Ed Swinden

 We had a lecture by the photographer Ed Swindon who is a well known English street photographer who is inspired by the work of Martin Parr and Edward Hopper. I found his talk particularly interesting because he talked about his journey to getting where he is today and gave advice on how to get into photography, which I found really useful.

He started his talk by talking about how he started in photography to promote himself, and said he gained recognition by renting a building to use as an exhibition space, and created a free exhibition for people to see his work and get his name out there. He also mentioned how he had to use commercial work to pay the bills, doing a lot of wedding work and promotional photos for bands, and also taking photos for the BBC's Doctor Who.

He then went on to his street work, and talked about how he achieved it. He said the main key to street photography, is to be patient to try and catch the everyday incidents. He said it's important to learn the way light portrays things, so you can use the shadows in your favour and know when you will get the shot you want. He does very little editing to his images, so he focuses on getting the shot perfect first time through the camera rather than only getting it through Photoshop. He likes to create the feeling of loneliness within the overwhelming huge city. He also likes to create the oppressive feeling of men becoming like machines in the clockwork routine of everyday life.

'The main skill to street photography, is to look for things that aren't happening' I found this statement particularly interesting as it focuses on the idea of finding beauty in the world that we overlook everyday. The way his images are showing people just walking by with their daily lives, is nothing special in itself, but the way it is shot and the use of composition and light shows his skill as a photographer and creates the art within the image. He said the best camera to use for street photography is as small as possible, you don't want to draw attention to yourself, you need to stay within the background to get the natural shots.

He then went on to talk more about how to make a name for yourself as a photographer and gave a lot of tips on how to become a great photographer.

- RESEARCH. Learn what other photographers are doing, find the ones you like and remember their names, if you don't know the names you'll just show yourself as being ignorant.

- Know what's popular at the moment, but don't be a sheep. Develope it and experiment with it with your own style.

- Try every genre and technique, even if you think it's rubbish.

- Use yourself as a model so you can be experimental with lighting, learn it all properly and be patient.

- Practise how every part of your camera and equipment works until it becomes automatic to you.

- Do as much self-publishing and self-promotion as you can.

- Make a website to promote yourself.

- Use everything you can to promote yourself and show off your work! Business cards, portfolios, competitions, networking etc. 

- Learn how to apply for a grant.

- Have future projects.

- Have a backup trade, you may need it to raise money for your next project.

- Go with your personality.

He finished by talking about the experience of being a photographer outside of London. He said the problem is, is that the majority of photography jobs are all in London, so your best bet at getting jobs would be to live in London. Of course the problem with that is, that there's a lot more photographers in London aswell, so there's a lot more competition you have to fight your way through. As being a photographer living outside of London, he said the experience worked out better for him, as even though there are less opportunities, there is also less competition, which makes it a lot easier to stand out.

His final point was to never be put down by failures. If something doesn't work, you should try something else. You will get things that don't work out how you planned, but you should just use that as motivation to succeed next time.

I found Ed Swindon's talk incredibly inspiring and interesting. Although I wasn't originally drawn to his work, he gave a lot of advice on what I should do to get to the status that he has, and I found this more useful than any other talk we've had. I also found it very impressive that he doesn't use Photoshop on his images, he manages to get such striking shadows and contrasts all through his camera.

Jon Burgerman

Jon Burgerman is a young artist who studied fine art at Nottingham Trent University. He starting off his work against all the big-money corporations and mocking them in his work, but he later went on to work for all those companies he had mocked. 

He started his career by drawing the CD cover for a friend, which gave him enough recognition to be approached by other companies who found him through his website. He has since done work for Sony, Pepsi, and created his own app for the iPhone.

After this he wanted to concentrate more on his own work rather than commercial jobs, so he started working with other artists and doing exhibitions all over the world. I found it interesting that for most exhibitions he said that he goes to the gallery a week before opening with no work, and creates it all on the walls and in canvases in the gallery.

A few more things I learnt from the talk with Jon Burgerman:

His favorite colour is yellow.

Creating a website is the best promotion you can do, get a website.

Enjoy what you do.

He is critical of his own work, so don't dwell on it when you first do it, reflect on it a few months or a year later so you can say 'it's not that bad actually'.

He got most famous for drawing on walls, so has now marketed his own wallpaper that you can colour in.

Student Photography Competition 2010

For this task we had to take some promotional images for the college of various members of students and staff. Within my group we had to use the location lighting equipment to set up an area in the college and ask random members of staff and students if they would be willing to have their photo taken for the project. This gave us the opportunity to practise using and setting up the location lighting and approaching strangers and convincing them to work with us politely. We were working in a big group so with limited time it was difficult to get many shots done, and as I dedicated most my time to asking people to model for the group, I only had time to shoot with 2 different models. 

Without much time to brainstorm ideas before the shoot, I found it very difficult to direct my models and where they should be positioned and how to pose. Due to my surroundings that we used I chose to try a simplistic look to my images and this meant I didn't need to consider too much the poses used and the props used.

If I were to do this again I would experiment more with multiple models and move the positioning of the chairs and tables in the image. I would also interact with the models more to try to get a more natural smile as these seem rather forced.

I asked the model to stand for a few shots rather than sit in the chair as I didn't like how her jacket blended in with the chair, but I think this looks rather messy with the chair behind her, if I did this again I would either move the chair out the shot or move more props into the background to make the chair seem less randomly placed.

I like this image but I don't think the front facing pose is very flattering on the model and makes the image seem more like a passport style photo.

While taking this I wanted to get some space at the side to get the edge of the wall and make the surroundings look less like a studio shot, but I think this had made the image look messy so I will have to crop this out. 

