Stephanie Last is third year Art & Design student with a passion for street photography; however her work is more than just your regular photograph. By collaborating with the public, Stephanie has been able to put some unique twists on typical street photography and create innovative and exciting images. With a feature on the BBC, her work has definitely not gone unnoticed!
What got you interested in street photography?
I went to an exhibition about street photography that was particularly aimed at the public fears of street photography and this really interested me. I started thinking about how I could work with the unpopularity of street photography and bring it into my work without just taking photos myself, also how I could tackle the public fear. So I thought if people aren’t going to want me to take photographs of them, then why don’t I get them to take the photographs for me?
Were you interested in photography before you began University?
I’d done a bit before but University basically started it off. We did a project and I took one photograph of this glass cabinet of men’s suit jackets and my reflection appeared in one of them. It kind of looked like I was printed onto one of the suits and my tutors really liked it! It got me thinking about how photography’s a lot about chance because that was just really lucky! This got me interested in working with the element of chance.
For one of your first projects you did a photo montage, what were your thoughts and inspiration behind that?
That was my first project for street photography and I was interested in Psycho-geography. [Laughs] I still don’t completely know how to define it, but it involves how people deal and react with place, which I think street photography really links to. I wanted to collect as many street photos taken in Leeds as I could and I think I collected 400 photos which was really good.
Was it difficult trying to get people to participate?
Trying to get participation is incredibly hard! For every project I’ve done I’ve tried to make it easier because even when you think you’re asking for a really simple task, you don’t always get what you’ve asked for. The response has been great and I’m very thankful, but it’s definitely a lot harder than it seems.
Did you always intend to continue the street photography theme throughout your projects?
In the first project I got photos back that I wouldn’t have normally classed as street photography and this got me thinking about what street photography actually is. To me now I don’t think of it as being literally out in the street, I think of it as a spontaneous type of photography that captures real life. When I asked for photos in my next project I loosely used the term. So it wasn’t necessarily on the street, but still with street photography in mind.
Was it always the plan to include public participation as well or was that a natural progression?
After the first project I worried it would become a little repetitive but my tutors were keen for me to carry on with it and it’s a great way to promote your project. It’s one of the best ways to get recognition for a project because people are able to get involved and it’s also a bit more interesting. I love fashion street photography but it’s not what I’m best at and there’s some fantastic street photography out there but I never thought mine would be anything like that. Getting people involved does make it a bit different.
Tell us a bit more about one of your recent projects – 5-A-Street.
5-A-Street was one of the projects I got quite a lot of response and recognition for. The idea was to take 10 photos from the same view point over a period of 5 minutes. Then I combined the images in to one using Illustrator and Photoshop. However I never let the participant know how I was going to combine the images so there was a bit of ambiguity. A lot of people thought I would be layering them but instead I cut out certain bits of the images and created one new image so it was the idea of the real and unreal.
Your work for this project was featured on the BBC website, which must have been great for your career, how did that make you feel?
It definitely made my week! I was absolutely delighted. I’d been in contact with the picture editor but I never knew how much of my work was going to be shown. Although he’d asked me to keep sending images and written stuff about the project as well, I didn’t think I was actually going to get a link with a number of images and a commentary in. That helped my website hit count by no end! It’s also helped participation in my current project as well. The BBC is really good for anyone whose work is community based and getting other people involved. That’s something they’re really interested in.
Sur L’Heure is your new project which involves trying to reduce the artistic licence in photography, how have you gone about doing that?
Basically I’m interested in the relationship between artistic licence and the decisive moment because the decisive moment is meant to be very spontaneous and I often think street photography nowadays is a lot more planned. I asked for photographs over a period of 24 days and these photos needed to be taken exactly on the hour. So each day I would suggest hours for people to take the photos, for example 2am and 2pm, to give it a bit of structure but still produce more spontaneous images because people couldn’t choose the hour. From that I’m going to create two digital photos from these images.
Has the project been coming along well?
Yeah, it’s going great. The 24 days has finished now so I have all the images and they’ve been put into the two groups and I’m just in the process of starting to build the animations. It’s going to take a while but hopefully it’ll look good when it’s done!
Throughout all your projects, has it become easier to get people to participate?
Yeah, I think I definitely know more about what works and what doesn’t. Things like posters and Flickr don’t always work as well for my projects so it’s gotten easier in terms of knowing how best to do it. [Laughing] It’s never easy though!
With fashion street photography and apps like Instagram being so popular, do you think the future is looking better for street photography and it’s becoming more acceptable?
I’m very much for Instagram and taking photos on your phone because it’s such an instant way of taking photographs. I think Instagram has got people taking more photos when they’re out and about and I’m hoping it will continue. The only fear I have is that I think there’ll be a lot more close-up shots that maybe miss out other details.
What’s been your favourite project so far?
I loved 5-A-Street! That was great fun and I really enjoyed getting people involved even though it was a challenge. Sur L’Heure has been a lot more of a challenge but I’m hoping this will be a better effect than the images for 5-A-Street,
And finally what are your plans for the future?
[Laughing] Well if anyone has any jobs going then feel free to put my name forward! I’d love to work for somewhere like the BBC! My ideal job would be a picture editor because that’s essentially what I have done in my projects. If not I’d love to work in digital marketing or something like that.
To find out more about Stephanie and her work you can visit her website at: http://thelaststreet.co.uk/ and to see her feature on the BBC website head to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-20729484.
Image Sources: All Stephanie’s Own.