An Interview With Matt Bramhall
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF!
I'm a fashion / lifestyle photographer from Stoke-on-Trent and if i'm not asleep or eating, I’m outside shooting with my friends.
HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTO PHOTOGRAPHY?
I first got into photography taking pretty bad and also cringey shots of flowers on my iPhone 4s. I thought I was such a pro up until I received my first camera and hadn't the faintest clue how it worked.
DO YOU HAVE A PREFERRED MEDIUM TO WORK IN?
I work with digital because its easier and more cost effective, but preferred would have to be 120mm medium format film, as its one of the most intimate experiences you can get with photography. You can literally feel the camera working and clicking as you wind on the next shot, or when you click the shutter button, you gain such an appreciation for the actual art and technicalities of photography with medium format cameras. Plus the look the film stock makes is like no other medium of photography out there, it’s truly unique.
WHAT DO YOU FIND INSPIRES YOU THE MOST?
The most inspiring thing out there by far is instagram, it contains such an enormous library of photographic genres and techniques. Exploring how other photographers capture images and seeing what they chose to display is incredibly inspiring to me. I would credit most of my success to instagram because without it I never would have been able to find my own style.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLE?
My style I would say is quite cold and moody, it’s quite rare you find me taking sunny happy portraits of a beautiful smiling model. I prefer much more of the opposite. Foggy or overcast days are much much more interesting to me than the sunny picturesque weather mostly associated with photography. My style has altered slightly in recent weeks in that I've been experimenting with light and luminescence. Don't get me wrong I do love a good sunset just as much as the next photographer, but I prefer cold and dreary weather with quite a serious expression upon the models face. I think if I had to attribute a word to my style I would describe it as mystical, as it’s quite hard to create a story from my images, you're never quite sure whats going on and I prefer my viewers to try and make something up on their own.
WHAT ADVISE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHERS TRYING
TO MAKE A NAME FOR THEMSELVES?
The single greatest bit of advice I could give to anyone starting out is work for free, don't charge unless you're working for a business or a company. If you start charging when you have a small portfolio no one is going to be interested, you need to build up a name for yourself first. Yes you might get fifty pounds from a model shoot, but what will you have achieved? As those jobs will only come once in a blue moon. If you work for free you'll get 10x as many jobs and the experience you'll get from all those jobs is invaluable, you might be doing it free, yes, but I see it more of a trade. They get some good photos, you get experience and get to do what you love. I personally think if you don't want to go out, take photos for someone and create great images just because you love to, then I don't think you can call yourself a photographer and I don’t think you’re ready to take the craft seriously.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED SO FAR, BEING SO HEAVILY COMMITTED TO
PHOTOGRAPHY?
I've learned quite a lot over the past couple of years. One of the main things I've learned is to never turn a job down. No matter what it is (within reason of course) you should never, ever turn down a job because you have no idea where it might lead and no idea where it might take you. I remember being asked to take photos of a guys vespa scooter so he could display the images in his house, I didn't really want to, as it wasn't really my forté but I did it anyway and on the shoot the guys brother asked if i could take some photos of him sometime. I agreed and from those photos I entered the Next street style competition and came in the top 20 out of 400,000 entries, so you never really know where a job can take you.
IF YOU COULD COLLABORATE WITH ANY PHOTOGRAPHER, WHO
WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
It would definitely have to be with Andrew T kearns (instagram: @andrewtkearns ). His style has probably been the most influential on my work, I've been following his work for years and his lifestyle is just driving around the pacific northwest of america with some models in his land rover taking awesome pictures on these huge road trips he does. To be a part of that would be amazing.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?
My plans for the future are to go to Falmouth University in September of 2018 and do my degree in fashion photography. After that, if all goes to plan I want to move to the states, more specifically portland oregon and set up my own photography business in the city.
Follow Matt on his Instagram @matt_bramhall
