Two sides of a story - Cousins

Cousins

I took the opportunity of a weekend’s babysitting to create my first assignment. My own teenaged offspring love having their younger cousins to stay and relish in the excuse they provide to relive their childhood. Climbing trees and making dens are fast becoming a thing of the past so when it comes along, they grab it with both hands.

Great fun however comes with great responsibility; the other side of the story I have chosen to show is the passage from child to adulthood, those moments when the older children change from friend to carer. Such relationships change intermittently and often with such subtlety, no one notices. As evening draws in however, young ones tire and the caring role becomes more prominent.

A walk in a nearby village provided the backdrop for our photo-shoot; I knew from past experience that we’d find enough fun activities to show the brighter side of having cousins to stay. I wasn’t sure how many ‘carer’ moments would occur naturally so I prepared my models for a bit of acting. Despite moving around very quickly and getting in each other’s shots, I was really impressed with their willingness and ability to act out given situations.

On the way home, the youngest cousin some great opportunities for real life caring shots, as she grew too weary to carry on.

Although street photography is more commonly used in an urban setting, I took some of the learning from this genre for my assignment. I approached the task using only one lens, my 50mm, 1.8 prime for several reasons; Henri Cartier-Bresson believes that retaining a fixed focal length can help to develop an instinctive knowledge of how a photograph will look, 50mm producing images almost as the eye sees made this an obvious choice.

I chose a black & white format for my images in order to focus on the facial expressions and body language without the distraction of colour. I had chosen to take the photographs during the evening golden hour to add some interesting lighting. However, the change in light during the hour and movement between the shade of the woods and the full light of the riverside let to a set, which didn’t feel cohesive. Converting to black & white solved any colour issues while improving the effects of motion blur gained due to the slowly diminishing light. Working with a combination of young children and potentially moody teenagers meant that I had to work quickly and capture moments with limited time to think about settings and perspective. In some cases, I asked the children to pause or repeat a motion, however these images did not make the final cut. I felt that truly candid moments by far outweighed a technically perfect image.

My first set shows the four playing freely, good friends together:

Fun times ahead

.   Monkeys                                        Room for two

Builders

.  cosy home                                      Hide and seek

...........................................................

The second set shows a change in dynamics as teenagers care for their younger cousins:

Guiding hand                                        Leg up     .

Debug

I'm done

 Stones 

Carthorse

* Images can be seen full screen on my Flickr page *

My original idea for this assignment was to cover the issue of domestic violence. Using a couple of friends as models, I planned to portray a woman dressed up for a night out with friends, seemingly enjoying the evening. The flip side of the coin would show the woman before and after the night out, revealing the truth of what she faced at home and the effort taken to cover up this side of her life.
I was really pleased with the images I produced for the darker side of the story, however due to the following factors, I didn't have enough usable images for the night out:

• This part of the story was very rushed as the extras could only spare a short amount of time before going out. This was unsuccessful as we didn't have time to settle into the shoot; many images ended up with the models facing each other directly rather than slightly towards camera. 
• The outfit worn by the main character was too tarty; I felt that the two sides of the story would have worked better if the character had looked more respectable to the outsider. This was my fault as I didn't communicate properly what I wanted.
• I was trying to make a kitchen look like a nightclub using clever lighting but didn't pull it off. Many of my images were far too contrasty with essential parts of faces obscured by shadow. 

I have learned from this assignment that preparation, communication and planning an appropriate time schedule are all vital elements in a planned photoshoot. I felt that this was an interesting idea and am disappointed that I didn't make it work. I will take what I have learned from this experience to improve my approach to future units.

References:

Reyes, J. (2013). Five Levels of Street Photography. Available: http://juanjosereyes.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/the-five-levels-of-street-photography/. Last accessed 30th October 2014.

Kim, E. (2011). 10 Things Henri Cartier Breton can teach you about Street Photography. Available: http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2011/08/22/10-things-henri-cartier-bresson-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/. Last accessed 30th October 2014.

The real and the digital

Does digital technology change how we see photography as truth?

As a big fan of Photoshop and its many uses, I am all too aware of its ability to distort the truth. In a previous post, objectivity in documentary photography, I discussed how perspective and timing among other things could skew the meaning of a photograph. With the evolution of digital technology, we now have the ability to distort the truth beyond recognition.

My role teaching life skills to teenagers involves support with body image; it is well known that today’s media presents an alarmingly unrealistic image of celebrities, leaving young people striving for the physical perfection seen in magazines.

In order to counteract this pressure, I use the Dove Evolution commercial, showing the make over and editing involved in order to prepare an ordinary woman for an appearance in an advertising campaign.

As noted by Joachim Schmid, we are all guilty of mainly presenting our better side to the world, not just in our images but also in the aspects of our lives, which we post to social networking sites. Some, like in the magazine images, may even get a little creative with the truth.

I suppose the question we need to ask is; has technology made this happen, is it only in the technological world that we behave in this way?

