Project 64: Evidence of Action

Evidence of action (can you tell what I've been doing this weekend?):


This is a very thought provoking section of the course, because it explores a number of new concepts. Firstly the "meaning" of an image - it concerns production of an image that can be universally "read" by everyone. And secondly, in the current world of stock libraries and widespread use of images in the internet, it requires an image that can be universally "read" by a viewer whilst being visually attractive (nobody would use a bad photo on their webpages) and sufficiently differentiated so that the same picture isn't used ever time a particular subject comes up (although see my comments on Northern Rock below).

This is quite relevant to the field in which I work. I am a trained accountant, which is an abstract concept in itself. Secondly I work in the banking industry, so you have a double whammy of abstract concepts. I have found myself exploring the techniques adopted in my sector to illustrate publication material. I have come to the following conclusions.

1. Such images are often very "pretty". Occasionally they are not even relevant - a manual of accounting standards with the lead illustration of a dandelion? Admittedly a very nice dandelion which was pin sharp. But I still don't get it - it's like someone making a joke that you don't understand, and you end up thinking about it for weeks trying to crack it. Drop me a line if you can see the connection by the way. Another one used on a similar publication was a water abstract - shimmering blue water with a hint of orange. Maybe referring to the depth of the material??? Perhaps some reference to drowning in legislation or utter boredom.
   
2. A famous phrase/expression is often used as the title to link the article subject to the image. For example "Public Sector Pensions - The Elephant in the Room", accompanied by a picture of an elephant trunk. This makes the image/ symbol a 2 step derivative from the subject of the article, but allows an abstract subject to be attractively illustrated in a way that is easily grasped by the viewer. Clearly finding an image that symbolised public sector pensions on its own would be difficult.
   
3. A third example which I often see at work is the use of narrow depth of field and a dictionary to highlight a word that is difficult to illustrate by a picture. For example communication.
   
4. Cliche is rife, but provided the pictures are technically competent and visually attractive, this doesn't seem to matter. An example is my annual pension statement (don't even go there!). It is typically illustrated by golden eggs in a nest - and a very nice image it is too, to make up for the depressing figures inside. Golden eggs is a bit rich, rotten eggs in a nest would be more apt but obviously not such a nice image (and how do you illustrate smells?)
   

An interesting example in recent times is "The Credit Crunch". This remains a headline story over 3 years since it began, and is therefore visually illustrated on a daily basis. The photos of the queues outside Northern Rock continue to be used as the most common illustrative symbol - although it had started sometime before, and didn't hit many people until some months later when the job losses started rolling in, the run on Northern Rock continues to be the defining start point of this era for most people. Although repetitive, the impact of those images continues to be so strong that I expect they will be used in illustration for some time yet.

The notes asks us to consider symbols for growth. Off the top of my head, acorns, oak trees, plant shoots, eggs, pregnancy bump shots, pictures of graphs going upwards. I guess they've all been done before. Photographers nowadays have the benefit of photoshop and the ease of producing composites using layers. One photo may be to superimpose the different life stages onto one image e.g. baby, toddler, young child, young teen, late teen adult. Another image might be to superimpose a silhouette of a tree on top of a close up of an acorn (might try this!). There is also growth in the economic sense - a tiger economy such as China. Although a tiger is logically used as a symbol for this, there is also the image of a city skyline where the silhouettes of cranes are used to symbolise rapid growth in wealth (A city crane count is a good indicator of economic health).

Anyway, here's a few "stock" images I took earlier, illustrating communication, recession, banking & finance and early learning.

Project 63: A Narrative Picture Essay

I recently undertook a task to be one of the "Official Photographers" at a village event, and have made a separate blog post on that. I was also charged with selecting photos that other volunteers had taken, and putting them together in a photo book to celebrate the event and present to the organisers. This was a good example of a narrative picture essay, and had to include a variety of shots to record the day. As it was a village garden walkabout, with the Parish Hall food & refreshments at the heart, along with a scarecrow festival, I wanted the final book to incorporate all those elements in balance, with each garden fairly represented as well. This was a difficult balancing act, as some gardens naturally offered more variety of images than others. This was all achieved against the restricting factor of space & cost (i.e. keeping the cost of the photobook within a reasonable budget).

