Simon Wheatley

Simon Wheatley is a documentary photography who creates stories and video inside of the Hip hop and grime culture, he works mainly within the social documentary world capturing the everyday of artists in the streets, in their homes in the recording studio and at gigs. The images below are taken from his work, 'UK Grime', taken primarily inside of London he has attentively captured the faces of the artists and the places they live in.
Firstly I love his use of colour, it works very well, the whole culture is extremely colourful, each person differs, some have 7 colour on them, I see why he uses colour here, they need the colour to stand out inside of London its a tough place to be recognised. Simon gets very close and he likes to put his camera up in their faces with flash, but even with shots like these they are candid and they capture the energy of the places and people. I can feel these moments because I can see whats going on and I can relate to times in my own life where I can hear and see this thing gong on just like in these shots. 
In terms of his focus he is interested in the people and their minds (freestyle music), how they present themselves (Outside appearance) and how they socialise together (Groups and gangs). 
I really like his set up, looks like a 35mm camera with a 28mm lens, weak fill in flash and E6. The colours are beautiful and the shadows are black. Sometimes he bounces the flash off of the ceiling to fill the room with light. He has captured some very intimate moments with people also. this would be possible by getting close to certain people and be allowed to put that camera up to his face in delicate moments, the subjects seem very comfortable with his presence, Simon must be a good communicator.