My photos online

A school that i did some photography for last year has recently used one of my images on it's new website, trouble is they have not credited me on the homepage or next to the image. It's great to see my image online, but it is important that the image is credited to me. I have spoken to the head teacher to ask him to credit my name on the website.

Here is a link to my photo online :

http://www.beechwoodprimaryschool.co.uk/index.asp

Depth of field images

I liked this website about depth of field images that I found via twitter :

http://ht.ly/28vOb

CC imaging colour profiles

Spent the morning trying to work out how to use CC imaging colour profiles and FTP system.

Took a while but it will be worth it in the end.

I am sending off some images for test printing.

Weather and model frustrtations

Loving the studio work with Dave, he is very helpful and full of knowledge.

I've tried to get in the studio as often as I can. I took a group of photos for my advertising brief, Dave made some helpful suggestions as to how I could improve upon them if I went back into the studio.

He suggested shooting low key and greater use of hands, also trying to fill the frame more.

I have looked at the following photographers exhibitions and web pages :

I was lucky enough to go to the Avedon  exhibition while in Paris, while there I made detailed notes.

Mario Testino

   http://www.mariotestino.com/

I particularly liked his uptown series of work, here are a few link below, the studio images have a lovely simple lighting style which just seems to work in my opinion  ; 

http://www.mariotestino.com/page/711

Rankin

Overall I have found Rankin and Avedon have been my main inspiration photographically. Both photographers produce quite differing work from differing periods of time, but both are an inspiration to me.

http://rankin.co.uk/fashion/#/pic17

I looked at a variety of Rankin's fashion work and advertising work. In particular I liked his low key studio work below. I think he used simple, but clever lighting techniques in this photo. 

http://rankin.co.uk/fashion/#/pic17

I also love the following photo, but was not sure how he had achieved it. 

http://rankin.co.uk/fashion/#/pic17

This photo helped me consider the use of hands in my photography shoot.

http://rankin.co.uk/fashion/#/pic17

The above Rankin image is very similar to this Avedon photo below : 

http://www.richardavedon.com/#s=2&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&p=2&a=1&at=0

My biggest frustration has been my model failing to turn up or the weather, both of which have meant that approximately 4 attempts to get in to the studio have failed. 

Such is life though.

Reflection on video brief

Really stuck for ideas regarding the video brief, which is unlike me as I usually have an instant idea. Find this a bit frustrating as I want to get on with the brief, I enjoyed the editing side of it. As we have practicing with final cut pro these last few weeks.

Started looking at some videos on youtube in the hope of inspiration.

Wireless triggers for studio work

I have been looking at wireless flash triggers to assist me in my studio brief as recommended by my tutor at college.

On of my fellow students has this unit below, I like the look of this and did some further research online. It received good reviews.



http://www.rmphotographynow.com/2009/11/yongnuo-rf-602-flashcamera-trigger.html

I waded through several review all of which seemed to give the unit a glowing report.

http://nadineballantyne.com/blog/yongnuo-rf-602-flash-trigger-test/

Untitled

Currently I am reading Nick Cohn - Yes we have no. It's a bit like a travel guide to England in a Bill Bryson style, but it investigates the more subversive side to the UK. It is a unique book and well worth a read in my opinion.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-We-Have-Nik-Cohn/dp/0099883201

In particular I liked the following quote from page 244.

 

"I'm troubled by a vision of England future: A vast, interlocking grid of theme parks; hundreds upon thousands of family attractions (kiddies half price), endlessly recycling the past, till every last aspect of living great and small, old and new, has been reduced to souvenirs. Who then will still know the difference between a renovated colliery, a souped-up steel and a Medieval Maniax."

Nick Cohn - Yes we have no, page 244

This quote reminded me of my visit last year to the National Coal Mining Museum (NCM) in Wakefield the heartland of British coal. John Bulmer and Ian Beesely amongst others talked about photographing the North in the sixties and in particular the mining aspect of our heritage.

 

http://www.ncm.org.uk/displaypage.asp?id=150

 

 

A good day

Today was offically a good photography day,

I went to an exhibiton at the film and photography museum in Bradford by Simon Roberts

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/SimonRoberts/

 Some images were very strong, like this one above : South Downs Way, West Sussex, 8th October 2007

And this one below titled Ladies' Day, Aintree Racecourse, Merseyside 4th April 2008. I wondered if this was landscape or social documentary in the style of Parr.

