Joe Zammit-Lucia

www.jzlimages.com

Joe Zammit-Lucia is a professional environmental photographer based in the UK and the USA. He was born in Malta and has been involved in photography since the age of 16. Since then his photographs have been on shown around the world, including New York, Miami and London. 

Joe Zammit-Lucia uses the basic formal elements of photography and produces stunning photographs using a minimalist style. Joe combines the basics of line, shape, form and space to give each photograph a unique style. He uses lots of positive space by removing each subject from its original background and replaces it with a black background. By doing this, the composition of the photograph makes the viewers eye lead directly to each animal.

The way that Joe Zammit-Lucia crops and positions his photographs has a major impact on the emotions of each animal. For example on the photograph of the Giraffe above, he crops the image so that the viewer can only see half of the Giraffes face. Personally, I feel that this gives the animal its own identity because the line, shape and form lead your eye to the Giraffes eye, which looks as though it is thinking about something.

I came across Joe Zammit-Lucia, whilst studying a part-time photography course, and have been inspired ever since. The way he uses lights and shadows emphasizes the emotions and feelings of the endangered animals. I found a quote on Joe's website that describes the way he feels when photographing each animal, "Portraits celebrating the animal as individual not as mere specimen on species" (www.jzlimages.com) I feel that this is a strong quote from Joe, as it shows how he feels about each animal, he feels that every animal has its own identity and he shows this with the photographs he takes.

I feel that Joe Zammit-Lucia can have an influence on my work in the future, as I really enjoy the minimalist approach and using black and white. He has influenced me to try and capture my own photographs in a similar style but also look at different area's of design and try and incorporate these ideas and technique in my own work.