When I first had this vague idea about working as a photographer I don't think I knew what sort of photography I'd try to do. Photojournalism seemed too demanding considering I have a young family to care for. Fashion couldn't be more far removed from my life and as with photojournalism I feel I'm probably too old to try and enter that particular arena. Portrait photography seemed like a natural direction to head towards rather than landscape, or product or pet photography for instance.
I started with actor's head shots because I used to be an actor and wondered if I might be able to earn any money doing that at a time when earning a living and still being available for the kids became a pressing issue in my life - but to be honest I'm not sure at the moment if I will earn a living that way in the end, although it gave me something to get to grips with while I gained some experience.
I never thought I'd even try family portraiture as the market seemed saturated and there is a very definite style people seem to like which I don't think I'd be any good at, although some form of collective-conscious influence is very strong, making it hard to remain original - so perhaps I could end up doing that sort of photography albeit not as well as others do. It's not that I don't like that style, and can see why people are attracted to it, but it's just a bit ubiquitous, likely to date and in some instances reliant on a handful of proprietary Photoshop actions which isn't what interests me - although I do use a couple of actions myself (I'm not against finding tools to make work easier or quicker at all). I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm more interested in exploring what I want to do in a way that is particular to me.
Anyway, this preamble is all leading to discussing what sort of photography I chose to do this weekend. I'll start by saying there is much about it that I absolutely hate. I mean really hate. I don't know if it's just because the hours mean being away from the children for far longer than I am comfortable with. Or because nearly everything time I've done it (about 6/7 times in the last 5 months) it's been extraordinarily stressful in part because I don't know what I'm doing and am very much outside my comfort zone, but also because I'm not entirely in a charge as I'm working for someone else so little things aren't as I'd like - although as I learn I can make adjustment and stipulate certain things such as insisting on plenty of spare paper/ink cartridges so when things go wrong I don't lose an hour trying to fix it. Perhaps the fact that I'm not earning what the company I'm working for is earning -far from it and it feel more than a little annoyed by that - doesn't help at all.
However, the thing I think I hate more than anything is the fundamental business model. It's simply all about making money (although not about me making money - ha, maybe I'd find it less uncomfortable if that wasn't the case). The conflict for me is that I really need to earn a living and potentially might be able to with this work if I change the dynamics of the relationship with the owners of the business so that I'm not being 'pimped' out to take rubbish photographs for a flat fee while the business rakes in a fortune!
I'd better explain what the work is - the company sends photographers out to events, sometimes corporate parties, sometimes children's ballet or drama schools for example and then the photographer sets up a mini studio, shoots a whole bunch of photos and sells prints on the spot for £10 each. I said yes to doing the work initially because I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn very quickly. And I was right. I have learned a great deal and continue to each time I venture out in that company's name. Things go wrong, you have to fix them; you have seconds to help people relax and capture something that they will want to buy. But all in all the work is not terribly satisfying at the moment, extremely stressful and if I were to pursue it I would really want to able to focus on producing work that is as good as it can be under those circumstances.
The only reason in my mind for pursuing it is because it may be a route to earning enough money to raise my family if I were to do it regularly. Of course, it may all be academic because I think I have to be clear that I'm not prepared to do it any longer for the relatively low flat fee I've accepted up to now.
This weekend I photographed a children's drama school and the owner was a highly skilled acting practitioner who really cared about passing on her knowledge in a way that is accessible to children. The work consequently was of a very high standard. Lots of excellent, expressive physicality which gave me something quite substantial to work with especially with the older children. That made certain moments far more enjoyable than they might otherwise have been. In the past when taking photographs of office workers or soldiers at the annual Xmas party I have been genuinely pleased by the creativity of some individuals. Those moments just about make it worth it. If I could be less stressed and worried about the set up and my shaky technical abilities then perhaps I could work at finding and encouraging more of those moments.
I know this reflection isn't really about the art of photography but it has been helpful for me to look at how my relationship with photography is developing. I know from my previous research that Sally Mann and some of the early big names in photography art were not above doing this sort of commercial work at all - so there is absolutely no reason I should be. But I have to find a way that makes it work for me; and I have to find a way to stay connected to the sort of work I really enjoy doing - which is hard because I don't think I've quite identified what that is yet! Expressiveness - that's what is really important to me. But in what form I'm not sure yet.
Monday, 31 March 2014
Thursday, 20 March 2014
William S Burroughs, Andy Warhol & David Lynch - The Photographer's Gallery, Ramillies Street, London
www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Today I visited the Photographer's gallery in London to see their current exhibition of three well known artists known for non-photographic art, as well as writing and film making.
