Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Photojournalism Assignment Piece - North South Divide


Nikon D300, ISO 800, 70mm, f/8, 0.6 sec

The opening image was taken as an establishing shot. Due to the nature of this assignment piece there is very little chance to capture an image that establishes what images are about to come. Therefore  a still life image was composed for the establishing shot. The title was included along with a deliberate choice of colour for the title to represent the political finding of Prof Dorling's research.



Nikon D700, ISO 125, 52mm, f/10, 1/160 sec


The opening image was taken at the beach just South of Cleethorpes. The image was purposely composed to balance the frame using the rule of thirds, the sky is a third of the frame with the drilling platform on the cross section a third of a way in. This shot is looking East into the North Seas and represents the furthest point East on the divide line.




Nikon D700, ISO 125, 75mm, f/11, 1/20 sec


This composition was taken in response to one of the photojournalist rules - Irony. This image represents a common occurrence in today society, heavy industry next to a living environment. In the picture there are leading lines of the road drawing the eye into the center of image and onto the industrial complex. To the left are the houses and the school sign suggesting a school establishment in close proximity. 
This image was taken near Ulceby the most Northern point of the North South Divide.





Nikon D700, ISO 125, 24mm, f/8.0, 1/100 sec


Following on from the image above this image also represent the change in society and entertainment needs. Here in Gainsborough an old theater building has been converted from its original use into Kings Night club. The building is striking with its original Neoclassic architecture, although this does include the additional Kings logo above the main entrance. To give the image depth the composition has purposely been captured slightly off centre to provided improved perspective lines (camera obscura).




 

Nikon D700, 24mm, f/8.0, 1/160 sec


The next period of the journey travels down the A156 through flat unbroken countryside. This next image represents this countryside. The use of lead lines in the ploughed field next to the grass track lead to the main aspect of the composition - the tree. The light was coming from the East which was behind the camera lighting the composition to the front, this was the  main deciding fact when choosing which side of the road to take from.




Nikon D300, 120mm, f/10, 1/160 sec


At the village of Torskey looking West sees the power station at Cottam. As it was a cold clear day the plumes of steam from the cooling towers took on ghostly forms. The composition was framed with iron railings in the foreground, the recently harvested grain crop centre frame and  the towers in background.





Nikon D300, ISO100, 31mm, f/10, 1/80th sec, Filter ND4


The next image is taken further down the divide line, reasons explained in the conclusion at the bottom of the blog. This image has been composed with the lampost to the left and right creating a frame. This image represents the modern day travel with telegraph masts and white vans motoring along mundane lamposted Redditch roads.







Nikon D700, ISO 125, 34mm, f/8.0

Along the A448 in the direction of Studley this boarded house can be found. This house must have been vacant for sometime to be boarded up as its not a scene generally seen in the countryside. The use of the gate as an arrow directs the eyes into the composition. The use of perspective again adds depth to the composition.






Nikon D700, ISO 100, 35mm, f/8.0, 1/80 sec

On the outskirts of Alcester the local football team share a field with the sheep - saves on lawn mower costs.  At the weekend this field transforms into battle field with wannabe David Beckhams strutting their stuff. This after wheeling the football posts into position and changing in the adopted shipping freight containers and taking a leak in the portaloo.







Nikon D700, ISO 800, 20mm, f/8.0, 1/250 sec


On the boarder of the Cotswold's is the picturesque town of Broadway. One of the entry roads into the town you will find a roadside self serve stall. These stalls can be found all around Britain. However, what make this one slightly different is the produce it sells.






Nikon D700, ISO 100, 70mm, f/9.0, 1/25 sec


With the advent of the mobile phone the need for the old red phone box is less and less required. This box has seen better day with broken window and peeling paint. This has been captured for prosperity as in ten years time they probably won't exist. B4077 Broadway to Tewkesbury.





