I have to admit this talk was back at the beginning of March, I can’t even say I’ve been that busy…

Eugenios fast paced talk instantly showed though his passion for photography. Fitting into the Still Life Advertising area of photography, even if you haven’t heard of Eugenio, you will have seen his work somewhere. From taking photography as a filler subject to allow him to do Journalism at college, to working three years as a cruise ship photographer, then as an assistant to Adam Tolner, Nadav Kandar, and finally Graham Ford, with whom he worked through the height of advertising photography in the mid 90′s, before leaving after four years to establish himself as a pro.

Most of Eugenios work was shot on 10×8” transparency, one thing that I was surprised about. In fact nearly all the work on his website is shot on film, in the studio, with no Photoshop work. This is just a testament to the meticulous planning and thought that has gone into each shot, some shot with double exposures, others triple, but in todays ‘Photoshop-familiar’ society, it was nice to see real photography for a change. One thing that was echoed last week with Solve Sundsbo. In fact Eugenio didn’t start shooting digitally until 2004, and his first digital shoot was for innocent smoothies, shooting on location in South Africa, a big step outside Eugenios comfort zone.

A few other points that I got from his talk were on the self promotion and marketing. Working as an assistant, he built up a lot of ‘warm’ contacts, people who know you and can offer you work, yet only two out of about 100 were of any use. Another point was to find a niche, something no-one else has done before. While this has been said by a lot of our guests, it is really helpful to have a recognisable ‘signature’, and for Eugenio, that is Skylines. From his first made from staples that got him recognised, to books for Waterstones, guns for Channel 5, and Galaxy chocolate. Its also worth noting that despite some luck, Eugenio has worked to become a photographer, rather than bubbling under the surface waiting for his big break, something that a lot of talented photographers seem to waste their lives doing.

http://www.eugeniofranchi.com/

Most of our guest lecturers at AiB are pretty interesting and give you a general run down of their work in a relatively blow by blow account and what they did to get there. Solve Sundsbo however was the first ‘Really Big Name’ who has come to talk to us, and not only showed some amazing images but gave a run down on his ideas and advice for ‘getting out there’ after uni.

One of the worlds best fashion photographers, Solve has a client list as long as a tall persons arm. From the high end fashion advertising for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and Gucci and editorials for Vogue, Harpers Bizarre and i-D amongst many others. The most interesting thing for someone at his level of work was the openness of his talk. He opened with the notion that anyone can be as good or better than himself, Nick Knight, Testino et al, you just need the drive and determination to succeed. Solve started out photographing everything and anything, so much so that at first art editors couldn’t find out where his style ‘fitted’ into the photographic world, which usually spells disaster for most up-coming photographers. In college Solve managed to get work assisting (AiB Alumni) Nick Knight who immediately saw his passion and potential in fashion photography, mentoring him and allowing him to expand his ideas. So after nearly 4 years Solve left Knight to go it alone. One thing that struck me immediately about his images, is the fact they are all different but very natural, with minimal post work and often natural light or just one light source. Here are some of the main points of his talk;

• Try different ideas, mix them up and see how they photograph.

• Don’t pigeon hole yourself and get labeled for one thing/style.

• Photograph what you love and inspires you, don’t try and do something just because it may make you money.

• Keep practicing, try to do one shoot a week. Two if possible.

• Photography is more about excluding than including. Rely less on Photoshop, and more on photographic skill, the return to ‘Pure’ photography.

