Courteney Johnston is a commercial photographer who has studied photography for five years at The Northern School of Art; her photography brand is ‘Courteney Simpson Photography’. Courteney is based in Middlesbrough in the North East of England. She found her love of photography through her Grandad. Her grandad has always been a photographer as he followed in his father’s path. Before she could shoot her own photographs, she was always in front of her grandads’ camera until she picked up a camera herself. 

 

Courteney started out her photography journey using film photography, gaining experience in shooting, developing film and the photographic printing process. Concentrating mainly on digital photography as it suits the commercial work she creates; Courteney has taken most of her photographs in a studio. Although she focusses her work in the studio, she also has experience with working on location both with natural and artificial lighting. 

 

Courteney creates work that is very commercially based. The images she produces have to look appealing and make people want what is being sold. She has worked with multiple genres of photography and in each photograph, she pushes herself to find her own style within that genre. Courteney is aiming to carry on with focusing on more genres of photography in the upcoming year. She wants to carry on broadening her work. She has always been passionate about art and likes to try to bring this into her photography work. Courteney studied Art in Design in college before choosing to move onto photography so she combines these two subjects into some of the photography she creates. 

 

On her social media account, her work was noticed by the company Gordons Gin in which they commented that they liked one of the photographs she did one of their gin bottles. She also got a reply of Rankin’s assistant when she sent her work to him on Instagram saying they liked what she was creating. This was a big accomplishment for Courteney and shows her work is being noticed through her social media.