Another Job for Portraits
Another job I’ve recently thought of for my mixed lighting portraits. I feel another job that is under-threat is Tour Guide. When we go to museums we’re offered an audio guide.
Jobs that I can shoot:
PPR #2
Today I had my 2nd PPR, this time it was with Julian Hawkins. This was a very quick chat because Julian was running behind. Below is a summary of points from the talk.
I said to Julian the only thing I’m struggling with is finding work experience. I said I was pleased with the experience I’d gained standing in for Tony Mitchell, but I need something to fill the void when the football season isn’t on. To which Julian agreed and suggested that I find other sports to cover. Summer sports like cricket, tennis, rounders, athletics, bowls, horse racing etc. Not only will this fill my time but this will let me develop new skills that other sports throw up.
Julian also felt that I should spend time documenting sports that aren’t mainstream, sports which you don’t expect much or at all on TV, so BMX or Parkour. Parkour can be both candid and staged. Another sport I thought of is obstacle course/fun runs.
One thing I was nervous about but willing to chat about was a work experience placement over the summer. Julian felt that a placement on a picture desk or picture editor would be beneficial so he recommended newspapers like the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times. I also mentioned to Julian that my mum is friends with the photographer at Sotherbys so I said even though this is a different industry to mine, should I enquire about a week or two week placement, to which Julian said I should.
It was also recommended that I look into photo-agencies or maybe even photo agents and that leads onto the next aspect:
Julian mentioning to me about the chances of me considering advertising photography. I said it isn’t an area I gave much thought for but I do know it is where the money is in photography. Julian said the best way to break into advertising/commercial photography is by contacting agents of photographers. Agents only seem to be involved in advertising.
In the 2nd year, I’m going to be shoot a lot on Phase One and theres gonna be loads of location and studio shoots where models will be needed. So I’m gonna need my website and good social media feeds to show agencies that I’m kosher and help me with getting reliable models for my shoots. We were also recommended to avoid finding models through social media because we don’t want to be let down.
As mentioned we have loads of medium format shooting coming up in 2nd Year and because we have the POCP as well it’s been recommended that we prepare for it, there are refreshers in June that Ravensbourne are running with Flash Centre. I’m also attending a work shop next week with ex Flash Centre employee Al Simmons. This should put me in a good place for the POCP come January 2019.
Books and more books
Last Thursday in Location Photography we had a talk from Geraint who is a self-confessed book-junkie. He owns around 1500 photo-books. I don’t think I’ll ever reach Geraint’s level but I’m hoping to collect several photo-books myself to act as inspiration. He also believes that “the most perfect expression of photography is in print-form“. A book is also an edit for life, it’s not like a website or a portfolio where we can make changes whenever we want and our usually made on a monthly basis with a book you can’t change it once it’s printed.
Geraint also said that photo-books allow the viewer to have an intimate relationship with the photograph. With a book the viewer has full control they can see the photo as much as they want, Geraint compared it to seeing a print in a gallery, you don’t have the same amount of freedom, you may be asked to move on and you will probably have to pay to see the same image. Whereas with a book, it’s there and you may interact with it whenever you want.
It reminded me of what one of my Foundation tutors said about horror movies. He doesn’t understand why people go to cinemas to watch horror movies, they know there gonna be scared and they have no control, at least when they watch the dvd they can stop and skip, they have control there. The principle is near-amount the name for books.
It really is a golden age for photo-books, it’s not that hard to make one and it actually isn’t tough to get your name and your book out there now, Geraint said that “more photo-books are being published yearly than ever before“. We have e-commerce on our websites, we have blurb where we can design and sell our books, we can pitch them to retailers some retailers operate on a sale and return basis, so you earn money for the books sold and you receive the unsold stock and you can try your luck elsewhere. However as always theres a drawback, there are so many photo-book that this is a very competitive market and sometimes it can be tough to think of an idea that stands out from the others.
Next Geraint talked about some aspects of photo-books that are usually taken for granted. Firstly this is something I hadn’t given much thought for was the flow and rhythm of the book. “Different formats of photographs have different rhythms“. Landscape images are good to lead the viewer across the page and onto the next one, whereas square images don’t pull people across the page, “they are a slower experience” this does how mean that they can be used as full stops. To start and end a sequence of images. This is shown in William Kleins photo-book where he has dramatic double page spreads that pull the viewer across the page, then he ends the sequence with a square or a portrait image. This signals the end of this location or subject matter. The main thing to remember is that you need to be flexible and open to cropping when your shooting. You never really know what type of images you need until you have them all and your laying the book out.