In our everyday lives we wear clothes and make up to present a particular image of ourselves to the world; looking back through history, corsets and bustles have squeezed and shaped women’s figures into the acceptable shape of the era. Bumping into old friends whilst shopping, we only offer the family news that sheds us in a positive light.

The photograph, just like every medium at our disposal, now and historically is merely a tool to provide evidence of that which we want to portray.

 Technology hasn’t changed us; it’s just made it pretending a little bit easier.

A Composite Image

A year or two ago, a fellow member of a photography based Facebook group posted an image entitled, ‘Striped Stockings’ by a photographer named Ricky O’Neil. It was a composite image of a woman’s legs wearing red striped socks shot under water, with a miniature city sitting on the riverbed. It looked like a giant standing over an under water world and although I didn’t take much meaning from it, I found it pleasing to look at.

Striped Stockings - Ricky O'Neil

The image provoked much discussion about where the line should be drawn where an image can no longer be classed as photography. AS far as I’m concerned, if you’ve had your camera out, it’s definitely at least a branch of photography; other more purist members felt otherwise so the image raised some interesting points.

Aside from the discussion, we also challenged each other to create our own composite images. This was my attempt:

The main image was taken on holiday in Scotland. Driving round a bend, I couldn’t resist parking up and capturing the view before me. The bugs were mainly taken in or around my garden; bugs are great for focus practise so I had quite a few images knocking about. The stick insects were our pets at the time so were easy to shoot from any angle.

I think if I did this image again now, I’d show more control over merging the images, however I do like the composition and overall feel of the image.

Sarah Pickering – Public order

I suppose my initial thoughts on seeing Sarah Pickering’s ‘Flicks Nightclub’ images were a little different to most. Having lived above a nightclub in my early twenties, the images brought back memories of playing Scalextric on the roof and after club parties.

The image of the front of the club, to me appears far from dangerous; broad daylight, no dark corners, alleyways or cars for danger to lurk behind. In fact, I would imagine that if this were a real street, there’d be a McDonalds about two or three streets away. I would assume that the windows were boarded up to exclude daylight from the club but maybe I’m being too logical. Having been unable to access any images of the collection online, I can only judge from the two provided in the course folder.

It appears that the streets photographed are not actually real streets but are from towns set up for police to practise real-life emergencies. Yet again, contrary to the unease felt by the course writers, I am pleased that such places exist. Just imagine arriving at your first emergency as a newly qualified police officer, surely you would enter the situation with more confidence if your training had included real life scenarios.

Consider the 2011 London riots; would it be possible to recreate such an atmosphere in a large white training room with desks and a coffee machine in the corner?

Unlike Seawright’s images, which have left a lasting impression on my consciousness, this set leaves me with no more than a ‘Oh, that’s quite interesting’.

Documentary as art

Paul Seawright – Sectarian murders

At first glance, Paul Seawright’s ‘Sectarian Murders’ appears to be a set of artistically shot photographs of parks and beauty spots, although some do feature less attractive locations. It is only on reading the text beneath that the purpose of the project becomes clear; the images show a collection of locations where people were murdered on the grounds of their religion.

Although I knew the title of the set, I still found it shocking viewing images of play equipment followed up with a description of the terrible events that happened there. My initial thoughts are that this method of mixing art with documentary has much more impact than if they were more factual shots as you may see in a newspaper.

Seawright’s work has been criticised for not being explicit enough; his response to this is that if the meaning were given away too freely, the work would become journalistic. Art should give people space to create their own meanings; it should engage them and draw them in slowly. He feels that the challenge is to find the balance between explicit, journalistic work and that which is so ambiguous, it loses all meaning.

The text under Seawright’s images gives a definite context to the images, opening up a whole new set of meanings for the viewer. This new meaning will depend on many things, their religious and political stance, how close they live to the area, whether they are personally involved in this or a similar event. Whatever their background, it would be difficult not to feel the jolt as art meets context.

Looking back at the images, it then becomes clear than many of the images appear to be taken from the eyes of the deceased; low set images taken from ground level or behind a bush, one showing life carrying on regardless as a dog ambles past; another level of understanding creeps in.

Resident at Belfast Print Workshop Gallery, Seawright displays his collection of war imagery; many being layered screen prints of military surveillance maps and satellite imagery to create abstract works. He also shows text-based works, representing a personal side of war, entitled ‘Christian’ and ‘Summer’. While Summer lists names of Iraqi people killed in the war in the space of one week, Christian lists the names of soldiers killed in the war. Rather than list the full names and ranks of the soldiers, Seawright opts to only use Christian names, giving a more personal note; these are not represented as soldiers, but people, shown to us as they are known by their loved ones.

As with Sectarian Murders, we are drawn into this work at a deeper level of consciousness than if it had been a more explicit set; because of this, the work will have a greater impact and remain with us for much longer.

http://vimeo.com/76940827

http://vimeo.com/17220171