Progress on Assignment 4

All the best plans of mice and men I think that's how the quote begins. Regent's Canal has presented more problems than I had anticipated.  The weather being number one. It is not easy to make a picture that would look good in a glossy travel magazine while pouring with rain.

I have continued to take pictures on days that aren't ideal to see if my ideas will come together.

Weather aside the pictures are looking more like a documentary than something for a travel magazine.

An example of the problems are in the image below. The scaffolding on the building on the left is distracting and not what one would see in a glossy magazine.




I am going to try and find a prettier pat of the canal.  I'm also thinking this wasn't the most ideal place for this assignment.

Exhibition - Burtynsky - Oil

Photographers Gallery 19 May - 1 July 2012

"Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work" is how Edward Burtynsky describes his work. The current exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery is a selection of his project on oil.

 Following what he calls his "oil epiphany" while filling his car with petrol, it struck him that the vast human altered landscapes of the previous 20 years was only possible because of the use of oil and the invention of the combustion engine. For the next 15 years he photographed everything to do with oil. This work is presented in four categories: the extraction and refinement of oil, Detroit motor city, transportation and motor culture and what he calls the end of oil. He presents large beautiful photos to confront us with the contradiction of good living and the cost that we are consciously or unconsciously aware of the environmental impact.

He says - "These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear."

The exhibition is arranged over two floors of the gallery and shows three sections from his oil series (Detroit motor city is not included). Beginning on the top floor with images of oil fields and refineries first impressions are of the size, radiance and clarity of the prints. Most are taken in the muted soft light of evening twilight that lulled me into seeing artistic landscapes.

It is only on closer inspection that the real nature of the scenes become apparent. This is even more striking when looking at the final section, the end of oil, where the beautiful very quickly turns to disturbing. We are presented with what happens when oil fields are abandoned and leave a scarred earth behind, or where oil tankers are decommissioned on once beautiful beaches of Bangladesh. Here the ships are turned into scrap metal by low paid workers in conditions that are unacceptable to those in the affluent west.

Shipbreaking #11 Chittagong, Bangladesh - http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/WORKS/Oil/Oil_Book/THE_END_OF_OIL/083-SHB_11_00_Oil.html 

The picture above, is one of the images where the ships are turned into scrap metal taken on Chittagong Beach in Bangladesh. This image is typical of Burtynsky's work in its use of colour in light , golden hues of the fading sun shining onto the rusty hulls of the ships making them positively glow. The other common feature in his work is the wide view as in this image or an elevated view, taken from a crane or helicopter making one aware of the vastness of the space given to oil and its production.

Everything within his images appears as if perfectly planned. The arrangement of the workers and the ship form a triangle. The soft hue of the ambient light and the bright lights of the welding equipment also draw you eye into the centre of the image. The darker oil stained pieces of metal on the edges form a natural vignette. The edges of the frame have nothing distracting, something I find I am frequently guilty of. As with all his images the clarity and sharpness is perfect in every pixel.

The story in the image raises lots of questions for me. What is the man in the blue and white check sarong with a basket doing there. How many ships are lined up behind the two we can see. What has this industry done to the water and sea life. It does make one aware of the negative aspect of our dependency on oil. When will we find a real alternative.

Burtnysky's intention of searching for dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear is successful on one hand as I was seduced into the beauty of the images. I feel more anger toward the oil barons for their abuse of poorer countries and workers rather than being repulsed. I'm not certain what I should fear. The end of oil? Perhaps this would be a good thing.

I can't quite decide whether the beauty of the images slightly over rides the message Burtynsky is trying to deliver. They are all still fine art images and I feel would sit comfortably on the wall of a C.E.O.'s office.

Planning Assignment 4

I was going to Paris for a weekend to support friends cycling from London to Paris. I had the idea of combining my assignment four on this weekend.

I lived just off rue Des Martyrs for four years and consequently know the area very well and have several friends there. Sunday is market day in the street and I thought would be perfect for assignment four.

I planned my pictures and checked with my friends that they would be around. All good. The reality was very different. One friend was sick, another had a sudden change of plans. The weather wasn't great. My cycling friends wanted me to be on the other side of town. It just didn't happen.

 I knew that it would be a bit risky to try and do this assignment on such a tight schedule so had a backup alternative in London. The exercise was still worthwhile. This could very well be reality for a paid assignment. It did help me focus on thinking about what I was going to photograph. I could only do this because I know the area so well.

 Now onto plan B. Regent's Canal.

Selective Processing and Prominence

Take an image that I I have previously used and selectively process twice. Once so the figure recedes into the setting and then the opposite so the figure stands out more.

 I chose an image I had used in an earlier exercise.  I had converted it to black and white to try and give it some depth.  It had been a difficult image to process as it was nearly all the same tone. This was how I presented it back then:

Looking at the image and reprocessing it thinking about making the image blend in or stand out.  Thinking of the various parts of the image. The first process I made global adjustments, making the figure blend into the setting.
Even this is better than my earlier processing.

I then made adjustments to the pavement, the light grey wall on the right and parts of the building on the left.  Using curves and contrast I have lightened the background.  This makes the figure more prominent.  For this image I think this is a better edit.

