Feel the Land Photography and Emotion with Astrid McGechan

I am delighted to have Astrid join us to share her photography and discuss how emotions and photography can come together to make beautiful pictures. Astrid will share how she takes her photographs to evoke an emotional response in the viewer. Another recommendation from the Camversation community!

About the Talk:

Photography and emotion go hand in hand.

When I started out in photography years ago, I did not think much about what I felt when seeing something I wanted to photograph: I just picked up the camera and pressed the shutter button to capture what I saw.

In 2010, I held my first exhibition, jointly with fellow photographer Huw Alban. The strongest memory I have of that event is of a visitor, who told me that she was going through difficult times with her family. But looking at my photographs made her feel much better, they conveyed a sense of harmony, beauty and calm, she said. She returned twice over the following two weeks, each time silently taking in the work.

I realised then that being able to convey an emotion with my photographs is very important to me. So I started to try and be more aware of what I feel when exploring a scene, and determine what influence my state of mind has on the resulting photograph. Over time, this process has helped me to change the way I make my photographs, and, hopefully, to produce photographs that convey feelings and thoughts and thus evoke an emotional response in the viewer.

In this talk, I will explain how I try to capture my emotions of the moment in a photograph. I will be showing a selection of my images to illustrate the various techniques that I have found helpful.

The talk, which will begin with a short introduction of myself and how I got into photography, will take you on a light-hearted journey through my creative process, and should appeal to all levels of photographers, irrespective of their preference of subject matter.

About Astrid

I am a photographer, lecturer, tutor and book author based in Surrey. I’d love to be part of your creative journey, and share my passion for photography with you. Seeing the world through a lens, experiencing life and then expressing it through making photographs is one big part of what I do. Another part is helping others to make photographs they are really happy with, and at the same time helping them to really embrace photography as a means to channel their creative energy, to engage more deeply and really connect with their surroundings, and to develop their vision, their way of seeing and perceiving the world around them.

I started to seriously engage in photography a few years ago, when struggling to juggle the demands of family life, motherhood and a stressful job. Spending time outdoors and photographing became my way of balancing life.

Initially, I photographed almost exclusively landscapes, drawing my inspiration from scenes in the natural world that evoke a sense of tranquillity and harmony. Often, I’d be drawn towards the less obvious details in the landscape - such as shapes, patterns or a particular colour – making them the primary subject of my images. In the last few years, I have become fascinated by street life and architecture and have photographed extensively in cities in the UK and abroad.

I use a variety of techniques to capture my response to a scene and recreate it for the viewer through my photographs, such as long exposure, camera movement and deliberate defocusing. I love exploring new cultures and feel equally compelled to capture the beautiful evening light by a lakeside, the strong graphic lines and reflections of city architecture or the essence of life and countryside of new locations abroad.

Do check Astrid's website to see more of her work! https://www.astridmcgechan.com/  

This talk will be recorded and made available for two weeks after the event