The Creative inside
Tiffany was nineteen years old when she first picked up a camera but little did she know, she was about to embark on a lifelong love affair with photography. At first, she was shooting still-life images for her interior design projects and was only really interested in creating wall art for her schemes. Her first foray into photography was under the red light of a darkroom, but when she mixed those chemicals and watched the image emerge from the watery bath, something stirred inside her.
Even today, she remembers that metallic odour that tickles the end of your nose. Analogue photography may be a thing of the past, but the medium itself has never been more present.
Tiffany would continue dabbling in interior design but becoming a mother comes with financial urgency, so she took a full-time job at a car dealership. Tiffany loved her job and the people she was working with but as a frustrated Creative, she had an urge she simply couldn’t deny. Her creativity had an outlet in interior design, but the photography aspect of it seemed to be calling her. Tiffany always had that innate yearning to be creative and her foray into interior design was generally helping friends and family design their homes. It was more of a hobby than a career choice but that didn’t stop her doing a course in Interior design before learning how to take photographs.
Bridges - Manmade vs Nature , Tiffany Hayes.
From Interior Design to Street Photography
Fifteen years after picking up that analogue camera, Tiffany began to hear the little voice again, that voice that she had awakened in the darkroom. She began looking around for courses in photography with a plan to improve her still-life photography skills to enhance her interior design arsenal. The British Academy of Photography (BAPH) was perfect as it meant she could work, be a mother and study in her own time. What she didn’t expect was that the BAPH would awaken a passion in her that would outshine her interior design plans.
Tiffany’s curious mind would probably have led her to exploring different genres and styles of photography eventually, but the BAPH promptly plucked her out of her comfort zone and dropped her into areas she never would have imagined. She has gone from creating images that enhance a room design to documentary portraiture and street photography. She now sees the world around her, through her camera lens.
Homeless man; Homeless man side face, Tiffany Hayes.
People being people
Tiffany is currently embarking on a project around the homeless community in her area. During lockdown she would stop and chat to a man she would encounter on her street but now that she possesses the eye and the mind of a photographer, she wants to tell his story through the lens of her camera. Tiffany believes that photography is not just art, it is a means of communication and for people like Tiffany with dyslexia, she finds it speaks her language clearly and beautifully. Her exploration of photography began as still-life images to adorn the walls of interiors she has designed, but today it has become her voice and her perspective on life. Documentary portraiture is the means by which Tiffany will talk about the world and tell the human story. With a warm and generous personality, she has the inherent ability of making people feel at ease. When she is capturing candid moments, her tactic is to chat, relax and always be ready. It is when people are most relaxed that they will be themselves. Tiffany’s goal is to observe people, simply being people!
Homeless man floor; Homeless man scar cigarette, Tiffany Hayes.
History of Photography
BAPH has not only taught Tiffany the technical skills to extract all she can from her DSLR, but the history and the study of some of the great names in photography has armed her with a toolbox of visual references and historical events. You cannot master an art form if you don’t know where it’s been and none believe this more than Tiffany who is comfortably listing off names like Henri Cartier Bresson, Irving Penn and Steve McCurry as artists she aspires to live up to.
She believes all genres of photographers are artists in their own way and to be any kind of photographer, you must be creative. Tiffany now sees everyday things differently and not just as she mentally frames everything she sees, but she sees the story in every face and the potential composition in a street corner or skyline or room. Her eyes are now trained to think like a photographer and her camera, or her ‘sidekick’ is never not with her. Also, analysing other people’s photography has become second nature now where she instantly sees how she could have done that differently or better. When Tiffany began shooting still-life, she would set the camera to auto and point and shoot but today, that seems almost absurd to her. She can’t help but play with the angles and perspectives of a frame, she simply cannot look around her without imagining what she sees through the lens.
Homeless men forward facing, Tiffany Hayes.
Tiffany enrolled in BAPH as a budding interior designer and today she is a full-blown photographer. It is not easy being a mother with a career and bills to pay and it is brave to pursue a career that has no guarantee of monetary rewards or success. Everyone takes photographs today and everyone is a voyeur, but a true artist knows that simply aiming a device and clicking, is a million miles from the work of a photographer. Tiffany has listened to the artist's voice inside her and found a way to make it work for her. Her next step is to volunteer with the Air Ambulance service at live events, not just because she is a humanitarian, but because her sidekick will be with her ready to capture the bulging energy of life.
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