Unit 3 digital assessment.

My initial concept for unit three was to research several Music Photographers in order to produce a series of images depicting several Musicians and bands. This idea was influenced by previous work I had done reflecting on self expression within music and dance. In this project the aim was to change my approach when photographing musicians and adopt more of a Photo-journalistic and Commercial style. I planned on achieving this by producing a photographic insight into three separate Musicians combining three different styles of photography, Portraiture, Environmental Portraiture and Performance. I had spoken with several musicians including a friends bad, Tom Byrne and friends and arranged to spend time with them during rehearsals and live performances producing my images. Unfortunately late in to this research project my girlfriends dad who suffers from Cancer took a turn for the worst. She has to look after him alone with little family support so I have been devoting a lot of time to being there in support. This meant that I wouldn't be able to follow through with my original plans for unit three. Through discussing these issues with my tutor and Ciara I came to the decision of basing my project around my current experience.

When originally researching my subject matter I came across quite a few relevant Photographers and albums. One of them from a photojournalist I was already looking into during unit three. Jared Polin, best known for his Fro knows photo website and youtube channel is a photojournalist, who mostly covers concert, tour and music photography. When his mum was diagnosed with cancer his reaction was to pick up his camera and start documenting. What he produced was an album of moving images titled, "Mom's Fight". The images document all elements of his mothers battle with cancer, portraying the hard realities of suffering with such a disease as well as more positive moments such as time spent laughing, enjoying the company of friends and family.   

On his blog Polin speaks about regrets, "We all have regrets, though they never will go away you must learn from them and change" [1] his mum was a promising photographer and he regrets being to busy and not spending time with her teaching her his skills. To me he seems quite angry with himself for not being there. He does go on to say how those regrets and anger are one of the main reasons that lead him to setting up his website so that he can help other people learn, as he missed that opportunity with his mother.  

Another relevant bit of research that I came across was Soulumination. Soulumination are a non-profit organization that provide professional portraits for families who are dealing terminal illnesses. The organisation was set up by photographer, Lynette Huffman Johnson after she was asked to photograph her stillborn niece, Lanie. Lynette said it was the memories of Lanie as well as similar cases close to her heart that inspired her to form Soulumination. Since its conception in 2005 the non-profit public organization has grown in popularity, with over 40 professional photographers volunteering their time and skills to produce: "Professional photographs, free of charge, as an enduring, positive record of the childs life, and as a loving legacy for the children of parents lost to terminal illness."[2]  These images are powerfully emotive, they express and signify our capacities for love and compassion and how those elements of the human condition help to serve and aid those who are suffering. 

When watching ciara stroke and kiss her dads head his expression no longer looks pained and worried, but calm and peaceful. Having such memories documented is a positive way to look back and remember that the life may have been lost but the love, compassion and memories never go away.  

In Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag (2003) Sontang states; “Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do -- but who is that 'we'? -- and nothing 'they' can do either -- and who are 'they' -- then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.” Essentially what she is saying is Images that contain the pain and suffering of others don’t engage with viewers because they universalize such experiences. However, she also mentions that narrative texts and longer portfolios of images are more likely to strike a chord with the viewer and lead them to take some kind of positive action rather than consuming the information passively.    

I think the supporting blog entries and extensive nature of images Polin uses give the series more of a capacity for lessons to be taken from it. To me, "Mums Fight" signifies to me enjoying the precious time you have and share anything you can with your loved ones. I think Jared's album is a realistic representation of what it is to suffer from terminal illness, he doesn't shy away from documenting and including the suffering and hard realities faced when dealing with cancer. I like how his series shows a balanced account of his experience, highlighting both negative and positive elements, not giving superior relevance to one over another. I will have this in mind when producing my own images during unit 4. In conclusion my research has certainly helped me in refining my understanding of how to approach and execute my concept practically during unit 4. 

Bibliography:

Jared polin, 2010, http://froknowsphoto.com/the-reason-for-the-hair-and-web-site/ [1]

Soulumination, 05/14 http://www.soulumination.org/index.php/site/about [2]

Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag (2003) [3]

A breif history of art (Class notes)

Neoclassicism: 1750-1820   

 The church dominated art, using it as scaremongering propaganda (Using visually powerful emotive scenes of heaven and hell) to keep themselves in power. Taking advantage of lack of education, people were unaware of the sciences. 