Andy Warhol: Photographs 1976 to 1987 - Famous for far longer than a mere 15 minutes due to his iconic prints which sell for vast sums, for questioning the idea of what art should be so profoundly and successfully, his bohemian lifestyle and legendary nightclub, The Factory, Warhol (USA 1928-1987) was a prolific photographer who took '36 frames per day' from the 70s onwards. This exhibition celebrates some of the scenes he captured from the area around where he lived, people he knew and spent time with, along with alarming events such as a car crash which took place in the streets directly in front of his apartment.
There are included a series of stitched photographs which were the most interesting for me as they echo some of the work for which Warhol is best known. 'Warhol’s interest in serial and repeated imagery, seen throughout his work, is brought to play though his striking series of "stitched" photographs'1.
I found it difficult to connect with many of the photographs in this collection but the stitched photographs were compelling. Serial images do something strange – perhaps raise the status of the moment or scene depicted by reiterating it again and again and again. Very bizarrely I had commented only last night on some work on Flickr by someone who had used this technique of repeating a single image – saying I thought the photo worked well in a grid, although I have to be honest I don’t really know why I liked it. Is it because the habit of presenting this way is familiar due to Warhol’s success having made it somewhat ubiquitous? Or perhaps a very clear and strong pattern creates a rhythm which is comfortable for a sentient being with a regular heart beat, or is it that the repetition makes us feel safe as it offers us structure – something we humans seem to respond well to, especially in a world that lacks coherent and cohesive internal structures? I really don’t know the answer but suspect much has been written (and not read about by me!) about why Warhol’s use of serial images has become so iconic, sought after and copied.
Apart from the stitched photographs, the work felt to me in the main like something that feeds into his prints rather than standing alone in its own right - am I allowed to say that? I don’t think this understanding in any way diminishes the work and I am reminded of the scrapbooks of Hannah Hoch (my previous gallery visit), which were so important to her lifelong project of making art.
Nevertheless I was immediately more drawn in by Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs on the floor above. Burroughs (1914-1997) is considered one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century most famous for his book Naked Lunch amongst others.
“Burroughs’ photographs, striking in their self containment, lack any reference to other practitioners or genres2” were presented beautifully mounted in sturdy frames, which was markedly different to the Warhol pictures. The latter seemed to be far less carefully mounted. One of the Burroughs’ prints was tiny and only a couple of inches across and yet placed in a relatively large, expensive and finely crafted mount – this made me really think about how work is presented because the Burroughs’ work seemed much less ‘grubby’ to me than Warhol’s photographs – although why that should be given that he was an addict who lived quite a grubby existence most of his adult life, and was prosecuted for manslaughter after killing his second wife, I am not entirely sure.
What really fascinated me was that although it says Burroughs’ work lacks any reference to other practitioners or genres, by some sort of weird quirk of synchronicity I found myself looking at and reading about collage and cut-up work again just two weeks after seeing the Hoch show. Burroughs used a similar technique in his written work, notably The Nova Trilogy (1961-64) – cutting up a story and creating a new one by sticking it back together in a different order.
Today I visited the Photographer's gallery in London to see their current exhibition of three well known artists known for non-photographic art, as well as writing and film making.
Andy Warhol: Photographs 1976 to 1987 - Famous for far longer than a mere 15 minutes due to his iconic prints which sell for vast sums, for questioning the idea of what art should be so profoundly and successfully, his bohemian lifestyle and legendary nightclub, The Factory, Warhol (USA 1928-1987) was a prolific photographer who took '36 frames per day' from the 70s onwards. This exhibition celebrates some of the scenes he captured from the area around where he lived, people he knew and spent time with, along with alarming events such as a car crash which took place in the streets directly in front of his apartment.
There are included a series of stitched photographs which were the most interesting for me as they echo some of the work for which Warhol is best known. 'Warhol’s interest in serial and repeated imagery, seen throughout his work, is brought to play though his striking series of "stitched" photographs'1.
