Charles Austin (HighVerbalFan)

Austin is a photographer who does everything from close-ups of nature to portraiture and concept photography to just random photos he decided to take at things like Comic Con.  A lot of his photos portray colour well with some of them showing repetition, form, shape and reflection.  I would really like to try something like one of his 'head shot' concepts.

I really like this photo as all the focus is on the butterfly as the foreground and background are both blurred.  I also like the fact that all the little details are visible on the butterfly, this photo clearly shows colour with the green background and the bright, vibrant pink flowers dominating the foreground.

I think the concept behind this is pretty good with the writing behind the women saying to replace fear with curiosity and then the women next to it seeming to be quite curious holding her own camera.  The photo displays clear contrast between the white text and the black outline/highlighting?.

I find this photo really interesting Austin has titled it 'A Creative Mess' or 'Head shot' which I think is fairly appropriate with an old style analogue camera as the gun and a series of photos presumably memories/thoughts splattered over the wall.  The photo shows colour, through the person's hoodie and the various photographs, as well as showing contrast both with the lighting, dark edges; light around the subject area and through some of the photos not the wall.

This photo is like a portrait with a twist as it is of the women reflection rather than being directly of her.  I might not go as far as to say it is interesting but it catches the eye due to the fact that it is different.  The photo shows colour, mainly through the blue sky, as well as quite clearly showing reflection through over two thirds of the frame.

If there is anything to learn from Austin's work it's to try to think outside the box while maintaining simplicity within the frame and retaining an attention to detail.  Austin would also be fantastic inspiration for people looking to try conceptual photography as he has some amazing concept photographs in his collection that look fairly simple to replicate.  Austin's work has inspired my work making me look for more unusual angles to take photos from these two photos from my work kind of mimic the last photo above where the reflection is visible and only a small part of the subject being reflected.

In summary Austin is an 'amateur' photographer would takes photographs of things he likes but also happens to appeal to a wide spread audience of other people which started off his fan base now consisting of tens of thousands of people.  He later on then started experiment with more conceptual ideas.