Hello and welcome to Out of the Darkroom
on AdoramaTV. I'm Ruth Medjber and joining
me on the show today I have music and
events photographer Carrie Davenport.
Thanks for joining us Carrie, maybe if
we could just start by telling our
viewers a little bit about how you got
started in photography. Awesome, well thank
you for having me. So I have been
working freelance for 10 years now.
Doing loads of different photography. I started out
when I was 18. I had loads of friends that played
in bands. I love music but I had
paralytic stage fright.
Absolutely hated getting on stage. Played
the trumpet, which wasn't the coolest
instrument in the world and then basically
through that met other people that were into
music and started just photographing
their gigs. Was studying in Belfast Tech at the
time doing photography and just fell in love
with it. absolutely loved it. Like I
still have my first contact sheets
from shooting gigs that are all on film. So
going back, giving my age away. Then
through that just started doing loads,
started to specialized music
photography and then ended up working in
design agency for a year.
Photographed lots of things on white
backgrounds, bored stupid. Hated it and
decided to call it quits. I'm going on my
own and see how it would go. So over the
past 10 years it's been a really big mixture.
I do mostly commercial and event
photography now, a good bit of music and then
a lot of facilitation and teaching as well
so it’s great. You never get bored which
is good.
I can tell that from your website and your portfolio
that its such of variety. A mad mix
of everything. You do music, PR and
events but it's all people.
Yes this is it, it's nearly always
people all the time. I love meeting
people, talking to people, getting to find
out a bit about them. So it's anything that I get
the chance to meet people basically.
Your work is kinda similar to mine. I
have to keep my work so varied to pay
the bills, are you the same? Well this is it,
there is always going
to be the stuff that you do, the
commercial stuff always plays way better than a lot of
things that you're doing that you
genuinely like or you're just doing for the
fun of it and I think as a photographer,
especially now everything's gone digital you
don't have the divide where people used
to have to be able to do film and
process and things like that. Everybody
can give digital photography a go. Which works
brilliantly for my teaching side of
things but in work then it means you
have to be able to compete, you have to
be able to turn your hand
to different things and try different
things and it means you never get bored,
keeps it fresh as well. I think if I was
just doing the one thing all the time, I don't
really have the attention span to stick
to that. I think I get pretty fed up. So
keeping the mixture
keeps it fresh for me as well which
is great. Is there one particular aspect
of your job that you love? The live
music never gets old,
never. Even when you're standing like I
did T in the Park festival recently and the pouring rain,
just freezing the whole weekend and
still absolutely loved it. The
tutoring work as well, with it, it
never gets old teaching somebody just
getting like somebody involved in what
you're passionate about.
Never wears thin. I’ve been doing it for about
five years now and like a couple of weeks
ago I got a wee man who was nearly
100 to use a camera for the first
time and take photos and I got a wee bit
emotional but he was all
like I can't do this, I’m too old to learn this
and then two hours later we had him
working away with a camera on a tripod
and asking about all the settings and
all and it's just really rewarding to
see other people fall in love what you
love doing and just seeing that moment
where it collects may want to keep doing
it, it’s great like. He's a 100 years old?
Well like he’s 99 and a half. He emphasises the 99 and
a half bit. He doesn't like to round it up
up. Ok we’ll give him that, so he’s 99 and
and a half years young, and he’s just
picked up a camera through one of your courses?
That's exactly it, we're doing one called
humans of East Belfast. Which is
an intergenerational project. So
very heavily borrowed from humans of New
York, let's be honest. Thanks Brandon.
It’s an homage, a tribute too. Exactly.
Basically the idea was to get people
started and it's bringing youth groups
and older residential people's homes
together. So it was to get something that
would get everyone interested. So we kind
of talked to them about what they wanted
to do and they're all interested in
learning about the photography but also
about getting out and about. So was the best way
to combine it. Get them all, they're all
in front of the cameras as well as behind the
camera. The photos have got an
exhibition up for East Belfast art festival
but none of the photos are taken by me
they're all taken by the participants
because I made sure that no matter what
they did, they weren't getting away with slacking.
But I love that it's great, I've
done a couple other ones as well. I did one
call it so me with a group of people
with learning difficulties and we found
that everyone sort of, basically
everybody else would refer to them as
being disabled adults but they didn't see
themselves. That wasn’t, they were just
who they are and that’s where
the idea of the project came from.
So it was all about capturing like the
intricacies of their personalities.
