Where to shoot?

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Larky

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Hello.

I'm deciding if I should take a major sideways step in my life. I've been working with computers since I was 12, I know about a dozen computer languages and numerous technologies, and apart from the odd few days here and there I've spent time on a computer every day for 19 years. I've really had more than enough and want to do something many would consider nuts.

I want to pack my backpack and bugger off. I have decided I want to work on my photography over and above anything else, it's the thing I enjoy the most. I want to build a portfolio and attempt to get some jobs over the next 12 months to help me save enough to live in a tent happily for 6-12 months, although I'll do bar work when I'm wherever I end up, unless the bars have been bombed out. So my question is where to shoot nasty, raw situations in the UK? I'll happily do more protests and will be down in London again soon for that purpose. I can take care of myself so am not afraid of going into 'awkward' situations to photograph them.

I've contacted every emergency service, hospitals, morgues, slaughter houses etc. None of them will let me shoot. Aside from making friends with the local dealers or starting a gang war, where am I going to be able to photograph the non-standard stuff? I don't want to attempt to be James Nachtwey, but I do want to photograph the real world.

So yeah, any vaguely sane ideas? I'm willing to move anywhere and sleep on anything! I'm not afraid of anything that lives, apart from vegetarians.
 
Hello. Well, this is harder than I thought! I've contacted everyone I can think of, they all are telling me they don't want to have a photographer around. I'm now trying to find a local story that would be of interest to a wide audience.
 
Larky said:
Hello.

I'm deciding if I should take a major sideways step in my life. I've been working with computers since I was 12, I know about a dozen computer languages and numerous technologies, and apart from the odd few days here and there I've spent time on a computer every day for 19 years. I've really had more than enough and want to do something many would consider nuts.

I want to pack my backpack and bugger off. I have decided I want to work on my photography over and above anything else, it's the thing I enjoy the most. I want to build a portfolio and attempt to get some jobs over the next 12 months to help me save enough to live in a tent happily for 6-12 months, although I'll do bar work when I'm wherever I end up, unless the bars have been bombed out. So my question is where to shoot nasty, raw situations in the UK? I'll happily do more protests and will be down in London again soon for that purpose. I can take care of myself so am not afraid of going into 'awkward' situations to photograph them.

I've contacted every emergency service, hospitals, morgues, slaughter houses etc. None of them will let me shoot. Aside from making friends with the local dealers or starting a gang war, where am I going to be able to photograph the non-standard stuff? I don't want to attempt to be James Nachtwey, but I do want to photograph the real world.

So yeah, any vaguely sane ideas? I'm willing to move anywhere and sleep on anything! I'm not afraid of anything that lives, apart from vegetarians.
Click to expand...

Are you sure vegetarians live? Or are they Undead?

Show people your pics. Don't just ask. This includes street people. Buy 'em cigarettes or a bottle. You don't approve? Then don't photograph 'em.

A year or more after I started photographing the Tibetan cause, I was told that on the first shoot, they ignore you, because everyone wants to shoot the Tibetan cause. When you come back with pics after the first shoot, it's different. The third time, it's really different.

You have to BS your way in at first. After that, it gets easier.

Tashi delek,

R.
 
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Vegetarians are neither dead or undead, they are a breed unto themselves. 🙂

I have a potential gig photographing crime scene cleanup. They have no bother with me shooting it and they are sure they can work out the insurance. I'd have to wear a full biohazard suit and work with a camera that I don't mind having chemically cleaned after. So I think I'm on the look out for an old, metal, fully manual SLR.
 
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