Ashley Karyl
I was just sitting here mulling over a few questions regarding this blog and it occurred to me that I really hadn’t taken the time to tell you much about myself apart from the very brief introduction on the very first post, when I was completely clueless about blogging and a vague about page, which I don’t think too many people ever bother to read.
My start in photography began many years ago when I finished a 4 year course in photography at a UK art college and quickly discovered that you could learn more about real professional photography in a day or two as an assistant than in a whole year at college. It’s not easy to judge how good you were as an assistant and at the time I felt like I was making a lot of mistakes, but compared to some of those who later assisted me on jobs, I can see I wasn’t too bad.
To cut a long story short, I went through all the normal stresses and pressures that professional photographers go through when they are trying to make a name for themselves in one of the big fashion capitals like New York. I spent several years in Milan and found my niche in beauty photography, but I was particularly well known shooting nudes. Over the years my images have been used by many clients for editorial and advertising including Rimmel, Collistar, Neutro Roberts, Cerruti 1881, Marie Claire, Young & Rubicam, Ogilvy One, IPC Media, TBWA, Arnoldo Mondadori, Rizzoli, Euro RSCG, Microsoft, Hachette, Adidas, City Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Boots Group, Colgate Palmolive, La Rinascente, Io Donna, Kelemata and many others.
The majority of my commercial assignments have been done with Hasselblad equipment photographing models with the emphasis on beauty, but with occasional fine art nudes and glamour if the work was there. Recently I have started to work more frequently with Canon equipment and feel that digital is a mixed blessing. In some senses it’s wonderful for its convenience and lower costs but also terrible for the amount of time it now forces us to spend chained to the computer. Love it or hate it though for commercial work it’s hard to imagine a serious return back to film.
I still love to take pictures, but at the same time I have serious concerns about the future of professional photography and hate some of the developments we are seeing such as large stock photo libraries undermining the perceived value of our work with super cheap pricing and feel that photographers really need to step back from all of this and try to look at the industry with fresh eyes, where we take control of our own futures. I look forward to sharing some of these ideas with you in the near future, but at the moment I am dog tired and I really want to get some sleep!
I was just sitting here mulling over a few questions regarding this blog and it occurred to me that I really hadn’t taken the time to tell you much about myself apart from the very brief introduction on the very first post, when I was completely clueless about blogging and a vague about page, which I don’t think too many people ever bother to read.
My start in photography began many years ago when I finished a 4 year course in photography at a UK art college and quickly discovered that you could learn more about real professional photography in a day or two as an assistant than in a whole year at college. It’s not easy to judge how good you were as an assistant and at the time I felt like I was making a lot of mistakes, but compared to some of those who later assisted me on jobs, I can see I wasn’t too bad.
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