Meg Williams captures the human form and all of its prettiness
Megan Williams was born in the UK and is currently in the final year of getting a BA hons degree in Fashion Photography. She captures a variety of fashion-based and personal imagery that has recently mainly explored themes of femininity. She loves colour! And animals. And she has been doing photography since she was 13.
Your work has a vibrant and eclectic feel. What drives your artistic choices and subject matter?
My brain is all over the place and seems to hyper-focus on ideas, so once I get an idea in my head I tend to build on that and draw inspiration from small things around me. If I'm walking to university or getting the train home, I come across all weird things that ignite my creativity. I’ve found I'm really drawn to colour everywhere, in a way that isn’t overbearing, just natural. The things that stand out against the norm but still blend in their own way interest me most. With my subject matters, I just love capturing the human form and all of its prettiness!
You capture a range of emotions and narratives in your photos. How do you connect with your subjects to bring out these stories?
I find it’s really important for me to work with like minded creatives, building on ideas to create something we all connect with which often leads to compositions I hadn’t thought of and end up being my favourite of the whole shoot. The models I have had the pleasure to work with as of yet, have all been amazing and super supportive of my concepts and ideas, and making sure they’re comfortable is really important for me; amazing people lead to amazing things!
How do you navigate the line between commercial photography and personal artistic projects?
Personal artistic projects really say “the world is yours” and it feels like I’ve been given a massive blank canvas and can paint whatever I want, but it’s honing in on my true interests and beliefs that creates the most authentic work. Commercially, I have found that it can be hard to find a balance between sticking to your own creative values whilst still reaching the goals of the partner, I’m yet to master this fully - but I often see it done beautifully in the media such as Harley Weirs SS16 Calvin Klein campaign.
How do you stay inspired and innovative in your work? Who or what are some of your biggest influences and inspirations in photography?
I stay inspired by trying to not be in my head too much, taking a deep breath and appreciating everything around me and seeing everything as a possible creative direction. Even looking out of my window as I type this now I’ve just noticed that I really like the layering of different shades of green against green. My biggest inspiration is my family. The rawness of old family photos and how they capture so much emotion and forgotten memories inspires me to capture the presence of my raw youth and those around me.
How do you see the role of photography evolving in the age of social media and digital content?
Photography can be used very tactically to promote stuff on social media, and the use of AI is a debatable topic. I myself have enjoyed playing around with it for personal projects; however, I do worry about the harm and job loss it may cause within the creative industry.
What would be your dream project to work on in the future?
Big question for someone who doesn’t even know what they’re doing day to day lol. Music stimulates me soooo much so doing a project on visualising songs as I interpret them makes me have creative butterflies. Similarly, I would love to dip my toes in videography, so shooting a music video one day would feel really great :)
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