I believe that the above image does an ok job of portraying it. Landscape: we’re drawn across the frame as we learn of new faces, whereas Portrait: we are drawn up or down to learn about new faces but we aren’t drawn to the next page. This could potentially be a problem with my images.
Next Geraint spoke about paper-weight.
Pages that have a weight greater than 200gsm can’t be binded. It is recommended that you don’t exceed 185gsm but 200gsm is the highest that even the most confident book-binders are prepared to try.
To help emphasise his case Geraint brought along some photo-books and magazines. One that instantly caught my eye was a journal called Victory. It is a publication that publishes twice a year, so once every six months. It’s online platform is updated monthly. It retails at around $16 however in the UK it costs around £20.
The journal is as the front cover suggests about the big stories in the world of sports, however it isn’t your typical statistical analysis. Victory’s website says the following “Victory provides a forum for work that is unapologetically enthusiastic and uncompromisingly human. Through extensive reporting, probing personal essays, award-winning photography, illustration, and original films and animations“. I was drawn to the magazine because of the size, a DPS is an A2 print. So there are many effect uses of double page spreads in this edition they had a very effective images of a dejected Tim Howard as he concedes and the background is full of Liverpool fans celebrating their goal. Even though the game ended in a draw, it still told the story of the game because the game was very even and deserving of a draw and Everton were very unlucky to go behind. I’d only wish I’d taken an image of it to share with this blog post.
Mentioning another publication, I learnt something new about National Geographic.
It was one of the last magazines to convert to digital, only do so five years ago. Also to be a photographer for Nat Geo, you had to shoot on Kodachrome 25. That is why every single images that Nat Geo shared felt the same. Nowadays with everything being digital you’d think times had changed. Wrong, you can only shoot with Natgeo if you shoot with Canon. That is why there are never any Canon commercials in the Natgeo magazine. Mentioning adverts, the most expensive commercial in a magazine is the Inside Front Cover, the most expensive is the back cover.
After this I did an edit of the most recent images for my photo-story. Geraint have us a quick insight into how an edit should go. The first edit should be on a technical level, so in the image in focus, is it well exposed, composition, is the image repeated etc. This is usually the only bit of the edit that is done on a computer.
The next bit of the edit is where we take the viewer into account, what is the image saying?, is it saying the right message? can the viewer understand it?.
Then the final bit of the edit is the sequence, this is when the story truly comes together. It is much better to have every single image printed out right in front of you, this way you can move them around and draw comparisons and see connections.
When looking through my images, Geraint decided on the three pivotal images of my story. Left: The German leaves his trench to start the truce. Middle: The Germans and British meet in the middle. Right: The artillery bombardment singals the end of the truce and fighting must resume.
When Geraint looked at my images, he had thoughts of the classical dark black & white scenes of All Quiet On The Western Front, which was one of my starting points for this project. He also agreed with me when I decided to go with the Christmas truce rather than a battle, the truce is unique to war and unexpected. Me and Geraint also felt that these three images would work as my double page spreads, they would work particularly well in panoramic format [2.9:1]
Group Tutorial 2: Ship or Island
Today I had my second tutorial for the Lavazza coffee brief. This time it was Chris. I get the feeling that Chris liked the concept of my image.
He had the impression that it was a “ship wrecked man at sea in a cup” this is how Matt viewed the narrative going forward. To which I mentioned that I was hoping to go more along the lines of escaping from a deserted island. Chris said that he “Really liked the idea of escaping from the sinking Titanic in a coffee cup, he’s smiling in his tuxedo as he escapes whilst playing the violin” It would feel poetic when people view it, they’d probably instantly hear “Nearer, My God, To Thee” when the Titanic slipped below the waves.
Chris also said that he liked the idea of the man using the cup to escape from a deserted island. He said it has a ring of the message in the bottle arriving on the deserted island to act as hope.
If I do go with the sink ship, I could probably show this in the attire as well for my model. Tuxedo, black suit, maybe something as simple as an overcoat could replicate a passenger or maybe even one of the violin players. If I go down the abandoned island route the model needs to have crazy hair and lots of stubble.
If I do go with the ship wreck, I could actually have the ship in the background. I could shoot my Airfix Titanic, Chris mentioned that I should try to make it look as realistic as possible, which I’m already ahead because the parts of the ship was already painted, so all I need to do is get some string for the masts.
Next me and Chris talked about locations, he mentioned that taking images of water might require a bit of patience to get the right kind of shot and angle. If I shoot on a very calm day, the water might look more like a lake rather than an ocean in the middle of nowhere. Maybe shoot on the beach at high tide, that way I know where the flat beach is and if I can actually go into the water, it might give a better perspective for being in an ocean.