Romanticism: 1800-1850 

 The transition into Romanticism came about when people where more conscious/educated. The church didn't hold as much power and didn't scare people as much. Paintings explored wondrous nature of reality, exaggerated and unrealistic in a sense. In line with poets such as William Blake.    

  Realism: 1850-1880 

 Subjects appear truthfully in a documentary style. Change came about due to industrial and commercial revolutions. Realism emphasized the "ugly". 

Impressionism: 1860-1920 

Impressionist artist put emphasis on the play of light, tones and color.  It was a french based art movement that brought about a different way of perceiving the world. portraying overall visual effects rather than fine details.

Modernism: 1860/Present

Modernism was a philosophical and artistic moment that came out of transformations in the developed world. It was a celebration of science, technology and industry. this is reflected by its uses bold geometric shapes.

  

Art Nouveau: 1890-1910 

Art Nouveau was a new kind-of art, primarily focused on decorative arts. It was linked to the Bauhaus movement that was popular for combining crafts and fine art and was widespread and highly commercial. 

Post Modernism: 1960/Present

Post modernism is a philosophical, artistic and cultural movement that rejected modernism and its faith in technology. It is interested in the person rather than the object. 

                                                       

From Modernism to Post Modernism:

Power House, (1920) Lewis Hine                              Kuwait, (1991) Sebastiao Salgado

The image on the left taken by Lewis Hine is a Modernist image, It was taken during the second industrial Revolution. It depicts mans strength and power when working with machines, this was a key part of Modernist Philosophy. The second image to the right was taken by Sebastian Salgado in Kuwait just 30 days after the war in iraq had finished. It shows several labourers attempting to fix leaking oil wells that had been destroyed. This is a Post Modern image, it challenges our modern day reliance's on technology and ultimately the destruction caused by Modernist ideas.   

Introduction to digital imaging: Lighting.

Lighting plays a crucial role in how an image is perceived, in this entry I will use two examples, low key and high key to clearly illustrate this.

Low key lighting often uses only one source of light, a technique that is commonly referred to as Rembrandt lighting. This technique gives a predominance of shadowy areas used to create bold, dramatic, moody images, hence is commonly used in film-noir and horror genres.

High key lighting reduces the lighting ratio of an image, this was originally done for technological reasons due to early television and film equipment not dealing well with high contrast ratio's. This is a very popular technique with model and baby photographs as it softens tones within an image, concealing any imperfections.

Camera lenses: Angle of view and ISO.

Angle of view is the expanse of a subject as seen through a camera. It is usually measured by the diagonal of the frame, however sometimes it is measured by the vertical and horizontal lines.  A large angle of view is a shot with a wider lens, displaying lots of small objects within the frame. This is perfect for shooting landscapes and photo journalism etc when the focus is on more than one specific subject. A smaller angle of view fits less objects in the frame but reveals more details, making it perfect for portraits and close ups, including macro Photography.   

Lenses: This diagram shows a range of different focal lengths and how they effect the angle of view.

Fish eye/Wide-angle: These kinds of lenses are great for getting in really close to your subject without cutting out the background. they are ideal of shooting skateboarding and other action sports when you can get in close with the camera. Such wide perspectives do however cause distortion towards the edges of the frame so may not be suitable for portraiture etc.

A standard focal length is around 50mm, this is because it is the closest representation of how the human eye see's. For this reason it is often used when trying to photograph an accurate representation of a scene. It can also be great for portraiture when you get a little closer in to your subject.

Telephoto lenses have a far zoom range, with telephoto's you can be extremely selective over what part of a scene you choose to focus in on. Telephoto's are great for wildlife photography etc when your subject is far away.

ISO:

The ISO setting controls how sensitive the camera is to light. The lower the ISO the less sensitive the camera is to light, the higher the ISO the more sensitive the camera is. It is important to note that images become grainier and lose quality as ISO is increased, this is referred to as noise.

Photobook leaflet and poster.

A4 Poster: 

A5 Leaflet: 

Digital imaging brief.

