Feedback for Mono & Fanzine

Feedback for Mono & Fanzine

A few weeks ago, I received a B+ for my Mono and Fanzine submission [subject to moderation] Below is a summary of the audio feedback.

Video One: Julian Hawkins & Terry Hawes

I must admit listening from Terry’s feedback of my Fanzine. He liked the end product, but it wasn’t exactly what he expected. Which is a shame because he felt really confident in the idea. I believe this because there were many pauses in the feedback and sometimes it felt that Terry had to think really hard for some positives.

Terry also said “you’ve got the mechanics but you haven’t put it into practice” this was because I set up a grid and bleed marks but I “haven’t used the full bleed, you haven’t extended the full bleed box out“.

One final thing Terry picked up on is “less is more“. Terry felt that there was slightly too much content, which to be honest I expected to hear. I was worried about the amount of words. “you’ve got all the appropriate, correct information but theres too much of it” Terry did however finish this thought with “Your enthusiasm just bubbles out of the pages which is a joy to see. So I think photographically, it is strong, lots of good elements, so well done. It is a nice piece of competent work.” So in my opinion I received some very constructive feedback from Terry as regards to Fanzine.

Next Terry gave feedback for my Mono submission. “Mono, lots of different variety of shot choices, you’ve got evidence of moving the type around“ I’m also pleased to say that Terry really liked the image on the left, it was my favourite image from the shoot.”I love the close up of the guy taking the glasses off.“ One thing that potentially could’ve been a bit better though was my final placement of the type. “The type is a little bit, the positioning could be a little bit tighter. You’ve used some interesting crop ideas.“ 

The last comment of Mono from Terry was “Yeah, you’ve defiantly had a good go, you’ve seized the project, the ball by the horns had a good wrestle with it. Exactly what I wanted to see.”

After talking about the Fanzine. Julian proceeded to talk about my workbook. Julian started by saying “it’s excellent actually and it’s very very clear, follow, easy to navigate.” However the one problem that I do have to address is the lack of references. These can be “other photographers, people who are inspiring you, people who are maybe working in the same way that you want to work. Peoples who’s ways of working or ethos or style is something that you’d like to carry over into your way of working”

Video One: Julian Hawkins & Chris Frazer-Smith

Julian kicked this video off by talking about my conduct within the studio. It would seem that Julian was very pleased with the conduct of me and my team in the studio. “Very well organised, you were in on time your pre-booked and collected all your CLR equipment on the Friday before and stored it. And as a team, you we’re all very good at helping each other, which is very good to see. Very professional and very mature, I don’t see enough of that.”

Next Julian spoke about me as an individual. He felt that I had a very good comprehension of my camera and the technical side of photography. This is something I strongly agree with. My skills are in the technical side, but there are still new things to learn about my camera. I’m also keen to improve more on the meaning and the theory of photography. Julian followed up with this summary of my Mono shoot “Your imaginative with your poses and lighting, you did two different backdrops. You got the model to do different things. You had a clear idea in your head of what you wanted to achieve and directed your model accordingly”

Next Chris gave me feedback. “It looks very confident. I would say that you’ve tried some different things lighting wise. Which is nice to see. Your missing the full-length shot. Which is a shame. But that doesn’t take anything away from the fact that you look confident.” I must admit I couldn’t get a full body shot of Nathan because he’s 6 ft 2″ and his head was at the top of the colorama. Yes I could’ve done some cutting or manipulation in Photoshop but sadly my shoot was before the specific Digi Darkroom lessons and it wasn’t really something I’d tried before. It however would’ve been good experimentation though if I gave it a try. Chris followed on saying “Not only in your technical ability behind the camera, with lighting and directing your model in the studio. So yeah well done…  You know, keep on using your game all the time and pushing your comfort zone.”

Next Julian spoke about my Fanzine. “And looking at Fanzine. Very much the sort of thing that you may well get at a football game and you’ve probably been looking at Charlton’s own or similar, whether it’s their fanzine or their programme.” This is an avenue of research that I undertook. I looked at Voice Of The Valley which the fans created. I did consider looking at the programme Valley Review but I felt that was too serious. “not a programme as I remember programmes at football matches. It’s more than that, it’s very well done indeed. With lots of photography. And its not all been done on one session or one day.”

After this Julian spoke about me as a sports photographer with Charlton. “you’ve got a strong involvement with the club, you’ve got the access, they give you press access. Developing that sort of relationship with people is so important and I know it’s an area of photography that you want to go to. However I will say this to you and this is just an overall general thing. Make sure that you have all the other skills in your photographic bag… If your good, they like me in this sort of circuit. You will find that you get asked to do other things for them. It might just be people in the directors box shaking hands,” As a matter of fact, I’m currently standing in for the hospitality photographer Tony Mitchell I however fully understand what Julian means, I needed to make myself as well-rounded as possible to stand out. Also I said at the end of my fanzine that to be a club photographer, you really need to be a jack-of-all-trades kind of photographer.

