I attended a talk with photographer Garry Cook a freelance journalist and photographer based in Britain.
He has written and photographed for over 40 national and international newspapers and magazines and reported on stories and social issues around the world and has published several documentary photography books, he is also a photographic theorist who has experimented with imagery on products in an attempt to promote photography as an art form.
He explained that much of his work is now presented in multi-media style – video and photographic slideshows with audio.
The first thing he did in the talk was preform his 'These are outsiders' Piece in which he incorporates photography and film and live performance. In this performance music is playing as the audio and there is a video playing in the background of him holding photographic images to go with the spoken word. On top of this he was stood next to this video holding up signs to go with it, changing each sign when necessary to go with the video.
He explained that this performance photography he was doing was inspired by performance poetry and theatre and that he wanted to find a way to make people engage more with photographic work as he found out that on average people in a gallery would spend about 40 seconds to view a sculpture or painting however only 25 seconds of viewing photography work. And he wanted to challenge this idea of engaging viewers for longer and reconnecting people to the world of photography. 
He started talking to us about how he managed to get jobs at the start of his career and explained that there is more money in performance photography which is a happy bonus for him but explained that this is because when working for a theatre group there is more people and money money to help and support the artist where as a photographer is basically solo.
Most of Cooks work has been documentary photography and street photography and he explained that he very rarely uses studio lighting or set ups. And because of this a lot of the people he takes pictures of at just everyday people on the streets meaning he can sometimes get bad reactions from them and the job takes a certain amount of confidence and a ready state for bad reactions occasionally.
Cook went on to explain how he is frequently asked to work for free as a photographer especially when he would display his work on sites like Flickr for an audience to see which is obviously a good way of getting your work known however he said that this leads the buyers to think they can have it for free often.
He said self promotion is good to a certain level however there is a line between promoting yourself and being exploited and not receiving the earnings you are entitled to. This is a good piece of advice to keep in mind in my work.
He said that from his experience university's and art festivals are good places to do work for as more work often leads from these jobs and one thing that he did mention that was interesting is that he said he found lots of jobs by entering the arts world instead on just photography that he would have never known existed for him had he not been active in these communities or different environments. Taking wisdom from this piece of advice I would summarise that it is a good idea to be active and interested in more from of art and media that just that of the obvious path of my chosen profession.
Most of Cooks work has been documentary photography and street photography and he explained that he very rarely uses studio lighting or set ups. And because of this a lot of the people he takes pictures of at just everyday people on the streets meaning he can sometimes get bad reactions from them and the job takes a certain amount of confidence and a ready state for bad reactions occasionally.
Cook went on to explain how he is frequently asked to work for free as a photographer especially when he would display his work on sites like Flickr for an audience to see which is obviously a good way of getting your work known however he said that this leads the buyers to think they can have it for free often.
He said self promotion is good to a certain level however there is a line between promoting yourself and being exploited and not receiving the earnings you are entitled to. This is a good piece of advice to keep in mind in my work.
He said that from his experience university's and art festivals are good places to do work for as more work often leads from these jobs and one thing that he did mention that was interesting is that he said he found lots of jobs by entering the arts world instead on just photography that he would have never known existed for him had he not been active in these communities or different environments. Taking wisdom from this piece of advice I would summarise that it is a good idea to be active and interested in more from of art and media that just that of the obvious path of my chosen profession.
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