Book Review: It's All Good

Book Review: It's All Good 

by Boogie

I read an article online about the 50 Greatest Street Photographers Right Now and up at No 4 was a photographer called Boogie.  I had never heard of him and so ordered a copy of his amazing book 'It's All Good'.

This is a pretty hard hitting look at life in the run down and violent areas of New York.  The images, all presented in black and white, were taken over the period 2003-2006.  The subjects in this book are people who are involved, directly or indirectly, in gangs or drugs.  Regardless of the few cheery faces each of them is a victim in some way and trapped by their social circumstances.  

If the images weren't hard enough to look at there are several personal narratives from some of the subjects.   These stories explain how they got into their current situation and are all brutally frank and honest.

As I worked my way through this book I found myself being very impressed by the way the photographer had managed to get access to the scenes.  I assumed that he was a black male who was born in the area and may have run with the gangs himself.  When I reached the end of the book I found five pages of thumbnails from the book with comments by the photographer.  From these comments I quickly realised that the photographer was actually born in Serbia and was white.  He drifted into the region by accident, shooting on the fringes and, as time passed and his face became more familiar, he moved in deeper.  Many of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood thought he was an undercover cop - the only white face in the district, but despite this he managed to survive for over three years of visits.  I am very impressed by the level of access and trust he managed to generate in such a short space of time.  

I have seen several reviews that accuse Boogie of being exploitative.  I really don't get that 'vibe' from this book.  I feel that Boogie took these images because he cared about the subjects.  He grew to call some of them friends and committed a good portion of his life to the project.  This book sets a new benchmark for documentary photography; will this particular subject be covered again in a better way.  I doubt it!  So until then make sure you get your copy of the book.

ISBN: 9781576873380

Published by powerHouse Books

Boogie's website is at http://www.artcoup.com/

Car Boot Joy

Car Boot Joy

I had hoped to be posting about my visit to the Light House Gallery in Wolverhampton to see their display of Bruce Gilden's street photography work.  After making the 30 minute train journey I arrived at the gallery to discover it was closed.  I should have looked at the website and seen that it doesn't open at weekends, just like all the other galleries out there.  Oh no, wait they are all open at the weekends.  And I nearly got mugged by a homeless guy as I looked around the gallery building to make sure I hadn't missed an obvious way in.

Anyway.  To console myself I went to a car boot sale in Wrexham and picked up these two cameras for only £1 for the pair.  They appear to be working and more excitingly both still have canisters of 110 film inside - each has been partially exposed and so I'm really looking forward to finishing off the rolls and getting them printed!  Holga still make 110 film and so I'm getting onto eBay and ordering a few rolls as these are my first 110 cameras.

Book Review: Do or Die

Book Review:  Do or Die

The Human Condition in Painting and Photography

This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition held in Cologne.  The book strives to show visual links between painted works and photography.  I discovered this work as part of a college project to investigate the works of Jeff Wall and Tom Hunter (although neither of them have works in the book).  

The book opens with three essays each of which covers crossovers of themes in both mediums.  The layout can be a little confusing as texts are given in both English and German.  The main photographic section shows the inspiration or linked painting alongside a contemporary image.  Some of the similarities in composition and lighting are striking but in other images the links seem tenuous.  The book ends with useful description and details of all the images in the book and this is a great touch.

The book has a quality feel similar to a mid-range Blurb production and I would not have been surprised had their logo been emblazoned on the final page.  The majority of the photo pages have a black background and this helps to make the colours much more vivid, the very small section with white backgrounds feels far more contemporary and it would have been nice if the whole book had been produced in this way.

I enjoyed working through this book and it forced me to broaden my research beyond the photographic and into the world of paintings.  A modern day does not necessarily need a  great deal of technical skill due to the processing power of camera but he/she must understand the basic rules of composition, rules that painters have been mastering for hundreds of years.

ISBN: 9783777432618

You could buy a copy of the book from Amazon HERE

College End of Year Show

Showing off my pictures :)

End of Year Show 2012

Thursday 14th June was the end of year show at South Cheshire College.  Aimed primarily to display the works of the full time day students they were gracious enough to devote a whole room to the evening photography A level classes.