I don't know how to incorporate a link into a blogpost, however pasting the following into your browser should give a preview of the final product (note that the book includes the work of others, as noted at the front of the book, as well as my own).

http://www.mypublisher.com/?e=OHm3Q8zJl3T59kofVVFLpa2_K4rYm7e1&_mp=Kp3JLwmfKpoaGv%2BzQ/cDGBPzdoopNKiM%0A

The object of this particular project was to produce a narrative picture essay on any subject. Although I have already done a real life example, as detailed above, I wanted to do another essay to capture a subject close to my heart. I chose to tell a story about my son, and a recent purchase of lego. Although this may seem rather a boring subject, there is a context to this. My son has a diagnosis of autism, and his condition includes obsessions, which often pass as quick as they came. His current obsession is lego, which is his most expensive obsession to date (I'm dreading the Hornby obsession!). He is very talented at building the models, and can do so with no intervention and 100% focus - with larger models such as a police station, this can take several hours of construction. Anyway, I thought I would take the opportunity to record one of his purchases on a recent shopping trip to Glasgow. Some of the shots were taken with a point & shoot, so the quality is a bit iffy, however that's photojournalism for you! I have tried to lay them out as best as I can, within the confines of blogger and its idiosyncracies. The photobook above is probably a better example of my abilities to lay things out appropriately, because the book allows for different sizes of images and arrangements on the page.

Project 62: Researching an Event

Although I plan to put this into action in the future i.e. follow through with actually photographing an event I have researched, I have opted to stick to the project brief for now with a hypothetical plan. This is because I am hoping to apply for assessment in November, which doesn't leave me long to complete the course, and I still have 2 assignments to complete before that, not to mention putting all my work together for assessment.

The event I am researching is Slaley Show, which is due to be held on 14 August 2010. I am unable to attend the event but I expect it will be a fairly typical agricultural show. There is a website dedicated to the event, which I found on Google. This would be invaluable in planning the day. So here's my imaginary event plan.

1. What to pack in the bag

As this event is held in summer daylight hours, a tripod is not required as I anticipate the light being bright enough for handheld shots even at long telephoto zooms. I will increase ISO for shots inside the tents.

I will have my 24-104mm lens as my walkabout lens, but will also take my Sigma 150-500mm lens for extreme close up shots. I will not take my wideangle lens (17-40mm), or any primes, as I want to minimise lens changes on the day.

I will also take a polariser - this will be a handy 2 stop ND filter if the light is very bright, and will also allow for deep blue skies if they are out on the day.

I will take my flashgun along, to use as fill in if required, however I don't anticipate using the flash much on the day.

In case of bad weather, I will also take a golf umbrella to shield the camera & camera bag, as well as a shower cap to put over the camera. I will also take a bin bag to sit on, for low down shots.

2. Permissions

As it's a public event, I don't expect any restrictions on photos, but to be on the safe side I have contacted the organisers several weeks in advance (contact details from the website). They would be delighted to see my photos, and advise that although photography isn't restricted, I should not take any pictures of any children without the permission of the parents. I have offered my photos for free to use on their website if they wish; if they are successful it may generate leads for official work.

3. Timetable

The field opens at 7.30am. I plan to go for a look around the day before, and I may be able to get some shots of them setting up the tents. I will arrive at the field shortly before opening. If it's sunny on the day, this will enable me to get some photos before the sun gets too high in the sky. I will use this time to find the best place for taking photos at all the event rings, based on the direction of the sun, and the placement of any distractions that may spoil shots.

The first event is ponies in the main ring at 9 o clock. By 9 o clock, I need to have my telephoto lens on and be in position to capture the judging.

This is followed by the working hunter judging, in the working hunter ring, at 9.30 and so on throughout the day as detailed on the online timetable until the show closes at 5 o clock.

