Toby Dixon

I would like to research into a photographer called Toby Dixon, a photographer and film maker based in Sydney, Australia. He is well known for his portrait photography of life’s unusual characters.

This photograph taken by Toby is of a man standing in front of a wall of sunglasses. The man is in the centre of the frame looking directly at the camera with a dark pair of sunglasses that he is wearing over his eyes and a black hat. The man is standing slightly slouched with his right shoulder lower than his left, indicating that he may have underlying health problems such as, a back problem.

I predict that the man in this photograph is the sunglasses store owner. This is because he is standing proudly in front of a wall of sunglasses with an authoritative look on his face and posture.

The colours throughout the photograph are very vibrant because of the different glass tints you can see in the background on each of the sunglasses, all varying slightly differently. The image has a warm feel to it because of the high colour temperature used to bring out a more warmth into the photograph. This has had effects on the man’s skin as it makes him look more tanned and fresh. He is also wearing a blue shirt which is a cooler temperature than the orange colour temperature used within the image.

Reading between the lines of the build-up to when this photograph was taken, Toby must has asked the man if he could be photographed and gave him direction of where to stand but not him to stand so he captured the natural pose of the sunglasses store owner.

I personally like this photograph because you are able to encode what the photograph is of and why the man is standing outside a wall of sunglasses.

I would like to follow a similar approach in my photographs so that you can see specific signs and signifiers that lead you to think that the person in the photograph is there because it is their occupation.

This photograph taken by Toby Dixon is much different to the previous photograph I have just analysed. One reason for this is because the model is in a studio setup rather than on location. Therefore, it may be slightly harder to encode what is going on in the photograph from a first glimpse.

The model in the photograph is split into two halves. The model is wearing a green blouse and shirt on the right side of the model and a black open top with red dots over it on the left. The models left arm has tattoos of flowers on it visible because of it not covered up because of her clothes. The model is wearing one side of a pair of glasses, subtle make up and her hair flat falling down. The other side of the model face doesn’t have glasses on but instead a nose ring with her hair up and a red hair broach in her hair.

What the model is wearing gives a clear enough example of what two sides of the model has. The right side of the model looks as if she works as a sectary or works in an office while on her left side it looks like this is where she lets her hair down and her real personality is expressed. The photograph shows a split between two characters of the same people.

After conducting the research on Toby Dixon, I would like to focus my photography project on photographing peoples occupations.