Exhibition - All about Eve

Eve Arnold - 1912-2012

All about Eve - Art Sensus Gallery a retrospective of her work.

The exhibition is a superb collection of Eve Arnold's photos that celebrate the decades of her photographic career.  This collection includes many photos from her personal collection.  Among them are original prints from the story on migrant workers on Long Island.  These pictures saw her accepted as the first woman member of Magnum Photographic Agency, in 1952.

Eve's photographic career began by chance.  A "beau" gave her a camera and taught her to use it.  She then did a six week course with  Alexey Brodovitch, a Russian born photographer and designer famous for his art direction of Harpers Bazaar. He was also famous for his harsh criticism of photographer's work.

Eve's first project at this course was a fashion shoot.  It was not a subject that interested her, so she decided on an alternative approach to the project.  Her son's nursemaid told her about the alternative fashion shows taking place in Harlem.  In the 1950's white people didn't venture there.  The black models felt the white rag trade didn't cater to them.

For Eve this was exactly the alternative she was looking for.  She was inexperienced, naive and everything seemed to go wrong.  However, Brodovitch loved the freshness of her work and told her to forget class assignments, go back to Harlem and do a comprehensive study.   She spent a year photographing  life in Harlem.  Far to raw for American publications, none would publish her work.  Her husband sent them to the British Picture Post which ran an eight page spread.  In 1951 Eve's career as a photographer was launched.

Eve travelled extensively documenting and photographing subjects such as the oldest man in the world in the Caucasus. Inside the harem of sheikh Sana she made the film "behind the veil".  Disturbing pictures inside a mental asylum in the Soviet Union, that outraged the communist regime.  Apartheid South Africa, where she photographed black children suffering from malnutrition and disease, was one of the most gruelling assignments.

Interspersed with her serious documentary work, Eve photographed celebrities and film stars.  She photographed four Prime Ministers.  Her photographs of Marilyn Monroe, whom she photographed extensively over  a ten year period  are probably her most well known work.  Marilyn totally trusted Eve and allowed her to take photos that show an intimacy and spontaneity that no one else was ever to capture.

When asked the secret to how she got such intimate pictures of people, Eve response was:

"if a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given.  It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument."

 

While I love all of Eve Arnold's work, it is her early work in Harlem that I find the most moving and inspirational.

Two of my favourite images are: Bar Girl and Milltown.

 What is it about these two images that I am drawn to? They are incredibly intimate.  It feels like a moment that their guard has been let down showing a moment of vulnerability or lost innocence.

Bar Girl taken in 1954 in the red light district of Havana Cuba.  For me the strength of this image is in the downcast eyes of the girl and her body posture capturing a moment of quiet reflection. The way she is positioned at the bar, drink in front of her, no-one around her creates a sense of sadness, a perception of loneliness, yet at the same time great beauty.

The Milltown girl taken in 1954 at an asylum in Haiti where American drug companies were testing a tranquilliser drug.
I feel drawn into the picture not only by her eyes but her whole body language. She feels like a prisoner trapped in her own body.  I had that feeling even before reading about the drug trials. These moments aren't always apparent at first glance, they are shared with the photographer. The way her arms are crossed over her body, the lines of the corridor on the right hand side and the plain windows on the right all seem to emphasis the sense of entrapment. The sameness of her life.

Eve Arnold had a special talent in getting people to share these moments with her.  She calls it her natural curiosity.

 The  relationship between subject and photographer is what is what I try and achieve in my work. An example of where I feel I have come close to this is in this picture below of Kelly. a young homeless woman who had just arrived in London.

 

I feel I have successfully captured the despair in her face. It was dark and I only had my camera, no flash, so I used street lights to enable me to take the shot. I have concentrated on her face and expression.

After looking at Eve Arnold's Harlem photos I can see the importance of drawing back a little to incorporate more body language.  To add a sense of place.

Assignment Two - People and Activity

The People
When I was asked to photograph the LGBB (lesbian and gay big band) I thought it would be perfect for this assignment My planning included how the band would use the photos as well as this assignment brief.

The band is newly formed and wanted photos for their website as well as publicity photos for their first gig. For this assignment I needed to take pictures "would focus on telling moments and on explaining the activity."

As part of my planning I called on past experience. I have taken pictures of a dance group so I knew that lighting and movement were the two areas that are the most difficult to get right. It is also not possible to use flash at a performance, so I needed a fast lens and a high ISO.

The First Challenge
The first session with the group was at their rehearsal. The arrangement they had meant I was not able to check out the space beforehand so this was a real challenge to planning. They had told me it was a basement and very small. I figured that would mean probably very dark as well. Sixteen musicians and me in a space about the size of a small bedroom was definitely challenging. The space was too small and cramped for me to use a tripod. I know that I have a bit of camera shake if the shutter speed gets too slow for the lens. I took two lens with me 24-105 with a widest aperture of f4 and 70-200 f2.8. I have found the 24-105 does not perform well at the widest aperture so I don't like to open it up below f5. This meant that a high ISO was my only other option.

