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.
Concept: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.
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..JPG)
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.
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.
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.
