Richards talk about his career path was really interesting he has been involved in a variety of disciplines including the production of artwork for album covers, how he felt there was certain amount of luck involved in the jobs he did and how he got them, I think today we would call that networking.
Richard showed his work and shared the themes that threaded through his practice, people and environment, composite work where he would bring the two types of photographs together via Photo shop making a moment in time.
He advised us to question ourselves as to what are the themes of your work? He also advised us to keep a photograph based blog as this would encourage you to keep taking photographs and share them and receive feed back.
Richard shared his themes and artists that have influenced him -memories, loss, corrupt result, adrift and unlinked, photographic moments. The imagined moment, environment and people the space that they occupy, looking at their gestures, and the way they stand the uncanny (the separation). Influences: Sharon Yaree, Wendy Mcmurdo, Paul Graham, Christopher Stuart.
A quote he shared:
“Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.”
Diane Scott-Thomas Photographer 