The results of the first challenge
For the first part of the session I shot at 1600. As the afternoon wore on I had to increase this to 3200. At this top end I did find the pictures had considerable noise.

Again because of the cramped space I concentrated on close-up pictures of hands and instruments.

At the end of the session another room at the venue, that a drama group had been using, was available to us for 20 minutes. I used this for group shots. However it was very dark by then and my one flash without a light stand wasn't successful. I found it incredibly difficult to organise a large group for a portrait. It was even worse when I looked at them later on my computer screen. People were looking in various directions. I had used my 24-105 at the widest setting, so the people on the edge of the frame were distorted. I had also had to take the ISO up to 6400. Overall the group shots were not successful. The confined space forced me to take close up and detail shots, sometimes at awkward angles, these shots were the most successful. An example is the hands on the keyboard (middle photo first row below).

The band was happy with the photos I gave them and asked me to photograph their first gig.

The Second Challenge
Knowing that I would not be able to use flash during the actual performance I arranged to photograph them before the event. I researched the work of music photographers over the next couple of weeks. I could not find any images of big bands as a group. I found a lot of work of jazz musicians, the majority of which were not taken during the performance. I looked at the jazz photography of Francis Wolff, Herman Leonard, Johnny Monk and China Moses. The majority of the work I studied, concentrated on individuals. It was black and white film and mostly staged photos.

Pre-Planning
The day of the gig came round and my plan was to take the majority of pictures before the performance. I had a flash and a constant LED light and light stand. I also had a ring flash that fits over my flash unit. I had my tripod.

Managing the Event
What I was confronted with this time were disco lights. Yellow, pink, green, blue. My first response was to try and get them turned off or at least controlled. Not possible. My second option was to try and make them work in an arty way. It is a gig lighting is not meant to look like the street.

The results of the second challenge
For some of the pictures this was an ok approach. For the majority it did not work. I had green faces and this is not arty it just looks awful. I figured I could convert to black and white in post production and tried to keep this in mind for difficult shots. What this meant was looking for tones, shapes and contrasts that would look good in black and white.

I was not successful in the group shots again. Trying to fit everybody in the frame without distracting edges to the picture was a problem. They also lacked vibrancy which on the day I couldn't figure out why. Analysing my work since I've realised that they are all concentrating on their music sheets in front of them, there is no energy coming from the group. Taking another look at a variety of jazz photos was what made me realise that the music sheets and stands were the problem. The vibrancy comes from the relationship with the audience and/or the photographer. I am planning some new ways of taking pictures for the next event where I will stage manage some shots without music sheets and stands and encourage them to relate to an imaginary audience.

Putting a selection of images for this assignment I have tried to give a sense of the music and energy of the group. I converted them all to black and white as a mixture of colour and black and white does not flow. I also think black and white has a more jazzy feel.

I'm happiest with my close up and detail pictures.

The Photos
The first three are my favourites of the selection presented below. I've used close up and angles to add interest and vibrancy.

This next three are focusing on the people.

The next three are all staged shots. I was influenced by the old style jazz photos when trying to put these together.

The last three I've worked on featuring the instruments that really give a sense of the music of a big band.

In summary I would like to imagine that anyone looking at my pictures would think "this is a band I would like to see and listen to"

Tom Craig and A. A. Gill @ frontline
Twenty unseen photos by Tom Craig with accompanying text by A.A. Gill
Tom and Adrian have been working together for 8 years. Of particular interest to me is the collaboration between photographer and journalist that is a rarity now, yet not so long ago it was always the way documentary essays were done. Today papers, journals, magazines etc expect one person to write, take the photos be sound engineer and anything else that may be required. Tom and Adrian feel this is to the detriment of both crafts. Observing and listening to two people who are experts at their individual crafts, I agree with them. Their collaboration is not words about the pictures nor pictures to back up the words. Each of them has produced work that stands alone and when put together the work is stronger and more powerful.
I found it interesting that they both said they didn't go with any preconceived ideas about the work. They both wanted to arrive and be open to whatever was happening. They said if you go with a preconceived idea then you have already decided what the outcome is and therefore are likely to miss seeing and feeling a particular place at a particular time. Here are two people breaking all the rules and seems to go against everything we are taught about planning and designing the pictures and stories before a shoot. I do understand you need to know and understand the rules to break them and know why you are breaking them.
I think the outcome of their approach and collaboration is brilliant. Tom's images are really strong and complex. A single image tells a story in a way that another photographer may need several images to get the same impact. An example is his picture of the Albanian bathers

There is so much going on in this picture. Most of the men are seen from behind, there is no eye contact, yet this does not seem to matter or reduce the impact of the story. It makes you want to know more about these men. Is it men bonding? Where are the women? There is a sense of a leisurely life, the two men playing chess, the young boys diving of the pontoon. There are no chairs or picnic baskets. The cardboard boxes suggest they are not wealthy, their brown leathery skin indicates they spend a lot of time outdoors. I've spent ages looking at this image and each time I see something else.