One Square Mile assignment; Lesson 1, 2, 3 & 4 + Research.

In the first lesson we had, we had to go 'one square mile' around the college and document the architecture and landscape in order to communicate something about the area. We had to consider how lighting and framing effected the shots, if we wanted to take the images in an abstract way or not and the juxtaposition of the buildings/architecture.

• I decided to take a mix of uniform shots and abstract ones to see which style I preferred doing and I ended up preferring the abstract style.
• I wanted to narrate that the area was classic, that the architecture was fancy, well designed; lots of detail and most importantly I wanted to say that they were old- I contrasted this with the abstract style of how I was taking the images saying that even though the buildings were built centuries ago, there still around today in the modern world, I also took some shots of some more modern looking buildings  which fits with the contrast of old and new.

1) Paul Seawright; 

Seawright is a documentary photographer who focuses on the serious subjects; war, murders etc. Most of his photos are of the areas effected by the serious subjects, every so often they'll feature a person but they'll not be engaging in the image, focusing on something else. Theres something very empty and different about his images, he doesn't try to fill them with content and make the effect of the picture hit full on straight away; he takes images that allow the viewer to explore and learn about the subject as they look through the images.

2) Robert Polidori;

Famous for his documenting of human habitats ad environments, like Seawright his pictures hardly ever contain people. He's photographed places where devastating things have taken place and documented how these places are excluded and knocked-down, he's photographed grand halls and an old 18th century palace- completely different places but all capture with the same signature style. He works with a custom-built large format camera and takes it all around the world whenever he goes, insistent on getting wide, detailed colours photographs.

Portrait as Documentary

In this lesson we were given the task of taking 5 portrait images of people around the college- I had to consider what I wanted my images to say, how I wanted them to say it and why I wanted that meaning.

• At the start of the lesson I learnt how to under expose for the background and use flash to expose the person and decided I'd use this effect for my portraits.

• I aimed to document the different people of the college, their different styles and the personalities they express through their style.

•  I shot every portrait in dead pan and with a blacked out background because I wanted the clothes of the people to be the main aspect.

At first I struggled; I was so nervous about asking people and ended up taking picture in the dinner hall of people eating/sitting etc. These were more street photography and after a while of taking my dinner-hall documentary pictures I plucked up the courage to go around asking people. I started first with someone who I though would defiantly not mind; a dinner lady which I had to have bend down under the workspace so I could photograph her properly. I then asked a male student who had just used the cash machine if I could photograph him and after that I felt more confident about asking people, I was getting into the swing of it, I was eager to ask more people to get more pictures. By the end of the lesson I had successfully taken 7 portraits- I had being turned down a fair few times but I got used to it happening eventually and just looked forward to the next "yes" and of course the pictures aren't perfect but I'll improve the more I do the flash effect and this kind of documentary photography.

 I tested out the flash effect on Sam and Liz.

Research on documentary photographers; 

1) Alex Sturrock;

Alex Sturrock is a documentary photographer, he most commonly uses flash on the subject, a dark background so that his images are all about the person and he uses a shallow depth of field. His projects normally spit people into types for example "Tattoo" and "Underage" I've noticed he likes to get involved and interact with the subjects/people he photographs, he creates a more personal feel with his images this way- He seems to aim for a mix of different narratives; humour, shock etc but always photographs each in the same signature style. 

2) August Sander;

August Sander is a German photographer, his work includes landscapes, nature, architecture and street photography but he is best known for his portraits and called "the most important portrait photographer of the early 20th century". One of his most popular and well known projects is "The people of the 20th century"  where he wanted to expose the contrasts of the different people during the Weimar republic- the series in which is split up into seven sections (The Farmer, The Woman,The Skilled Tradesman,Classes and Professions,The Artist,The City and The Last People), featured over 40,000 images. Sander carefully composed and directed each and every image he took; a lot of thought was put into them before capturing. His images had meaning, so much meaning that people have many different interpretations of them. 

3) Philip Lorca DiCorcia;

Dicorcia is an American photographer, his work; informal street photography and staged compositions. He creates images that look as if they'd be a real life shot that he came across by chance when really the images are fully lit, staged, thought about and planned out and he's also created street photography images by setting up lighting in scaffolding and waiting for people to walk into a pre-thought out spot and he has the choice to photograph them there and then or not. He didn't ask permission to take the images or speak to the people he was photographing and he didn't hide his camera. when he finally displayed his images in gallery he was sued by one man who he photographed but DiCorcia won.

The next day we got set the same task of taking 5 portrait images but this time we had to go out on the streets with a piece of white paper, find a spot and tape the paper to the wall and ask whoever walked by if we could take a photo of them- This was so we could shoot people we didn't know in front of a white background, removing any/all signifiers of who they are, what they do where they are etc from the image so the content becomes completely all about the person and not the location etc.

• I chose to do close up shots, as I wanted to really capture the people's faces because that's what gives out the most information about a person.
• I chose to have them smiling, laughing- doing what they felt at the time before I asked them- to capture the moods of the people at that current time because it felt more natural, more personal than asking them to fake an expression for the picture.

