Tried my hand at self portrait with the 5x4.
printed at 16" x 12" at home (as big as I can go really with my set up) so couldn't really fit on scanner.
Again it looses some detail when scanned in, but was happy with  print, although no catch light in eyes due to being taken outside.

 

 More from the same shoot.
Experimented with the light set up to totally get rid of the background when printed.
think it worked quite well as the background printed same as the paper.
Again, quite pleased with final print.

 

Saturday night shoot and printed sunday.
They seem to loose a little impact from scanning in, but overall I was quite pleased with the final results.

Well, what can I say
You've got to love photography.
As some one once said to me "It is the beginning of my journey, with a long way to go. I may never reach my destination, but at least I am on the right path"
It's supposed to be fun, a laugh, a learning experience, yet - it is a serious channel for me to express my inner self.

So
It's Saturday night, wine poured, food ordered, front room transformed into a studio.
Square format loaded, props out, lights set up.
Chemicals sorted - before the wine takes effect.
Bring it on, bit of David Bailey, may be some influence by Juliet Margaret Cameron, Steve Pyke book at hand, music blasting.
Also - few bananas, pair of scissors - feel a bit of still life coming on too.
Photography / Art, awesome.

Steve Pyke
Utilising the full square format frame

Philosophers - by Steve Pyke

Just ordered

http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2009/01/portrait-of-michael-j-fox-by-steve-pyke.html

The Dust Bowl

An amazing decade that brought documentary portraiture to a wide audience.

The FSA photography group consisted of;

·       Theodor Jung

·       Edwin Rosskam

·       Louise Rosskam

·       Ben Shahn

·       John Collier

·       Sheldon Dick

·       Jack Delano

·       Walker Evans




·       Dorothea Lange




·       Russell Lee




·       Carl Mydans




·       Gordon Parks




·       Arthur Rothstein




·       John Vachon




·       Marion Post Wolcott

 

Great book
Great images
I can even see his influences, when he changed, from Ernst Haas, Saul Leiter, Lee Friedlander
But he was hanging with people, so the opportunity was there, he could get portraits that people would look at for ever due to who they were.

Park shoot

In the park with a hedge trimmer
Certainly a head turner.

Test shoot in the park prior to main shoot

 

Using the on camera metering, took a few readings with different aperture settings to check the exposure for the background.
Then altered the shutter speed and flash settings whilst keeping the ISO at 100.

 Andy Dunning, Fill in Flash

"The strange thing about photographs is that they are real and unreal"

"it is simple if you allow it to be, there's nothing to do in photography, it just happens"

Duffy

and then he assisinated all his negs and went AWOL

 



How can you get a better evening

bottle of red
football on tv - sound off
music on full whack
and the big guns out
David Bailey
Terence Donovan
Brian Duffy
Jees - mind blowing

Great place for learning how to get your prints ready

http://www.theprintspace.co.uk/photoshop-and-colour-management-techniques.php

No flash whilst metering for the background











Full flash TTL pointed directly at subject

Flash set at -1 stop and bounced off the ceiling











Flash set at -1 stop, pointed directly at subject with a diffuser over the flash

Fill in flash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHUt8BEAgmg

Great tutorial, But you can't beat practice, practice, practice

Fill in flash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH0kv-I0IUs

Tim Mitchell - Sunderland exhibition

Fish out of water
http://www.timmitchell.co.uk/index.php?/projects/a-fish-out-of-water/#

This was by far my favourite part of the exhibition. I could have stayed and looked at these images for hours.
To say I found these images aesthetically pleasing would be an understatement. I felt a balance and a harmony to his images, making an immediate connection with his compositions, so I suppose I could use the word synergy.