I found it difficult to connect with many of the photographs in this collection but the stitched photographs were compelling. Serial images do something strange – perhaps raise the status of the moment or scene depicted by reiterating it again and again and again. Very bizarrely I had commented only last night on some work on Flickr by someone who had used this technique of repeating a single image – saying I thought the photo worked well in a grid, although I have to be honest I don’t really know why I liked it. Is it because the habit of presenting this way is familiar due to Warhol’s success having made it somewhat ubiquitous? Or perhaps a very clear and strong pattern creates a rhythm which is comfortable for a sentient being with a regular heart beat, or is it that the repetition makes us feel safe as it offers us structure – something we humans seem to respond well to, especially in a world that lacks coherent and cohesive internal structures? I really don’t know the answer but suspect much has been written (and not read about by me!) about why Warhol’s use of serial images has become so iconic, sought after and copied.
Apart from the stitched photographs, the work felt to me in the main like something that feeds into his prints rather than standing alone in its own right - am I allowed to say that? I don’t think this understanding in any way diminishes the work and I am reminded of the scrapbooks of Hannah Hoch (my previous gallery visit), which were so important to her lifelong project of making art.
Nevertheless I was immediately more drawn in by Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs on the floor above. Burroughs (1914-1997) is considered one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century most famous for his book Naked Lunch amongst others.
“Burroughs’ photographs, striking in their self containment, lack any reference to other practitioners or genres2” were presented beautifully mounted in sturdy frames, which was markedly different to the Warhol pictures. The latter seemed to be far less carefully mounted. One of the Burroughs’ prints was tiny and only a couple of inches across and yet placed in a relatively large, expensive and finely crafted mount – this made me really think about how work is presented because the Burroughs’ work seemed much less ‘grubby’ to me than Warhol’s photographs – although why that should be given that he was an addict who lived quite a grubby existence most of his adult life, and was prosecuted for manslaughter after killing his second wife, I am not entirely sure.
What really fascinated me was that although it says Burroughs’ work lacks any reference to other practitioners or genres, by some sort of weird quirk of synchronicity I found myself looking at and reading about collage and cut-up work again just two weeks after seeing the Hoch show. Burroughs used a similar technique in his written work, notably The Nova Trilogy (1961-64) – cutting up a story and creating a new one by sticking it back together in a different order.
“Cutting
images from different works, Burroughs arranges and assembles photographs and
objects to conceive new connections and meanings. In his more complex collages
his assemblies are photographed and printed, then reassembled and photographed
again and again, creating a near-infinity of images. For him these pieces
functioned as a form of time travel, ones in which the camera was used to
literally cut pieces from the continuum to then be repositioned and
disseminated.”3
It seems
that the artists I (through no concious planning) am becoming more familiar with,
from the modernist to the post modern, are ones that explore a deeply
fragmented world, and find ways and means of expressing the splintered
existence we find ourselves in very graphically by literally cutting out and
pasting and recreating.
Finally on
the top floor was David Lynch: The
Factory of Photographs (b. 1946, USA).
As soon as you enter you know you’re in Lynch territory because there is
a sound-scape installation which feels like it might at any minute evolve into Falling, the theme song from Twin Peaks,
Lynch’s TV serial which people of my generation were so hooked on back in the
80s. For anyone interested in filmaking
and acting as I was, David Lynch was a kind of demi-god. Blue Velvet, the Elephant Man and Eraserhead
(the last of which I must admit was just too much for me at the time) were all held in high
esteem by my circle of friends. So the
familiar dark but intoxicatng themes were instantly recognisable and even welcoming.
Lynch’s
photographs are of factories that are no longer in use from various locations
around the world: London, New York, New Jersey, Germany and Poland. They are very dark – I mean literally dark -
as you might imagine being by David Lynch. Like an early scene from Blue Velvet
where the camera emerges from beneath the dirt in the lawn, these photographs
seem to prod and pry right into the dirt that is piling up in the carcasses of
these ‘haunting cathedrals of a bygone industrial era slowly being taken over
by nature4’.
The
industrial revolution changed the course of the human story profoundly and was
a seismic catalyst for much that occurred in the following decades and century.5 These photographs seem to be recording and
exploring the death of that age. Nature
has indeed begun to take over but humanity will not, cannot, should not even return to
what it was prior to that moment in history and Lynch for me seems to be
dealing with something of the horrors, perhaps in the ghosts we are leaving
behind in buildings that have yet to be transformed into trendy housing and
office space. We have moved on to pastures new as ever with the digital revolution but the creeping, infallible nature is never far behind and will in the end win.
1.The Photographer’s Gallery publicity leaflet that accompanies theexhibition.
2. The Photographer’s Gallery publicity leaflet that accompanies the
exhibition.
4. The Photographer’s Gallery publicity leaflet that accompanies the
exhibition.
