Edward Thompson- artist

For my final project I am constructing a blurb book about the volunteer organization Steve and I serve, called CERT (community emergency response team). One of the questions in my proposal I didn't really have an answer for: What artists have worked with a similar theme or approach? My teacher encouraged the entire class to find other bodies of work with similar concepts that we can learn from.

I spent some class time looking and found Edward Thompson, based in England. His website is edwardthompson.co.uk.
He does documentary work on a variety of subjects and themes. Most of the documentary photographs I had come across did work in third world countries, about the sick, and traveling the world. Their work is fantastic and I can definitely learn from them, but Thompson's images are more appropriate to what I am doing and I hope to apply some of his technique to my work.

A few of things I made note of regarding his work that I can relate to my project are:

There is detail in the background, but the eye is first drawn to the subject, then your eyes naturally look around the image. Sometimes he does that with a slight change in the focus, with color or light, or with movement within the image.

There is good movement it adds to the image, so its not just a picture of something or someone.

He used his fill flash at night which I sometimes am afraid to do, but I can see it worked in his images. It was the only way to get some of the images he took!

He chose a higher vantage point to get detail in a large room, something I was just struggling with last week at a CERT meeting.

His descriptions of each body of work are really interesting and compelling. After reading about the "Re-Home" I wanted to buy one of the hens! I hope that a combination of my images and text can compel my viewers as I'm hoping (you'll have to wait for my project to know what that is).

Some of the images aren't of a pleasing subject, but are necessary to tell the story. This is something I learned from other photographers work as well. And sometimes they aren't technically perfect, but can still add something to the story (other photographers).

I also found on Thompson's website a reference to another blog created by a woman who loves vintage clothing (http://www.diaryofavintagegirl.com/). I'm not into vintage but I liked the photography from a documentary viewpoint. I just might include it in a later artist blog....