British photographer Chris Floyd, came in as our guest speaker, he has made a name for himself by taking brilliant photos of stars such as Naomi Watts, Oasis, Paul McCartney, and Lily Allen. Floyd’s technique is truly one of a kind; he keeps his shots simple but at the same time stylish and fun. He started out in the 1990’s as a music photographer, his first big break through being Oasis before they made it big.
As he was growing up, Chris had many influences; his main photographic influence was David Bailey. Baileys subjects and style encouraged Chris to want to produce similar images. Chris was also very much into the popular music of the time and so he combined his love of music with photography. During the 1990’s the music industry still had money for band promos and magazine articles and so Chris found himself inundated with job offers.
Chris went to New York where he felt he changed and learned how to become, in his eyes, a better photographer. He discovered how to tell a story in a reportage style and how to sum up a whole story in one image. Whilst in America he had assignments to photograph the American/Mexican border, The Election Campaign 2004, Sports story for ESPN and Rodeo portraits.
Chris uses a Hassleblad camera with a digital back and carries a portable lighting kit with him for his location portraits.
He gave us some great advice which was “make what you can out of what you get, make a connection and ‘break the ice’ on a human level” – this is actually pretty inspiring advise. He used it for this promo shoot for Kung Fo Panda with Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Black and Lucy Lu. Jack was joking about how he looked pregnant, so Chris went with that idea for this shot. An ‘on the spot’ decision.
I really enjoyed our talk with Chris, he was a really nice guy, funny and down to earth and not afraid to take the mick out of himself – he openly admitted to partly becoming a photographer so he could talk to girls.
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