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Gallery Visit Whitechapel Hannah Hoch
Study Visit
Hannah Hoch
Whitechapel Gallery, London, E1 7QX
9th March 2014
All the images I mention in this blog can be viewed at The Whitechapel Gallery http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/hannah-hch
I was looking forward to attending a
study visit on Sunday 9th March especially as I had to cancel going
to the one at the Saatchi Gallery in February.
However, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy the Hannah Hoch show quite
as much I as did, despite having read somewhere that it was the must-go-to show
of the moment. I’m not sure why, especially
as I’d been in a reenactment of The Cabaret Voltaire at Manchester Metropolitan
University, shortly after graduating in 1994 and enjoyed it immensely. I certainly
didn’t see just how interesting she was when I looked up some of her work on the Internet
prior to seeing it at the Whitechapel Gallery.
There are several things that struck me
about Hoch’s work early on in my day.
The first was how resonant her work is
now. Her deep interest in how women are
perceived is so current – the media’s preoccupation with feminine ideals
and the lack of reality in many of the images that woman are faced with is
something that might very well be explored in a show of work produced this week. This makes Hoch’s work incredibly fresh and relevant. I am intrigued by the fact that her work has lately become so important having been somewhat put aside for a time. My mother's Open University History of Art
books (she studied in the 80’s and 90’s) barely mention Hannah Hoch and show no
examples of her work. Even the books entirely
focused on Dadaism and Surrealism fare no better. Hoch
it seems has now been placed in a formidable position amongst her contemporaries.
The other thing that struck me was how
much her work seemed to allude to ideas explored by the psychoanalytical
movement. I think this is hardly
surprising due to her place on the timeline of Western History, and because the Surrealists, well known for their links to
Freudian dream theories, and the Dadaists are closely related although the latter are known to be more
anarchic and political. I was instantly reminded of the Jungian concepts I
recently read about, in a wonderful book called A Very Short Introduction to Carl Jung, of fragmented, un-individuated
personalities especially when looking at images such as Gerhard Hauptman (1919) and The
Father (1920) - which also speak to
me of societies in the same state, so the collages work on a micro and macro
level. The whole process of collage
seems to lend itself wonderfully to an illustration of Jung’s ideas. Or perhaps rather they each tap into
something that was happening to the outer and inner worlds for humanity at the
time.
If it is true that there was a
prolonged period of disruption to how society operated following the industrial
revolution as described by Steven Biddulph below, then this fragmented picture
of a new society makes sense:
“[1]The
Industrial Revolution started in the English Midlands, but it rolled
tsunami-like across the globe. Wherever
it arrived, it took us in one generation from small, rural villages to huge,
industrial towns, and from working together as men women and children (there
was as yet no school) into sharply divided lives. Suddenly everything changed – women were
stuck at home, men went down coal mines, and boys began to fall through the
cracks.” Families, communities became split, fragmented and broken by human development and then wars.
We were told by one of the tutors at
our visit that The Father (1920) explores
a period of time when the men were too frightened to go out at all due to
persecution and violence and so were left behind to hold the baby which is how
the central male figure is depicted. He
is surrounded by leaping, dancing women all at leisure pursuits which remind me
of the images of Third Reich propaganda that we have in our collective
memories; perfect Arian bodies exercising.
There is also a boxer who punches the baby; he has a black eye, stuck on
in the typical collage style and the Father too a glued-on eye - the same side of the face. The violence in society that is wrought upon
the father shows up on the face of the baby too.
The
Father is feminised with a half a women’s
mouth, women’s clothes, legs and shoes. There
is so much about genders being less fixed than society feels comfortable with:
Hock talks about her desire to “blur the firm borders that we human beings,
cocksure as we are, are inclined to erect around everything that is possible to
us”[2]. The blurring of gender ‘borders’ is typical
of much of Hock’s work and for me is it hard not to relate some of these themes
to descriptions of Jung’s amina and aminus along with the model he devised of
the human psyche.[3]
The delicate, carefully made collages
seem to explore a human psyche that is split, fragmented.
The other thing that I have not been
able to stop thinking about is the montage itself. I had a terrific A ‘level theatre studies
tutor over 20 years ago who taught us about montage and alienation,
estrangement or “verfremdungseffekt” when we were looking at Bertolt
Brecht. Brecht and other artists as well
as states were starting to explore montage; especially in response to the way
states were using film-editing techniques to create powerful messages. What editing (montage) allowed states to do
was create subjective realities in their favour promoting ideals that suited
them - propaganda. Brecht and many other
artists, Hoch included it seems, started doing the same but not to convince people, rather to make them question and even do something. Brecht talks about making people see things
afresh – to alienate them from reality. By making something unfamiliar you can begin see it in a new way and are more likely to
question.
