Ethics essay and professional practice

Spoke to my tutor regarding my ethics essay and professional practice.

She told me that a photographer I e.mailed recently Craig Ames is coming to give the MA students a talk in early December.

http://www.craigames.com/photography/home.html/


She also kindly offered to look at any questions I might wish to ask Craig in advance.

Craig recently exhibited work at the ways of looking exhibition, the work had similarities to my work in that he visited sites of emotional importance to him and tried to make sense of what had happened there using photography.

I felt very inspired by his work and feel it will be very helpful indeed to communicate with him.

I feel like I am progressing in the right direction, lots of ideas in the pipeline. Just need to focus those ideas and follow through.

Fashion brief

I have been doing lots of research for the fashion brief I intend to carry out.

Fashion photography is not a particularly interesting subject area for me. I'm more interested in informal photography. But my tutor suggested trying to push yourself into a new area & in my opinion this is a good idea. I'll not get the chance again.

The research is going very well so far. I have managed to find 2 willing models, a stylist / make up artist and even props if I need them.

To help all 4 people (myself included) communicate with ease. I have created a private Facebook group. This has helped everyone feel more involved and has worked very well as an ideas platform. I feel the biggest advantage will be that everyone will feel as though they know each other a little bit before the photography has even started.

The other advantage is that everyone has put ideas forward. Most people in the group have suggested ideas, posted inspiring images, etc.

I have posted some of the images posted by the group below

Spotlight portraits

I Recently enjoyed shooting spotlight portraits of some new students at college.

Spotlight images are images used by the acting profession to help them select actors prior to casting. 

http://www.spotlight.com/

Before we shot the students we shot each other, we experimented in tungsten lighting, with a 50mm portrait lens as we liked the result that it produced.

I also looked at headshot websites like this one below : 

It's important to remember to alter the setting afterwards in camera raw. Otherwise the image will come out with a colour cast like the image below : 

Image before editing white balance in camera raw

The image below has had the tungsten colour cast altered, it makes a big difference. This casn be done in any image and is particularly helpful when working with street lighting at night.

Editing tungsten studio images in RAW

This is how the image should look after colour correction and editing to convert to black and white. By creating a simple, but interesting lighting set up there is depth in the image and the subjects persona is able to shine through.

I was pleased with the end result that was achieved. Hope the students are too. Here are a selection of the final images below :

Gallery visits

I visited Skipton yesterday and was lucky enough to find a little gallery of the beaten path of the main high street.

I had a chat with the owner, who seemed like a lovely lady and asked what kind of work sold well and what did not. I have looked at small galleries in the past with a view to producing work to sell, the difference being between now and then is that I now feel my work is as good and in some cases better than some of the work on display in some galleries.

In a way this is an important milestone as it indicates my own self confidence is growing as is my self belief. I am looking at work on display in galleries more and more and thinking I that could and more importantly should do that ! I am also considering how I would like to produce my work more now, what type of product do I want to produce / sell.

I think it's important for me to start considering how I want to start printing and displaying my work. In particular what type of work would I like to try and sell ? Hence the recent research.

I have attached a few pictures that I
took inside the gallery.

Ethics

I have started my research into the ethics essay, I am considering looking at the ethics of street photography, in particular in relation to my profession :

I have a working title which is  :  The ethics of street photography

I intend to question whether it is ethical to still take photographs on the streets and if not why not? 

It is my belief that it is; street photography has been around almost as long as cameras have been portable. People like Bresson started in the 30's and it has carried on ever since. But is it ethical today?

 

I found several good websites which look at street photography :

http://www.nickturpin.com/nt11/words/what-was-the-subject/

I also found an interview / documentary at this website called the in-sight documentary :

http://www.nickturpin.com/nt11/moving/in-sight-documentary2/

I watched the preview and may download the whole documentary  for my essay if it proves relevant, guidance needed from my tutor.

 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/photoblog/2009/08/twirlrun_on_the_street.html

I bought a book in the summer  which will help me with my essay :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Street-Photography-Now-black---white/dp/0500289077/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1317033955&sr=8-3

Nick Turpin says of this book

I find it significant of some slight change in attitude that this year a large publisher, Thames and Hudson will release their survey of the contemporary scene, Street Photography Now and my own small publishing company will release '10' containing 200 mostly un-themed images from the in-public group. Neither of us would invest in these publications unless we thought their was now an audience for this work that is largely about nothing and, of course, about everything.

Benifits of Slr Video

I read with interest an article regarding the use of the SLR video function and the writer stated that he felt the uses are limited and the idea was a passing fad.

http://www.photozz.com/fizz/19966598.aspx


I recently took some photos of an elderly gentleman who is dying of cancer.

The client wanted to record some images before he became to unwell. I filled the brief with ease and then an opportunity arose to shoot some discreet HD video, I asked a few gently probing questions . My intention being to cover his highs and lows in life. At the time I had no idea if the family would be able to use the footage or would even want the footage. But I felt it was an opportunity that could not be passed up. My camera was on a tripod and recorded silently while I asked about the subjects life.


I showed the family the images and asked them if they would be interested in some video footage I had shot explaining that I had taken it discreetly and gently led the questioning. The family stated they were delighted as they had nothing like that. What I had done on the spur of the moment had become a precious record of events that the family could not have dreamed of capturing.


With this in mind I feel the advantages of video capabilities is something that I could now not do with out, I will always consider using both Video and stills in future.



There are of course limitations to hand held SLR video, but I have made several high quality films which have been of excellent quality, the one below was all filmed on a hand held digital compact camera :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tei488YgBZs

While the qaulity is not as high as an SLR, it shows that even a small compact camera can produce great results

I feel this extract article below also argues the point very well by stating

Video capability in DSLRs represents nothing short of a revolution. A new generation of photographers will embrace what they have to offer and use them to create new forms of art and commerce. In a few years we'll likely think that a still camera that can't also shoot video, or a video camera that can't also shoot stills is strangely underfeatured.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/camcorders/cam-cam.shtml

Further interesting reading can be found below :

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/technical-report/1650999/the-ultimate-guide-hd-dslr-camera-accessories

copyright

Copyright

I have also chosen to look at another area of interest that is copyright, I found an interesting copyright article online regarding a photographer named Richard Prince. He was taken to court regarding copyright infringement in 2008 :

The celebrated American artist Richard Prince has been ordered to destroy works worth tens of millions of dollars after a court ruled that the paintings, which reworked a series of photographs by the French photographer Patrick Cariou, had breached copyright.

A New York federal court has ruled that Prince and his gallery infringed Cariou's copyright when he produced a series of works in a 2008 show using 35 pictures from the book Yes, Rasta, published by Cariou in 2000, "in their entirety, or nearly so".

Source:  http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/23/richard-prince-artwork-copyright-breach?cat=world&type=article

Richard Prince has adapted the work of Photogragher Cariou by adding, in one instance, an electric guitar and some splodges for eyes.

Princes lawyers claimed "fair use" of the images. But as far as I can tell they are clearly plagiarised. The adaptations are at best minimal, they offer no new perspective. I fell that Cariou has every right to pursue Prince in court.

Source : http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Patrick-Cariou-wins-copyright-case-against-Richard-Prince-and-Gagosian/23387

Looking at the images above  it is clear that they closely resemble the original images taken by photographer, Cariou. Furthermore there has been little signifigant change to the images. If I was in Cariou’s position I too would be angry that my copyright was being infringed.