Some of the images seemed less strong in my opinion, like the following, Cotswold Water Park, Shornecote, Gloucestershire, 11th May 2008. None the less all the images worked well together and had a good theme, I felt that they showed a good cross section of the community :

Also there was another exhibition on at the same time by Robbie Cooper, which had been reviewed in the times recently :

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/RobbieCooper/

I very much enjoyed this exhibiton too, the images used were striking to say the least. 

People are immersed in screen media for longer periods and with more intensity than ever before. From children watching television to people living out second lives through online virtual worlds, Robbie Cooper’s imagery captures the many ways in which people choose to disengage from everyday life.

Timmie McLees watching The Death of Neda, 2010

 

Jack Peacock watching Peppa Pig, 2010

 

 Drew Hugh playing Hulk, 2008

 

 

Ian Beesley - Bobbin Doffers

Ian Beesley - Bobbin Doffers

http://www.ianbeesley.com/thro-the-mill2.html

Ian Beesley collaborative photography work for the shining out book

Ian Beesley collaborative photography work for the shining out book

http://www.ianbeesley.com/shining-out10.html

Ian Beesley - Shining out

 

http://www.ianbeesley.com/shining-out7.html

Mills Card fettlers,

http://www.ianbeesley.com/thro-the-mill4.html

Suchitara 14 years old, kids with cameras

Photograph taken by Suchitara, 14 Kids with Cameras.

Ian Beesley - Shining out

Paul Floyd Blake

Ian Beesley meltdown 3

Ian Beesley meltdown 2

Ian Beesley meltdown 1

Don Mc Cullin

Research images for my presentation

Essay research

Here are some of the links that I looked at to help me compose my essay :

http://www.floydphotography.co.uk/

E.mailed this chap, very helpful too.

Took lots of notes at  the NCM symposium in Wakefield there were sevral photographer who attended, this was extremely helpful in formulating my essay :

http://www.johnbulmer.co.uk/ 

http://www.homersykes.com/ 

 http://www.ianbeesley.com/

This was one of the last webpages that I found, it was really helpful in showing that social documentary photography had moved into different directions. 

 

http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/ 

Social Documentary essy

Social documentary essay.

I had reached a bit of hiatus with my essay after handing my draft in to my tutor.

My tutor guided me in the right direction and suggested that I add more of a critical element to my essay. So I got several books from the library and copied pages from other books and got reading. She was of course right, unlike the odd person I am wise enough to recognise good advice when I hear it

It took a while to gleem the relevant information, but as I  started to compose the slides for my talk things started to get a little easier. Today I looked at my essay again and started to finalise it further, by now all my e.mails that I had sent out to various photographers had arrived. This was very helpful in putting the finishing touches to the essay.

All in all I have enjoyed the essay and felt it was a very enjoyable and rewarding process. It is great to be self directive in your own study and I feel I have developed greatly in such a short space of time.

While I accept that I am never going to be the best essay writer in the world I do think I have learnt and developed futher from doing this and all the other essays and will no doubt improve further the next time I write.

Fingers crossed for my talk on Thurs. 

Film problems

I took the Hassleblad camera out the other dayto try to attempt my landscape work,

It prove to be a challenge, but one which I enjoyed. I anticipated making mistakes and enjoying using ther camera, so I bought extra film just in case. I was right on both counts.

Turned out I had loaded a film the wrong way round, frustrating but not the end of the world. I intend to go out again and re- shoot the bits of work I have lost. Sadly though I shared a roll of film with Alison so I messed it up for her too. Oops.

On the plus side I felt that I really got to grips witht hte camera very quickly and intend to print my negatives out. It's quite exciting really waiting for the film to be processed. I have absolutely no doubt that I will embrace both this and large format cameras again in the future, I can see lots of potential.

Richard

This is one of the images I took for my social documentary assignment, He is my colleague and a friend. 

Paul

Roni

Assignment 2 - Re visited

Assignment 2 has continued and does continue. I struggled to get the people together to meet up with me.

Because of this I took the opportunity to shoot in and around Windsor, while I was staying there. It differed from my original idea, nut I felt it would be better to present something rather than nothing.

I had only managed to shoot 4 people in total before presentation day.I wanted at least 6.

As ever it is always people who let you down, I did anticipate this though.

