How do you choose your angle?

Tom Skipp

“Making contact with people is important”

Tom Skipp is a photographer and designer based in East London, but his work takes him not just far away geographically but also culturally. Rwanda, ‘The Calais Jungle’ and Bosnia are just some of the locations where he has focussed his lens.

There is an innate beauty and dignity in his images, even in sometimes less than obviously ‘easy’ locations. Perhaps it’s part of a world-view that also encompasses delight in essays on London Cab shelters, and Amasunzu hair styles and other visual pleasures. His eyes are open.

So Tom, before you pick up your camera to capture the worlds around you, how do you choose your angle?

When I’m taking portraits I like to be at eye level, engaged, close.

Making contact with people is important to me, having their approval to be looking at them and pointing a camera at them. Contact can be verbal, sometimes physical or eye.

Tom Skipp, A Curate's Egg
Tom Skipp, A Curate's Egg

The content is very important, it has to move me and make me want to go to an effort to tell a story. Many times there is no ‘angle’, the aim for the photos starts off as me wanting to find out about a subject and relate that to people.

Tom Skipp, A Curate's Egg
Tom Skipp, A Curate's Egg
Tom Skipp, A Curate's Egg

My projects have mostly been self-funded, affording me the ability to show what I find. I certainly apply an aesthetic to my images, colours and structure but I’d like to think the angle is sympathetic and honest to the subject.

Tom Skipp, A Curate's Egg

www.tomskipp.com
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