Getting these really up close, stripped-back
portraits where it was just black backgrounds and
their personalities and its great seeing
people get really involved that maybe
wouldn't get the chance normally because
the camera, you know your self like when
you're starting as a photographer. Camera gear
is expensive.
You're spending all your money back out on it
and if people don't have that
money then they can't buy this stuff to
start. So you can bring things along and
just give them a chance to try it and
even if people have an iPhone now days you
can give them a go.
For sure. So you're really involved in the community
in Belfast. I worked with project called
Man Matters in the men's health form in
Ireland and they do men’s health week. They
couldn't get men to sign up to courses
and they find a lot of the time it would
be like eight women and one man and they'd
all really mummy him and then he just
stopped coming back.
Because he hated it. So we got them, I work with a
mens shed, they setup like this big project
where they would do like crafts and
woodwork and machinery, welding
all sorts of random things just to get
men there and get men talking. They had
one wee man who was in the Armagh shed with
me and he's used to post himself letters
because he got no visitors. So he used to
just post himself letters so the
postman will come and talk to him and I
was like, this is awful and then he came in and he
joined the men's shed and now he has loads of
friends. He actually told everybody this,
he was like this is what I used to do but
now I have you lot so it's all ok. It’s an
amazing organisation. You’re doing
all of this with photography. This is it.
This is stuff that I could never of thought
would have been possible. Like I remember
when I left University I did photography,
I started in fine art and dropped out
because I'm just not that deep and
meaningful. I was like nah, this is not
for me. I went back and did viscous and I
really wanted to do arts therapy but the
masters was so expensive it just wasn't
an option. Thousands of pounds.
But I've managed to end up sort of doing
it through the experience anyway and
absolutely love it, it's great like. You're
doing probably more valuable work doing
what you're doing, then you would have
done doing a masters.
Well this is it, that's probably it like
because I did think about it. I had a
place on one and then I just couldn't
justify it and then I figured as well
it made more sense to get experience
behind the camera and learn rather than
spending more time writing about what
other people did and learning about it so.
That's really good you just went out and
did it and probably a lot of viewers are
in the same position where they can't
afford to go and study or maybe they've got
a full-time job and they don't have the
time to do this. So you just go out and
get active in the community.
This is it snd
the thing is as well like, with digital
cameras because once you've bought the
camera and a lens you don't have the film
costs that we used to have. Like I used to
shoot everything on slide film. It cost a fortune,
but you can go now or with a
smartphone. There is people who do great street
photography on the smartphone or just the
basic digital camera and it's all about
the eye behind it. So if you teach
someone how to use it properly or if
they just give it a go, it's like anything. The more
you practice
the better it gets. So apart from all your
amazing work in the community
you've also shot some really famous
people.
There's been a mixture. You shot the
Queen of England, so you know. My mum was like
you're granny would be so proud. She'd be proud of
you, you shot the Queen of England. Tell me about that.
That was actually, again this is another
one of those things you would think
would never happen through going to like
dodgy punk gigs in really grim bars like
my first promo shoot was with a band in the
toilet of a bar called The Front Page like.
Pure glamorous and and then you're like
sitting there and the queen is six feet
away but basically and through the music
stuff I started working with Getty
Images. They needed a photographer for
think it was the color run was the
first event they asked me for and got me
to do it. Absolutely love it and it went
great so they've been kept using me kept
firing me more and more work. So I’m now one of their kind of
regular freelancers over here. So the
color run. Just while I have you there
that's the thing with the big marathon and
people chuck powdered colour at you.
Right I saw this and I saw your selfie at
the end of this and I nearly died
because your camera was covered in
powder.
Yeah it's actually, as long as you don't
change the lenses it's okay I took it
home and like clean it with brushes and
blow dried it and had to clean the
sensor like three times.
Oh. Because the
first year I did it I did it with the
waterproof covers, it made no
difference because it's powder so
it all went under them anyway so it's
totally pointless and anybody with a bit
of sense would have shot with a long
lens but i really wanted to get in there.
You were in in the middle right there.
Then forgot what I was walking home how
crazy I looked when everybody else had gone
but I've been there for three hours
editing photos and then came back and
was walking home to my car bright purple.
So listen, that leads me perfectly into a part
two of this episode, we're going to
talk about your
gear. So if you just stay with me.
Thanks so much for sharing insights and
everything.
Well that's all we have for part 1. Join
me again on part two where I'll be
chatting to Carrie about the equipment she
uses on shoots and her post-production
styles. If you'd like to brush up on your
own photography skills check out the
Adorama Learning Center and if you'd
like to see more videos subscribe to our
YouTube channel thanks and I'll see you
again soon.