Artists research:

Al baker is a manchester veteran, best known for his social documentary photography exploring the environment and inhabitants of inner city manchester, specifically hulme and manchester nightlife throughout the 90's and early 2000's to the current day. His photographic style comes across with a real sense of authenticity. I think this may be due to the era it was shot in, bringing up a sense of nostalgia as well as the fact that a large proportion of his work is shot on film and unedited. Al baker has personally expressed an idea to me in the past that over-use of photoshop can produce tacky, unrealistic looking images that take away from the authenticity of the moment being captured. A particular series of Al bakers images that I admire is his exhibition shot out of an ice cream van. although a very simple Idea It encapsulates a powerful sense of freedom and happiness.  "Nobody ever comes to an ice cream van in a bad mood!" 
Al Baker, http://www.albakerphotography.com/ice-cream-you-scream-various.

Gary brown Is a renowned nightlife photographer from manchester, he features most of his work on social networking websites such  facebook for club promotions. He is an extremely skilled photographer that produces large quantities of high calibre images really capturing the atmosphere of each night he attends. Unlike Al Baker,  Gary Brown frequently uses digital image manipulation techniques. This gives his images a really dramatic feel which is relevant to his subject matter. Both of these two approaches are equally valid in my opinion and both produce interesting image. 

Concept:

Social documentary photography allows me to paint a picture of the situations I observe. Whether that be positive or negative, the images convey a story of a scene or scenario that has the potential for an instant emotive response. Imagery has the potential to be an extremely powerful and instantly emotive medium, especially when capturing human beings as 93% of human communication consists of body language. I am particularly interested in capturing subjects experiencing some form of transcendence, mainly through musical expression and dance. This interest has lead me to work on projects based around street performers and other musicians as well as documenting Manchester’s renowned nightlife. Through doing this I aim to capture the complete freedom of expression within my subjects. My photo book specifically explores rave culture in Manchester. Rather than approaching the scene in a journalistic and objective way, I have attempted to capture the essence of what some refer to as a modern day ritual in order to give the viewer an insight into the experience of my subjects. Through this I hope to challenge common conceptions of raves just being a bunch of kids dancing around on drugs. In the sociology based book rave culture and religion the author relates the repetition found within many forms of dance music and transformations in consciousness that can come about via the ingestion chemicals to Buddhist monks chanting mantras as a way of focusing the mind during meditation. The book goes on to further relate these social observations to mathematical theories of infinity through fractals. I have explored these concepts in some of my experiments with photograms.

To me this image is representative to the sense of community and collective nature of the rave experience. In the sociological book "Rave culture and religion" Douglas Rushkoff writes "Dance with everyone, not a partner. It wasn't about scoring; It was about group organism. like a slam dance or mosh pit, but without the slamming. Just the groove. And the smiles. If everything went right there'd be a moment or maybe even a whole hour-when it just clicked into place. All the individual dancers would experience themselves as a single, coordinated being."  I also Decided to keep this image in colour and accentuate the warmer tones as I feel it relates the the atmosphere I am trying to capture in the image.

This photograph to me is a great example of the way in which individuals can become completely immersed in the music at raves. Exhibiting what could be perceived as extremely primordial behaviour. Similar to other dance and tribal rituals documented throughout human history. 



Techniques: 

Whilst photographing at raves I used a range of different techniques to capture my images. After experimenting with off camera lighting in the studio and discovering that it can be used creatively to achieve and alter a sense of mood and drama, I tried to incorporate similar techniques into my photobook by using an external flashgun triggered by the on camera flash. This can produce some really interesting atmospheric shots. However there are certain risks when using external equipment in what can be quite a chaotic environment, quite frequently flashguns mounted on tripods would get knocked over.
I looked at using this flash with a delayed shutter speed so that the image was a freeze frame but also contained light streaks from the DJ mixer etc. Unfortunately I was not pleased at my attempts with this technique so won't be including any in my photobook. However, I do wish to practice and master it with the correct guidance in the future. Although perfect when photographing in low light, using flash can be off putting for my subjects. I try not to distract people as I want to capture them in their most natural form, unaware of my presence, and not self conscious as cameras have a tendency to make people.

For this reason I put the flash away and shot with a 50mm prime lens. Having a wide open aperture such as f/1.8 is not only technically able capture an image in low light conditions but it also creates a soft focus effect. This coincides with the atmosphere I'm trying to convey in my images. The ISO range has to be taken up, sometimes as high as 6400 to compensate for the low light. This can produce a really nice and authentic look that resembles high speed film especially once the digital files have been converted to black and white in post production. Although if you use anything above ISO 6400, you can come across significant drops in image sharpness and quality.