It took a while to find the classroom but as you can see from the photos they managed to devote a little space to each of the students on the course.  Unfortunately we had no choice over which pictures were selected for display and my two weren't among my best shots.  In addition we didn't get told to produce bio's or business cards and so we looked a little amateur compared to the day students.  

The night was good fun though and a chance to look at the work of classes we never actually got to interact with.  I've been to a few end of year shows and there is a definite 'feel' to the A level work.  I think this is because students work to a limited set of themes over the two years and retreat a lot of beaten ground.  University end of year shows have much more creativity and there is definitely a step up.  It was disappointing to hear one of the day students admit to his peers that he knocked up the photos he was displaying in ten minutes because the project deadline was looming.

Plenty of lessons learnt about image selection and display and the importance of having a decent bio and 'freebies' to keep people at your images for longer.  My board was out of the way and not very well lit and so for future shows I'm hoping to have a lot more influence on the final outcome.  There is a function on my printer to adjust an image based on the lighting it is displayed under and I may try this next time.  As my two pictures are a difficult to see in the first photo I've included enlargements here for you (click for enlargements):

Lonely Drive Home

Dreamer

You can see more of the work I did in college this year by looking at the blurb book I produced HERE and if you love the images how about buying a copy of the book?  I make a massive 50p for every book sold :)



My Portfolio site is now up and running HERE

RAF Cosford Airshow 2012

The Red Arrows arrive at RAF Cosford Airshow 2012

RAF Cosford Air Show 2012

I'm not really an aircraft photographer or enthusiast (despite being in the Royal Air Force!) but I can still appreciate a good air show.  I took a series of images from the show but couldn't help myself whenever I saw an interesting face or situation on the ground.  Next time I go I'm determined to concentrate on the aircraft!

The small set of images can be seen on Flickr HERE

The majority of the images were taken using my Canon 5D Mk2 with a Tamron 70-300mm f4/5.6 Di USD. The lens performed really well at capturing the fast moving aircraft.  I was shooting in full manual mode and making small adjustments as the weather conditions changed.  By setting the drive mode to Servo I was able to track the aircraft across the sky once I'd locked onto them.  

Shortly after the Red Arrows arrived my lens started to make a horrible grating sound and after another three or four shots it completely failed.  A warning flashed up saying I needed to check the connection points.  Despite cleaning these (rather hurriedly given the air display unfolding above my head) I couldn't get it to work again.  I tried a few shots using my Canon 24-70mm lens and this was fine.  

Back home I carefully cleaned the mounts and reattached the lens, worked fine.  Grrrr.  No doubt this means the lens is on its way out.  Time to dig out the warranty card and packaging.

New Business Cards

Moo.com comes up trumps again!  Click on image to enlarge 

New Business Cards

As I'm still on my crazy drive to increase my profile I thought it would be wise to get hold of some business cards.  At the end of the month I will be at The Eye International Photography Festival in Aberystwyth and this seems the perfect opportunity to get some face time with photographers, editors and curators.

There are a lot of companies who will make you business cards and their prices range from pennies to hundreds of pounds.  I've used Moo.com before and already knew that they produce amazing quality cards and, most importantly, are affordable.

The creation process is very easy and the website takes you through all the steps by holding your hand where necessary.  You can create cards that all have the same image on the back but using their cool print technology you can have as many different designs as you want.  This is a great way of showcasing your portfolio.  If you hand out cards to a small group of people then they are bound to compare the images and so in one fell swoop you can get several images 'out there'.  Listening to comments means you will get instant feedback on your work as I've found that people seem happier to criticise 'cards' as they seem less precious.

I ordered my cards a few days ago. It took longer for me to pick the images I wanted to use than the rest of the order process.  Once in the Moo website I had my order ready to send in less than 10 minutes.  There are options to customise almost everything on the card and for artists you can ignore the templates and generate your images in an art program like Photoshop.  I'm not that good yet and so stuck with one of the basic templates.  I entered my details for the business side of the card and hit send.