It was interesting to see the similarities and differences from some of our other guest lecturers, Mark George for example also pushed the practice mantra, but also said that you should develop your style into a brand, and become known for shooting that really well. One idea the Solve heavily disagrees on. Another  idea was on photographic education,  comparing it to learning scales on the piano; a very important building block to base future ideas on, but once you know the scales, then they become almost redundant and can be forgotten. Almost a flippant remark, especially to people who are actually learning photography at uni, but the reasoning is this: The world is over-run with student photographers who have all learnt a similar way, and who want to be the next big thing, so to get ahead you need to come up with some new and fresh ideas by breaking the rules that were instilled throughout uni.  Seems kinda obvious really. One last point was the continuing Film/Digital debate. While a lot of Solves work is shot on digital as clients often required the photos yesterday, lots of his stuff is still shot on film, ranging from 35mm and 6×6 all the way to 10×8” transparency. As for shooting digitally, Solve still uses ‘pure’ photographic techniques cutting out the need for heavy manipulation, even on his very graphic-looking works, and so gives a very natural look to his photos. It was interesting to hear him say that for studio work he found film much punchier and has better clarity under studio lights, with digital often appearing flat, and for location work, digital has the edge. It all comes down to picking the right tool for the job.

I thought this talk was one of the best we’ve had, with someone who is not only very much at the forefront of fashion photography, but also very willing to share stories and help others up and coming in the industry. A jolly nice bloke.

Not much has been happening of late, so I have been ignoring the blog a bit, however this week we had talk from renound music photographer Andy Earl.

Andy talked about his work and his take on the last 20 years as a photographer. His ‘big break’ came shooting The Rolling Stones ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ music video with a technique he formulated in college by using two Nikon F5 Film cameras and off camera flash. The Cameras were shot at 5-8fps dragging the shutter, then morphed the resulting 12,000 photos together to form some sort of live motion stop frame animation.  Andys first commission came after a show at the Photographers Gallery in London, where he met Malcom Mclaren the manager of Bow Wow Wow, who asked Andy to photograph the album cover. The result of which saw Andy arrested and his photos seized over the age and state of undress of the lead singer, Lwin. After this and many more album covers including Duran Duran, Madonna, and REM, Andy found himself at the forefront of music photography, and has photographed many of the big names over the last two decades.

How Andy has stayed at the top for so long I think comes down to the way he photographs. Instead of photographing the obvious band shot, Andy sets out to take images that are new and different that just happen to have bands in them. The result is a band photograph that goes against what we would first think of. For some photos, Andy had asked bands where their inspiration came from and the result was photographed, even if the answer was ‘Nothing’ (a big ‘O’ made with a flare and long exposure) which seems to give the photo more weight, and a reason for it to be. No brick walls here.

The best insight for me into Andys work was the technical side of things. From home made multi-flash rigs to cardboard and tin foil modifiers, and all 20 years before the start of the ‘Strobist’ movement. Many of his shots were also taken on a Linhoff Panoramic camera, giving a unique view and an especially strong design element for CD cases.  Aulthough since the start of the ‘Digital Revolution’ and the uptake of MP3s, album art and photography work like Andys is in demise. Somewhat ironically Andy also photographs for Apple, proof that today to be the best, you also need to adapt to current social trends.

Andy site is www.andyearl.com – the Stones video is there too.

25 days to Christmas…

This week I got the re-shoot of last weeks 5×4″ done, developed and completed. Developed the films I shot of Abi, and contact printed them up. Just the B/W to develop and then a week spent in the dark printing. Its slowly coming together. My incongruous project is coming on a little slower, its turned out a little different to how I had originally anticipated, and I’m actually not liking the finished piece, but the main thing is thats its (nearly) done, so I’ll have something to hand in. I Just need to get my sketchbook up together now. I think I’ll try and do my original idea at some point if I can get the motivation, as I think that that could be a really good image. The one thing thats good about project work is there is a deadline that you have to meet and have something produced. Working for yourself on personal projects I find they rarely get completed as there is no end in sight, so I just carry on with them, become despondent and then stop. I have a couple of ideas for projects that I’ll start next year (unless we can do them for Uni projects) so I’ll set myself a deadline and see if I can actually produce a decent set of images and to get a little motivation going, see If I can get some exhibitions out of them or something.

