My Street Photography Journey: Mark Powell
Mark Powell is an enthusiastic street photographer who I’ve known for a couple of years and I asked him to tell us a little about his street photography journey . . .
Being retired and having just hit a big birthday milestone I decided I wanted to learn more about photography, as it had become my new passion/obsession. I also felt the need to know more about who the early pioneers were, what cameras and techniques they used, how they approached this fabulous art - and what were the significant changes which occurred in the world of photography .
I signed up for a Postgraduate Diploma course with the British Academy of photography in February 2020, and attended three face-to-face classes at Salford University . . . and then Covid hit which meant that our lessons were held via Zoom and any hands-on support was lost. However, our course tutor, Pat Graham, was brilliant and 100% committed, supportive, really encouraging and helpful.
Not knowing how long this pandemic would last I threw myself at the 15 very varied and practical assignments and completed the course mid-March 2021, receiving nine distinctions along the way.
One of the assignments set a task to interview two photographers you admire and who inspire you to try different types of photography outside of your comfort zone. I contacted Brian Lloyd Duckett and Mark Fearnley who very kindly let me interview them. Both interviews left me hugely motivated to get out and shoot more and to start trying to shoot different subjects and to try different approaches.
Mark kindly invited me to one of his Zoom workshops where he discussed his approach, techniques and the benefits of using a notebook to record where and when a shoot took place and more importantly to keep a record of the weather, position of the sun/shadows and the time.
Brian subsequently sent me a link to one of his workshops in Liverpool which I duly attended and had a fab time. Brian then pointed me to a group of fab photographers working through his book ‘52 Assignments: Street Photography’ and it was here I met the amazing Jovis Leigh Howieson and other like minded and very talented photographers and my photography ‘journey’ ramped up a notch or three.
So, back to my degree course. I received my Pass with Merit on 9th April 2021 and set out to put the skills and knowledge gained from 13 months of study to good use. After reading Mark Fearnley's excellent Shadow Stories (Japan) I decided to produce my own zine and sold 70 copies of my publication called ‘Street Art - UK & EU’.
In January 2022 I joined a group of excellent photographers who set out to document a project called ‘Emergence & Disappearance’, again led by Jovis and this entailed nine months of hard graft and plenty of trial and error, culminating in having 16 images selected for the exhibition. I actually had 16 framed images on full display at the Bargehouse OXO Tower for a full week in October that year. Honestly, the feeling of pride was overwhelming and humbling in equal measure.
In parallel to the above in July 2022 I was honoured to have four of my images picked for the Urban Photographers first book of Street Photography Assignments and had an image (‘The Ladies of Madrid’) picked for display at the Fujifilm House of Photography exhibition in August 2022, which was curated by Brian Lloyd Duckett.
My wife Debbie and son David joined me at my Graduation ceremony in London on 15th April this year and, to my absolute amazement the BAP (British Academy of Photography), who had been following my progress via social media, presented me with a special an award of "Outstanding Graduate 2022/2023" - yes little ol’ me - who'd have thought it?
So, what's next? Well, definitely more street, urban, fine art and seascapes - and I'm now trying my hand at shooting in low light at gigs which is great fun.
"If you’re not learning, you’re not living!"
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