 How's it, how's it? Welcome back to the channel. It's fantastic to see you. Looking at the work of photographers who you may not be familiar with is a great way to make your own photos, a lot richer, a lot deeper, because you've got more of a wider pool of images to draw inspiration from. We're going to start with a photographer called Patrick Demichelier, and he, well, he passed away recently, but he, from about the mid-1970s, moved to America and became exceptionally well-known for fashion, photography, beauty, editorial, you know the sort of thing, right? And he photographed some of the world's most famous beauties, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Princess Diana. The list is almost endless. And what I'd like you to look at are his portrait photographs, these kind of loose, you know, beauty images. Look at this picture of Cindy Crawford. Ah, the tones in this, the quietness, the, the, the wistful nature of the whole thing. It is, it's so odd, so what you might consider a picture of Cindy Crawford to be, you know, if you're not familiar with Cindy Crawford, she was like massively popular in the 1980s. I think there wasn't anybody in the world who didn't know what she looked like. And this photo has soft lighting. And that soft lighting lends that kind of wistful sort of air. And that's enhanced by the fact that her cape, you know, the, the cowl that's over the top of her head and her hair is framing her face in sort of two layers. And that face is telling us a story. It's not looking at us. It's not communicating something really profound, but it's the way that she is in a story looking off camera, that you get this feeling of, of wistfulness. Then you contrast that photo with this picture of Linda and Evangelista. It is, it is dynamic in a very different way. The lighting is a lot more sculpted. You could see on her face that, you know, there's, there's some cheekbone action going on. Her gaze is directly at the camera. So there's a lot more movement to it. The, the shape of this turtleneck that she's wearing and the way that it is contrasted very heavily against the backdrop. You know, it's almost like a pure black and almost a pure white lens. This particular photo, a lot more movement, irrespective of, you know, kind of the movement of her or the shape of her, her outfit, because of that contrast between the white and the black. The lesson you really want to draw from this when you look at these photos is, is the use of light. How some light can just be so simple. You don't need to go crazy with the light. These, these photographs of, of Princess Diana. They, you know, the world famous. And this is this, you know, some people suprise, you know, make out like they discovered natural light. They did, this is Patrick Demichelier's thing. You know, natural light was around long before it became fashionable now. So if you're looking for inspiration to use natural light, to use all these kind of things together, framing that simplicity, then looking at further then Patrick's work, I think it is absolutely gorgeous. You're no doubt familiar with this photograph. It is beloved of lovesick teens of the world over. It crops up in how many fridges in, in these kind of movies in the background. And that is the problem with the work of Robert De Sinau. And I'm sorry if I mispronounced that because my French is appalling because he is more than just that photograph. He is the man who took these photos. How far removed are these, these photos from, from the, you know, the raging gun battles in Paris towards the end of the Second World War. Then that photo of the kiss, you know, it's such a lesson in judging a book by its cover. Because for the longest time I dismissed that photograph of just, you know, because it was in my mind just emblematic of the sort of photography I didn't want to do. And because I never took the time to explore further, then, you know, I missed out on such wonderful work. There's a real richness and a vibrancy to Robert's photography. You know, I've heard some comments that people say, you know, that his, his capturing of the spirit of life is far stronger than Henri Cartier-Bresson. And in some respects, I'm sort of inclined to agree with him because I feel that Cartier-Bresson, and these are just gross generalizations, is a lot more, was a lot more studied, a lot more kind of theoretical, a lot more sort of like, I am waiting for everything to align kind of, you know, just, just so. Whereas certainly, you know, my experience of looking at Robert Disano's photos is that they're a lot more kind of like, not less structured, not less, not less thoughtful, but they seem to have a lot more of an urgency about them. Because I love sharing photographers you may not be familiar with, with you. And because I, I'm also a masochist, I've chosen another photographer who has a surname that I'm going to struggle to pronounce. And her name is Reinke Dijkstra. Now, I probably done a lot better on that one than I have with the French, but her photographs that you may again be familiar with, you know, these teens, these adolescents who are standing on the beach, you know, awkward, that cusp of adulthood kind of thing. And they fall into this category of kind of Marmite photographers. Now in the UK, there's a spread called Marmite, which is very strong, it's like a yeast-based thing. And either you love it or you hate it. So that's when we, we talk about Marmite photographers is like, there's no kind of middle ground. I think William Eggleston might sort of fall in, into this. I for one, I like Reinke's approach with these teens and these, these photographs. They are, you know, just about the person being photographed, but they're not just standing in front of my camera and I'm just going to take a picture of you don't need to do anything. She's got that ability, that skill to let the people be themselves and, and settle into themselves almost. And this is why I think when people try to emulate these kind of portraits, it can often fall apart because you're dealing with people who say, well, what am I supposed to do? What do you want me to do? And when you say nothing, they just kind of, well, they do nothing. Now the people in these and, and other sort of, you know, portraits that follow a similar vein that you see quite often, especially in places like the Taylor Wesson Prize, they're not doing nothing. They're being themselves. And that's because the photographer has given them something to think about to, you know, he's engaged them with the process. So if you want to try these photographs, if you want to take this kind of approach, doing, let's say, street portraiture for one of a better word, then engage with the person, say, hey, how are you doing stuff? And just say, look, you know, I want you just to sit, think about, think about what it was like at school, the last holiday you went on, something that makes you sad. So I mean, just put them in a mindset in their head. I would encourage you to seek out as many photographers who you're not familiar with as as possible. Because, you know, as I've said throughout this whole series, that the more that you look at photos, the more that you explore various options available to you, then the more that you are going to become a photographer who's able to create stronger images. Now it was talked mostly today about sort of the aesthetic and less so the technical aspects. But when you look at people's photography, when you look at their photos, you know, make collections of them and think about how they did this. You know, I talked about the use of natural light, for example, in, you know, Patrick Democholier's photographs, the use of, you know, awkwardness within Reynka's images of the kids. And this kind of zest for lifey kind of thing, like the zest for life, probably not the zest for life is probably the wrong word, but this kind of, you know, being a student of the human condition, what a highbrow kind of thing to know. Yes, I am a student of the human condition, but being interested in what's going on all around is like that Robert Desneau thing. Something to bear in mind when you're looking at all these photographs is that it's not about replicating them. It's not about copying them exactly. It's just about taking the vibe, the feel, the approach and, you know, filing it away somewhere because you never know when it's going to surface. When you are out taking your own photos and you are confronted with somebody, you go, ah, that reminds me of that picture that I saw of, you know, Patrick Democholier, where the lady is looking out the window and the light was just beautiful or there was that, you know, that awkward looking kid standing there, you know, my cousin or something, maybe I should just photograph him like that and not worry about things. Maybe I should be aware for those fleeting moments that may or may not be staged, that we can capture that aren't quite as, say, like scientific or, you know, as Henry Cartier-Bresson. You never know when these inspirations are going to surface up in your own images. If you'd like to get more inspiration of photographers who you've never heard of before, check out this video here and I will see you again soon.