After building up a portfolio for himself after university taking photographs of different grime scenes, in 1999 he worked photographing nightlife, such as the UK garage scene, for fashion and lifestyle magazine Sleazenation. By this time he was going to parties, pub crawls to capture all the action and using 20 rolls of film on average. He got pushed by this company to take more and more pictures with an expected turn out of 100 rolls of film. This gave him the chance to build up an archive of photographs which he explains is valuable within the photography industry. He explained that it gives you the chance to look back at your photographs, with a wide variety of choice to re-publish from.
He believes that taking a gap from education to find your feet and style is a great experience for all students and also a brilliant way to come out of uni, it gives you the freedom to focus on your style and what you want from your career choice allowing you time to develop your ideas.
Ewen Spencer has also worked for other companies such as E4, Puma, Nike, Toyota, Boxfresh, GB Athletes Nike, Last Minute Holidays, T-mobile, Fifa 13, JD, Nokia, and Smirnoff. Between 2001 and 2005 he photographed The White Stripes, an American Rock band. For the NME, he also photographed shows from their first UK tour onwards, including backstage photographs. Obviously whilst pursuing his creative side he has done commercial work to keep his ideas afloat, he has done this by publishing his own photography books. Within 2010 he self-published Three's a Crowd, documenting the early stages of the band's rise to popularity.
After working within the grime scene for a while he began to gain interest into Italy of which he travelled there to complete a documentary photography series. He worked there for an average of 2 years establishing a wide range of photographs, this is where you begin to see his style of photography shining through again as he began a project upon 'Naples Youth 2013'. On return back to the UK people turned there nose up to his documentary travel style, this is when he realised that his popularity and name came from his passion for grime scene style of photography.
The context of his photographs are within a documentary but also educational style, it allows viewers to get an incite into the different cultures that we live around and by doing this it allows viewers to have a more accepted approach to gangs and societies within a younger generation.
As a practising photographer nowadays he tends to work on digital due to the expected turn around with companies, and their tight deadlines. However back in the day he shot a lot in film, this gave him the chance to learn about photography in a more advanced way, but also taught him naturally from trial and error.
His work whilst using film had a harsh and exposing look to them due to the contrasting effect that film cameras add and the natural warming filters. However to produce this he also used a flashgun, by doing this it allows the viewer to see all the detail of the scene clearly without any grain or camera shake due to the bright light and shorter exposure time.
I particularly like his work for the natural approach, it shows an effortless image, it's real, which to most viewers is more accepted, nothing is too forceful. It's like as if the photographer isn't even there. When looking at his images it is clear that from graduating from Editorial photography he has learnt not to over-edit his images as sometimes less is more. But also due to his documentary style manipulating the image can then be seen as controversial due to the photographer changing it's state and reality.
Also when looking at his work you can see how although he works at a fast pace you can see how he considers framework and space, and angles within his pictures at all times, which is particularly inspiring as it teaches me as a student that all the techniques that we are learning are valuable to us within our future career.
Overall although this is not my style of photography i particularly like his work for the intriguing depth and storyline within them, it makes you as the viewer wanting to see more and having a storyline with it. However Ewen Spencer likes to leave the photographs as they are, leaving the viewer to create their own story up with their imagination to give enlightenment.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewen_Spencer
https://www.wefolk.com/artists/ewen-spencer
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