I think this alienation technique is
very much what Hannah Hock is doing too.
By sticking Hollywood legend Audrey Hepburn’s face and legs together
with the far more exotic and overtly sexual body of a ‘foreign’ belly dancer in
Hommage a Riza Abasi (1963) the
viewer is forced to question attitudes towards celebrity, femininity,
sexuality, and the role of the media over how women are perceived. One is unlikely to be faced with these
questions so overtly if such a darling of the Hollywood era were not cut up and
re-presented as such.
In another way we are forced to look at
the crying eyes and mouth of a baby which is placed with an adult male’s nose,
forehead, head and ears in the Der Kleine
P (1931) or a crying baby’s mouth within the face of an adult women in Klage (1930). Here a viewer is forced to look at the
emotion of a child and the emotion of an adult afresh. I think these works are extremely powerful
and give a very clear illustration of the child within the adult. We tend to dismiss a child’s cry or at least
undervalue it and we suppress our appreciation of an adults pain but Hoch makes
us look at it afresh by employing this “verfremdungseffect.”
Hoch's youthful collage also is somehow an echo of film, not only because of the
propaganda montage which is literally cutting and pasting moving images, but
because her earlier work which is far more fragmented than her later work,
gives one the sense of the broken fragmented rhythm of black and white film of the era.
The upper level of the Whitechapel
Gallery was filled with later work and again I was struck by the idea of Jung’s
individuation – a coming together of the disparate parts of one psyche, a
calmer more grown up time. Hoch’s work
is less stilted, less jarring, less loud, more serene and very beautiful. I did prefer the earlier work though but I
suspect this is a personal taste. There
is something beguiling about the time in Germany between those wars, which
might seem a strange thing for the daughter of Jew to say given what was
brewing there. But the decadent,
anarchic, rebelliousness of the Dadaists and other modernists is incredibly
compelling.
Finally, I wonder if it is simply a
case of projecting 21st century pop psychology onto the work, which
is what makes it seem so relevant and modern or if Hoch indeed was in fact
ahead of her times. She was working at a
moment in history when Western society seemed to be at the dawn of it’s own
modern consciousness, and my favourite quote from my little Jung book is “there
is no dawning of consciousness without pain” and certainly the first half of
the 20th century was one of intense pain and loss - and perhaps this
is what all forms of modernism may be an expression of.
I
do believe Hoch was ahead of her time. I
was a little blasé and underwhelmed before I went along to the Whitechapel
Gallery, rather naively dismissing collage as something not quite art-worthy no
doubt. But the work is extremely
powerful, delicate, highly original, resonant and extraordinarily relevant
to our lives now.
********
Hannah Hoch (1889-1978) was one of the
Berlin Dada Group and the only female artist included, although I understand
there were other overlooked but important female artists around at the
time. Even Hoch herself may have been
somewhat undervalued by the Dadaists themselves because of her sex. Hoch is a
pioneer of photomontage working during the time of Weimer Republic (1919 – 33)
alongside other Dadaists Max Ersnt, Jean Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Johanness Bauder,
amongst others and especially the German artist Kurt Schwitters whom she was
close to.
After beginning her artistic life in
textiles she started working in fashion magazines where she became acutely
aware of the contrast between images of women in the media and reality. She began to work with cutouts and
photomontage and became involved with the Berlin Dada Group.
Hoch took part in the First International Dada Fair where her
collages where well received. Hoch also
designed backdrops for the Cabaret Voltaire and performed in some events too,
although only rarely.
She was very active up until the Second
World War, during which she kept a very low profile in Germany. After the war she continued to work and
exhibit until her death in 1978. Her
post war work has a very different quality to it but she continued to be
concerned with women and how they are perceived.
The Whitechapel separates Hock’s work
into two sections. The lower floor shows
the period 1912-36, including early textiles, drawings and the beginnings of
her photomontage. Upstairs a small room
contains The Album – an exhibit celebrating Hoch’s scrapbook, a collection of
cuttings.
Further on is work from 1936 up to her death in
1978. Hoch continued to work throughout
her life.
Friday, 14 March 2014
A mistake?
 |
| The image I think I should have used in the final part of my assignment. 100 ISO, 24mm, f2.8, 1/160 - speedlight set to manual 1/4 |
Ever since submitting my first assignment for this course last week I have regretted the choice I made for my final image showing contrast within a single photograph.
