LO1 Photographer Analysis: Duncan Philpott

Duncan Philpott

This photographer had presented to us in the UTC Sheffield about his work.

Genre/ Category:

His chosen genre of photography is action and adventure sports, this is shown clearly by the collections of his portfolios full of photos all based around sports and action. This photo is obviously related to the genre as the model, Steve Peat, is a downhill mountain biker and is wearing his helmet what he wears during downhill mountain biking.

Analysis/ Meaning:

In this photo Philpott has took a picture of Steve Peat, a professional downhill mountain biker, the photo has been taken and then most likely edited to be in monochrome, this is used to great effect as the use of the lighting makes the face expression and detail within the photo stand out. Philpott has also used depth of field by making the background completely black whilst the lighting lights up the face and helmet so you can obviously see Peat, this is different to the usual technique of making the background out of focus whilst the foreground in focus. The lighting and depth of field both work together to make Steve Peat look like he's coming out of the darkness, by using monochrome and using the lighting to emphasise on his expressions, it connotes that he is a mean and ruthless biker, which the client might of wanted, to show that he isn't a biker to be messed with. There's also the fact that Peat is central to the photograph, this being the point of interest technique, and as I said the background is fully dark too, which makes Steve Peat stand out more, this helps makes Peat the point of interest every viewer will look at first as there's nothing else to look at. 

Purpose:

Duncan Philpott has worked with many companies and people such as Hope Technology, Red Bull, Nike and Steve Peat, the target audience for this picture may be fans of Steve Peat and they know what he is like in the downhill competitions, the purpose of this photo and most of his work is to promote himself and also complete the brief from a client the best way he can. Another example of Philpott's work that had a purpose was to promote bike parts by a company, this meant he had to do something practical which was to actually go out and do the photo shoot whilst he and friends used the bike parts on their bikes, this was a great way to promote the product through photography.