Chris felt that there was potential for this to be a personal project. “I very much like this ongoing project for you Ben… more that can be achieved here, where you get your camera into certain places now you’ve got the agreement and understanding and relationship with Charlton. It’d be nice to see you in the dressing room, before the game, where all the kits are laid out before the team arrive.”

Overall I’m happy with my grade for Mono & Fanzine I do however feel that I made a few significant errors, mainly in the production side which hindered my grade from being better. I’m still very content with a B+ and I definitely know how I would tackle this or a similar project if I had to do it in the future.

 

Mono Reflection

Mono Reflection

Below are the four images that I have submitted for my Mono editorial brief. I’m very happy with how this project has gone and I feel that this is a good time to reflect on what went well in this challenging project and what I’d do next time if I received this brief or something similar in the future.

Close Up: Catch lights life the glasses from Nathan and make them stand out

Full Body: Really like the contrast that makes the glasses stand out

Something Diffrent: Holding the glasses to the viewer. Looks like he is about to put the sunglasses on to shield the sun [softbox]

Waist Upwards: Really like the arrangement of type and imagery

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What Went Well:

• Variety Of Image

I think I got a wide range of images during my shoot with Nathan. I covered all the poses I wanted to and I came out with even more poses. As a result I feel I have met the brief of having four different poses. I have a close up, waist upwards, full body and something different.

• Coherence

When I showed these four images to my friend, the first thing he said was “Did you intend to have the model to hold the glasses in all four images“. I didn’t realise this but I fell it establishes a running theme, it also shows the model interacting and maybe liking the sunglasses.

• Confidence

I feel that I was fairly confident in portraying my ideas to Nathan and he really helped with recreating my ideas. Some pose I didn’t have any examples sketches of old images to show him so he had to rely on my direction of my body and words. Which I felt I delivered clear instructions. I defiantly built up a really good rapport with Nathan which is really important. PA photographer, founder of Stella Pictures Ltd. and acquaintance of mine, Daniel Hambury an editorial photographer said “I learnt very early in my career that portraiture is a combined effort between the subject and myself. If they don’t buy in to my idea it shows.”

• Selection Process

I think my decision to create a questionnaire was a good call. I had personal connection to these images, so I felt it was important that I got an outside perspective of my images. I had to be careful though because this was too a strict brief that is why I stated in the intro the following:

“The Masthead “Mono” & “Art Fashion Architecture And Music Issue_01” can’t be moved. “Shady Deals” & “Glasses Define The Look” can be moved. Imagery and text have to be in Black & White.”

However it would seem that some people didn’t follow that as people said that maybe the type Mono could be moved. However it provided a nice range of feedback which I even got a response from Tom Miles where he said if I wanted to I could get in contact with him for further more detailed feedback.

• Teamwork

I think we worked well as a team. We spoke to each-other on a few occasions beforehand so we knew what ideas we’d all be attempting, so we had a plan of where to put lights, whether we should use a soft-box or a beauty dish etc. Also because we weren’t tethering, there wasn’t a need for a digi-op. So we could focus on one light each.

Also after our talk in December, we set up a group chat so we could discuss ideas and we could also discuss what equipment we could use.

• Initial Ideas

I think that I initially developed some strong ideas. I was really excited by the idea that I went into the talk with Terry and Matt. I felt this was very strong, to which Matt and Terry agreed. However a few days before the shoot, I postponed the idea, I felt that I wouldn’t have enough time to create this shot. However when the actually had the shoot, I felt much more confident about the idea and I believe I have successfully shot it. The main confidence boost, was finally being able to get the flash in sync. I wasn’t sure how to do it, but it was very simple on the day of the shoot and as a result, I was able to shoot it. I only wish I tried this shot on a white backdrop as well.

Also when I was sketching my ideas, I always had this sketch next to me, just to remind me of where the type is. To counter the type, all of my sketches we’re done on the right side of the frame, or right in the middle. Other sketches for my shots can be found here.

 

 

 

 

 

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Next Time:

• Finding Models

Finding a model for my shoot was particularly tough. I contacted the following agencies, Nii, DAM & Base. I even signed up to Fashion Monitor but I struggled to navigate and make use of the website. I really thought I’d left it too late. I never started contacting until December, the month before my shoot. I never heard back from Base. Nii was inconsistent will replies. They took two weeks one model was no longer on there books and five weeks to say that a model wasn’t available, which when I went back asking for more they never replied. I must admit, I have a feeling that Nii agency is just a man with a laptop because it’s address is a house in Lewisham and theres nothing on Companies House, as a result I had no way of getting in contact over the phone.

