Charlotte Bibby is a London-based photographer/student who has some large ambitions. We recently had the chance to connect with Charlotte and chat about photography, motivation and the power of non-verbal communication.

Name: Charlotte Bibby

Age: 19

Hometown: Nowhere I’d really call home… I’ve moved a lot.

Current Location: My bedroom in my house in North London


What’s playing on the “sound track to your life” right now?

Time to Pretend- MGMT, Skinny Love- Bon Iver, Where is my mind- Pixies, Sweep Disposition- The Temper Track and anything by the XX, Eels or Lana Del Rey

What’s better: Red or Blue?

Purple.

What are the tools of your trade?

My stubbornness, my ability to take things on the chin and being female (helps massively when any sort of nudity is involved). But if I were to talk about equipment I use a 5D Mk II with 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.8 lenses (hate zooms) and Bowens 1000DXs/Hensel Porty kits with a few different accessories. Trying to make my work stand out from other youngen’s by showing I actually know what I’m doing with lighting. Photography isn’t ALL about the equipment but lighting is the most important thing, as after all, it makes the images, but the lighting plays a big part in making my ideas come to life.

 

Did/do you study photography in school or are you self-taught?

Ugh I’m going to say yes to both of them. I am doing a degree at University (reason being so I can live in London without having to concern myself over money for the moment) but in all honesty studying photography teaches you nothing you can’t learn by just DOING, and everything I have done/learnt so far has been through trial and error and a few select people showing me basics when I first started.

I noticed you take a lot of fashion-style photos, do you do the styling yourself?

Sometimes for tests, but for editorials no as it’s one more thing I have to worry about (and I think stylists have the toughest job out of the entire team). I have one stylist I work really well with and we’re planning on working together a lot more in 2012.


How do you get motivated/ pumped up for a shoot?

Moodboarding. A lot. Lots of photographs and videos and art and reading and traveling. And of course I spend an hour doing a few laps around the block listening to the Rocky soundtrack like all photographers do pre-shoot.

There is a term in psychology called “flow”. It’s describes the feeling of being in the zone or completely in the moment when you’re doing something you love. Do you ever get that when your shooting?

When I’m shooting I find that I’ve either ‘got it’ or I don’t, so I never shoot more than 20 or so shots per look because I know I’ll have at least one good image once I’m set up correctly. I find I’m ‘in the zone’ during the short period of actually photographing and I normally know exactly what I want to do when we’re on set and if it’s not working I’ll try something else straight away. I try and keep the pace up on shoots and the models I’ve worked with recently have been pretty good at keeping up with me. I think the ‘flow’ comes down to who you’re photographing and how good they are at taking direction.

If you could photography anyone in the world, in any place in the world, who would you choose and in what setting?

Right now I’d probably take Daphne Groenveld to India during the Holi festival and dress her in amazing colourful clothes.

You can invite 5 people to a dinner party (dead or alive). Who’s coming?

Eddie Izzard because he’s hilarious, Gordon Ramsey so he can make the food because I’m pretty crap at cooking, Stephen Fry because he’s just awesome, Seth MacFarlane (ditto) and the dad from shit my dad says because he’d make witty politically incorrect comments about everything. Maybe I’d swap one of them for an unnamed friend and then I swap favours for the seat.


Have any vices or bad habits you want to share with us?

I have this bad habit of not using words when I’m directing people and will end up just making noises and moving body parts in an attempt to explain what I want. Also I can’t be wrong. Even when I’m wrong I’m right and it can really piss people off.

What advice do you have for other aspiring fashion and portrait photographers?

Constantly challenge yourself. Look at work in magazines and assess the editing and lighting and how they’ve shot editorial stories and try and take it on board for your own photography but don’t get ‘inspired’ to the point you’re copying someone else’s style. Work with subjects you feel comfortable with first whilst you develop your style and don’t get ahead of yourself before you’re ready as it’ll knock you back. And finally don’t stop shooting; even if you’re not photographing the things you want it’s very easy to get out of touch with it all. Even if you don’t have a camera try and think about lighting and poses etc. when you’re out and it will help when you are next shooting.

 

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Check out Charlotte’s work on her site and facebook