Practising in the studio

My first attempt in the studio and capture 1.

 

Studio Shoot

Getting to work in the studio with less people around was really, by being made to just get on with setting the lights and camera up with just a couple of others helped me made me understand the set up so much more by physically doing it myself. Also with a smaller group of people I could get on with what I wanted to do and experiment a lot more without feeling like I was taking up all the studio time. And the models seemed more relaxed and natural in front of the camera without the pressure of people watching them.

Today in the studio I managed to mess around a bit and try photographing with a black background but without a black backdrop. It took a bit of experimenting with the lights to get it right but I got there in the end. Once the background and the lighting was correct I then had the task of getting my photos to have the took that I wanted, this was influenced by Steve Pyke's work with his Moon Bug project. I wanted to have them black and white with a heavy contrast but I wasn't to sure how to do black and white with capture one as I was still getting use to the software. So I thought that I would do this later when I use Lightroom. I increased the contrast a little but I thought that I would also do more of this on Lightroom so I can see how it looks with the black and white.      

Richard Avedon

Richard Avadon was well know in the photography business for fashion and portraits. His fashion shoots seemed to have a lot of movement, this showed the fashion garments off on a new light as you could see how the material moved. It also created elegant photography like the garments themselves were dancing.

His portraits on the other hand seemed more striped back and simple. He often didn't use props but if he did it was just the one to help portray the subject. For example his use of props in these two photos portray the image of country kids witch may illude the look of a deprived childhood to the upperclass.





I don't think you could get this without the props. They would still have the dirty clothes and messy hair but the snake and the gun let you know a bit more into these children's lives. The young man on the left might have just been given his first gun from the way he is holding it. This might mean he is seen as a man in his dads eyes and feels hes son is old enough to go shooting with him.


The other side to Avadons portraits is capturing inner beauty of people. Like the image of Kate moss, she is completely stripped back from make up and hair appliances and it's just kate infront of the camera with no added extras. I also like that she isn't symmetrical and her face isn't technically pretty but I don't think that's what beauty is. I think beauty is about being unique and having imperfections is good and is what makes you stand out.





All photos are from google images
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=richard+avedon+portraits&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=qQufUqHgNei30QWd8oCoBQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=987

Moon Bug

The other day we watched a documentary about Steve Pyke, who wanted to take photos of the first handful of men that got to walk on the moon. I found it really interesting how he had gone to so much effort to take pictures of these old aged astronauts who seemed that they had past there time. But as he is going around America and photographing these men, it's quite sad because they seem a bit like yesterdays news as they have grown old and are now living normal pensioner lives. But they are a huge part of historic events as they were the first set of people willing to risked there lives knowing what had happened in the disastrous flight of Apollo 1, and that must have been a really scary thing to do. 

I really like the way the pictures look, with the faces emerging from the darkness and how the features of the mens faces are really defined with the type of lighting and camera settings. For my portrait project I would like to try out this lighting technique that Pyke has used because it looks really dramatic, and we are getting professional prints developed and i think all the black ink engulfing the faces will hopefully look really good. Another touch that Pyke added was he took a photo of the men's feet, I thought this was really nice as it was an obvious connection to them walking on the moon.
  

Also when he was photographing the men he made them really relaxed by going to there homes where they were comfy or if they wanted to go outside like one man did, who was seen as a bit of a free spirit he did so. With him doing this they were able to have a chat about there experiences and him stories, which bought out there personalities. And Pyke was constantly aware of what there faces were doing. So if they were about to laugh he had already pressed the shutter. Because of this I personally think he managed to capture the personalities of the young astronauts that they use to be.

Also with all of these images you can't tell if they were taken outside or in someones house. He has managed to make them all look like he has taken them in the studio.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=steve+pyke+photographer&espv=210&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ySOWUq69E4mUhQfEqICIAg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1001&bih=513#es_sm=91&espv=210&q=steve+pyke+photographer+moon+bug&tbm=isch&imgdii=_ 

This link was used for both photos.                                                                                                                                                               

Hasselblad Cameras

Today I was in the studio learning a bit more about A Hasselblad camera. I had briefly had a look a one before, but never really got to take it apart and learn about the lens, body and back until today. I liked learning about how each component of the camera worked and how it linked to the next part of the sequence to make images. 

I am really looking forward to getting started with this next project and am going to try and get a lot of research done as soon as possible so I can book studio time and make sure I am happy with my pictures so when I get my pictures back through the post I am really happy with the final prints, as I wasn't majorly happy with my final images for the street photography assignment. I think it was because I rushed using up the films so i could quickly develop them and start finding the ones I liked if I had taken more time on what images I had been taking I would have been much happier with the outcome.

top photo is from google and the other two are mine.
http://blog.larrymcneil.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Hassy_Camera_Logo3.jpg

Evaluation

When I first got the brief of street photography I didn’t really know much about it or anyone who was well know for it.  So I started to do some research and look at other peoples work to get a better understanding of the genre. I didn’t really think much of the images that I was looking at and seemed to be slipping into the mind of ‘anyone could take that image’ but it wasn’t until I got my first manual camera a small Olympus OM 10 I started to realise it was a bit more than just aiming and shooting. 

At first I found it challenging just putting the film into the camera, as it was all completely new to me. But the hard bit was the part I thought was going to be the easiest. And that was actually walking round the streets taking the photos. I wasn’t too sure why I was finding it hard to just take photos of the street and of the public, but I did feel really strange.  I they got to learn how to develop the film. This was really exiting as I couldn’t remember what was on half of the film and was keen to find out. But once again it wasn’t as straightforward as I had thought. I found it challenging having to do everything in the dark as it seemed unnatural to me, especially clicking the film around the reel I found that really difficult. But because so much time and effort goes into developing a film it makes it so much more exiting to see what the outcome it going to be. After developing it I soon realised that on each film there might only be a small handful of images that I might actually want to use.

The next time I went out shooting film I had watched a small documentary on Bruce Gilden and how he portrays street photography. And I found that it helped me a lot when I was going for my second attempt because of the way he was walking around and taking images he wasn’t worried in the slightest of what people thought of him. And I think this is defiantly where I was having a problem before. As I did feel strange so I was constantly worried that other people thought, that they might think I was being really odd and strange but I shouldn’t have cared because it wasn’t odd or strange at all it was just my images portraying the streets of Hartlepool. So in order to get over the fear of just taking photos and looking strange I thought I would try what Gilding does and just take a few images of people close up. It turned out that people weren’t that bothered about it and when people did comment, it wasn’t that bad.

Once I had made a start to overcome my fear of photographing, I had a look at what photos I thought looked good and why? I came across one of a man on some steps and this got me thinking about interesting angles and pictures that take your eyes on a journey in a certain way around the picture. So I looked at a street photographer call Eric Kim and he had some pictures that I really liked that included bold lines that and strong structure,  this is what I focused the rest of my films on to have a collection of five images that all had a factor that linked them together.

Taking Time To Develop Film

I had taken my camera to Newcastle for a change of scene for my street photography prints. When it came to developing the film I rushed putting the film onto the reel in the loading bay. I think the reel had come apart in the middle so instead of the film being separated allowing the chemicals to flow over all the film, with mine the film must have come into contact with another part of the film, making them stick together so the chemicals didn't get chance to work on certain parts of the film. I did a contact sheet anyway but it was very white and only a few worked. So next time when I develop a film i will take more care and time on what I am doing.