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…

Time is slowly slipping by, well, it usually does, at the moment its running away. Three weeks to go till end of term and more importantly before that, deadlines and crits… This week I got quite a bit of work done (about time) I processed my location shots from last weekend, they came out pretty good, still room for improvement, so a re-shoot may be in order, but I’m happy with what I have at the moment. While shooting I found another location that works well, and after the shoot remembered a really good location that I had forgotten about that was two minutes from where we were shooting. Ah well, maybe next time. Just need to get them processed and all is good.
Today I spent some time in the studio, assisted Anna then did some headshots and full length photos with the lovely Abi for my studio project. The films yet to be processed, but I shot a few tests on the Phase One backs so I may stick up a pic when I get them off the computer on Monday. The idea was to actually put into practice my “simple lighting” setup, so low key lighting with just a main and hair light, no fuss. Hopefully they come out as expected. Thanks to Anna and Montana for helping :-) I also managed to get my 5×4″ still life done, well at least I thought I had until I got the transparency developed and saw the silhouette of the tripod head I was using to weigh down the paper background just peaking into shot… Damn.

Another one for the re-shoot list.

Bit late on the update, ah well. Had a good shoot at the weekend for my location project, and came up with a few ideas for future shoots. May do a re-shoot at the weekend just to make sure I have a quality photo. I still have to develop some B/W film, so fingers crossed that comes out well. My “Keeping it Simple Approach” to lighting seems to be working as kinda expected. Its hard to muck up shots using ambient light. :-) I just need to shoot more, and more, and work from that.

I have been reading the Magnum Blog, with regards to Advice for Photographers, the whole post is very much worth a read or two, but there are a few points from Chris Steele-Perkins I especially like.

1. Never think photography is easy. It’s like poetry in that it’s easy enough to make a few rhymes, but that’s not a good poem.
2. Study photography, see what people have achieved, but learn from it, don’t try photographically to be one of those people.
3. Photograph things you really care about, things that really interest you, not things you feel you ought to do.
4. Photograph them in the way you feel is right, not they way you think you ought to.
5. Be open to criticism, it can be really helpful, but stick to you core values.
6. Study and theory is useful but you learn most by doing. Take photographs, lots of them, be depressed by them, take more, hone your skills and get out there in the world and interact.

In our lecture last week we covered portrait photography, one area that I’m pretty interested in, and what it means to take a portrait. While a ‘classic’ portrait is that of the subjects face, portraits are more about capturing the essence of who a person is, and this often doesn’t mean the subjects face. In fact the persons face often tells you nothing about the person for example what they do, or who they are, how they live, and we often make these judgments based solely on the representation of the faces we see in a portrait. The recent American elections are full of portrait photos that display emotions, some good, some bad, but that has an effect on the way we then see that person, weather we know it or not. This is because the portrait is the photographers representation of that person. As the photographic critic Baudrillard said, you can never be yourself in a photograph, or capture the essence of the sitter. So the portrait becomes a mash of photographer and the subject, although I like to think thats its important the photographer ‘shows’ through in photographs, as this becomes their style. If the photographer didn’t have an influence on the subject, then every portrait would be bland and dull, and look exactly the same as everyone else’s photos. So do we ever see a true representation of someone in a portrait? I’d like to think so, but this often comes across in very natural, non-studio setups and while the resulting photo shows the ‘real’ person, they are often not technically that good. but does that matter? (see form/content post) Its a difficult area, but one thats pretty intresting, both from a theory and practical point of view. Hopefully this will show through in my future portraits…

This weeks inspiration link is Patrick Hoelck. I especially like his studio shots, to me they convey a lot about the subjects being photographed, and in respect to the above ramblings its easy to see his style shows through in the photos, and for me that adds to the picture.

This week at Uni was the start of the good stuff. Now supposedly capable and familiar with the studio kit, we have been left to our own devices (albeit under a watchful gaze/stare/direction) to get on with our projects. Last week I assisted Anna in her still life, this week I decided to tackle a headshot using a lighting setup I’d (probably) seen on Flickr. A pretty simple setup using a beauty dish as the main light, with a rim/hair light to give some seperation and a grid on it to control the spill and stop any flare. I chose to make the background graduated by putting a strip sofbox pointing up so the natural fall off of light gave a nice white to black (grey) transition. A reflector was added to lift the shadows, and the gold side chosen over the white to give a nice warm glow.

Heres the lighting diagram…

And the result. Don’t need to read anything into the body language here, I was faffing.

From that we ironed out the niggles (this shot was also before the introduction of the reflector) then shot it on film with some poses…

I’m back again on the Island (luckily its close) to continue with my other projects including location work, photographing people using colour film with ambient light, and black and white film with flash. Had a go at it today, but won’t be able to process the film until Monday, so at the moment I can have both outstanding photos and rubbish photos at the same time. Knowing my luck I will have probably made some little compositional errors that I do suffer from every now and again. I need to slow down and think more. Still, tomorrw I’ll go out and see If I can find another victim willing volunteer to have their photographs taken.

Some random thoughts so far… I Need to slow down, think, look, think again. Especially with using film. Use and trust my light meter. Digital is great, but it does make you lazy, so I need to use more film. And to keep my lighting simple. Yea I know and do use multi light setups, but there is something sublimely lovely about soft natural light on black and white film.

Todays inspiration link: www.gregoryheisler.com I’ve had this link in my bookmarks for a while now, but in view of our current projects, I thought it was about time to get some research/inspiration done. Heisler in his ‘Quiet’ series uses very simple lighting. Some are one soft electric light source, others are using just soft natural light. One light source, no fuss. Simple. Effective. I think thats how I’m going to try and work. Get back to the old school, load up the Mamyia with Pan F or Delta and shoot. Shoot more, worry about lighting less, get the job done. Lets see how this mantra holds up by next week…

A week is a long time in Politics…  Last Friday I went to London for a Halloween Party and bought a SB25 (now modded to accept a 3.5mm jack for radio triggers), returning via the Island to do another shoot for Yellow Brick Road. Cheers to Emma and Michaela for modeling. Heres one that was originaly consigned to the trash but I keep coming back to it, something about it l like, especially with this post processing. (No prizes for guessing all the things wrong in this photo though :-p ) One for a re-shoot I think.

The lovely Micheala. D200, silver reflective ‘brella cam right.

(BG light on face :-( more forward next time.)