- Good choice of lens
- Great depth of field
- Sharp
- Balanced composition
- Active
- Colour works really well
- Good exposure and lighting
- And juxtaposed with the other images of his project, it becomes part of a well thought out narrative

Simon Roberts - Sunderland exhibition

I had come across this photographer before, with some of his work being published in a few magazines.
they were the images within council meetings, which included a little motion blur due to a long shutter speed

http://simoncroberts.com/work/star-chambers/#PHOTO_2

I thought his concept for his extremely large images for the exhibition was very well thought out. As we see in the adjacent image he has captured the Sunderland supporters walking to the football ground on match day, probably along the same path that their parents and parents before them used to walk to work, the site on which the football stadium is now built.
Although for my personal taste, these are not the kind of images that would really hold my attention, knowing a little bit of the back ground to his project combined with the size and quality of his images they become quite engaging.
Again not mindless documentary images, but a well thought out and self initiated project with a lot of research carried out prior to commencing taking the photographs.

Reynold Reynolds 'Burn'

Again another great concept, using film to produce a thought provoking piece of art where the inhabitants of a dwelling are surrounded by all their belongings on fire.
The amount of time setting up, testing and not to mention the cost of production. A lot of time has gone in to the initial ideas and you can see that it is not just mindless documentary, but communicates as a fully developed self initiated concept.

Paul Graham 'Beyond Caring'

This project could be classed as a social documentary, I would not have said so much of a narrative as the images were depicting different waiting rooms in the 70's / 80's and as such were a story within themselves and did not really flow as a narrative would.
The images showed a good depth of field with a wide angle lens, with plenty of the composition in focus.
I felt there was good harmony between the C-type prints and the format / framing of the display. The print was displayed in a very wide, thick off white window mount, which helped bring the subject matter to the forefront and give an overall aesthetically pleasing composition of what could be classed by some as an unusual subject matter.

Melanie Friend

I don't think it was quite fair that this artist followed straight on from the exhibit using light boxes. You had the sharp and detailed images of Craig Ames, then the large unframed, soft focused images of the next artist / photographer.
The project was to do with local air shows / aviation, whilst depicting families at play on the beach, with typical North East drab and grey weather.
For my personal taste I feel these images should may be have been displayed at a smaller scale, the only problem then would have been loosing the aircraft in the sky of every image.
After the last 4 weeks we have spent on our project considering lens choice, depth of field, focal point etc, I would have put a little more thought in to the camera and lens used for this project, but every artist / photographer is going to find their own desired style.
I was finding my eye had nothing really to settle on or focus in on, but this may have been the desired effect.

Craig Ames

Great concept, playing an interview of a retired soldier over the top of game footage from Call of Duty.
To think, ten years ago you couldn't even buy a plastic toy gun and now you have teenagers not really knowing the difference between fiction / fantasy and reality. Sitting in front of a screen for the full weekend, getting paler and paler, building up thumbs like biceps, loosing the use of their legs, talking to friends they have never even met, where is all this leading.
You can turn on your games console and become anything you have ever dreamt about!

His next project 'Kill Zone' which were images of top paintball locations, exhibited in light boxes was very inspirational. The images were so sharp and detailed, which was brought to life with the use of a black frame and light box behind. The detail within the compositions was transfixing, I could have spent all day looking at these images and still found something that I may have missed the first time.

 I-Robot

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe
Adonis
Great inspiration, the concept of a sculpture being a portrait.
The black and white, positive / negative, day / night, the concept of time.
Adonis the most greek of greek gods

Perspective Compression

This was an experiment I carried out last year, but using people.

http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/how-i-took/129206-perspective-compression.html

Couple more drinks later and this happens.
Really need to hide my camera on a night.

Again
done in my front room, but at half 11 on a Saturday night after a good drink.
Will find out on Wednesday how sharp the eyes really are when I print 20x24

Latest 5x4 contact sheets
Taken at home in my front room

Latest books purchased
by Don McCullin
Awesome

So, another 8 images taken, this time on ISO 400 rather than 160. Stopped down 2 stops to slightly increase exposure and used a new 90mm lens rather than the 150mm.
Sent the negs away today and should have them back friday, hopefully with something to submit once printed off.
With the private road to South Gare closed yesterday and all the rain, didn't really get chance to retake the fisherman at his hut, going to have to wait till good weather one weekend.

Remote cable release.
I have found this to be one of the most invaluable pieces of my kit., allowing me to keep eye contact at all times whilst assuring no camera movement.

