Wednesday 27 November 2013

Reading List

Quite a few new books and some old favorites that have well thumbed pages.

Photojournalism - Photography with a Purpose - Robert L Kerns - Prentice Hall, England c 1980
Context and Narrative - Maria Short - AVA Publishing
Behind the Image - A Fox and N Caruana - AVA Publishing
The Photography Reader - Liz Wells - Routledge
After Photography - Fred Ritchin - WW Norton and Co
Understanding a Photograph - John Berger - Penguin Books
Ways of Seeing - John Berger - Penguin Books
Photography at the Dock - Abigail Solomon-Godeau - University of Minnisota Press
Paris - Eugene Atget - Taschen
The freelance photographers market handbook 27th edition - BFP Books
Digital Stock Photography, How to shoot and sell - Michal Heron - Allworth Press
Photography A Critical Introduction - Liz Wells - Routledge
Digital capture and Workflow - Tom Lee - Amhurst Media
Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, - Malcolm Daniel - Yale University Press

Monday 25 November 2013

In Two Minds (Both my own)

I find myself discussing with myself all aspects of photography. This may appear a little confusing and like playing oneself at chess. An impossible pursuit as one always knows the opponents next move and will result in stalemate on every occasion. These discussions are wide ranging and move from the self doubt of why am engaging with photography to issues relating to technique, style, lack of coherent thoughts and a suspicion that I am a Luddite masquerading with a digital camera when I aught to be basing my work entirely on that of the 19th century. Atget, Strand, Weston, Edwin Smith and others all have made images within a style and genre that attract me and I have the need to make similar work. I am may of course just be caught up in the nostalgia of those times. A simpler way of life where pointing the camera at oneself was called a self portrait and society didn't consider it necessary to invent a new word (Selfie) and were content. So I know the photographers I feel an empathy with but on the other hand I feel I should be having the same feelings for 21st century street photographers and some of the so called modern masters such as Martin Parr, who for instance I find most unremarkable. This irreverence to a member of Magnum is almost heresy but I find it very difficult to engage with his work and the man ( who I have only seen on television) and maybe that will change one day. My question then is should I bother to research work that I have no connection with or to pursue it with a vengeance and make myself enjoy it. Do we have to engage with all photography ?.

Another dichotomy to deal with at the moment is the need to understand how and where PWDP is helping me with professional practice. On the one hand I fully appreciate that there is a need to apply certain academic standards and this requires a body of work that has taken 600+ hours to complete. On the other hand my experience of preparing work for customers is that the amount of time available is much less and after a simple Scope Document (maybe just an email) the work has to be performed very quickly, and by implication to a budget. I add this comment only as a note and fully realise that I will have to spend more time in the future to elaborate on (and publish here) the Ideas and Concepts that I am taking with me when working. They exist and I hope the work I make demonstrates this but without writing it down I am aware of the shortcomings.






Wednesday 13 November 2013

44th Eastern Open Exhibition - Radiation Tester


The 44th Eastern Open is the largest Open competition held in the town each year and sees an entry in excess of 700, with 70 or so being selected.


The Arts Centre (Formerly The Guildhall) has three large exhibition spaces and they are all used to show the work in what is a bright airy environment complete with pop up cafe.

I went along twice. The first time I was taken aback by the diversity of the selection. Oils, acrylics, photography etc and the contrasting styles, shapes and sizes. The variation was reflected in the prices ranging from £110 to £10,000. Not being an artist in the generally accepted sense I  know little of how major items in oils or pen and ink are made but one thing was certain: this was all good quality.On this first visit I had not taken a notebook so didnt get any thoughts written down but I had noticed the work of photographer Mike Harding. As you can only enter three pieces he had done very well in getting three hung and had also won best in show and the £2000 prize.

The second visit was to take a closer look at "Radiation Tester", Mike Hardings winning photograph and another called "Mr and Mrs Williams". I have since been in contact with Mike and he has kindly allowed me to include a copy of Radiation Tester" below.

"Radiation Tester" is a 30" x 40" colour print with a simple cream matte mount and a natural wood coloured frame. The catalog doesn't say but I guess its a C type print. The image shows a simple T shaped pole with cross head in a large wilderness of unkempt grassland. Hanging from the two extremities of the cross head are two "fly catcher" like papers dangling in space.
The landscape format image is conventional in many ways. The horizon is one third up from the bottom and the T shape is almost in the centre. There is uniformity and the space around the T is perfectly sized to give the correct sense of space and scale. Even if the viewer had no knowledge of the title there is enough here to bring upon a sense of unease. There is a bleakness that is directed by the reduced gamut. The grass is a pale green, the other vegetation is dead, there is no soil only stone and the sky is an ominous grey. The use of shallow depth of field renders the distance out of focus but there is nothing to see, no buildings or fences and certainly no people or signs of where they have been. The light is flat with the overcast sky and once we read that the simple looking device is for testing radiation a coldness is felt of hidden danger.