Nikon D700, ISO 250, 34mm, f/11, 1/30 sec


Just further down the road from the telephone box was the disused outbuilding. Nature was claiming this building back with the undergrowth making  inroads.




Nikon D700, ISO 400, 24mm, f/11, 1/200 sec


This image taken in the centre of Tewkesbury attracts the eye with the white railing with the repetitive patterns that run around the perimeter of the block of flats.





Nikon D700, ISO 100, 38mm, f/10, 1/80 sec


The downside of the recent recession is the closure of business. On the road from Tewkesbury to Gloucester is Downshire Car Sales. This before the recession was a busy business now there is not a car in sight. This image was captured to show the downside of business.



 



Nikon D700, ISO 100, 24mm, f/11, 1/60 sec

The North South Divide finishes at Gloucester. This shot of Gloucester Dock is the conclusion image. The camera was positioned at the far side of the docks in the direction of the canal that flows into the River Severn. The warehouse building helps with perspective  and directs the eye into the centre of the composition which is the position of the canal.






Nikon D700, ISO 100, 20mm, f/11, 1/60 sec


The final image is taken from the North bank of the River Severn looking West. The image is intended to be the aesthetic final shot. With the sun setting the North South Divide is visible by the way of the River Severn, a physical point of reference.



Learning Outcomes:


1. Throughout this task I have obtained a better understanding of the role of a photojournalist, the different types of photojournalism along with the different ways to present contemporary imagery.

3. Tenacity - Partway through the shoot I had a feeling that this assignment was not working out. The plan was to take two days to follow the path of the North South Divide. Due to this lack of faith I stopped in the afternoon on the first day and returned home. After further research of Mark Powers work and assessing the images from the mornings work, I decided that there was something worth pursuing.

4. At the start of the journey I felt very self conscience working in the way I previous describe, weighted tripod, cable release etc. However, by the end of the journey I came over these fears and would actually work this way again after seeing the results.












Photojournalim Background Research - North South Divide

From the short list of ideas the one which had the greatest depth for a documentary was the 'North South Divide. This initial idea had originated from an article in the Guardian Newspaper 12th September 2010 by Zoe Wood. The article presented the facts that although the current recession had officially ended the residents of Blackpool would be hard to convince of this fact when presented with the state of shops on their high street. Information from 'Local Data Company' had comprised a league table of shop vacancies in town centres throughout the UK. Blackpool headed the list of most vacant shops. In fact it was worst for the North when comparing the worst 25 cities, all being in the North apart from 3 in the south. Included in the top 10 cities along with Blackpool were Bradford, Manchester and Leeds.





The concept was to visit these cities and document the state of play in these town centres. However, when discussing these ideas with tutorial staff and when researching styles of documentary photography the initial ideas changed direction at pace. Due to the nature of style of researched photography a pattern was emerging - that of indexing. Further researching into  photographers of this style of photography, likes of Mark Power and Paul Graham, developed the concept further. Rather than do a piece on specific  North South cities, actually take a journey along the North South Divide. The North South Divide is a fictitious concept, their is no physical divide. However, Danny Dorling, professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield, produced a map for an exhibition at the Lowery, on 'The Myths of the North'. He based this map on life expectancy, house prices, education and even looked at political voting patterns.





This map is the bases of the journey along the North South Divide. Starting on the East coast just South of Cleethorpes to the most Northern point at Ulceby to the farthest point West, Gloucester Docks, then along the centre of the River Severn into the Bristol Channel. The actual line on Prof Dorling's  divide does not follow any transport or road system but will pass through town or countryside as appropriate.

One idea put forward was to capture the view looking North then West. However it was felt that there would not be enough compositional difference to express to the viewer. So taking a leaf out of Mark Powers work, a journey was planned to follow as near to or on the line taking images found on that route. As the route transits along many different landscapes then a representation of the divide will be captured.