4. Shots I hope to capture throughout the day and beyond if necessary.

1. A wide angle shot of the field being set up the day or two before.
2. Some early morning shots before all the events start at 9 - these will include portraits of volunteers & workers at the stands. Look for attractive colours of products on the stands.
   
3. A vertical shot of a rider on a pony, using fill in flash. This should be taken before the 9 o clock pony event starts. Look for catchy colours on the rider's clothing.
   
4. Telephoto shots of the judging in the pony ring, and some action shots.
5. Similar telephoto action shots of all the other events, i.e. show jumping, pet dog show, sheepdog demonstration, terrier racing etc.
6. Some close up portraits of sheep, alpacas, poultry and any willing handlers. Set focus to single points on the eyes for all animals.
   
7. Close up shots inside the craft tents, to include floral art, other crafts etc, using my walkabout lens. Look for colour, abstract patterns & strong shapes or textures.
   
8. Some people shots inside the bar, including some group shots of particularly cheerful looking people. Walkabout lens again.
   
9. Telephoto candid shots of the silver band and Irish dancers, using widest aperture on the long zoom to blur the background.
10. Trophy presentations are at 4 o' clock - aim to catch as many shots as possible of the trophies being presented i.e. need a fast shutter speed, maybe use burst mode. If can't get close, will need telephoto zoom for this.
11. Finally some shots at the end to close. These could include a discarded programme lying in the grass against an empty field, and shots of the tents being taken down. I'll keep my programme as a prop just in case. I may need to back the next day for those.
    

This will be a pretty long day, so comfortable shoes are a must, with wellies in the car boot in the event of rain.

Exhibition by George Georgiou at The Side Gallery, Newcastle

On Saturday 3 July 2010 I went to a photographic exhibition at The Side Gallery, Newcastle. When I have stumbled upon photographic exhibitions in the past (such as at The Baltic and Queen's Hall, Hexham) I have usually been unimpressed, failing to be inspired by photos of e.g women showing off their private parts (I think that was at the Baltic some years ago, can't remember who the photographer was). So my expectations were fairly low.

However this was not the case at The Side, where I found a gem of an exhibition by George Georgiou entitled "Fault Lines". It was documentary photography, and explored Turkey. The photographer himself lived in Turkey for almost 5 years, and was therefore well immersed in the country to document it. Here's some words by George Georgiou to describe the raison d'etre behind the series.

"Turkey is poised geographically and symbolically between Europe & Asia, the tensions at the heart of the country becoming increasingly severe. There is a fierce struggle between modernity and tradition, secularism & Islamism, democracy & repression - often in unlikely and contradictory combinations.

"Living in Turkey, I was surprised at how quickly change was taking place: landscapes, towns & cities reshaped, and extensive road network under construction, town centres "beautified", and large apartment blocks springing up around every town and city - they are becoming carbon copies of each other".

"The modernization is designed to handle the mass migration from village to city that is transforming Turkey, Istanbul, a city of a million people in 1960, is now one of the world's largest urban sprawls with an estimated population of over 15 million. Meanwhile there is a rapid disintegration of community in Turkish villages and towns, with the new low-cost housing projects based on models that have generally failed in Europe".

The exhibition is also online, and he has a fabulous website which you can find here:

http://www.georgegeorgiou.net/projects.php?groupid=1

Aside from the fascination at looking at the development of a country far removed from my own, here was my thoughts about this particular exhibition.

1. All the images had an extremely large depth of field, and were eye wateringly sharp throughout. Technically 100% accurate. This was much more apparent in the exhibition than online, which highlights the usefulness of actually going to a gallery.
   
2. They had eye catching strong saturated colours, often set against a neutral dull backdrop such as flat grey skies, dull bare earth wasteground, grey concrete or barren mountains.
3. There was a strong sense of scale.
4. The subject matter was extremely interesting and insightful.
5. There were details that caught your eye, such as the mobile phone in the man's hand in the deserted cafe that looks from a bygone era.

In summary, it captured strong content sympathetically, in an aesthetically pleasing and technically competent way.