I consider post production another key element in creating the final look and feel that you want your images to have before publishing and printing. Adobe Lightroom is useful for importing images from the camera on to the computer and making basic adjustments such as altering the exposures, making any colour adjustments, using the curve tool effecting the contrasts, and tonal range of the image, effecting the presence of an image as well as any basic retouching with the spot removal tool and adjustment brush. This style of image manipulation is commonly referred to as technical re-touching and is the method I most commonly use when editing my own photographs. Adobe Photoshop is also another extremely useful piece of photo editing software. Photoshop gives you an advance range of tools that allow you to manipulate an image to the point of non recognition. When I started the course I had quite basic, self-taught knowledge in Photoshop but as I have progressed I have become confident using a range of more advanced photo editing techniques. Some of these include:

The use of presets which are very handy, especially when editing pictures in bulk which is quite often the case after shooting club nights. They allow you to have
pretty much any image manipulation function saved so that with the click of a button that setting is instantly applied to your work. This is an excellent way to speed up your workflow and not get stuck repeating the same process.

Adjustment layers: non destructive way of editing your images, each adjustment that you make to your image is on a new layer, leaving the original layer intact underneath. This means that if you make a mistake you can easily revert back without effecting other adjustments. It is also a great way to be able to edit an image in multiple ways and quickly compare techniques with one another.

The range of selection tools in Adobe Photoshop allow you to make selections of individual parts of your images. This can be useful for when you want to edit, copy, or remove parts of an image. These range of tools can be used to create photo montages etc.

These advanced tools plus as well as many others give you the ability to perform creative retouching. This practice is widely used outside of photography in fields such as graphic design and is considered an art form in itself. In Learning to see creatively Bryan Peterson writes, "However, I do want to stress that the changes I'm talking about are not akin to a 100% makeover, instead, they are limited to touch-ups. The basic components of the composition do not change; rather, colour is adjusted, distracting objects are removed and exposures are corrected." I adopt a similar approach when It comes to editing my own images. I feel like although image manipulation can be adopted as an extremely useful tool to make desired changes it is most important to capture all elements of what you are trying to portray in the initial taking of the picture.

My series of twelve images to include in the book:

                                    

  

Evaluation:
Overall I am happy with my final images, I think that through them I have managed challenge cliches and preconceptions of raves by shedding some light on the more ritualistic, expressive, artistic and communal elements of the subculture. I also thoroughly enjoy attending the nights and documenting them attempting to express my own perspective. I am going to continue exploring this subject through more photographic mediums, creating a vast portfolio of work in this field with hopes to exhibit it in a gallery space.

 In future work I want to try and maintain a balance by highlighting other aspects of my environment. I have started to work on a project based on Portraits of the city’s homeless. Bringing the subject to life through the image so the viewer can really connect and understand the experience of that individual. I plan to shoot these portraits using more traditional techniques as after researching Ian Ruther’s wet plate work and briefly studying concepts within post modernism I feel they hold greater authenticity over digital, although digital is also an extremely useful tool. I feel I will bring more depth to the images by spending time with the homeless, working at shelters and really getting to know my subjects in order to  incorporate the stories of their experiences alongside the images.

Creating my photobook:
When looking for a suitable book printing service there were several factors I had to bear in mind. They key ones being the quality of the prints and service provided. I also took cost into consideration, aiming to seek out the best service for the lowest price. I visited several websites that provide photobook making services including Tesco, Asda, jessops and a less well known site called vistaprint. Some of the cheaper options had bad customer reviews, complaining of poor quality, inconsistent prints and bad customer service. Other websites such as jessops had a good range of positive feedback but seemed overpriced in comparison to other services. After discussing which service to go for with some classmates I decided to go  for Vistaprint as It currently has an offer on, making it one of the cheapest. They provide A book of 24 pages in a landscape format of 28x21cm for only £12.49. They also had consistent good reviews from customers which made choosing this service seem like the most sensible option. When Outputting my images I used presets to ensure that they printed consistently throughout the sequence, vast differences in tones etc can be distracting in the final product.