Carol Sharp

Today's lecturer was Carol Sharp; award winning photographer and fine artist. She has been selected for such awards: PrintSpace Photovoice, AOP and International Colour Awards. 

Working mostly in commercial, her work portrays lyrical composition, attention to detail and presents itself with a delicate touch. 

Carol photographs still life and works for such editorial packaging: makeup, food, fruit and internet. 

She observes lighting throughout her work with the inspiration of Edward Weston and Paul Strand. 

At the beginning of her work, she would use plate cameras. This is a large format camera compared to the digital cameras that we use today.

Carol presented some of the briefs she had completed over the past. I'd never thought about this therefore being shown how it works in business was very interesting. It looked simple but really it was a very strict brief to abide by. 

The packaging from the company would be handed over with an outline of the image which they (the company) were looking for as a cover image for their package. It wasn't just carols work they were after as she was up against other, still life photographers. When shooting for briefs, she concentrated not only on the objects specific to what the brief had asked but also background colours because this has a vital effect on the object as a whole. Also if the object is to be cut for the brief template then a colour that works with it is supposed to be helpful to those that will later on cut up carols image. 

When composing her work, Carol prefers to do it herself so that she can make a connection with her work. Some photographers may have assistants moving objects about, lighting, etc. 

Carol has presented her throughout a book called 'From Bud to Seed' presenting beautiful images of vibrant, delicate plants and flowers using such techniques as a drop focus to get more of an evocative feel: 'gesture of the plant'. 

Recently she has been working on a new project on the dying lotus leaves which are a series of black and white, abstract images.