My favourites from the exhibition were:

• "Turks 2" - the low key panorama images which had spotlighting on people's faces. They were all candid & natural poses, and I particularly liked the image with the bright pink headscarf. It reminds me of a station platform, and I would be interested to know how he produced this.
• The boy playing football and the little boy on the trike outside the yellow housing complex with all the satellite dishes. It's another one of those shots where the triangle formed by the boy's legs as he kicks the ball gives it extra impact.
• The Tailors Shop, Dogubeyazit - everything is green, even his suit, and I love the proud expression on the tailor's face.
  
• Cafe, Kilis - I like the desertion of the cafe, the colours, the plant growing up the wall and then the mobile phone in the man's hand which is so at odds with his surroundings.
• The blue cart on the derserted curved road up to the modern housing blocks, with their bright colours.
• The shot of the bus window
• The image at the end of the exhibition with all the people stood in a large fenced off yard. The strong pattern and brightly coloured clothes again contrasting strongly with the dull background and I am drawn to wonder what they are all doing standing there like that.

The exhibition also highlighted something about Britain which I hadn't really considered before. The images captured the barren bare earth landscape of Turkey. In Britain, every inch of the land is landscaped, manicured, or naturally flourishes. Or that is how it seems. From the fields, hedgerows, or rugged natural beauty of the Lake District, Scottish countryside etc. everything uncultivated is green & beautiful. I believe much of that "uncultivated" land is managed to a degree. Where land is occupied, it is tended & manicured. Although there are exceptions to this (think industrial wastegrounds or run down estates), they are exceptions not the norm. It is something I have taken forgranted. I guess it's a beneficial side effect of a wet climate, and historical investment in infrastructure, where people are paid by the council to cut the grass, manicure the common ground etc. I wonder if it will still be like this in 50 years time when public services are cut to strip out non essentials (like council gardeners & defra subsidies for landowners) and if global warming starts to toast the British climate. Just a thought.

A final point - the gallery itself was in a pretty photogenic location - here's a couple of shots I took whilst visiting.

Official Photographer

I have previously blogged about our local photographic society in my village. I was asked to photograph our village garden walkabout, in conjunction with any other volunteers from the society. In the end I was charged with photographing the gardens, along with any "street" shots to capture the event. There were 12 gardens in total and I thought this would be a leisurely job - I planned to visit all the gardens twice throughout the day.

It was a steep learning curve! Here is what I learned on the day.

1. It was not a leisurely job at all - I just managed to visit all the gardens by the skin of my teeth, and I also had to go home and change my shoes as I had blisters after the first hour.
2. I had underestimated the impact of the strong contrasty light on the day. Whilst this gave some interesting shadow play & dappled light, it made photographing some of the gardens extremely difficult. The strong contrast also resulted in incorrect exposures for some of the pictures, so I had to use exposure compensation.
   
3. I made use of my circular polariser to give greater depth of colour, however some of the shadows were blocked up further by that.
   
4. In a high pressured photographic assignment, there isn't time to think about camera settings or changing lenses. I carried 2 lenses about on the day which I could have left at home. I used Aperture Priority, but I am considering revisiting Program mode for these scenarios.
   
5. I managed to gain the confidence to ask a few people that I didn't know if I could photograph them. This was a major step forward for me. I also had a few refusals which I politely respected.
6. I found it very stressful to think on my feet, and TAOP went out the window when I felt pressured to get a shot. I think this emphasises the importance of practice, practice, practice so that these things come naturally & intuitively like driving a car.

Thank goodness for Adobe Lightroom, purchased with the benefit of my student discount from OCA! It managed to save many of my washed out skies on the day, and boost the vibrance of bleached colours.

So what would I do better next time?

1. Do a dry run to better assess the size of the task.
2. Have some contingency plans for different kinds of light on the day.
3. Revisit my camera manual; in particular different light metering methods & Program modes. I must be 100% confident & knowledgeable at "driving" my camera, so all my thoughts can focus on composition & subject. When the pressure mounts, it can all go wrong very quickly.
   

