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. 
     

Selective view

Selective view

I choose to look at the selective in context with the human form. I liked the way images can sometimes reveal a small detail that leaves the viewer wanting to know more about the subject.

This is something that I myself had previously explored on occasion, but I wanted to examine the human form in even greater detail than before. See below :

This time I wanted to be even more suggestive and leave more to the viewer to decide what was happening in the image.

For my research into selective view I went to the library and borrowed two books and a magazine (aperture).the image that inspired me the most was from a book called : Icons of the 20th century photography by Whoever.

In the book I found the following image by Ralph Gibson.

I loved the detail and contrast between light and dark in this image and it inspired me to look into the photographers work further which I did at the following website ; http://www.ralphgibson.com/

At the website I found a collection of work that particularly interested medated between 1961 – 2005 called Infanta. It was this collection and in particular the following image that inspired me the most.

Once there I found a whole host of other images that further inspired me.I really liked the use of light and shade in this image, but felt it was not as selective as the brief required.

 

I also found the following image very interesting, as it focused only on a very small feature of the face. Once again leaving the viewer to decide what the rest of the story was, how old, what sex, etc....

 

This was another image that I found interesting from the same collection. Again it was a selective view but this time shot from a more interesting viewpoint.

 After getting some intial inspiration I tried Flickr, which I personally find a very inspiring website full of images. 

From there the following image also inspired me :http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmaughan/114144635/sizes/o/in/set-72057594084750442

It seemed apparent looking at this photograph that this photographer was some influenced either direct or indirectly, by photographers like Ralph Gibson. See image below :

Another image that inspired me was again from Flickr from a portugese photographer called Lidia Ramalhos. I particularly liked the shape at the point where the two heads joined together and the contrasting eye colours of each subject :http://www.flickr.com/photos/11055123@N07/1925990472/

One night while I was in bed I looked at the curve of my wifes arm and felt that it would be a great staring point for my shoot. I asked her if I could take a photo of the curve of her armpit and she agreed. Her are the results :

Form and selective view

We were asked to shoot images six images that demonstrate the use of two of the following :

1. Beauty
2. Form
3. Shape and Detail
4. Mood of isolation
5. Selective view

 I looke dat form first and 



http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynoGall2.asp?catID=362

I then looked at Selective view. I went to the library and borrowed a book called icons of the 20th century edited by Peter Stepan.

Ralph Gibson : In Situ and Infanta

Babies

http://www.ralphgibson.com/archive/popup.php?id=506&album=2