Photography has always been prominent in my life, from being a child with a camera recording day to day life, to recently attaining a national diploma in photography, now leaning in my degree in Editorial and Advertising photography.
Initially for me, Fashion photography was where I started, as a hobby taking photographs of my friends in the local farms. That was in mid 2006, and now that has transformed into my career.
I used photography as an escape from the mundane, the expected, and liked to create my own world around me with it. With this, I learnt the skills of experimenting which has become key to my work today.
With my current work now I’m still very much in the same mindset, Shooting in both film and digital, creating odd concepts and making them equality as beautiful and eye catching. People like my work, so I’m taking a guess that I’m doing something right!
Inspirations:
For me, Inspiration comes from any form of anything. My main inspiration comes obviously from magazines. Currently I have 2 piles full of magazines, Photographers books, newspapers etc as high as me, & it’s never enough!
I think for most people its incredibly easy for people to look at a picture and go ‘oh that’s pretty!’ but until you look deeper into the picture and realise the depth of the hard work, it isn’t until then you appreciate the image. And as geeky as it sounds, That’s something I do a lot!
As well as this, I look a lot into movies, Ones with weird or classical concepts like: the Imaginarium of doctor Parnassus, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins & the Nightmare before Christmas.
Also, I’m constantly checking my favourite artists work on a weekly basis (On the internet as well as exhibitions) which consists of Tim Walker, Tim Burton, Sarah Moon, Solve Sundsbo, Ellen von Unwerth, Paolo Roversi, Richard Avedon, Alexander McQueen, Irving Penn and the list goes on.
Exposing yourself to all of this I think definitely helps you to generate your own ideas, getting a spark of a future shoot and to help it grow.
Aspirations:
For my future I would like to see myself moving to New York to work over there as a permanent fixture, however if that becomes a reality or not is another story!
Realistically I would like to be working alongside well established magazines producing editorials and doing advertising campaigns to get the money in, eventually working my way up to Vogue ( Dreamland too much?!?!) But as long as I’m successful and happy in what I’m doing then I’ll be satisfied!
Links :
http://jess-rigley.co.uk/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jess-photos/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-Rigley-Photography/257328550789
I wish you the best of luck Jessica. I love the photos featured here and I love the tim Burton-esque feel. You are definitely right in that a picture is more than just being pretty. The photos onthis post certainly tell a much deeper story and that’s what I, personally, love about photography.