Since the presentation I have managed to shoot a total of 5 colleagues in their home or social environment. I have been very pleased with the results, so far, I believe it has been a worthwhile project.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lazarous1973 

Narrators Gaze

I recently went to an symposium and exhibition at the National Coal Mining museum, the symposium featured(luckily for me) lots of photographers who's work I have been looking at recently.

http://www.ncm.org.uk/displaypage.asp?id=150

John Bulmer : http://www.johnbulmer.co.uk/

Ian Beesley :  http://www.ianbeesley.com/

Homer Sykes : http://www.homersykes.com/


This was a really valuable day for me as I was able to make lots of notes and compose direct reasearch.  I have had a re-newed interest in social doc photography recently. Seeing lots of people i respect talking about social documentary photography and its highs and lows really inspired me.

It was fantastic to meet John Bulmer and Ian Beesley. Also very usefull to be able to direct some questions to them too.

Afterwards I asked Ian if I could e.mail him regarding some research that I was carrying out for my essay. He kindly agreed.

Assignment 2 : Photostory

Assignment 2 : Photo story

I am really pleased with all the assignments that my tutor has set us so far. I have found them challenging and interesting at the same time.

My first idea for the photo story brief was to try to cover the changing face of the ambulance service. In the last 30 years the ambulance service like many other jobs has changed significantly. It used to be a male dominated working class job. Where as in the last ten to fifteen years. The staff that are now carrying out the work are of different sexes, differing backgrounds both culturally and socially. I had an idea of representing members if staff in their uniforms at work and possibly at home or socially. Another idea I considered was to photograph each colleague with an item from their own personal life. One colleague suggested photographing her with the Gay pride flag as it symbolised her sexual orientation. Another colleague suggested taking his picture with his prayer hat on.


Either to show colleagues in a photo in uniform then contrast this photo with an image of the. either at home or socialising.

I also had an idea of photographing a series of Bradford pubs that have now shut down. As I started my research I Realised fairly quickly that there are lots of pubs in and around Bradford that have shut down over the last few years. I sarted to compile a comprehensive list of closed pubs in Bradford over the last ten years. This was followed by an e.mail to the local paper (Telegraph and Argus). I also kept a close eye on the paper for further articles relating to pub closures of which there were a few.

During my research I discovered a lecturer at the University of Bradford had written a book regarding the demise of the great British pub and in particular Bradford pubs, I found his contact details here :

http://www.brad.ac.uk/sled/research/staff-research/Paul-Jennings/ 

So decided I would call / e.mail him.
Quote from a university lecturer Paul Jennings :

  

Mindful of the boarded-up public houses we see as we travel around West Yorkshire we ask Paul if he thinks the local pub might have had its day. He says: "The society that underpinned local pubs has moved on. If you look at Bradford, and certainly parts of Leeds or Halifax, the population has changed. The white English-born population which supported pubs has largely moved out and a new population, largely from the Commonwealth, has moved in for whom pubs, generally speaking, are not part of their cultural landscape. Not totally, some groups - Sikhs perhaps - were using some of the pubs in Bradford when I was around."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/content/articles/2007/10/03/pubs_history_bradford_feature.shtml 

My thought was to show each pub as they are now be that closed, converted, knocked down, in limbo or whatever state the pub was in.One of the biggest problems that I felt I would have was to try to give each image a certain uniformity or how I could link  each image together.

Book cover

After lots of research I finally decided on an idea for my book cover,the trouble is the item I want to use is very hard to find.

Not sure if I should persit in trying to locate it or give it up as a bad job !

I'm basically trying to find an antique. I suspect it will make my cover look very original and it definately ties in with the book. As the author is alleged to have written the book on an old underwood typewriter.

Will have to see if I can locate said item, if not I had an idea of using origarmi birds.

Managed to locate a typewriter turns out my wife who is a teacher had the exact machine I was after lurking in a corner at her school. I could not velievd my luck.

I spent the whole evening experimenting taking shots under differing light settings and at different angles. I really enjoyed it and was very pleased with the end results.

One frustration that Dix arrise was not having the confide cd or the time to recreate the same shot on a film camera. I borrowed a camera, but never got round to actually taking the shots on film. I would have loved to have entered the competition.

Assignment 1 : Night photography shoot

Research and reflection into assignment 1 : Night shoot

For my night phoitographic shoot I had 2 locations in mind. 

1) Ferrybridge power station 

2) A Scrap yard on Canal road in Bradford.

After looking at the work of Michael Kenna for inspiration and in particular his powerstation series. It was clear that he was inspired to some extent by Bill Brandt.

 

I was particulary inspired by the above image as it gave a good wide angle view of this powerstation, something that I wanted to achieve also. Although Kenna works in black and White. The composition was inspiring. I intended to use a long exsposure.

