Guest Lecture, James Kerwin

James Kerwin has built a practice selling his prints of architectural images. Since 2015, he has worked with the art agency Goodman & Co, based in the Netherlands. Since February 2017 he has been a UK Ambassador for Phottix and Benro and is affiliated with Tenba bags. 

James shows a real interest in derelict buildings. From churches to mental asylums, the outcome is pretty amazing. He's travelled far to find such incredible buildings with a lot of history and colour to them. Germany, Italy, Wales, Belgium and more. There are several projects he has put together over the course of 5 years: Decadence, Neglected, Domum Dei, Scorned, Pripyat and Chenobyl. 

When creating his imagery, he focuses on 1 point perspectives. He likes to shoot straight on for his landscapes, to form symmetry and to help lead the eye to the important parts of the image using the lines from the walls, windows, etc. 

Prior to photographing abandoned buildings James earned money by doing wedding photography. He wanted to keep hold of those skills, for example lighting a model, by adding it into his current work now and again to refresh his memory and keep up to date. He has used models in some of his images throughout his individual projects to do so.

As of social media content and having good business practise, he believed video is becoming more popular and people are engaging with it. Blogging about their work and showing BTS footage, which from the videos James showed to use during the lecture did look interesting. However he wasn't sure that Instagram was a great way for a photographer to present their work. He said he had never made any money through Instagram and thinks it works better as somewhere to show BTS. I actually disagree with this. Most of the guest lectures who have visited said that its a great way to present work on and have earned themselves jobs and money through it. I love posting images on Instagram and receiving feedback. I use Instagram every day without fail and find most of my photographers through Instagram who I am interested in and follow them to keep up with their current work. As well as social media accounts like James said it is vital to have a decent website running.