About myself

My name is Jason Randall, I'm  nineteen years old and I work in a shop.

Since finishing my A-levels at college I took two years off, I wanted to achieve a lot in them two years, however I regret to say that I didn't, at all. The first thing that I aimed to do was to get a job as a photographer working for a local studio, however I was knocked back due to fact that they were already over staffed, so I settled for the next best thing...a corner shop.
I'm making it sound terrible however I think it's one of the best things that has happened to me. My job has become the center of almost every day of the week, except my only day off. working in a shop I have several duties such as serving on the till and stocking up, however in the past year my duties have become more important to the whole company (there are a total of three shops with a fourth on the way).
After being promoted to assistant manager I was given more responsibility, such as cashing up the shop at the end of the night, filling the cash machine with thousands of pounds, handling tricky customers, and looking after staff. During the time that I'm performing these duties I am on my own, that is to say my manager is elsewhere at another shop, and so the responsibility of the running of the whole shop falls down to me.

My photography is still a huge part of my life though, as in my time off I'm looking for anything that would pose as interesting composition. However recently my work has become more commercial.
I have done quite a few jobs for customers, photographing there children, themselves and even weddings.
A photographer's work I really admire is that of Richard Vantielcke, a French photographer. Most of his work is quite dark and it inspired me to do several shoot that are below

The work submitted below is just a few of my favorites and work people have suggested that they like.
All of them have had minor altercations on Adobe Photoshop, however most of them are just small tweaks.

Shaking the mask off.

This photograph is part of a set that is about my feeling towards maturity and growing up, it shows how I want to shake off my fears about university.

Katy Mckenna - Full length

This image was my first attempt at photographing a model for a portfolio. The most challengeing part of this shoot was putting the model into a suitable position.

A new generation.

This is the first image of the elderly with a twist set. It's also the photograph that set me off searching the streets of my home town asking older people to pull silly faces for me. I met this woman whilst walking through the village centre, she was carrying bags and one split, so I went over and helped her back to her car, all the way she was making jokes and pulling silly faces and so I asked if i could photograph her for my work, she agreed, and it started a whole project for my college work.

A silly face, from a silly man.

This is the second photo from my elders with a twist collection. The man in the photo is my granddad who is the funniest man I know, hes always pulling silly faces, so one day i went to his house and photographed him for hours whilst he amused us both pulling ridicules faces.

Light parkour

This image is supposed to be a representation of the sport free running originally called parkour. However I have used light trails to represent the flow of movement from the free runners.

Kickflip

This is my personal favorite skateboarding image, because of everything going on in the image, from the tones in the sky, to the expression on the subject.

WARNING; GRAPHIC CONTENT

The next two images are part of project that I looked into during my second year after college. It started because I met a friend who's relative had just sobered up after being a heroin addict. He told me his story and I felt that I had to do something, so I photographed a model doing the drug as a representation of the horrifying reality that drugs can have on people. The location I used was the actual place that he used and slept at before his rehabilitation. He told me of the process of "shooting up" and how it felt when he "cooked" the heroin. However it was all faked, there was no real drug and no one was hurt in the process.


The man, who will remain anonymous at his will, made a full recovery and has been sober for over 4 month and has never felt better.

I must stress that the images followed are of a high graphic nature and do show needles.

Cooking

 

Hear is part of the process of "shooting up", I felt like this was an important part to show because, after speaking with junkies, they say that this was the most exciting part of the hit, because it was exhilarating knowing that they were moments away from total euphoria.

Shooting up

This is the second image from the heroin shoot, it's the most graphic one out of the whole collection, once again there i nothing in the needle, however it is practicaly in his skin. For me this is the image that really sums up the whole set.

M for Machete

My penultimate image was part of a small shoot that I did whilst my model was getting ready for his shoot (images above), however turned out as a good image.

The Dove

The last image is the one that most who have seen my work like the best. I think the reason people like it is because of the simplicity and the representations that people take on when they see it.