Lanscape Location

Searching for Location

Heres some of the photographs i took whilst out on a walk around Hartlepool searching for a location to use in this project. Its useful to have a location and subject matter already planned when having to carry and use such a large and heavy camera. 

As mentioned in my last post, terraced housing is something which i am particularly interested in capturing images of, however something which i had not found interest in until going on this walk was Bill boards. I found the bold striking images plastered across the bill boards contested very interestingly with the surroundings. I think its interesting to see what is actually advertised on the Bill boards, in this case it was often Alcohol. The billboards stand for consumerism and emphasise the importance of money and luxuries in life such as drinking alcohol and watching TV; two things which are obviously pretty much impossible without money. I find it quite contradictory to see such things advertised in such a glamourised way when often the surrounding areas were very much the opposite. 

Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt Landscape




" Bill Brandt is regarded as one of the great paragons of British photography. His singular eye gave him a unique take on the quintessence of Britishness, and he formed an archive of images that are as socially powerful as they are visually poetic. Brandt is known for documenting Britain and its people the rich and poor, the celebrated artist and the unknown miner but also for his idiosyncratic nude studies that obsessed him from 1951. "

http://www.beetlesandhuxley.com/exhibitions/bill-brandt.html?page=1



Here are a selection of images by Bill Brandt which i felt most inspired me, interested me and were what i felt linked best with the kind of black and white film photography i would like to aim to achieve. 

Something which seems to be interesting me most about landscape photography in town settings, especially in Hartlepool, is terraced housing. Just on the brink of the the very centre of hartlepool's town centre a lot of terraced housing can be found. Many aged, worn, run down and some standing empty. Im interesting in exploring the idea of capturing these rows of housing using several different view points. I enjoy looking straight down streets with terraced housing either side as i like the way especially in an image, the eye is drawn from the front of the image into the depth of the image by the straight narrowing road. Im really inspired by Bill Brandt's images taken from a high view point of terraced housing, they really go to show how different something can begin to look when simply changing the view point. 

Many of Bill Brandt's images appear to be created with the aim of appearing almost abstract; Many of his images included geometric lines and patterns. 

This is an image which particularly inspires me. The repetitive patterns of the traced housing create quite an abstract feel to the image. What i feel is most successful is the way the viewers eye tends to be drawn across all of the image because of the continual lines in directions which lead from the foreground to the background of the image. 

"In 1945 Brandt bought a special Kodak camera in a second-hand camera shop in Covent Garden, London. The camera had been designed to enable untrained police staff to photograph crime scenes. It had a very wide-angle lens. Compared to the standard lens of the Rolleiflex camera Brandt had used for his documentary photographs, the Kodak allowed him, he wrote, to 'see like a mouse, a fish or a fly'. He first used it for photographing nudes in interiors and then continued on the beaches of southern England and France. Later he used a Hasselblad with a Superwide-angle lens."

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/working-methods-bill-brandt/

Landscape Photography

Stephen Shore   




Here are a mixture of landscape images i have found by the photographer Stephen Shore. Not all of his images are landscape images, or at least not what i would consider to be anyway. I chose the images which most caught my eye and influenced me. As can be seen, these images have been taken in different cities/towns. This is something which i straight away find interesting as most would probably consider landscapes to be based around picturesque landscapes such as sunsets and fields. This work is something which will be relatable to the work i produce myself as i too, will be working within a busy built up town kind of environment. 

despite many of the images seeming to have bright colours which are almost impossible not to notice, I was attracted to these images more for the actual subject matter, as whats in the pictures are something which I think would make an interesting images in colour or black and white. I will be working with black and white film so this is something I will have to consider. 

I like the idea of taking photographs of busy stops, as this is something which id feel would make for an interesting town landscape image. This image is even more interesting in the way in which the photographer has taken it from the back of the bus stop, this just gives and interesting and unusual perspective. I like the idea of capturing images of things which most people wouldn't think twice about looking at. 

The shape and position of this tree really add interesting to the image. If you were to imagine the scene without this tree i do not feel the scene would look have as interesting. i also like the way the photographer has captured the difference between shadows and bright sunlight, the way the sunlights harshly hits the shop fronts is something which also adds interest to the image in my opinion. 

What i feel is most appealing about this image is the rusted, worn and old textures. The colour contrast between the turquoise doors against the sand coloured stone and rust also add to the interest of the image. However down the the textures alone and the way the image have been taken from a straight on view point are both factors which would in my opinion create a very interesting black and white image. 

This image is my favourite of the ones I've chosen to present here by Stephen Shore. It is such an intereting image in the way the wires cross in all kinds of directions in the sky and the actual posts them selves all stand in different ways. They eye is drawn across many directions across the image, and into the background. What i like most about this image is that is would deffinately be an image i could see working well in black and white, as its the subject matter that makes the image so interesting not the colouring. 

Final Evaluation

Photography And Narrative

North East Stories






Initially in this project, coming to terms with photography as a narrative was something which i found difficult to grasp. I seemed to find myself pondering over what chosen narrative I wanted to portray through my images rather than just capturing photographs. little did I know that all images have a narrative to some degree, whether it be intentional or none intentional. 

For the first part of this project, I found inspiration from the narrative photographer Cig Harvey. Her narrative photography was produced in relation to her own emotions, feelings and life experiences. Whatever emotion or experience she would currently be dealing with at that time in her life, she would portray it in a photograph. One particular image by Cig Harvey i was most influenced by was an image which was made to represent the hard time a close friend of hers had been going through, and the way in which she had to support that friend through it. This was a relatable subject to my own life experiences as I was currently dealing with comforting my  own friend, after the loss of her grandfather. This experience had lead me to think a lot about my own grandfather. Because my grandfather was the most significant thing on my mind at this time, i chose to capture an image of him. 

The group critique in which we presented our single images was something which I found extremely helpful. I came to find that almost every member of the class had done the same as myself; thinking too much into the concept of narrative. Rather than producing successful photographs, we all had seemed to let that aspect go, in the need of creating an engaging narrative. 

Following the group critique I had now learnt to just go and capture whatever I felt was of interest to me, knowing that no matter what I’d capture would have a narrative. My initial idea was to capture the industry side of the North East, as well as the run down houses and areas which we see every day. However this project happened fall upon Shrove Tuesday. This is a day which is celebrated rather uniquely in my village. I chose to study the work of Homer Sykes and Tony Ray Jones, who have both captured strange English traditions in series of images during their careers. 

Sedgefield’s Shrove tuesday ballgame is a North East village tradition that many struggle to understand, I therefore feel capturing it in a photographic story is a really interesting thing to do. My digital slide show and choice of images is something which i therefore believe is successful as it not only tells the story of the ball game but tells it in a interesting light. 

If i were to do anything differently in this project I would have possibly looked more into the techniques and skills needed to capture a fast moving sport like this, as I found a lot of my images were blurred or inaccurate. As I found my most interesting images were of the people watching the ball game and small details such as their reactions, I would have liked to capture more images like these, rather than focusing purely on the game itself.

Final Edits

Final Selection


Narrative North East images


Sedgefield Shrove Tuesday Ball game. 

Video From Which i ripped the Audio from for my presentation.

This video of the ball game means quite a lot to me as it was filmed by one of my brothers close friends, it was also the year in which another one of my brothers close friends won the ball. My grandfather is seen in this video setting the ball game off, as he was a former ball game winner many years ago. My brother and Dad also star in this video, so it really goes to show the way the ball game is and always has been involved with many generations in my family.