Being on the street asking for people to be photographed was a lot harder than being in college, hardly anyone wanted to have their picture taken- They either were in a rush, uninterested, don't like photos of them being taken or just turning me down before I'd even said more than "excuse me". Never the less though I managed to take 4 portraits in an hour of asking people, although the first person who I photographed was far too tall- he didn't fit in the paper and even with my arms stretched up and camera in the air(I had put on the screen view option so I could take it without having my eye to it) I still couldn't manage to get a good picture but took one anyway- after that I asked everyone who was too tall if they'd bend down.

I edited the background of the first person picture to try make it completely white; 

I'm really glad I still took this image, I thought I wouldn't be able to use it but I'm happy with how it is now. 

(lost 3 of the original images.) 

Research on documentary photographers;

1) Richard Avedon;

Avedon was an American photographer who worked within fashion and potraiture/documentry photography mainly. He was known to break the rules of photography with every project he did and do things that weren't usually done such as shooting models full of emotion; smiling and laughing instead of stood emotionless. Even though he built his career on fashion he branched out extensively on documenting; Mental institution's  protesters of the Vietnam war, the fall of the Berlin wall and his well known project "In The American West" where he dead pan photographed workers in their soiled work clothes, teenagers in the area and unemployed people on a white background and he documented so many more projects. He seemed to always want to do something new and different, always wanting to stretch himself further.

2) Clay Enos;
Enos defiantly has a very modern, edgy and abstract style in all of this images. The uses colours, composition and different techniques to create this really unique feel to this images. When shooting people; documentary or portrait, Enos always gets right into the scenes before him and fully interacts with his subjects in order to achieve the best images possible. He's never wants to be pinned to a certain type of photography so the work he does it board and beautiful- mixing it up the most he can each time he captures an image by choosing to have an abstract framing, a soft focus, a slow or fast shutter speed, shallow depth of field etc.

3) James Mollison; 

James Mollison is a documentary photographer, who does portraiture and other mini projects on the side. Mollison tends to have the most interesting and different ideas for projects that I've seen yet, to be fair. He's not afraid to do his ideas even if it involves working close up with apes and having to track some of them down in different countries or going to hundreds of different types of  music concerts and photographing the different groups of people outside and how they dressed to fit the concert there seeing or going around the to  photograph where different children sleep and what the children look like; showing us that even though were al meant to be equal were really not treat the same way at all. His work opens eyes, cast humour and shocks. It makes you think completely different about a subject after seeing his work. He always does projects which are series' of images; he builds a narrative for viewers by letting them compare the images to the others in the set which he believes gives a stronger narrative.

In lesson four we had to go out and capture street photography in two different ways. The first way being like Martin Parr's and being fast; taking pictures of everyone you see, taking the picture at the decisive moment which is once then the moments gone; getting right into the 'action' of a scene and not being scared to get close up and just go for it. And the second way being like Philip Lorca DiCorcia where you don't make it obvious your taking the picture, you pre-think the spot, the framing and wait for someone interesting to come along and decide weather to take the shot or not.

As I was doing I really wished I had a telephoto lens, I was fully zoomed in for all the images I took but it still wasn't close enough at times- I'm going to crop into the images which need cropping into to get the closeness I wanted. And I noticed that when I was capturing photos using the fast way that more often then not they'd be blurry(due to camera shake and not not a fast enough shutter speed/not having enough time to focus before the moment went) and I couldn't change my shutter speed because it would have made the images too dark. I shall have to learn how to be fast but not too fast that it ruins the images.

The fast way;

 

< I'm really disappointed in myself for when I took this, I'd just turned round to see a business man picking his nose- I thought 'yes! This is perfect, something Martin Parr would capture himself'. I only had chance to take one image; a camera-shake destroyed image before the man had stopped picking his nose- I was so annoyed. I tried to get rid of the camera shake the best I could in Photoshop with 'Smart Sharpen' but there's no way this image could ever be saved; it's such a shame. Going to have to be more careful when I'm being fast at taking images.

The Slower way; 

I did another way where I picked a location and walk around capturing within it;

(taken out of the chosen area^)

After doing both of the different ways, I noticed that when doing the slower way there seemed to be fewer images I liked from the ones I took although I am rather pleased with the ones I've put up, I just feel like you get a lot more out of walking around; you get a lot more action than staying in one place and waiting; when you could just go out and find something worth taking an image of.

contact sheets of lesson 4.

Martin Parr: 

The ever so famous Martin Parr is known for his comical genius street photography images, he's not afraid to get straight in someone's face and when he's out shooting takes images of absolutely everything and everyone  and gets right into the scenes, becomes part of the peoples groups for a short while then swooshing back out moving fast between each shot. I have no idea how he does it but he always seems to be right there when something ironically funny happens or just generally funny or amusing happens; his images have a cheeky snap shot feel to them, some of his images give off the feel as if he's not really meant to be there and no one really knows he is.