Below is a quick sketch of how I view the idea now:
So the next question is where would I shoot my idea. I really need somewhere on the coast that with a clear view of the horizon. It would probably be best if I could go somewhere with a bit of a sea breeze. This should create waves or at least make the water less static and more like the open ocean.
I’m hoping to shoot the backplate on Saturday where the first location I had in was Dover. At the bottom of the cliffs there is a small beach next to Samphire Hoe. I feel this would be a very good starting point if I’m able to get onto the beach.
I also chose this location because of the weather. Saturday is reported to be sunny around 1PM all the way through to night. I also chose this location because it is high tide at 3PM, where the water is 6.01 metres [high tide] this will hopefully give me a good perspective of being in the middle of the ocean. Also mentioning the weather, there supposed to be winds of 13-14 mphs. This should hopefully start some waves. Once gain adding to the feel of being on the ocean.
The Great British Seaside
Today I went to the Maritime Museum at Greenwich to see the latest photo exhibition The Great British Seaside. This hasn’t been my type of subject but I was still looking forward to looking at how this subject was viewed. I also went in just expecting bright vibrant colours to sell the false dream of sunny holiday. However there was only two photographers, two of them shot beaches in B&W. I was also expecting the work of John Hinde but his work wasn’t included. I guess it’s because he technically just took postcard images of the seaside. Post card images that would inspire Martin Parr to shoot in colour.
The exhibition is all about the seaside, which has been a popular tourist destination for British holiday-makers. The rise in popularity of beach holiday-makers coincides with the rise of Documentary photography in the UK, I guess you could say the boom of colour photography made the seaside look like a better place and made people go there. “Several photographers turned their cameras to the beach to interpret our relationship with the unique landscape” Here are the approaches that the photographers took:
Tony Ray-Jones visually documented the the English during leisure. He was inspired by the fashionable street photography that he experienced whilst studying in the USA at Yale.
After returning from the States, he felt that the UK was losing it’s cultural identity due to ‘Americanisation’. So he spent two years travelling around in a camper van capturing, in his words “the sadness and the humour“. His images are the opposite of what I expected from photos of the seaside. Black & white, dark, dull. I expected colourful. However Ray-Jones is trying to portray something being lost to time, so he probably shot in B&W to have a timeless feel to his images.
This was probably my favourite image from his set. I think is saying that despite the fact there on a hot beach/seaside, Britain is still trying to maintain it’s class by wearing suits.
Below are some of his other frames that I liked:
“My aim is to communicate something of the spirit and the mentality of the English, their habits and their way of life, the ironies that exist in the way they do things …”
David Hurn is a self-taught photographer who shot the beaches of England in B&W. He garnished his reputation in the 1960s and 70s when he photographed some of the biggest personalities and events of the time. He has sat at the heart of British documentary photography, he loves “shooting the mundane“.
The seaside has always been an important attraction for him, he meticulously observed photography of the British and Welsh coasts that are filled with wit & joy and show both the changing and unchanging fate of the British seaside experience.
The next photographer in the exhibition is the father of British documentary photography, the president of Magnum photos Martin Parr. He is why I was expecting bright colourful images of the seaside.
Parr is known for his candid colour-saturated photos of ordinary life, he explores themes such as class, consumerism, leisure, travel & tourism.
The above image is a very typical Martin Parr image, bright colours which would’ve been created by a direct ring flash, there is also evidence of flash in the print with the slight motion blur in the seagull on the left. The the bright defined colours, especially in the Union Jack is a typical Martin Parr shot. Parr is the self-proclaimed ‘aficionado of the British seaside‘
In 2017, Parr was commissioned by the Maritime Museum to shoot a series called The Essex Seaside. This series has on of my favourite Parr images. It feels like a typical English image. The family has probably got the train from London to spend the day on the sunny beach of Clacton-On-Sea and it’s raining.
Below are some of his images that caught my eye in the exhibition:
“The seaside has to be one of the most fascinating places for people-watching, it is a place where we relax … and thats where true personality come on display”
The last photographer in the exhibition was Simon Roberts. He documents the British landscape and how it reflects social, political and social change.
I enjoyed the exhibition so much that I decided to buy the The Great British Seaside Book.
Feedback from Photo-story and Portrait Treatment
Last Friday I got a few pieces of feedback about my photo-story and my portrait projects.
For the photo-story I got two pro sticky notes.
“Interesting and different idea”
“Like this idea, very different, like the idea”
For the portrait project. I got one pro and one con sticky note.