Photojournalism Research - Influencing Photographers

With any photo assignment it's advantageous to research existing photographers for the different conceptual approaches they employ. As the idea for this assignment was intended to be more social documentary than Photojournalism, then so were the photographers researched appropriate for this style of imagery. For this assignment I researched  the following image makers for inspiration and compositional concepts:



Bernd and Hilla Becher - The Bechers are advocates of New Objectivity, this is were the majority of subjectivity is removed and the composition is photographed in its true form. They are most famous for creating the typology - similar objects are presented in a grid system so subtle differences can be observed. The other thing they are renowned for is systemically capturing images of industrial establishments. They opened the way for any structure to be seen as artistic image making.










Paul Graham - 'A1- The Great North Road' was seen as a mile stone for British social documentary photography. Graham captured colour images which was a break from the black and white norm of the day. This was his first book that documented the 400 mile Great North Road from London to Edinburgh.  This book includes the harsh and mundane realities of the time, capturing fascinating images of everyday life along the entire length of this old established road.











Mark Power - Much like Graham, Power uses a conceptual idea to explore social documentary imagery. This can be seen in his collection of photographers 'The Shipping Forecast'. Power explores the fascination that radio listeners have to the BBC Radio 4 program that provides the weather condition surrounding the British Isles. Listener are transported into a land of foreign sounding  names and areas that drive the imagination wild. He very cleverly used this audience imagination and went around Britain take images of what he found in the nautical areas. He followed this concept up in his book '26 Different Endings', The A -Z London Street Atlas. His concept was to follow the border of this published map taking imagery of what he found that had just fallen off the edge of the boundary line.








John Davies - Slightly different from the above photographers, Davies has a much broader concept for his chosen subject matter. Still preferring to use analogue techniques to modern digital equipment, his imagery is no less impressive. His book 'The British Landscape'  is a collection of black and white urban and natural landscapes  presented  with total clarity and definition from an elevated position.







Conclusion

These four artist have influenced both conceptual ideas through to photographic technique for the Photojournalism assignment. Not wanting to copy their methods directly I have taken bits from each to try and create a unique style.

Photojournalism - Ideas

The title for the photojournalism assignment was 'The Past Reveals the Present'. This was meant to challenge the student in producing a story in picture form of a  historical event  that has meaning in the present day.

There where three main ideas I wanted to explore:


1. North South Divide

2. All Roads lead to Mancunia

3. The Faithfully City


The North South Divide - I had recently read a story in the tabloids that had presented the old stereotype categorisation - North being poor the South being rich. The story presented facts that the recession in Britain was having more of an effect on the North than the South. Shop closures in cities and towns was more prevalent in the North, with Blackpool having the most closures. I had the idea of taking images of the town centres of the worst effect areas.


All Roads lead to Mancunia - Watching the daily migration of cars winging their way to the centre of Manchester made me think of how the working  life has changed.  Due to technology,  vast amounts of the population  travel great distances to work. New terms have been invented for this phenomonom - the commuter, rush hour and road rage to name a few. The ideas was to take a twenty five mile radius around Manchester and photograph this daily morning and evening commuter occurrence.


The Faithfully City -  My home town of Worcester is steeped in History. It obtain the title of ' The Faithfully City' due to allegance to the King at the time of the English Civil War. A major battle was fought at Worcester where troops loyal to Cromwell won. King Charles II escaped to France after this battle. The idea was to photograph the areas of the Battles and show how evidence can still be found around the city of the loyalty shown to the King.

Photojournalism - Assignment Techniques

The initial concept was to capture all images using  Large Format with coloured Polaroid film. However, with several discussions with the tutorial staff at the university it was advised to use full frame 35mm digital equipment. This was due to the time frame and nature of my conceptual idea which included a fair bit of traveling over a short period of time. Also, advice was given to follow the Large Format principles  to obtain the look and feel of analogue prints for the finished project. The techniques applied for this assignment are as followed.