The last image improves the picture and I have learnt to think a bit more about how I want the picture to look, it is still better to get it right in camera.  The light is flat in this picture so is never going to be a great picture.  Ideally I need to go back and reshoot in better light.

Balancing Figure and Space

For this exercise we are to produce two images using the same general viewpoint, varying the balance and attention between the person and the setting they are in.

In the first image I am standing on the corner looking down the street. There is a cyclist walking his cycle up the footpath.  This image has not made a very strong picture. Although standing on the street corner it looked interesting.  As a picture it is boring.

 

By crossing the street and moving just a few feet I have taken the image below.  The cyclist is little closer to me and now is a bigger part of the picture.  It is the same light but the reflected light off the lighter coloured walls on this side of the street make the picture lighter and brighter.  There is less empty space in the foreground of the image.   

The horizontal framing enabled me to crop out the sky which on a grey day adds nothing to this scene.

 

I found this exercise valuable in thinking more about the scene I was photographing and how very minor changes make such a big difference.  Being aware doesn't need to take much time. With these two images I didn't have very long to change my view if  was to include the cyclist in the picture. Two minutes and looking and thinking.

Making Figures Anonymous

For this exercise we are asked to to make between two and four images using different techniques, deliberately making the people anonymous but is primarily about the place.

The first image I have used the technique of facing away.  To achieve this I have taken the picture from a higher vantage point so as to obscure the faces of the the two men having coffee but to show the table and chairs and pavement.

The next image I have used the technique of partly obscuring the person. I have deliberately taken the image so that the faces of the people are in the reflections of the water on the ground.

The next image uses the technique of taking the person in silhouette and making them small.

My final image for this exercise is to use motion blur.  Even though the person is facing me by using a slow shutter speed while they are walking past blurs the face making them unrecognisable.

Visit to RIBA

On Wednesday evening I attended a talk given by the assistant curator, Jonathan Makepeace, at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). It was a general introduction to the rich resource of the RIBA's collection of architectural photographs. 

The Photographs Collection  is intended for the study of architecture and related subjects such as interior design, topography, landscape, construction and planning.

It contains over 1.5 million images in a wide range of formats that includes negatives, prints, transparencies, postcards and digital files. The images include works from the earliest photographers and architects to the present day.

In two and a half hours it was only possible to see a tiny selection.  What we saw was an extraordinary selection of some of the most well known masters of photography, many of them unknown to me before.

My preference and interest in photography has focused on images of people.  My favourite are documentary or portrait  photographers.  To begin with I thought I was going to find it difficult to summon enthusiasm for architectural photography, so I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered exciting and inspirational work.  Eric de Maré, Lucien Hervé, Hélène Binet for starters.

This evening I was introduced to even more photographers and concepts that got me excited and wanting to know more about their work and practices.

One of the first surprises was that most of the early architectural photographers were actually architects.  It makes sense but I had never thought about it before. Architects understand how to draw buildings correctly, how to correct converging verticals.  These skills transfer comfortably to photography.  They knew how to use the bellows and lens, moving them independently to correct these distortions.  Today we use tilt and shit lenses.

Others transferred comfortably from painting and drawing to photography.

One of these was Edouard Baldus, who came to Paris to study painting. After ten years with little success as a painter, he abandoned his easel and picked up a camera. He was quickly recognised as a photographer with a unique ability to combine aesthetic sensitivity with technical accuracy. This won him a contract with the French government to document the Roman and Medieval buildings of France.
                      

Many of the early images included more of the environment creating  beautiful images of the building or structure, the environment and often included people. An example of this is shown in Samuel Bourne's photo (right). A statement on things as they exist. An accurate record of the place.                                                            Many of the items in RIBA archives have details and notes on the back of the prints outlining how the photographer wanted the image processed.  How it was to be cropped. Areas specified where dodging and burning was to take place.  Even cloning out details. Photoshop has not brought us anything new, just an easier way to do it.

In the early 20th century Eric de Mare was one of Britain's most influential architectural photographers, he focused on industrial structures this work became known as "functional tradition."  His images were carefully composed, everything within the frame had been considered. He was hugely influential on architectural photography taking it outside of the confines of the architects realm, appealing to the wider public.  An example of his work below shows how striking his images are.  I love the juxtaposition of old and new and how it is beautifully framed by the trees.  An image like this is still striking in the 21st century. 

By the 60's and 70's the style of architectural photography was more graphic in style and focused on detail shots. A classic example of this type of work is by Judith Turner.  This modernist approach was controversial just like everything else in this period.  It reminds me a little of the clothing fashions of the time.  When I look at this image I think of Mary Quant.

Another even less popular style of architectural photography appeared around 1969- 1970.  A body of work titled Manplan was commissioned from a group of photojournalists.  This was far removed from any previous architectural photography, largely shot on 35mm film, lots of people and showing life as it really was. Often taken under grey skies or wet weather these grainy images were not popular with the architects who felt these images reflected negatively on their work.

The evening passed really quickly so it was a very quick look at photographs from the 21st century.  Richard Bryant is one of the most widely known and respected architectural photographers at present.  Most of the images we are seeing now are beautiful crisp, glossy, coloured images.