Thomas Struth 


What I feel I now have to learn is how to analyse an image that does not appeal to me as a subject matter.
I find it very hard to explain, it is not that I dislike the images because I find them technically outstanding and appreciate the compositional elements, thought and concept, yet the actual subject matter does not stimulate enough for me to make that connection and instill the feeling of me wanting to look at more.

Technically the images are sharp, the photographer has already decided on his aperture to gain the best use of depth of field within his confined environment. Utilising a wide angle lens he is able to compose and capture a large number of family members, whilst keeping them all in focus. You can also see that the photographer has took full control and placed each family member within the composition to best utilise the available space and give a good sense of balance to the final image.
I get a strong sense of juxtaposition between vertical and horizontal, which helps to give a strong solid structure to the composition. This structure would also lead me to a sense of 'pace & rhythm', you would tend to flow through the image rather than struggle, they are easy to read and digest.
There is a definite synergy to the final images from the use of colour to help balance the composition and give an overall calmness and harmony to what could be an otherwise very active photograph, the term controlled chaos springs to mind.
Again I do not get the impression of mindless documentation, but rather a feeling of a strong concept where the photographer is utilising his vast experience whilst  he developed a consistent personal style that aides in the final image communicating effectively to the intended audience.
In conclusion I can not deny that for a genre that does not stimulate my personal taste, Thomas Struth is probably for me one of the few photographers that can take the documentary family portrait with aplomb.

Although I have posted this portrait before I thought that I would utilise the vocabulary and technique we have just learned to explain why it appealed to me as a portrait.

By Bryan Schutmaat from his "Grays The Mountain Sends' project










The first thing people do when they look at an image is make a connection, do they like or dislike the image, they make a personal judgement as to whether the photograph is aesthetically pleasing to their personal taste.
For me it was very aesthetically pleasing, which in turn captures my attention. It retains my gaze and encourages me to look closer.
Technically for me it was very sharp, the photographer focused in directly on the subjects eyes and brought a connection between the viewer and the subject. He used a shallow depth of field which helped emphasise the subjects eyes, and although we know it is a flat 2D image, the depth of field used brings the subject forward giving the optical illusion of realism, almost a visual appearance of three dimensional. If the photographer had used an aperture of say f32 to 45 everything would have been in focus and become a little flat. He had the subject far enough away from the background to completely blow it out of focus, so you do not even recognise what the background is, which helps to bring the subject to the forefront and isolate him. He is the main subject.
Compositionally I feel the photograph works very well, the top of the head has not been cropped off, the eyes are almost on the upper third horizontal intersecting line with the underside of the nose at the centre of the frame giving an overall sense of balance, utilising the full frame.
Colour and exposure work very well, you can see it is a colour photograph, but if feels as though it is drained of colour almost complimenting the expression on the subjects face, it does not have the vivocity of say a Steve  McCurry colour portrait but more of a look of an early Saul Leiter.
From the subject himself I feel you get the impression he's been through the mill so to speak, a working man that has had his hard times and I would use the word 'drained' again.
The jacket and the colour give the sense of cold, he is dressed to keep warm, yet he does not give out the impression of being poor, which would beg the question 'is he still in work?'. Yet his expression is of hard times, almost a sadness.
I find the image a little passive, although my gaze does look around the image to take in the full composition, you always find your point of interest back at the eyes, almost seeing into the soul.
In conclusion I would say the image is very strong, it captures and holds your attention, it makes you ask questions. You can see with the title of the project that the image will work well as part of a narrative, which to me does not give the impression of mindless documentation but more of a personal visualised concept that will have evolved as the photographer progressed with each captured image.

Fujinon swd 90mm f5.6

Latest lens I'm going to give a go and compare the same images with the 150mm lens

Rodenstock sironar 150mm f5.6

This is the lens I have used throughout the project so far













http://www.linos.com/pages/mediabase/original/rodenstock_apo-sironar-n_e_2474.pdf

To give me a good range of movement I prefer the 3 way head rather than a ball head
But that is just personal taste

I did have a carbon tripod but never felt it was sturdy enough and it used to flex.
Nice solid aluminium one for me, may be heavier but for me a lot more sturdy and I have a lot more confidence in it.