Portraiture

Vice; Portrait photography


Since starting the project of portrait photography i have quite conveniently stumbled across a vice article about portrait photography. The aricle actually focuses on a particular photographer who's profession is actually a taxi driver. The name of the photographer is Mike Harvey. Mike captured images of his passengers at the final destination they arrived at and allowed the passengers to not pay the taxi fee as a way of saying thank you for letting him take their photo. 

​ "You meet all sorts of people driving a taxi. It's the nature of the job. If you don't meet lots of people, it's a pretty good sign that you're doing something wrong and should probably reconsider the choices you've made."

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/mike-harvey-south-wales-taxi-photos-101



Mike Harvey's Website:

http://www.mikeharvey.co.uk/xrpkj58d3wnwpnisjzkyqkbtqwau2z

Ive chosen a few of the images by mike from which website which particularly catch my eye. I really like the images where the people look quiet unusual and have a unique strong character kind of look to them. The images where theres two people in the taxi are also really interesting and relevant to the task we've been set to capture images of couples. I also really think the choice of black and white works well with almost all portraiture photography. Each image is named after the taxi fair of each persons journey. I think this is such an effective idea and really adds that extra narrative to the image itself and the project as a whole. 

Final Evaluation

Evaluation.

Editorial Photography, 'Extra-ordinary'
Level 5



In our first week of this project we were given a lecture by Richard Whitehead, Richards definition of editorial photography stuck with me throughout the project; “imagery that supports the written word.” Despite realising so early on just how open and diverse this project could be, i focused strongly on the other theme within the project, which was ‘extra-ordinary’. Instead of starting to create photos, I spent days and even weeks pondering over the idea of what extra-ordinary means, and what i could possibly shoot to suit this theme.

The first work by any photographer i researched and found inspiration from was actually the work of former CCAD student, Jessica Holloway. We were shown Jessica’s work during a professional studies session just as an example of how to present a digital archive, however i spotted some of her work which she had taken on coloured film around the streets of Middlesbrough. In this work she had captured images of run down streets and buildings and people she had obviously seen in these areas. When seeing Jessica’s work i just knew straight away that this was the style of work i wanted to create myself.

I began to shoot on the streets of places i was visiting in my day to day life such as Hartlepool, Newcastle, Blackhall colliery and Trimdon colliery, as one thing i knew i had a great interest in was North East street photography. Coloured film is something i had always wanted to experiment with and luckily this project did not require the use of any particular camera, so this was the perfect time to experiment with my coloured film.

The photographer who inspired me most during my research was Adrian Clarke. I came across his work in an old article by the Guardian called "The end of the tracks? the brief description of this article was: “What is happening in the former pit villages in the north-east of England? Photographer Adrian Clarke hears the personal stories of those left behind and of their battles with drug and alcohol addiction, poverty and violence.” During my shooting of streets within the North East, I found that the more I got into the project, the more particular I became about where exactly in the North East I wanted to shoot. In my last two shoots I chose to shoot in two colliery villages. For some unknown reason I feel very drawn to a lot of colliery villages, and have such a fascination with what these villages once stood for, and how the effects the pit closures once had are still quite evident even today. 

In my final edit of images I chose to use all images taken in Backhall Colliery, and submit my project as a vague representation of the colliery village today. A lot of the images I shot were quite ‘nitty gritty’ and showed the lack of wealth the village really has, however the images I were more drawn to were the bright and almost tacky images captured on the front street of Blackhalll, such as bold retro signs and shop fronts. I didn't want to present images that portray doom and gloom, as in reality, i don’t actually know whether most  who live in the village would agree or disagree that the closure of the pit has even had a negative effect on the village. The work I produced for my final outcome more so reminds me of the work by Martin Parr, scenes of the working class, bold, bright, tacky, with a slight sense on humour. 

Having Ian MacDonald come in as a visiting lecturer and actually being able to have a tutorial with him is something which helped me massively in this project. It gave me confidence in the work I had been producing and was amazing to be able to watch first hand such a successful photographer edit down my images to just a few finals images of his choice. A lesson I have learnt during this project is to not overthink any brief I may be given, rather than sitting thinking of ideas the best approach to take is to just start shooting, and ideas then start to generate from there. I chose to print my final images in gloss as I felt gloss may make the bright colours in my images stand out more, however if there could be one thing I could change in this project it would have been to print in lustre rather than gloss, as I feel lustre may have suited the more old fashioned retro feel the coloured film and old shop fronts and streets give off in the images.

Final Edit

Choosing Final Images;


These are the images i have narrowed it down to. I chose to get all the images printed and then choose once i could see the final prints. Although this may end up costing me more than i should really have to be paying as i may not use all of the images, i would rather have a few to chose from as i am not sure how successful they will look on a larger scale with them being taken on a film camera. 

I chose to go for a lot of images which encourperate writing, like logos and signs on shops, i think this links the images together as a selection. I also like how most have bright reds or blues or saturated colours within them, this also create a subtle link between them all. 

When getting the images printed i used DS colour lab which is a printing lab in London. I chose this lab because it had good reviews and more importantly was reasonably priced. Price had to be a main factor in my discussion in which lab to go with as i am getting so many printed. i had great difficulty choosing between gloss or lustre for my prints. My 6x4 prints that i got done when i had the films developed were on lustre, i do like the effect of lustre and think it works well with the theme of nitty gritty street scenes and the old fashion effect coloured film creates. however i chose to go with gloss because of the bright saturated colours in my images i felt gloss would make the colours stand out more. I also chose to add a white border on my images. 

John Davies

Landscape photographer 
John Davies


John Davies is a well known landscape photographer originally from Sedgefield, County durham. Ive chosen to research into some of his work because i feel the subject matter he captures is similar to what i seem to be drawn to when capturing images, just captured in a very different style. All of my images for this project have been captured in the north east of England and all seem to have a lot of bright colour in them, this is not something i necessarily aimed to do, its something which i have just found as a repeated theme throughout my work. The concept of bright colour is very different to the work of John Davies, as you can see he works in black and white. John Davies images are also all landscape images as this is what he specialises in. Again this is very different to my work but what i like about johns work is that he captures images that aren't what we'd probably class as picturesque landscapes. 
A lot of the north east places John Davies photographs are run down places such as allotments or old colliery houses. 


His work seems to follow this theme of photographing what the typical photographer wouldn't be expected to photograph. Making the viewer spend longer looking at places, scenes or objects that in day to day life they wouldn't think twice about seeing. Well, at least this is what i am trying to do with my own photography. Capturing the areas in the north east we don't think of as pleasant to look at, run down streets, shops, back alleys, rubbish. 

Ian Macdonald Tutorial

Group Tutorial; Ian Macdonald

After Ian Macdonalds lecture on friday i was lucky enough to join with a small group of ccad students from across different subjects such as photography, fine art and illustration, to have a tutorial with Ian in which we were able to show him our work and receive critique and feedback. What i found most interesting about the whole tutorial was actually being able to see the work of other students from other subject and listen to them explain how and why they had created these pieces, as its not very often we get chance to view the work of other students that are not in our subject. 

This linked well with what Ian had been speaking about in his lecture, when he was explaining how he created pieces of art like collage and drawings as well as photography. As explained in my previous post, i have a great interest in art, such as drawing and painting, but never thought to carry it on since starting photography, however after Ian's lecture and this tutorial i became to realise that all art forms interlink. A lot of the illustration and fine art students either used photography in their work or copied from photographs to create their work. understanding painting, drawing and other art forms helps build knowledge when capturing an image. 

For the tutorial with Ian i took in my first 3 rolls of coloured film i had ever shot. I had only picked them up from being developed that day so had barely had the chance to look through them and narrow them down myself. Ian layed my images out on the table for him and the other students to see, he then began to sort the images into landscape and portrait. From there he began to eliminate the less successful images, narrowing it down. Ian basically gave myself and the group and 5 minute tutorial in how to edit images into a selection. I was amazed at the way he did this. 

I explained how the images i had captured had been taken in hartlepool and the nearby village of Blackhall Colliery. I had no real concept behind my images, they were just what i had gone out and shot, i literally just took images of anything that caught my eye.  Ian began to create a narrative behind my images. He chose an image of an old lady shopping, then began to create a story around her by choosing images of shops and places you may image this lady to go. This was something i found so incredibly interesting as it was something i would never have thought to have done. 



Ians final Edit of my images:

Ian Macdonald Lecture

Ian Macdonald

On Friday 31st of October we were lucky enough to have ian macdonald speaking as a guest lecturer. Ian macdonald is a successful and well known North East photographer. We were shown a presentation of his work from early on in his career to now. Unfortunatley not all of this work is on his website however i have since been on his website and picked out a few images which i find really interesting and inspiring to my own work. 

http://www.ianmacdonald.co.uk/sales/

In Ian Macdonalds lecture he told us about how he started off in art college actually doing drawing. He showed us some of his sketches and drawings which were mainly of buildings. His drawings blew me away he showed a great talent for art and i was surprised to see this as i had thought he had only ever done photography. Ian has been commissioned to create pieces of art and sold works of art such as paintings and collages. 

Ian explained how his understanding of art and drawing played a big role in his photography, as he understood more about composition and depth of field. He also explained how he sees art as one big concept, you don't have to just be a photographer or just be a painter. This is something which inspired me and stuck with me throughout and after the lecture, as art is something I've done since being a child, something I've always had a passion for and something i started to create long before i found my interest in photography. I always seem  to tell myself I'm a photographer, and don't allow myself to create any other forms of art, despite having such an interest in them. After Ians talk i realised that i should still carry on with my art as well as focusing on capturing images. His talk inspired me so much and really did make me think more deeply than just capturing photographs. 

coloured film

Shooting coloured film.

For this project as i had decided i just wanted to capture images of everyday places or objects on our streets here in the north east/Hartlepool i chose to work with coloured film on my 35mm camera. I chose to do this because coloured film is something i have wanted to work with for a long time. As i went to shoot some rough areas of hartlepool and the nearby colliery village of Blackhall i felt the retro kind of effect coloured film photography gives would work well with the dated shops and buildings i was photographing.

As i have never worked with colour film and therefore not worked in the coloured dark room i got my film developed at asda. I got 6x4 prints with my film and the images put onto a cd. Getting small 6x4 prints was really helpful to me as it aloud me to lay out my images in front of me and see which ones worked well together as a set. It also meant i was able to see straight away the quality of the images when printed. 

workshop

Lighting Techniques



For the past two weeks we have had workshop tutorials with tim where we have learnt about using lighting equipment on set. Rather than looking at studio lighting we took the basics skill we had learnt and looks at flashes and other equipment which can be used out on a shoot where you can to use them. In week 1 of these tutorials we more just learnt about using the flash, such as how to work it, making it flash when you press the capture button on your camera ect. We also learnt the importance of using a light meter and how often out on a shoot it is necessary to add extra light or reflect light back into the image using a reflector. 


For week 2's tutorial we were given an image of a model which was shot in uni. We were asked to look at the image and  try recreate the image ourselves using the same lighting techniques. As seen here Courtney was our chosen model. We worked out that the way the lighting fell on the model in the image suggested that the flash had been held from the top of the stairs. 

We chose to use a soft box over the flash as we felt that would soften the lighting and make it look more flattering like it does in the actual image of the model. What i stubbled with understand was what to set the camera to as when using the light meter we realised the light falling on the model was so different to the light falling on the background.