- Overview 2011
- Developing your photographic voice/defining own interests & passion
- Ask yourself:
- What are you interested in?
- What do you do?
- Street Photography & Road Trip
- Practical - make your own decisions
- Location shoots - Broadstairs
- Next week - Margate
- Week 3 - coach to London
- Talk from Miranda - anthropology
- After reading week - PrintSpace
- Second Assignment - Issued
- Work in any medium - analogue/digital/mixed
- Looking for consistency across ten pictures (visual/conceptual)
- Well edited
- Doing it because you want to do it
- Street Photography
- Heyday in 1960s & 1970s
- Not taken seriously in the art world
- Not just creative dead ends & juxtapositions
- Bruce Gilden
- Confident, comfortable, close (unique)
- Composition & Emotional content
- Format Photography Festival
- Viewer is a participant
- Seeing characters
- Walker Evans
- Passengers NY Subway
- Stare!
- Trent Parke
- Studied as a photojournalist
- Color
- Pushed boundary of the medium
- Reserved - from a distance
- Shoot a load of shit - Get a few good ones
- 40 rolls medium format per day
- Exposes for highlights - black can stay black
- Forever chasing light
- Knows spots where the light is even for just ten minutes
- Plan
- You never know when picture will come
- Street Photography is the most accessible
ACPP: Street Photography
ADI: Planning the next few months
- Week 20 - Project Management
- Week 21 - Symposium on creating books - Bring two books
- Week 22 - Booksmart - Bring 20 RAW images
- Week 23 - Project Presentation - 10 mins - Print out designs web layout/book design
- Week 24 - Project Presentation & Tutorials
- Week 25 - Tutorials
- Week 26 - Reading Week
- Week 27 - Web/Digital retouching
- Week 28 - Guest Speaker - 'Wet Operator'
- Week 29 - Looking at all students websites
- Week 30 - ? (Was International Trip)
- 1st Proof of book/2nd Proof of book (month required
- Project Management - Plan backwards
- Evidence (Dates/Log/Gant Chart?)
APDP: Philosophy
- What makes a good photo?
- Recommended reading: Towards a Philosophy on Photography by Vilem Flusser
- Next week - Lith Printing
ACPP: Environmental Portraits - Critical Evaluation
ACPP –Environmental Portraiture
Critical Evaluation
This project will be an ongoing long-term project so that I can explore the customer diversity for a whole year, incorporating the tourist season that has not been included in the project so far.
My initial plan to go to the customers environment and photograph the item with the customer has not materialised as yet. I decided that the project would need much more time than was available and that a simpler solution of photographing the customer with item in the shop environment would act as a stepping stone onto a larger project. Feedback from those that were photographed as to the feasibility of photographing at their environment in the future was positive.
Setting up of the project was fairly straight forward, I originally chose a location in the shop that was well lit by ambient light coming through a large window. I moved some items so that they would not be between the subject and camera but kept the background of the pre-shoot as it was found. The customer would need to be isolated from the clutter of the shop and initially I used a large ship’s flag that was hanging in the shop and lowered it to form a backdrop.
The flag still proved to be distracting and I needed to come up with an alternative backdrop. I was made aware of a recent advertising campaign by Nespresso that used a narrow colorama behind the subject and importantly—in the subject’s own environment. After a lot of research I was able to find multiple shots of this Nespresso project and even find making of videos.
Incorporating the colorama into the shop needed some improvisation, two light stands acted as supports and an old broom handle as the crossbar. I wanted all the shots to appear as if in a series and the fluctuations of the natural light in December meant a switch to flash. I used a deliberately small aperture to remove the natural light and shot with one speedlite through a beauty dish. Equipment problems meant that my original shoot–plan where I had access to two flashes was cancelled. Ideally a large softbox above the camera and another flash, perhaps with a snood to highlight the item would have provided better results.
The customers were extremely obliging in having their photographs taken—not one declined from the eighteen that I asked, and there were only a few that I did not ask for a variety of reasons. However not all were keen on looking directly at the camera whilst holding the item and the lack of eye contact has distracted from these images and they have not been used in the final ten. The photographs are named by the item that was purchased—it is for the viewer to establish the rest from the portrait.
The final edit was about selecting a series of ten images that fitted together well. I wanted eye contact and where possible the item clearly visible. I also wanted a diversity of customers, and a diversity of items purchased.
The major lessons that I have learned during this project are as follows:
- Always have a Plan B
- Don’t be afraid to ask people for help
- Have ample equipment
- Have extra lighting stands to keep the composition & light the same
- Keep the idea simple
- Tethered shooting would make it easier spot blinking eyes
Street Photography
Street Photography - "a search for resonant contrasts, rich metaphors & found dramatic scenarios" (Coleman, 1978)
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