So this is a post that will be filed under thoughts and reflections as well as being an afterword in the assignment. I'm not sure if I would be allowed to change the final image after submission if the assignment was going to be counted in the final overall grade for the course so I'm simply adding this as further reflection rather than replacing the actual final image I chose. For me what matters is the process I have been through - making a decision and then questioning it; and then finding a way to adjust if possible and if not at least record my thoughts.
I set out to take a photograph of my son who is 9 wearing a suit which was relatively expensive especially considering he will hardly wear it because a) he is either in school uniform or jeans as appropriate for a 9 year old boy, b) we are not the sort of family who regularly go anywhere formal, c) it's too expensive to live in the dressing up box where his nylon £5 suit which he wore when pretending to be Doctor Who (David Tennant) resides, d) he hardly dresses up in play now anyway as he seems to have moved beyond that unlike his younger brother who is 6.
As well as wearing the suit he is standing in a room that is very chaotic indeed. I venture in periodically to tidy up and disinfect but I tend to leave the room alone on a day to day basis as it is not mine. The room is filled with very childish toys which he rarely looks at now apart from the Lego. It also has a baby motif on the wall as we are renting and I have not removed it. So there are symbols of various stages of childhood in the room.
As well as the all the outer contrasts - a grown up expensive suit more commonly seen on adults in the corporate world where we presume (perhaps mistakenly) that order and structure reign, childish toys, a chaotic room filled with childish toys, no shoes - there are also contrasts evident in the face and body language of my son. He is still very much a little boy but he is growing up and beginning to get a sense of what it might feel like to be a man. He is sweet and kind but also brooding and angry and determined to present an image of himself that is at odds with how is when he is free, running round the playground laughing about things young boys laugh about. His manner in the string of photos I took is quite an extreme example of a male boy presenting a very tough exterior which denies but reveals the insecure inner child who cries and gets upset when computer time ends or worse is banned, or who flies off the handle about seemingly small things.
Finally, the last contrast is the way he looks straight into the camera but is actually hiding behind his gesture. So he looks like he's being very upfront but in fact he is not. I gave virtually no direction other than asking him to stand in a certain spot.
When I took the photo my other children sidled in on a couple and I loved the extra contrasts they offered - which I speak about here. But the photograph I chose for the final part of the assignment is technically flawed and it's quite obvious. So I think on reflection I should have stuck with my original idea and used a photo that was as I'd imagined and conceived, plus better technically.
In a way the individual child is more striking, not least because of the gesture. I think after all it is a much stronger image than the one I originally posted.
Finally, I don't think I mentioned the reason for using black and white. The mess in the room is so overwhelming that I felt removing one dimension, colour, would make the image stronger.
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Assignment 1 - Single image with contrast
 | |||||||||||
| Growing | 100 ISO, 24mm, f2.8, 1/160 - speedlight set to manual 1/4 |
Since posting this I have added an afterthought here.
I hope this afterthought (and the image it contains) can be considered as the actual final image rather than the one above but if not then at least my learning process is evident.
I am very annoyed with myself. I have spent the last week really getting to grips with using high apertures when taking photographs of groups. I tend to use f2.8 for close up portraits and my camera is often left in that setting. I was originally planning to take a photo of my oldest son in his suit and so had the camera set at f2.8 but should absolutely have changed it to at least f5.6 for this - even if it was just him. I think the habit of using very low numbers is related to the fact that I am trying to also take photos of families and I know the fashion is for soft out of focus backgrounds. (Even though I am aware that narrow depth of field isn't all about low apertures it's a trap that I have failed to resist keeping away from) However, having thought so much about it this week I am pleased that I achieved some good photos yesterday using higher values and wish I'd thought more clearly when taking this image. It's probably important to remember that fashion doesn't necessarily need to be adhered to here and it might have worked very well to have everything pin sharp even in the background.
The other thing that I have got to grips with this week is focal points. I have become aware that many photographers use the central focal point and then re-compose before pressing the shutter. I have tended to stop and move my focal points around which is very limiting. So I am getting used to doing things with the central focal point and recomposing as others do. I was quite nervous yesterday but it seemed to work pretty well. I still changed points when doing close up portraits though.
In this photo my middle son is most sharp - which is a mistake, although perhaps an unconscious moment on my part, revealing yet more contrasts. I have been worrying about him recently although that changed by the end of the week and started worrying about my oldest.