  1. Full Frame Digital Camera
  2. Tripod weighted down
  3. Wide angle  prime lenses and Telephoto lens (dependent on composition)
  4. Aperture set to F8 to F11 
  5. Setting - Aperture priority
  6. Focus point at a third of a way into frame (Hyper Focal Distance)
  7. Mirror Lock-up
  8. Camera release

These techniques enable the camera to be extremely stable reducing any camera shake. This also helped in the composing of images, to ensure all images were in focus from front to back of frame.  Researching the hyperfocal distance found a table that indicated what distance into the frame to focus, from the camera. This was dependent on focal length and f.stop and sensor size. Eg F8, focal length 20mm - focus 5.6ft into the frame from camera (full frame). The other rule applied was to focus a third of a way into frame, which is slightly less accurate but does achieved acceptable results. The settings was set to aperture priority as a small range of f.stops from F8 to Fll the speed was negated with the use of the weighted tripod.

All images were captured in colour but the option of converting them into grayscale was achieved  by capturing images with more variation in texture and tone.


All students had to present their initial images at a 20/20 session (20 images talked about for 20 seconds per image). At this presentation the images shown came straight from the camera with little or no  Lightroom manipulation. As the images were captured on two separate days with different weather conditions, and were of different subject matter they didn't quite fit together. The whole project's success depended on the creative treatment applied. Yet again with discussion with the tutorial staff, instruction was given on how to obtain the black and white film large format style. This technique involved converting the image into grayscale with the use of a customised preset. Then exporting into PS4 and converting to a PDS file, before exporting back into Lightroom. This enables the user to add extra creative treatment to the exported file.

By converting all images to grayscale it brought the project together and provided a common theme over varying subject matter.

Photojournalism Research - Sequence of Shots

Photojournalism is a collection of images that portray a story or documents an event or fact. However, photojournalists spend a great deal of time ensuring certain images are captured and incorporated to ensure the story is told in an sequential way.



Sequence of Images

Establishing Image - Any good photojournalism story has an image that captures the viewing audiences attention in the first instance. The establishing image also tries to portray the story in its entirety so the audience understands what the story is about.

Portrait Image - Incorporating a portrait make the story more personal. This may be an image that the viewer can associate or sympathies with.

Detail Image  - Adding as much detail  provides the viewer with extra information to fully appreciate the story.

Action Image -  By incorporating action within the story gives a sense of movement or urgency.

Conclusion Image - The conclusion image is intend to wrap the story up.

Aesthetic Image -  The final image in the series is meant to leave the viewer in reflective mood. If the photojournalist has done his job properly the viewer will have been presented with a photographic narrative that highlights a story or event home or abroad.

Helmshore Textile Museum



My response to this week's Photojournalism assignment was to explore Helmshore Textile Museum. Situated in the heart of Lancashire you will find one of  Rossendale Valley's most fascinating historic attractions. This site  comprises of two Mills, Higher Mill and Whittaker Mill to form Helmshore Textile Museum. A tour of this site takes you on a journey that explores the production of cloth from the eighteenth century through to the mid twentieth century when production stopped at the mill.




 


On the tour you are presented with the historic role that Lancashire played in the industrial revolution. I found that it wasn't necessarily the production of cloth that intrigued me but the machinery that was invented to produce said cloth. It was this engineering that made Great Britain the world leader it was.






I found myself drawn to the intricacies of the machinery. In today's world where there is a constant race to make items smaller  and cheaper, it's good to remind ourselves where it all began. These four images are prime examples. 




  



 However, it wasn't all plain sailing for those that worked in these mills. There was a real risk of death. This was either by entanglement with machinery (limbs were regularly lost,) or  by fire. Cotton had to be kept extremely dry, it would only take a small spark from the machinery to start a blaze.





Before electricity became the main power source for the machinery water was used. This entailed having a reservoir of water close to the mill  to  power a water wheel that in  turn powered machinery through a pulley system. The image below shows the reservoir behind the mill.