I tried to incorporate the bags with the models to make the image seem more natural and give more of a clue of the personality of the model. I like this shot as there's a good balance between the bag and the model and the bag doesn't take too much attention away from the model.

I really like this image as the smile seems quite natural compared to the other images and I love the composition of the image.

I tried this idea but I really don't like this image. I struggled to focus the camera because it mostly focused on the chair rather than the girl, so I didn't concentrate much on the composition while I was busy sorting this. I may try cropping this to improve the composition and see if I can make the image stronger.

I like this image because most the images were full sized images with the model looking at the camera so I thought I'd try something a bit different and with the student lanyard drawing a bit of attention in the image it still sits well with the brief. Although I'm a bit disappointed about how the hand is cut off on the side.

One Shot.

For this part of our assignment we had to create an 8 in-8 in square image that includes one random object and people. I tried to make my object relevant to me, and I wanted to have a choice for my final image, so within my 5 photo limit I chose 3 different ideas. My first idea was to have my object be the cigarette being held by a girl sitting on the floor, the first 2 shot were ones I tried from different angles, but I prefer my final crop because it is simple and clear.

I liked this image, but thought it had too much emphasis on the hand and didn't really include much else.

I liked this image but was put off by the person standing in the background because it takes attention away from the main subject.

This is the image I used for my final image.

My other ideas were the 2 shown below using a book and a lollipop for my objects. I didn't like the composition of the image for the book, I would've preferred to have it more zoomed out and show more on the left of the image. I liked the image of the lollipop for the tight crop and the use of colour but I decided not to use it for my final image because I seemed a bit odd and I preferred my image with the cigarette. The lollipop image was a self portrait so I had to get someone else to take the photo and I directed them on how I wanted the shot to look.

Evaluation

Final Images

Research

Edited images

These are 2 possible final images that I decided to edit in Photoshop.

This is my original image taken at 1/125 shutter speed and an apparture of F.5.6.

I started by rotating the image 180 degrees, altering the levels to make the image brighter and increasing the contrast. I then cropped the image to try to get rid of as much of the arm as possible, and then entered the quick mask mode. In this mode I used the brush to select the water in the image, and then with this selection I made a new layer where I coloured in the selected area in pink using the brush. I then put the layer in 'Multiply' mode so that the water could be seen behind the colour. I then realized that the cup didn't stand out very much in the image, so I selected the cup using the magnetic lasso tool and the inversed the selection, then selected 'Black and White' to make the background black and white. 

I then decided I should experiment with the colour of the water so I opened the Hue/Saturation while my colour layer was selected and started altering the Hue. I quite liked the light blue colour but I decided to stick with the more pink colour because it's more eye-catching and more unusual.

Final Edited Image

This is my original photo that I think looked rather dull so I wanted to slightly edit it to make the image seem more sunny. I started by altering the levels and making the image brighter, and then I increased the contrast.

That then created the image above, which is brighter but it seems a bit washed out and the colours seem a bit off, so I decided to alter the Hue as shown below. I think it made the image seem warmer and have more depth.

Final edited image

Location Images

Here are some of the photos that I took on location that I had time to try in my tight deadline.

The pictures of the rubber duck were taken on a grassy area near the college, I wasn't too concerned about the background because I knew I wanted the grass to be most the background, if not all of it. I want the top right picture to be used as a final image because I like the way it's composed and the way you can see the water dip where the duck is. 

The pictures of the water being poured out I want to edit on Photoshop to rotate it so the water is falling to the top and experiment with the colours used. I may also need to crop it to get rid of as much of the arm as possible so it's not too obvious it's been rotated. I will also make sure my image of the cup is sharp as I don't want motion blur on the cup. I took these photos on a 1/125 shutter speed and F.5.6 apparture, I wanted to use a quicker shutter speed to get rid of the motion blur but this made the image too dark and using flash reduced how many photos could be taken continuously.

I love my pictures of the tea in the cafeteria as I think it's simple, recognizable and I like the colours, although I doubt I will use one of these images as a final image as it's not too creative and I think a lot of people would have a similar idea, although I decided to shoot it anyway incase any of my other images didn't turn out the way that I'd wanted.

Research - Jonathan Knowles

 

Jonathan Knowles is a very successful commercial photographer who has done lots of advertising work for alcohol drinks companies. This means he has had to work a lot with cups, bottles and liquids and had to experiment with different ways of presenting them. His images range from the very simplistic to the highly detailed with his use of splashing and pouring liquids, and the way he positions his props.

I am very fond of Knowles' work as he creatively presents similar objects in many different ways to apply to lots of different advertising campaigns. The brand is always clear on the image and his use of the studio to create his images makes the images seem very neat and organised. Given the difficult circumstance of a rather bland product at first glance he excels in creatively varying all of his images.

 

Studio Images

This are my simplistic images of the cups that I think fit the professional advertising style. The first image was done with 1 light on the image which was placed behind the camera.

With this photo I put two lights on the image, the second to the right of the cups to add more depth to the textures, but as you can see the extra light has made the image too bright.

This is my image with both the lights on the cups but I changed the settings on the camera to make the image a bit darker, so I changed the apparture from F.4 to F.8. I will need to slightly photoshop this image to get rid of the black line in the top right corner.

With these images I experimented with angles and positioning of the cups, but the image below how I had originally planned I think looked best. I liked having a lot of shadows in the image because I think it emphasizes the texture in the cups so I achieved this by changing the apparture again to F.11.

With all these images I left quite a lot of space available for if the company wants to add their own text or brand to the image, but I think the images work well without the text if the company doesn't need this space.