Then I spoke to DAM, there were a few off days when it came to emails but I eventually broke through when the said that Nathan would be available. I was looking for models who hadn’t done many shoots because I felt they would be most happy to test shots, however I had to be cautious that they weren’t inexperienced. Which I will be completely honest I was a tiny bit worried because Nathan only had two shoots on his page. However Nathan was very professional during the shoot, he was always helping with the set up and he carried out my poses with confidence.

The day before the shoot, I was nervous that Nathan wouldn’t turn up. It was such a relief when Nathan text me asking if I was the photographer for his shoot. Not only did it secure his presence, it also gave us an opportunity to confirm ideas that I had which had been passed on to him.

• Test Shots

I did QP test shots during my Mono shoot however I only did two, one with a black backdrop and one with a white backdrop. However I really should’ve done QP card shots every-time I changed the lighting set up. This is because when lights were moved around, the intensity on Nathan would be different, so an adjustment for an image where the light is 10 cm’s away, wouldn’t match an image where a light is 50 cm’s away. Luckily it doesn’t seem to of meant that the exposure of images were out, however on the next shoot, I might not be so lucky.

• Dry Run

Following on from test shots, I didn’t do a dry run. In the end I was confident with the poses I had to recreate, but it probably would’ve made me feel even more confident if I did a test run, it would’ve meant I could’ve created more accurate lighting diagrams to use in the shoot. It defiantly would’ve given me even more practice with synced flash and I possibly could’ve planned and done even more complex shots.

• Experimentation

I must admit, I feel that my shots involved some fairly simply lighting set ups. Maybe I should’ve taken time to create some images with some more sophisticated lighting set ups. Maybe I could’ve backlit the subject. Maybe if I did a dry-run I could’ve test it out and then execute it in the shoot.

• Tethered

A few days before the shoot, I planned to shoot tethered. This was because of a tool that Chris taught us about where we can have a png of the Mono layout and they would be overlaid as we shoot. This would’ve helped me with the image I took on the right. The pose and position of the catch lights we’re perfect. However I didn’t leave enough negative space for the masthead. Luckily there was room for the type to be cut in half, which I didn’t know how to do it initially. Yes I did print out the Mono layout beforehand, but it’s seems this still wasn’t enough the remind myself of the composition I had to shoot.

However if I was gonna shoot tethered, I was gonna have to shoot on a tripod. Which isn’t how I like to shoot I prefer to move around and shoot. This is something that I’d have to adapt to.

On another note, maybe I should’ve tried extending the frame and painting it black so I could have the type as one line on the left, above hand.

• Research

If I did this project again I would do more research, I think I narrowed myself by looking at photography that used sunglasses, ideally I would’ve conducted more research into ID magazine and maybe a few more publications. I only looked at a couple of covers for ID and it led to my idea of using split lighting, because ID are famous for only showing one eye on there front covers.

 

 

 

• Selection Process

I was glad that I did a survey about my front covers. But if I had time, I would’ve actually printed out all the covers I’d made and I would’ve just started at them for half and hour. Certain covers would pop out more than others. Giving me a rough idea of what are best. My tutor is foundation always said “The life of an image is in the print“.

• More Structure

If I was gonna do a project similar to this, I’m hoping to have more structure to the shoot. Before the shoot I’d planned to spend 20 minutes on each pose. We could spend 22 and 1/2 minutes on each pose but if I spent just 10 minutes per shot that would leave 10 minutes as contingency. However I didn’t experience that at all. My shoot started at 2 and I felt I was finished by 3, to which I had the space booked until 3:30. Maybe I should’ve kept shooting till, it might of given me a tiny bit more variety. Rather than focusing on one pose from a time, it was more a case of jumping from pose to pose.

• Organisation

I turned up to the shoot without my sunglasses. Luckily I only live in Kidbrooke, ten minutes away so my dad was able to run them down. To avoid this in the future, I will have a checklist in my bag. Tom Miles has around 10 bags and cases worth of photography equipment and every bag has a certain piece of equipment which never changes. This way when he knows what equipment he needs he just grab the bag and go.

• Equipment

Next time, I’d make sure the equipment is booked much earlier. I finally completed the risk assessment after 3 attempts on the Monday before the shoot. I was really worried that I wouldn’t get it done in time. Wo which I’d already prepared an expensive shopping cart at The Flash Centre and I was ready to pay for me and my group to use it because of how late I submitted the equipment to the CLR.

Final Four

Final Four

I’m probably going to experiment a bit more with the layout of the type but I have picked the four images that I’m going to submit for Mono.

Close Up: Catch lights life the glasses from Nathan and make them stand out

Something Diffrent: Holding the glasses to the viewer. Looks like he is about to put the sunglasses on to shield the sun [softbox]

Full Body: Really like the contrast that makes the glasses stand out

Waist Upwards: Really like the arrangement of type and imagery

When I shared these four with Ryan he said

“did you intend to have all four of them have the model holding the glasses in some way?”

I didn’t notice this when I picked these four front covers but makes a coherent series that follow a particular idea, which is interacting with the sunglasses to make them fun.

1 on 1 with Julian

1 on 1 with Julian

On Monday I had a 1 on 1 discussion with Julian about my Fanzine and Mono projects.

We also mentioned about business cards. On the right is the business cards I made for last years degree show. These are in the process of being upgraded.

Not only do I have my own website with it’s own domain I also want to update to a professional email. Maybe something like “BenPetersPhoto” or maybe “BPPhoto“. Benpeters735 just seems like a random email. Whereas if I have photo in there it will look more professional. Plus there will be coherence with my social medias. My professional Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are all @BenPetersPhoto.

Also business cards make you look even more professional and I never know when I bump into someone to hand them to. Moo.com was recommended to me.

The next thing we discussed was my WordPress. Julian recommended that my theme be changed. I had the Apostrophe 2 theme which I liked because of the feature images. However Julian felt this wasn’t a good layout. Julian wanted to be able to instantly see my thoughts, which with this he can’t without having to click further into my blog.

He told me about the he knows about Rovio Entertainment, the organisation that made Angry Birds. They have loads of people send in blogs and they say that if they can’t understand someone in three pages or less, they’ll dismiss you and move on. The layout of my blog has since been changed to a layout where you can see every post and most importantly you can jump from one post to another without changing pages. This is great to show development of ideas.

On a positive note, Julian liked my navigation bar. He felt it was clear to understand and use.

One final note for my blog is that in the title’s, I just need to give a bit more context about the post. For example, one post was called “Nii“. Most people won’t know what Nii is, this will either encourage people to read further, or just make people move on.

We then moved onto flat plans for Fanzine. Julain was pleased to hear that I was doing updated flat plans when I updated the articles/images in my zine. To which it was recommended that I do the following.

On the weekend I should buy both the Guardian and the Financial Times. Both for there weekend supplements and I should take the magazine apart and make a flat plan of them on the floor. This would mean purchasing two of each, but it would be worth it to get into the mind of the editor of a magazine. It will show a sequence of images, how many adverts, how many DPS’s.

Why the Guardian? Around 4/5 weeks ago, The Guardian underwent massive change. That switched from broadsheet to tabloid and there supplements have changed. There cookery magazine has gone from newspaper print to a proper magazine.

Why FT? Who buys it, rich people in particular bankers. It is aimed at an expensive demographic, which means they can up-sell it. This in turn, leads to a big budget in both art direction, which comes from both sales and placement of advertising.

I will be doing this with both the Guardian and the FT. I will probably do it with Voice Of The Valley as well as that serves as the main inspiration for my Fanzine.

 

One thing that was mentioned to me was a “Book-in-a-box” called The Unfortunates. It was written by BS Johnson. In this book you get a beginning and end. But there is no binding. There are 25 extra chapters which the viewer can read in any order and it will still be linear.

 

 

Another book which was mentioned to me is The Book That Can’t Wait which was written by Argentine Eterna Cadencia. This book came in a vacuum bag and when the vacuum was opened/broken. The print and type will disappear after two months.

 

One final recommendation was to look into video. With the way the world is going, especially in editorial. Photographers will only be commissioned if they can shoot & edit video and sound.

Updated Mono Front Covers

Updated Mono Front Covers

After the feedback I received from my survey I have made a few tweaks to my front covers. I have been able to cut the line “Glasses Define The Look” in half. So there are more images that are compatible for the front cover. However I’m not sure the font looks the same. It looks slightly different so I might have to address this before they are submitted.

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Feedback From Mono Survey

Feedback From Mono Survey

Below is the feedback that I received from the survey I put out about my Mono submission. I got 25 responses which I must admit I was hoping for more. But I feel with 25 I’ve still got a nice range of data from a nice range of ages with a slight majority of males. I was lucky enough to have this survey answered by Tom Miles. He said that there wasn’t much room to write on the survey but would be happy to discuss it further if I wanted to.