With any industry there has to be a good transport system. There was no difference at Helmshore  Mills. The old rail tracks and infrastructure can still be seen next to the mill and through the village.



In 1860 Helmshore was the site of a railway crash. 100 passengers were injured and eleven lost their lives. The accident happened between Helmshore and Ramsbottom, where 16 carriages broke free from a stationery train stopped at Helmshore Station. The carriages sped 400 yard down the track and were hit by an oncoming train from Ramsbottom





 



The above images are what's left of the railway line between Ogden Viaduct and Helmshore Railway Station, the scene of the 1860 crash.




Photojournalism - Weekly Task 24th Sep 2010

Start of a new year start of a new assignment - Photojournalism. This week's task is to visit a museum of our choice within the next 7 days, concentrating on the stories that emerge from these venues. With this information to hand create a picture story illustrating the historic events that have taken place.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Studio Light - Practice Day

Background:

A number of students and I organised a practice day to use studio lighting. We wanted to practice light set ups for our 'people' assignment. We had just gone thought the process of researching the different genres  of portrait photography and now it was time to emulate some of those examples. The actual images were not the important factor as they would show little of the human condition. The most important was to get the right look for our future projects.




Set up 1:


We had all agreed that we wanted to experiment with Low Key. The diagram above show the simple set up. We had 1 studio light set to continues lighting with a medium size diffuser set at 45/45, with the camera facing the model. This was a technique we all had used in semester 1.


The image above is just one from this session. The lighting is ok but the image is a little flat. A second light adding highlights would have just lifted this image.


Set up 2:


This set up was similar to set up up 1 but with the light coming from behind at a 45 degree angle. We just were experimenting to see what difference the light would have on the model.


Yet again we learnt something here. The light from the back does exactly what it should, light the back of the model. However, the face area is dark and dull. On reflection we should have used a modifier for more dramatic light to the the rear and balanced a second light with diffuser to the front.



Set up 3:


As the above experiments had not really given us what we were after it was time to experiment further.


We had realised that one source of light was not giving the dynamism required. We still used one light but bounced the light source back with a white reflector. To absorb any tray light we positioned a black panel in between the light and reflect as show above. We were still looking to light one side of the face with the other side dark.



This was closer to what we were striving to obtain. The face to one side is lit but has the extra elements of light reflected to create subtle highlights. The shot in lightroom show this a lot better than here on the blog.


We experimented a little further with this set up. We introduced a fluorescent daylight from the left. We had two different colours of light here. Tungsten warm and orange in colour to the fluorescent colder bluer light. This didn't quite work as the contrast of light was too extreme. However, when converting this in lightroom to greyscale, the colours are made redundant but the tone from the daylight add a dramatic highlight.























Time for a change:


This final set up was something George had wanted to recreate after attended a lighting lecture from Andy. However, it didn't seem to work. We went back to basics and set up one light at a time to see the effect. This was a better way to work and we got to what George was trying to show us.

























We had three lights, beauty dish to the right a 45/45 aimed at the top side of the face. The second light was a softbox to the left with a fluorescent light also to the left. This was screened by a foam board to shield stray light. The following images  show the images being built up by light source.






The first light source was the lightbox from the left. Next light to be added was the fluorescent daylight, followed by the beauty dish. We ran out of time before really experimenting with the strength of lights. However, what can be seen is the thin strip of detailed highlight running down the left hand side of the model. The beauty dish needs to be turned up to balance the light on the face to the right as it is a little dark.




Learning Outcomes:

1. This day was all about experimenting with light. Some of these set ups just didn't work. However, the learning curve was superior to if we had stumbled on to the most amazing light set up at the first go. Recreating it would be very difficult without fully understanding why it worked in the first pace.

2. It was a great exercise not to concentrate on framing or posing but just to concentrate on the way the light effects the model.

3. I have learnt so much form these experiments, this really gave me the impetus to try more set ups to see how they work.



Contact Sheet: