Shooting

Going into the street photographing with the 4X5 was easier said than done. I thought because I have shot with this camera before and I was happy with my photos that I was going to have no problems with it. I was wrong.

When I shot landscapes with this camera, I had all the time in the world to check everything was ready to just take a picture. But when I started taking pictures of people I found that I didn't want to waste any of there time and was rushing every time I took a picture. This resulted in me fogging the film, over exposing it and sometimes not even putting the slides in the back of the camera. I think after wasting 4 bits of film it was finally a wake up call that I needed to slow down and take my time making sure that everything was closed and ready to take a picture.

Depth of field

By doing this exercise of changing the depth of field and measuring it, I learnt that the further away the subject is, the longer the depth of field becomes. And when the subject is closer there's a smaller area in focus. Also by measuring and doing it in this way, it has finally sunk into my mind and I feel more confident it about it.

Evaluation

When hearing that the theme for the editorial project was ‘extraordinary’ it was hard not to be completely stumped, as it was such a wide key whole. Having the thought extraordinary in your mind makes you think you need to present an extraordinarily good bit of work. So instead of over thinking the theme I started to look at simple things like everyday objects that have been changed to look pretty unique, such as bananas being carved into portraits of people. I thought I would have ago at one of these carvings and I whilst doing so I had a bit of an epiphany. I thought I could photograph everyday people but try and do replica images of them as well know public figures.

I started looking at what people I could use and who I could photograph them as. But I soon found out that the main thing was getting a similar lighting setup to the ones that I was going to be looking at. The first time I tried this was I bit of a disaster, as I didn’t focuses much on what the lighting was doing in the image and I was focusing more on what the model looked like. The second time round I made sure that the lighting was right first, and I ended up saving more time.  This time was a success and I was much happier with the outcome. When taking the photos to the first critique I didn’t get much feedback, as there isn’t much you can say about a photo of a photo. So I started to panic and wonder what I should do and then the word ‘extraordinary’ started ringing in my mind.

As I was walking home one day I saw a man in the town centre of Hartlepool making bubbles, my instinct was to shoot home to get my camera hoping he would still be there when I got back. To my relief he was, I asked if he was okay with photographing him and his bubbles and he was more then happy. When I looked at the photos after I had noticed that by just going out and taking photos of something that had caught my eye ended up being more extraordinary than taking a photos of people as celebrities. This inspired me to photograph other real life things happening that catch my eye on a daily basis. This lead me to talking photos of some exotic ring necked parakeet in the local park, as they looked rather out of place in Hartlepool. Then finally I had the opportunity to go and photograph a camel race.

After shooting the camel race I new that these were the photos that I wanted to use as my final piece, like the parakeet they looked a bit out of place being on a racetrack in Yorkshire rather than in a dusty desert in the Middle East. I was happy with how they turned out because of the colours, they were really bright and the total opposite to what might be expected from a camel race. For example the bright green grass rather than sand dunes. When trying to pick a collection to put forward it was hard to narrow it down, I was told to try and pick the ones that showed the ambience of the races. I ended up picking a few that where not look the most structured of photographs but the camels were really clumsy to watch and with the odd cropping and framing I think it adds to the clumsy motions of the camels. 

When getting them printed I thought of getting them done at A1 to emphasise on the side of the camels, but with having them that size I was afraid it might not do the quality of them any good, as some parts of the images have unwanted movement in them. So I played it safe and got them done at A3.                

Editing The Final Selection

Today we presented out final prints to be narrowed down by an editor. He went through and picked either one or two prints from each collection and put them all in an order to how they will get printed in the magazine. It was really beneficial to see what pictures he chose and why he put them in the order that he did.  

Final Prints

I narrowed it down to eight photos and these are my final prints to hand in. They came back from DS colour labs with a white strip on one side of them all so all I need to do is to cut it off then put them into there archival sleeves.

Final images

Narrowing It Down

To have a better idea of which photos to put forward for the editorial project I got a bunch of different people to pick five that they liked and the ones most picked I will go and get printed.  

History of Camel Racing

I wanted to know a little bit more about camel racing, so I decided to have a quick look online and rummaged through a few websites until I came across Emirates Natural History Group and there was quite a lot of information on the matter so I have just picked a phew paragraphs from the website that touch upon most points.    

Races, which were performed on festive social occasions and celebrated by the local community, included religious feasts, celebrating rainfall, weddings, circumcision, and perhaps the occasional visit of a prominent tribal shaikh. During such festive occasions people displayed their colourful rugs and cloths on tent ropes. These races were basically an ardha, a show, which ran across 300-500 m. One or two men sang loud heroic war songs, and riders exhibited their riding skills while brandishing their swords or old rifles, or stood holding hands while two or three camels ran parallel to each other. When tribesmen visited the villages or camps of their kinsmen during religious Eids, feasts, they usually performed a shortardha race on their mounts before coming in the tent to greet the people and share coffee and dates with them. In the races of festive celebrations there were occasional individual competitions for sport, but the winners received no prizes. Sometimes, however, in wedding celebrations the first, or occasionally the first three winning camels got prizes from the family of the groom. Prizes in those days were small symbolic statements, basically shara (sign) or namous (recognition), represented materially in a dagger, head cloth, or other items of clothing.

In competition races riders were usually arranged for the race a day ahead of time, and the evening before the race they agreed on the starting point. A shara (prize) was usually declared ahead of time. Such competitions were usually arranged as a resu1t of a challenge (wahna) among camel owners, or it could have been triggered by a visit of a leading shaikh who put forward a prize for the race. Sometimes competing riders went and spent the night at the starting point. Each would guard his mount carefully throughout the night to prevent foul play from other competitors. The race usually started early in the morning. Racing distances were relatively short, extending between 3 to 4 km. Unlike today, camels sat down at the starting line, and upon hearing a short cry, they rose up and ran. The owner of a particularly fast camel was usually asked not to participate. Instead he was given a sadda (compensation) in order to give a reasonable chance to other competing camels and to make the race more unpredictable and exciting. Rules governing age categories of competing camels and the ages and weights of riders were almost nonexistent. As recently as the early 1970s, race camels were ridden by their owners, usually the nimble youngsters in the family.

http://www.enhg.org/Home/Resources/UnitedArabEmirates/CamelRacing.aspx