I have chosen this photo for my final image despite it's lack of technical expertise - is that crazy? I can't re-shoot it The room is tidy, the moment has passed. It wasn't quite what I planned but I like all the different contrasts in it. I am currently reading Manhood by Steve Biddulph and this photo seems to illustrate the transition from sweet adoring open baby to sullen, uncomfortable with his difficult emotions, pre-teen perfectly. I wanted to take a photo of my oldest son, still very much a child, wearing this suit that he was bought and which he wore for a dressing up day to school. The mess in the room, common in childhood and an expression of his chaotic way of being contrasts with the somewhat ridiculously expensive suit, more typically seen on an adult and in an office. Each of their faces reveals a different emotion, attitude and relationship with each-other and the world. The iPad is so different to the toys that litter the floor - Lego, puzzles, teddies. Old fashioned toys vs the ultimate modern toy. I like this photo even though it's technically a mess and one that I would reject if someone was paying me - one of many inevitable losses when shooting wide-open, and without strobes.
Here are some others from the same moment - some of them with much better focus but without the two younger ones. Both are shot with same values as before.
Assignment 1 - Pairs of contrasting images
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| Rounded - ISO 80 10mm f1.8 1/160 |
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| Diagonal - ISO 800 10mm f2 1/320 |
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| Hard - hard toys, hard light, hard mess, hard being ISO 100 50mm f5.6 1/200 speedlight |
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| Soft - soft curves, soft light, soft touch, soft person ISO 100 24mm f2.8 1/160 |
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| Moving ISO 100 10mm f7.1 1sec |
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| Still ISO 80 10mm f1.8 1/320 (don't know why I chose these values) |
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| Continuous ISO 400 20mm f3.5 1/250 |
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| Intermittent ISO 800 10mm f1.8 1/250 |
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| Liquid - although there is a solid here too ISO 80 10mm f4.5 1/160 |
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| Solid - but you can see through it ISO 100 10mm f1.8 1/640 |
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| Transparent ISO 80 10mm f1.8 1/25 |
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| Opaque ISO 400 10mm f2.5 1/160 |
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| Dark - in daylight ISO 125 10mm f5.6 1/800 |
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| Light - different forms at night ISO 800 23mm f3.5 1/40 |
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| Sour - sometimes it's difficult not to be ISO 1600 10mm f2.2 1/80 |
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| Sweet - he tries hard not to be but it still gets the better of him, thankfully ISO 800 10mm f2.5 1/40 |
Assignment 1 - Reflection
Look at the assessment criteria for this course: review how you think you have done against the criteria.
I think I am probably just about technically competent in the main although still have a great deal to learn, and recognise where I have failed to be competent - even using some less than competent work at times. I would say that every time I do a shoot I learn and the handle I have on it all improves (probably far slower than I'd like). I can see many examples of images where I cannot understand what I was thinking regarding the values I chose - such as using f1.8 when I really should have gone for something a lot smaller (higher number). I also tend to leave the values where they are when I should change them. Even though I did feel I understood this all quite well I think I have absorbed and understood it more profoundly just recently.
I have struggled to work out how Blogger works best so I can present everything clearly but I hope I have managed to get round things. My system might be a little odd - I hope not. Being ordered and clear takes an enormous amount of thought and effort. I think I could also find greater levels of flair and professionalism in the way I present everything - I suspect it's done in a rather pedestrian way.
I have without a doubt been influenced by reading about, seeing and reflecting on other people's work since starting this course and I can see it filtering through to other areas of my photographic life. What this means often is I am seeing the gulf between what I want to achieve and what I am actually achieving.
It feels weird to think I might be assessed (if I go that route) on my creativity. Creativity is something, of course, that can be developed and revealed but I am who I am - and perhaps I'm never going to be the most creative person in the world. I am painfully aware of my limitations and have in the last year or so decided not to allow those limitations to prevent me from taking risks and putting myself on the line. 'Finding a voice' is a lifelong project and one that always seems just out of grasp but I do feel as if I have taken steps recently and am perhaps moving closer.
Looking at my work I can see where I have put myself on the line - the mere fact I am here at all says a lot. But that doesn't stop me from recognising examples that might be derivative of other people's art that I might have seen and remembered consciously and otherwise.
I am concerned that my reflections and other written work is far from academic. I chat away and perhaps it's not always appropriate but it feels more enjoyable than writing in a dry and very serious way. I'm not sure where I'm meant to be in relation to that.
