of free seminars for European photographers. At the event you’ll get to meet other photographers, get advice from professionals and, best of all, try out Canon’s latest EOS kit.

The London event will be hosted by award winning London-based photographer Drew Gardner. Drew has travelled the world photographing fashion, group portraiture, celebrities and beautiful people on location. He teaches at a high profile photographic workshop every summer in Main, USA and has been published and exhibited all over the world.

The seminar is being held at the QEII Conference Centre in London and by all accounts should be a very interesting few hours.

Judging by the success of last year’s seminars if you’d like to go you’ll need to register for your ticket pretty sharpish.

You can find out more at the EOS Discovery website.

I’ve spent nearly an hour sat here, writing, deleting, writing again in an effort to come up with an interesting introduction to Lara Jade. The harder I try to write something complimentary about her work the harder it seems to get. You see it’s not that it’s bad, quite the contrary. It’s because her photography is so good that I simply can’t find words to do it justice.

As the old saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words so I think I’ll just shut up and let her pictures do the talking.

www.larajade.com

Lara’s work is a testament to the fact that you don’t need top notch kit to create top notch photography. Check out her “About Me” page for details.

UPDATE: You can see more of Lara’s work on flickr