Tamara Williams- Inspiration

Tamara Williams was born in Germany, and sh has always had an interest in photography, it was initially a hobby but then developed into a defined and lifelong career. She started working as a bank clerk, but eventually decided to follow her dreams of becoming a successful photographer, specialising in fashion and portraiture. Since that transition, she has worked with a huge variety of clients, and is well known today for her natural, perfected and sharp beauty shots. Her work has been featured in many countries, on the cover and in magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and many more all over the world.

I first noticed her work on Instagram, where I personally follow a lot of photographers, and her work was recommended to me. I was initially drawn to it because of how perfectly clean and sharp her portraits are, and also the pops of colour throughout. I’m inspired firstly by how close up some of her portraits are, some of the photographs have no background or backdrop at all, the models face and hair fills the entire space, which I think is very interesting because it’s not something you see all the time in photography, often there’s at least a little amount of room around the model, for negative space, but sometimes, Williams leaves no space at all, which draws the viewer's eyes straight to the centre of the image. This is something I would love to experiment with, having my model be extremely close to the camera, with her eyeline straight into the lens because I think it really draws the audience's attention in.

Something else that Williams does that I like, is her use of the models hands in the photographs. She doesn’t do it all the time, but in some of her portraits, the models have their hands in the shot, which adds another element, but can also change the mood of the photograph quite a lot. It can look quite casual when placed under the models chin, or lightly touching her lips, giving a more carefree look, but when it’s more harsh, and placed at a more odd angle, like straight across the face, the audience can tell that it’s on purpose and tries to figure out why, to see the reasoning behind it. I would like my model to use her hands in my shoot, but in a casual way, like holding the glasses or on her chin, to add another element into the portraits.

Lastly, I really like how Williams uses colour in her work. She uses colour it seems, as a way to tie things together in her photographs. In one example, there is a model with amazingly silver hair, and within the photograph I can notice there is an overall ‘icy’ and cold tone, cast over the models skin, eyes and the background, which makes the entire image very cold but really interesting to look at. In another portrait, there is a model with more tanned skin, and for styling, she’s wearing warm toned clothing, with warmer makeup and the overall tone is tanned, and on the brown side, which helps bring it all together which I like. Another time she uses colour in a way I enjoy, is using pops of colour in her photographs. For example, a very bold lip colour, like red, or putting a touch of neon eyeshadow on the model, and I like this because it immediately catches the viewer's eye and draws them into the photograph more. I would love to experiment with colours like this, as the glasses I’m using are bright pink, so with styling, I’d like to make them the focus in the shot to draw the viewer’s eye more.