I plan to use some of the shots for Assignment 3 "My Neighbourhood" and will also upload some of them here when they're ready.

Traffic Jam - Inspired by William Eggleston

Following my earlier post on the work of William Eggleston, I decided to take some inspiration from him and also fill a very boring hour stuck in a traffic jam on the day of the England game in the World Cup (Wednesday 23 June 2010).

It was a very sunny day, giving the contrasty light that often features in his work. It was also apt to take the shots from my car, as I read that a lot of his work was captured whilst he was waiting in a parked car and therefore his subjects were unaware they were photographed. The compositions were loose and unplanned.

I tried to look for interest in the mundane; things that captured the feeling of the hour. They included the England flags flapping from another car, the laughing faces of the couple in the car behind (they were playing paper, scissors, stone to pass the time), the reflection of the glaring sun on the car window whilst the occupant chatted on his mobile, me taking pictures from my car window and the landscape framed by the passenger window, also reflected in the wing mirror. I also set the colours to "vivid", as many of his pictures contain saturated colours. But other than the increased vibrance setting in Lightroom and to block out any number plates, these pictures are straight out of camera.

They are quite different to my usual style, and wouldn't win any competitions, but I am pleased with my captured memories of the day they closed the A69!

William Eggleston

I was recommended to review some of the work of William Eggleston by my tutor. He was one of the pioneers of colour photography, and this was included in feedback for my colour assignment.

We don't tend to have photographic exhibitions in the North East of such famous photographers (or there certainly aren't any on at the moment) so my research was restricted to the internet.

My first thoughts were "unimpressed". But then I went back to his official site http://www.egglestontrust.com
and had another look.

And then another one.

And then something began to stir, a feeling. A reaction to some of his shots. I suddenly found myself drawn to certain of this images, because they captured for me the light & colour of my childhood. Quite a magical sensation, like smelling a scent from childhood that evokes such a strong emotional response that you've almost gone back there, back in time. I then noticed his fondness for using strong contrasty light, the very sort that current photography magazines would have you avoid at all costs. But using it to create magic, feelings, that almost transport you to that place, inside the image.

His bold colours are well documented, but for me it was the application of those colours. They are often specific fashion colours that you don't see nowadays, except perhaps in a house that hasn't been updated for 35 years. So their capture, and vividness, places the image strongly in a time & place. Hard to explain really.

Then there is his capture of the mundane. Sometimes it doesn't work for me, but then at other times it really does. It's difficult to say why some of them move me, while some of them don't. The use of light & colour make them interesting, but not always so for me. His portfolio captures such diversity that I would imagine that there is something for everyone in his portfolio.

For me, there were a couple of images that I absolutely love. I'm not even sure what they are called.

1. Los Alamos

http://www.egglestontrust.com/los_alamos_port.html

It's the one of the drink in the plane window. I love this image for a number of reasons. I like the high contrast, shadow play and the sparkly shadow made from the drink. I like the colour of the drink, and the hand with the stirrer. I like the sunny light in the window. I even like the brown seat and the old fashioned pattern on the plane interior "wall". But most of all, it captures how flying used to be. Something special. He didn't know at the time about Easyjet, Ryanair and all their Americal equivalents. How cheap flights would make nothing special anymore (an observation made my Roald Dahl). But it is as if he did know that moment would one day be special. And he caught the essence of it beautifully.

2. Dust Bells

http://www.egglestontrust.com/dust_bells_v1.html

This time it's the one of the girl lying in her bed with the television on and all the shoes hanging on the door. I surprised myself by liking this one so much, but I think it is the natural intimacy of it and the fact of the television being on all night. Again this captures a bygone era, because the television stations run all night now. But I particularly like the colour, because they are so specific to that era. The bedspread colour & pattern defines the time period, and for that reason I find this image very nostalgic, as well as very attractive.

I also liked a lot of his room interiors, and point of view for shooting.

I would guess that he is an acquired taste. But sometimes art is like an olive - you have to eat 6 before you like them, and then you like them forever more.