City: Shoot and Final Prints

For my City shoot, i chose to use the city of Canterbury. Its a big student town, filled with lots of different people and interesting characters, so i thought that this would be the best place to get the street photography shots i was after. Armed with my 35mm slr, i took to the streets with it round my neck and a caple trigger in hand and began shooting. I shot 3 rolls of film, but for some reason, only one of them came out, the others came out completly blank.






I had set the shutter speed to 1/60th of a second, and the aperture wide open at f3.3. This was because it was a dark overcast day. Also, i felt that the bluring in the images would help to emphasize the fast pace of city life. Unfortunatly, this also meant that the fast majority of the images were just blurry and not really useable. Out of the images i managed to pick out 5 that i felt worked best.


As all of the images were taken with the same exposure settings, i tried to make prints using the same settings to keep them all looking the same. I found the perfect exposure time was 10 seconds, and to add some contrast, i split that 5 seconds on grade 2, and 5 seconds on grade 5.

Body: Shoot and Final Image

The effect i was going for with my image was to have a pure white background, and an evenly lit model in the foreground. To do this, i used the following lighting setup.

The boards on either side of the backdrop reflected the light back onto the back drop. Both lights were on the same power to make the lighting even. With thee 2, the background measured at f22. To light my model, i used a large softbox that was positioned right above the camera and right in front of the subject. I turned this flash down to measure f8, giving a large enough gap between the background and subject exposures. This means that when i exposed for my subject, the background would be over exposed and would come out pure white.

My first roll of film showed that i had over exposed the images slightly to begin with. Also, the model was too close to the backdrop, so the background flashes were spilling onto him. I moved him forward and shot another roll.

These images were better exposed, and i was happier with the poses of my model. I marked with red pen the images i wanted to use.

Printing the final images, i wanted them to be very contrasty. The white shirt that my model was wearing was nearly blending into the background, so i wanted to darken everything else in the image. I started off by making a test strip to find my ideal exposure time.

From this i worked out that the best exposure time was around 15 seconds at grade 2. To bring in some contrast, i started to add some grade 5. My second test strip was made with 10 seconds at grade 2, and 5 seconds at grade 5. This gave just the right amount of contrast i was after.These were my final images.

There was still some leaked light at the bottom of te image that i could have cropped out, but i decided to leave it as the images looked wierd being just from the waist up. Picking the 2 images where my model kept the same facial expression really helped to show this idea of how we see people differently when we know they have tattoos.

Object/Body: Critical Appraisal

The Object project was one I found particularly hard. Still life isn’t a subject I found particularly interesting previously, and so I didn’t find myself really getting into the project. I decided to look at the idea of being a student, and the struggles that come with it. My initial inspiration for the project was the work of Andy Warhol, in particular his work “Campbell’s Soup Cans”. The repetitiveness of the pieces was very similar to what I found eating as a student was like. I then looked at Martina Mullaney’s work, called dinner for one, which looked at the eating habits of people who lived alone. Trying to show this in the studio was tricky. I used a single light to emphasize this feeling of being alone, whilst making a mess with the food to show the little respect for cleanliness students have.

The body project was probably the most enjoyable, and I think my most successful project. I started looking at the social status that comes with being tattooed, but my project evolved into how the public and employers view tattoos, and the discrimination shown towards them. I looked at the work of Richard Avedon, who’s work “In the American West” heavily inspired the styling of my pieces. I chose to present my work as a diptych, one image showing someone covering their tattoos, whilst the other showing them off. The point of the images is to show how differently people are seen when they have tattoos, and how we see them when we don’t know they have them. I found my model at a local hardcore gig in Chatham, and he was more than happy to help me with the project. I was happy with the final images, but I would have liked to have explored different ways of representing this idea.

Environment/City: Critical Appraisal

For my environment unit, I chose to look at the effect that we have on the environment. I started by researching the artist Mitch Epstein. His work depicting the growing population of China, and its effect on their landscape was my main inspiration for the project. After the critique of my first shoot, I realised that I needed to continue shooting, as my first images didn’t show this idea of expansion. I wanted to build up a much larger collection of images for this project, but I struggled in finding places that matched what I wanted to photograph. After my second shoot, I had 3 images I was happy with, although I had had to shoot them on a 35mm camera. Due to this I printed some of the images smaller to retain detail, but I was overall happy with my final prints.

The city I found a lot more difficult. My initial thoughts for the project were to look at the unseen parts of the city, but due to an error whilst shooting, I had to complexly rethink my approach with the time I had left. It was at this point that I came across the work of Bruce Gildan, who specialised in street photography. I started to shoot around the city of Canterbury, photographing people walking the streets without making myself to obvious. I shot a single roll of black and white 35mm film, and managed to take 5 images I was happy with. I had wanted to use medium format for the shoot, but the relatively small size of the 35mm slr meant that I could be as inconspicuous as possible.

City: Bruce Gildan

Bruide Gildan is a modern day street photographer,. who is famous for his work in New York City. His style is catching people off guard in the streets, usually approaching them up close with a flash when they arent expecting it. This approach is very different to most street photographers, as they try not to alert their subjects to the fact that they are having their picture taken.

His work is all taken on 35mm, black and white film, and has a very grainy feel to it. This is key in understanding what his photos are trying to show. He has said that "when you can smell the street through the photo, then it's street photography". He looks for characters on the street, people who are more interesting than everyone around them. Its this that i want to try and capture through my work, as i believe that the people make the city and not just the buildings. However for my photos, im going to take the opposite approach, and try and be as descreet as possible with my camera.

City: Street Photography

Street photography is a really interesting concept to me. It seems to be the only way to get an honest representation of the city and the people who populate it. Ive been looking at the work of Henri Carter-Bresson. He pioneered the field of modern photojournalism, taking to the streets with his hand held camera, and taking pictures of every day happenings around the citys. 

This image was taken in Hyeres, France. Carter-Bresson's idea with his pictures was that the camera was an extention of his own eye, and that he was capturing eternity with his images.This is a perfect example of this. Without the use of a camera, this cyclist would have just passed by unnoticed, and not been remembered. A big part of what made this style possible was the introduction of the 35mm camera. Carter-Bresson liiked the annonimity that the small camera gave him in confined/packed spaces. It helped him overcome peoples natural reactions to being photographed. As soon as you dont know you're being photographed, you become more yourself, and less what you want people to see.

With this in mind, id really like to explore the world of street photography for my project. To me, the people in the city are what makes the city, more than the buildings or area. This way i can show the different sides of the city and who is in it. Because i want to keep up this annonimity, i will aim to use my 35mm camera for the project.