I think I am probably just about technically competent in the main although still have a great deal to learn, and recognise where I have failed to be competent - even using some less than competent work at times. I would say that every time I do a shoot I learn and the handle I have on it all improves (probably far slower than I'd like). I can see many examples of images where I cannot understand what I was thinking regarding the values I chose - such as using f1.8 when I really should have gone for something a lot smaller (higher number). I also tend to leave the values where they are when I should change them. Even though I did feel I understood this all quite well I think I have absorbed and understood it more profoundly just recently.
I have struggled to work out how Blogger works best so I can present everything clearly but I hope I have managed to get round things. My system might be a little odd - I hope not. Being ordered and clear takes an enormous amount of thought and effort. I think I could also find greater levels of flair and professionalism in the way I present everything - I suspect it's done in a rather pedestrian way.
I have without a doubt been influenced by reading about, seeing and reflecting on other people's work since starting this course and I can see it filtering through to other areas of my photographic life. What this means often is I am seeing the gulf between what I want to achieve and what I am actually achieving.
It feels weird to think I might be assessed (if I go that route) on my creativity. Creativity is something, of course, that can be developed and revealed but I am who I am - and perhaps I'm never going to be the most creative person in the world. I am painfully aware of my limitations and have in the last year or so decided not to allow those limitations to prevent me from taking risks and putting myself on the line. 'Finding a voice' is a lifelong project and one that always seems just out of grasp but I do feel as if I have taken steps recently and am perhaps moving closer.
Looking at my work I can see where I have put myself on the line - the mere fact I am here at all says a lot. But that doesn't stop me from recognising examples that might be derivative of other people's art that I might have seen and remembered consciously and otherwise.
I am concerned that my reflections and other written work is far from academic. I chat away and perhaps it's not always appropriate but it feels more enjoyable than writing in a dry and very serious way. I'm not sure where I'm meant to be in relation to that.
Object in different positions in the frame
2 - Object in different positions in the frame
4 photographs placing the subject at different points in the frame
I took these photos with this project in mind and then dismissed them. I thought they were simply too boring. But after several further attempts I have decided to use them. I like the colours but think I should have paid more attention to the photography ensuring I had more detail. I like the bobbing about that these little plastic toys do. I love that my son plays with them most nights - although his favourite thing is to throw them and a good deal of bath water out onto the floor. I prefer the first one out of all. - All shot at ISO 400 10mm f2.2 1/15. I should have bounced the speedlight off the ceiling and increased my shutter speed.
A sequence of composition
I hated this exercise. I put it off and put it off and put if off. I cringed as I was doing it. There were a few short sequences but nothing that felt very satisfying. Everything was too transient and I was too uncomfortable. I didn't feel connected to any of it. I don't like photographing in 'public' in this way and I know I am not alone in this. I imagine you need to be a certain type of person to go out and do this sort of thing and I guess it's partly about confidence but also a little about believing you have the right to go about photographing people you don't know. And I don't feel that at all. In fact I feel horribly ambivalent about street photography. I know there is a long tradition of it and some very famous names who have produced amazing work are street photographers but I hate the idea of stealing moments and faces and making judgements about others that lead to taking a photo. It doesn't feel right at all. I felt very uncomfortable today. I put the camera (Sony RX) on AV and wandered around Clapham Junction trying to find a sequence and failing - not so much 'making' photos as grasping desperately for anything that might fall my way. I think I would have fared better with a procession or march as I might not have felt so intrusive but there were none to be had and I didn't want to delay this further.
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| ISO 800 10mm f8 1/320 |
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| ISO 800 10mm f8 1/200 |
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| ISO 800 10mm f8 1/250 |
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| ISO 800 10mm f8 1/1600 |
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| ISO 800 10mm f8 1/80 |
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| ISO 1600 20mm f8 1/250 |
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| ISO 1600 20mm f8 1/1000 |
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| ISO 1600 20mm f5.6 1/800 |
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| ISO 1600 20mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 20mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 15mm f5.6 1/1600 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/1600 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/1600 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/800 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/1250 |
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| ISO 1600 21mm f5.6 1/1000 |
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| ISO 1600 21mm f5.6 1/1000 |
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| ISO 1600 21mm f5.6 1/640 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/2000 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/500 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/320 |
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| ISO 1600 37mm f5.6 1/320 |
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| ISO 1600 17mm f5.6 1/400 |
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| ISO 1600 17mm f5.6 1/250 |
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