I started the survey by asking people if they liked each cover I created. Below are what they said about each cover:

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After looking at all the covers. I asked the subjects what four would they pick if they were in my shoes. I was hoping that this would start to show some coherence between my shots. Basically some being inseparable from the other. However the combination of four was very divided. There was only one combination that was said more than once. If I was too pick the four front covers solely from this research, it would be between these five: [3 images on left got picked 44% of the time each]

After this I asked why did they pick the four which they did. Here are the reasons:

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I also decided to ask if there were any covers that they wouldn’t submit. I think I understand why the cover on the left was chosen. It’s only showing half of the sunglasses and one person said it feels like we’re looking up his nose.

 

Mono Front Covers

Mono Front Covers

So far I have made 12 front covers for my Mono project. However I’m struggling to pick four to submit come March. So I’ve decided to assemble a questionnaire where I’m displaying all 12 covers, followed by a question of do you like ‘cover 12’ for example.

At the end I’m also asking which four would you pick if you were in my shoes.

Decisions for Mono

Decisions for Mono

I’ve made a few more Mono layouts form the images I shot on Monday.

These are now the options I have:

The only sure selection

I really like this front cover. However there is a foot print on the backdrop both in the shadow and the light. Would take a significant amount of Photoshop to remove

Subject to a few tweaks to tagline

Really like this cover

If I had to pick four today, this would be my selection:

 

Really like this cover

The only sure selection

Mono Front-covers

Mono Front-covers

Below are a few front cover designs that I have made from my Mono shoot.

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I’m really pleased with this layout. I think this is one that I am definitely going to submit. I’d planned this shot since I had the formative assessment with Matt and Terry and I had in recent weeks decided to dismiss the idea as not being possible.

I thought it would be to hard to plunge the face into darkness and make the shadows clearly stand out in B&W. So I scrapped this idea because I wasn’t confident in syncing lights. However when the shoot started it was very easy to sync the lights.

The image is 100% what I wanted to achieve, I wanted the face to have a shadow all over it. However I’m very impressed with this image. It feels like he is holding the glasses forward to the viewer, saying these are the next big thing. Also the fact that there is light on his face, says he has got the sun in his eyes and he’s about to put his sunglasses on.

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This is another layout that I’m not sure about. The composition is near amount perfect. The only problem I’m having is the tagline “Glasses Define The Look” it seems to blend into the shadows, which is a shame because I really want to use this image as one of the covers.

I need to ask my tutor and ask if I could cut the line in half, to which the line and “Shady Deals” could be moved upwards to above the arm.

 

 

 

 

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This is another layout which I’m very impressed with. If I could shoot this image again. I would’ve got the sunglasses closer to Nathan, probably on his neck. Then I would’ve been able to put his head in the top right for a very tight crop. Maybe if I was shooting tethered, I would’ve used the live-view and I could’ve created this shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I was to pick four front covers now, I would pick these:

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Mono Shoot

Mono Shoot

Yesterday was my Mono shoot. In my opinion the shoot went very well I came out with a nice range of images.

It however did have a few problems. Firstly in the rush I forgot my sunglasses, luckily I live ten minutes away and my Dad was able to drive down and give them to me.

However during the shoot there was a potentially series technical problem.

Kareem who shoots with Nikon, decided to book out a Canon 5D Mk.iii from CLR, this was because we had already booked out a 50mm f1.2 and 24-70 f4, I also had my 70-200 f2.8 all L lenses. So we would get best images with a full frame camera. Kareem and Gabriella used it for there shoot. To which some of there images were glitched when they reached Capture One.

Julian felt that this was because the images were shot on the CLR’s memories cards however he wasn’t fully sure. So I felt I don’t want to risk it, so I shot on my Canon 70D.

Back with technical, getting the lights to sync was actually very easy.

Below are a few of the images that I liked from the shoot.

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After a quick glance, I’m very pleased with my images. I must admit that a fair amount of my images were from the waist upwards. But I think I’ve covered a nice range of poses.

I was very impressed and glad that I chose to use Nathan as my model. He was very helpful on set, whenever lights had to be moved or backdrops had to be changed, he was always asking if he we needed any help.

My best images from the shoot can be viewed in this Google Drive Folder.

The only problem was the fact that Nathan was 6’2. So I wasn’t holding up much hopes of shooting from a low angle like I originally intended. However when I asked Nathan to come down lower for some shots he was very understanding.

I’m currently in the process of choosing which images to use for my Mono cover. I like the one on the left. However I’m not sure about the Minimal cover lines, mainly “Glasses Define The Look”. The work ‘Glasses’ seem to be lost in the shadows. Which is a shame because the image is a very good composition with the Masthead.