Radiation Tester
 Copyright - Mike Harding - Salhouse - Norfolk


Conclusion

At a mixed media exhibition it was encouraging that photography had made it to the top and that is encouraging. It is without doubt that my work is currently no right for showing to selectors at such a show. Again I come back to my lack of conceptual imaging and my constant involvement with technique over content. Further reading and research will hopefully overcome this trait and allow my work to have more narrative and be conceptually braver. 



Wednesday 6 November 2013

Part One - Exercise: Describe a photograph.

On page 16 we are asked to take one of our photographs and fully describe it in a few hundred words. The text should be complete with all factual information from beginning to final delivery. On the We are OCA blog recently I had positioned myself in a debate on monochrome as being less interested in colour so to balance my argument I will use a colour image.




Ashness Bridge - Cumbria 

Prior to starting on the degree pathway my photography was overtly commercial and holidays were spent looking for images that would sell or at least stand a chance of being technically correct for stock images at Alamy, a picture stock agency whose only criteria for acceptance is technical excellence. I had been to The Lake District many times in the past and on this occasion we were revisiting some of the well trodden paths and enjoying being a tourist. The road to Watendlath is almost single track and has a small pack horse bridge crossing the stream that runs down to Derwent Water. It is without doubt one of the most photographed vistas and is synonymous with the town of Keswick, Mint Cake and the Northern Lakes. I had never stopped to shoot it before but on this visit I had a new camera so thought why not. The time of year is March, the light was transient with overcast cloud then shafts of bright sunlight. It was fantastic for what I needed and with the 85mm lens, vertical frame (most of my stock is shot portrait for page formating) I moved around with the tripod dodging the three or four others doing the same so I needed patience to exclude them from my shot. 85mm on a full frame DLSR at 100 ISO and the need for full DOF resulted in 1/60 sec at f16. Nikon white balance is very reliable on auto so I saw no need to change from that and I was shooting raw files so any issues of colour casts could be dealt with in post processing. Looking through the unprocessed files now I see there are some taken with the 35mm lens but I have always favoured telephoto lenses for landscape work and this looked better for the composition. I worked at the location for about 30 minutes not varying the viewpoint very much as I knew I wanted the classic Ashness Bridge image, Skiddaw in the background, a hint of Derwent Water and the town of Keswick. The landscape needed scale and when the walkers came along and stopped to look at their map the composition was complete. I knew that all I had done was repeat an image although the light, figures on road etc would be unique.Post Processing for this image was minimal. Capture sharpening applied using the Photokit plugin for Photoshop reduces the softness inherent with the anti alias filter just above the sensor. No cropping as the focal length and viewpoint filled the frame perfectly. The open areas of tone were checked for dust and removal with the clone tool. I cleaned up the image using Selective Colour, paying attention to the white and neutral channels. To make an image "pop" I use 20,60,4 of USM to enhace contrast. There is no output sharpening for Alamy as the client's final output will vary and the USM required for different printing techniques and final size is not known at this stage. An Alamy client bought the image for a whole page illustration in a book with 25,000 print run so the time spent had been worthwhile. It is not fine art but it is an acceptable illustration of a location in Cumbria.

Edit: My tutor has made the remark " When asked to describe a photograph I thought it was a shame that you chose a commercial / technical frame." I agree that it is a commercially driven image, taken with an A4 page in mind and having some dark space at the top where text could be layered. I will add another image in a later posting that is less commercial.

Monday 4 November 2013

Assignment Two - A photographic book cover

Although a few weeks away yet in its making I am reading "Nineteen Eighty Four" by George Orwell and this will be the subject of the assignment. About 10 years ago I had part read it so there was a need for completeness that made me choose it. I am familiar with some of the other titles and would also have been keen on "Far From The Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy and "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro. I am also finding myself a bit bogged down with essays at the moment and the excuse to read fiction is some relief.

Friday 1 November 2013

Assignment One - Completed and dispatched.

Further editing down to the 12 used (of the 300 taken) took a while as there is probably 20 or so that would make a larger piece of work sometime in the future. The toning was changed to a tritone that had been used before in Landscape. The tonality is slightly reduced from a normal contemporary monochrome and this is sympathetic with the imagery and the underlying feel of the period. Although the brief ask for digital files I printed onto HP semi gloss with gloss enhancer and sent these at 9.5" square with 2" white borders to my tutor along with a USB stick containing large tiffs and web prepared jpgs. Hard copy and text files of the write up together with a hanging layout were included. This quick piece of work ( well 1 month for an assignment is quick for me) has got me back into OCA photography and as always there is a residual effect that was not evident at the start. I enjoyed it, and the prospect of returning to this area of the town and its architecture is appealing.