Photos from the Kenna website : http://www.michaelkenna.net/gallery.php?id=7

I decided to take a photo of Ferrybridge power station as I'd attempted to shoot it many years before, but never at night. I looked at several images on flickr firstly :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34083794@N06/4210056602/

I had considered taking pictures of a scrap yard in Bradford. For inspiration I looked on the Internet and found the following images -  http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebastian-photography/3809741899/ 

I liked this image as the photographer had obviously used s long exsposure and fill in flash with different coloured gels to create the green effect in the cab.

 

Whether or not I would be able to recreate this I was unsure, partially due to access issues onto the scrap yard. I had in mind a far wider shot that would gives greater sense of scale

to my image.

The following link was more like the type of image I had in mind :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebastian-photography/4249838496/in/pool-deadmetal/

I decided to contact the photographer, to ask the following  :

7 Feb 10, 1.18AM PST

Hello there I am photographer studying at degree level.

I am undertaking an assignment in location based night photography and was interested in using sites like scrap yards and powerstations. after researching on the internet I found your series 7 shots. Some of which are very inspiring indeed.

I was nhoping to ask you one or two questions about your series of photos ?

Firstly I wondered how you had achieved some of the effects in your photos, did you use any fill in flash and gels for any of the images in this series or was it all natural lighitng \ residual lighting ?

Secondly have you altered any of your images in photoshop or are they as shot ?

I hope you don't mind me asking you these questions and thanks again for the inspiration, keep up the great work.

Kind Regards

Michael Good

Hi Michael,

thanks alot for your comments and feedbacks, I'm glad you enjoy my work and find it inspiring.

My night shots use different kind of lighting techniques depending on the situation, lot of them have manual strobe flashes combined with colored gels. Sometimes, its only the ambient lighting if the light is nice and fill enough the whole composition.

As for Photoshop, I don't really use it that much, I prefer developing my work through Lightroom, with basic contrast, exposure, etc.

Hope that helps, and thanks again! :)

Sebastian

I also looked at some more fill in flash work at the following site, this photographer also does not use photoshop :

http://troypaiva.com/

Another idea that I had was to photograph a scarp yard on Canal road in Bradford. The owners are called Crossely Evans

I went early one morning at a weekend when the sight was shut and had a look through the gates.

The sight had lots of tall lights  and large structures like cranes. I had already previously looked at the site from the main road to gauge what it looked like at night.

One concern was if the images from Ferrybridge and the potential scrap yard shoot would tie together. Would they juxtapose or compliment each other ?

Upon visiting the scrap yard I could not find a good angle to shoot from without actually entering the yard.In the end I was disappointed as I did not manage to shoot at either site, due to poor weather and time constraints. Although this was frustrating at first it does not mean I have ruled out going back and completing the project at a later date. Instead I will put the idea on the back burner or file it for a later date.

These are some of the final images that I printed for my assignment.

Image 1

Image 2

 

Image 3

 

Image 4

 

Manual settings

Using the manual settings on my camera. 

I have really enjoyed using the manual settings on my camera and try to use them all the time. I always did use any setting other than auto. I've always experimented and tried different approaches. But using the manual settings, or rather understanding how to use them has really improved my photography I think. 

If took me a little while to get to grips with the settings. But now I feel really confident about how to achieve good results each time I pick up the camera. 

Over the Christmas period I decided to get to grips with apeture settings and long exsposures. I was very pleased with the results see link below : 

I took these images using a gorilla pod from the window of my car while at work. I tried several differing techniques and differing exsposure times before achieving the desired end result. 

Baltic trip

Baltic trip

We went on a trip to the Baltic Gallery in Newcastle, there was amongst other exhibitions a Martin Parr exhibition on. We have covered his work during our history of photography section of the course. I liked his work before we went on the visit. There was no doubt that seeing the large scale prints on  a gallery wall in all there glorius colour was an impressive sight. It inspired me to re-think my photography a little. I have always been interested in the use of colour in my photgraphy. This is an area that Parr clearly likes to focus on.  Parr seems to create photographs which both observe and mock at the same time. 

I also got a chance to visit the Laing where there was an exhibition called 'No such thing a society', named after the famous Margret Thatcher quote in the press in the 80's.

This was an excellent and thought provoking exhibition. I took notes of the names of several photographers who inspired me in particular I liked the works of  

Daniel Meadows : Portsmouth, John Payne and his two friends. 1974  

Chris Killip : Father and child, 1975  and Girl with hoop

What struck a chord with me about these images was that they had somehow captured a period in time be that intentional or otherwise. Those times have gone now, but without these important social documentary works they would never have been captured or recorded.