Speaking of projects, we had a guest speaker in, David Moore who spends anywhere up to three years on a project. He was talking about three of his projects, the first, The Velvet Arena (1994) was a series of photos shot at art gatherings and parties using off camera flash to highlight different things in the images, ie the back of someones neck or a hand, and to photograph events that we wouldn’t normally have access to. While I like the almost voyeuristic idea behind the photos, and I can see a similar style in some event photography today, especially in the works of Nikola Tamindzic, I’m not a fan of the actual subject that was being photographed. I have no real connection with the people in the photos and so find them a little strange and awkward.

I also thought that his next project, Commons (2004) would be a little odd, just photographing the empty House of Commons, but the idea here was that because we are familiar with the House of Commons as we seeing it on the news almost daily, Moore adopted a similar style to the Velvet Arena project and used off camera flash to pick out and isolate parts that we wouldn’t normally see, like the scratches on the footplate under the opposition back benches, images that I think make the Houses of Commons seem less like the sterile environment that we see on the news and more used. I like this way of working, using the flash to control what we see. Other images in the series combine the use of flash with DoF, especially evident in the images showing th carpet between the sides of the house, and area that we don’t really think about, but is the divide between the government.

In his most recent project The Last Things (2008), Moore photographed a secret bunker under London, that doesn’t officially exist, but is used by the government in the event of terrorist attacks to run the country. In an opposite view to the Commons project, as we don’t know what this bunker looks like, the images are all natural light images showing the bunker in its entirety, as opposed to using flash to pick out bits that we wouldn’t really recognise.These images I found really interesting, mainly because I have an occasional side hobby of photographing old military installations and things (only forts and batteries really) and so find these photos quite fascinating. Due to security the people working there couldn’t be photographed, so all the images have a sinister air to them, like the installation has just been abandoned and we are seeing it on our own, bio-hazard suits and all. Personally I found His last project to be the best, but then I do like abandoned buildings, maybe theres the inspiration for another project of my own…

Went up to London with uni for a lecture on the photos of Adam Broomburg and Oliver Chanarin by Ollie himself. Was actually pretty interesting and good to hear about the work of an actual photographer(s) form their editorial beginnings to major exhibitions and works. I liked some of their photo projects that were done for ‘Colours’ magazine that they used to edit and photograph for, although I found that a lot of the photos needed some background information on them. ‘Chicago’ is an artificial Arab town used by the Israelis for combat practice, and the photos of this seemingly deserted Arab town, are shot in a very perfect and presice way  thats almost architectural with clean lines and form. Without knowing the background behind the images, I doubt that I would have figured out that the images were of a combat training area. I am a simple soul…

In their latest work, ‘The Day Nobody Died’ they explored a new technique of image making. I’m not sure they are ‘photos’, in the traditional sense that everyone knows, although they are produced using the basic photographic process. The whole concept was to travel to Afghanistan with the British Army for a week with a big roll of sheet film, get the army to carry is about from base to base then every day unroll a set amount of it, exposing it to the sun for 20 seconds. This produced an image that has no picture as conventional photography goes, but then had a meaning attached to it from what happened that day. One work is called “The Day Nobody Died”, which was the fith day they were there, another “The Fixers Execution”, was in response to a BBC fixer that was pulled from his car and shot. Personally as ‘Pictures to hang on walls’ I think they are quite nice, but as photos, especially war photography, which essentially what they are, then I can’t quite see them hanging along side Robert Capa, James Nachtway or W. Eugine Smith and the like. But then Ollie did explain that they were trying to get away from the normally way of documenting war photography and how we see war photography, because in this age of 24hr News and Hollywood epics, we are ‘nulled’ to war culture and horror, so ‘normal’ war photography almost has not meaning. So the way they are recording war puts more emphasis on the people affected by war, which in turn makes people think more. Anyway, I’m still not 100% sure on them just yet… The art and sculpture in the next room was good though.

www.choppedliver.info – The Website of Adam Broomburg and Oliver Chanarin.

Got a few ok photos wandering about the big smoke, nothing outstadnig though…

D200 & 85mm f/1.8, iso 400&800 respectively