Pro: “Clever Idea! Other People: Librarians, Shop Keepers”
Con: “Think about different jobs. How will we know they’re endangered crafts”
Me and Celine also had a chat about my photo-story and my portraits:
Imagery of the 1st World War
Below is a couple of example of staged and candid imagery from WW1, maybe I might try to recreate some of these scenes for my photo-book. The eleven images I’m about to show you came from an online article that the telegraph did. [Allen, 2014]
WARNING: YOU MAY FIND A FEW OF THESE IMAGES TO BE DISTRUBRING
When I started doing research into photographers of WW1, the first name that I saw was that of Lt. Ernest Brooks, he has four images in the article, however probably his most famous one wasn’t included in the article, I’ve included it below, it is the reason why I want to experiment with back lighting my soldiers.
Brooks style is believed to be focused on more staged imagery, rather than candid shots of soldiers advancing. Brooks also said that his combat images were never faked. Apparently he had a fondness for dramatic silhouettes because silhouettes don’t leave any information for facial recognition. These images were mainly used to emphasise the anonymous heroes of the great war.
Brooks was the first and longest serving British Army Photographer, by the end of the war, he’d taken over 4,400 photographs. His images makes up over 10% of the British Army’s archive of WW1, most of images are now in the hands of the Imperial War Museum.
References:
Allen, C [2014] ‘Photographers on the front lines of the Great War’, The Telegraph, 30th June
5 Tips On How To Create A Standout Photo-Book
While looking through some editions of the RPS Journal I came across a few pages that might be of some use for my photo-story project. [Lewis, 2018]
The article in question is about Dewi Lewis and how to make an inspirational photo-book. At the end, there were 5 Tips On How To Create A Standout Photo-Book. Here is what I took from the five tips.
Tip 1: Have A Message
Content is key. I need to think about what I’m trying to communicate with my book. It doesn’t matter if it’s a collection of photographs for one journey, a specific series or a project documenting nature or people, there still has to be a clear message. We have to ask what will the readers take from the book?.
Tip 2: Be Objective
Each image has to be considered objectively, we have to be unsedimental, any images that are low in resolution or don’t stand alone should be removed. “Print out your images physically in front of you to decide on an order and help extract a narrative“[Lewis, 2018] Even if you only organise your book by colour or tone, your book will still have a coherent structure.
Tip 3: Choose A Format
Is it hardback, paperback or lay-flat?. Paper weight and type has to considered as well. We’re pretty much spoilt for choice. There also much choice as to where to order or make them online.
Tip 4: Create Your Book
Choose from a number of tools to design your book. The article recommends the use of Bob Designer software.
Tip 5: Publish & Enjoy
Once you’ve created it, pitch it to shops, try to get it in online book shops. Some places have book of the month competitions. “Make a book. tell your story” [Lewis, 2018]
References:
Lewis. R [2018] Want To Make A Photobook?, RPS Journal [January] pg. 54-57
Locations for backplate
To shoot my backplate for Lavazza coffee project, I need to go somewhere on the coast where there is another island in the background. The first location that springs to mind is Portsmouth.
On the other-side of the Solent there is the Isle of Wight. This could pose a perfect location for my backdrop, especially if I can shoot the edge of the island. I could easily do it the full background of the island but I feel if I can find the edge, it would be better. If I can frame it properly, it can feel like a vague location, so it could be a random island in the middle of an ocean.
Group Tutorial 1: Pushing the Narrative
Last week I had my first group tutorial about my Lavazza coffee project. Cody sketches my idea as I portrayed it and he got it pretty much right. However when I pitched the idea to Matt, it broke down slightly. Matt looked a tad bit contentious when I was using a sachet and replacing the sea with coffee.
He also asked, how is Lavazza coming to the rescue? Which a mixture of over-thinking and not feeling well meant that I couldn’t provide a clear answer. In summary after the talk I felt a tad bit downhearted about my idea.
So since the talk I’ve given my main idea for Lavazza coffee some thought and I’ve made a few changes which I feel, improve the narrative.
My original idea was that the guy was gonna be using a sachet of Lavazza coffee as an oar. However after some thought, it would look like Lavazza is polluting the sea, especially if I replace the sea with coffee. That doesn’t sound like the kind of message that they would like to put in one of their campaigns. So instead the man will be sitting in a cup, in a sea of water, using a spoon as an oar.
In the background of the frame, I’ll have an island. And around the cup there will be a wake in the sea, to show that he is swimming away from the deserted island.
Finally to further add to the narrative, I’d like the make the man in my image look like he’s landed on a deserted island, so stubble facial hair, out-of-control hair. Anything that makes him look like he’s been abandoned for a very long time. I feel all of this will add to the phrase of “Lavazza to the rescue“. Maybe I could substitute the island with a ship wreck, maybe I could take a picture of an Airfix ship that I have and make it look like it’s sinking.
So below is an updated sketch of my Lavazza to the rescue idea.
Ben Peters Digital Photography 