My cards arrived this morning and I am delighted with them.  The print quality is fantastic and the correct correction and brightness are very close to how I see them when I print at home.  One of the images is slightly more cropped than I hoped but I think this was my mistake for not positioning it correctly in the box clearly marked with something like 'keep your image inside this box'!  The cards feel smooth to the touch and  have a good thickness to them.  I opted for rounded corners and these had really added to the effect I was after.

I'm not in any way sponsored by Moo but if you want great cards head on HERE

Book Review: The Model Wife

Book Review: The Model Wife  

 by Arthur Ollman

I love getting outside and engaging in street photography.  Capturing images of strangers appeals to me as it can give me a glimpse into a different life.  But, like most photographers I assume, have to practice on a willing subject.  My enduring wife Hannah has patiently sacrificed hours of her life in front of my camera as I fiddle with settings or get used to new equipment.

I saw this book in a Shrewsbury charity shop and had to buy it!  The book looks at the works of nine different photographers each of whom has captured images of their wives.  Amongst the photographers included are Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston and Lee Friedlander.
Almost the entire book is in black and white and there are only five pages with colour photographs.  Each of the photographers has his own chapter and is introduced with several pages of biography that includes the life of the subject.  Many of the images involve full frontal nudity but nothing obscene.

For me the shots are an insight into the photographer’s creative process.  They show the photographer ‘at play’ but still producing some emotionally powerful images of the person they are most attached to.  The shots by Weston clearly show his love of form and shadow and these are amongst the most artist of the book whilst those of Friedlander have a strong documentary narrative.

My overall favourite image, shown here, belongs to Emmet Gowin who has captured his wife stood by an ethereally lit doorway as she surveys the chaos of a living room after Christmas morning.  Great humour and her stance says it all! 

The ISBN is 9780821221709 UK readers should be able to find a copy on Amazon HERE

Image Copyright Emmet Gowin.

Taylor-Wessing Prize Entry

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

I've been watching this amazing competition grow from strength to strength each year.  This year as part of my  drive to try and get my work 'out there' I have decided to enter the competition.  Eeek!  Now, I am fully aware that the eventual winner will be an absolutely amazing capture of someone in wonderful light and with everything technically perfect but I just want to think I would make it through the first round sifting phase.

The competition is quite expensive to enter, £24 per image, and I'm hoping that this will put off people in the recession but it does mean only the best will enter.  I also opted to pay an additional £10 and this will get me a copy of the catalogue of the finalists and overall winner.

The images that I've entered...

This image is entitled Rockstar Lunch and was taken whilst on a visit to Brighton.  This couple were out for a quiet stroll on the pavilion and a lunch in peace.  Instead they had me rudely interrupting them and my friend sticking a soft box in their faces whilst they ate.  They were a great couple to shoot and really great fun to work with, they just couldn't keep a straight face and I hope this humour comes across in the portrait.

This image is called Siren and was part of a series of images I took whilst experimenting with different photographic techniques.  I am really please with this shot as it is almost straight out of camera with very little work done in Photoshop.  My subject was very patient working underwater and didn't complain too much about the water being cold.  I did initially try to shoot with her in hot water but the steam kept misting up my lenses!

Anyway, fingers crossed for the competition!  :-)

Through the Window

Through the Window

Although college has finished there is still a group of us who stay in touch via Flickr and Facebook.  To stop us from putting our cameras away and to push our creativity we set a photographic theme each month.  For June 2012 we are shooting to the title 'Through the Window'.  

If you saw my first post on this blog you would have seen me gazing in amazement through my dining room window into an underwater world.  Having put my Photoshop tools to one side I set about looking at the theme more seriously.  

I would love to be considered as a documentary photographer and so I looked at the theme from that viewpoint.  I have driven through many small towns and villages and seen row after row of boarded up shops that have failed to make it through the economic recession.  I started to investigate what is left of the shops once the business inside has sold off everything and moved out.  It was very easy to find these abandoned premises as the 'for let/lease' signs mark them out clearly.

Walking around the county town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire I was surprised at how well this town is handling the recession and how strong the businesses seemed.  Moving only a short distance away from the busy town centre showed a different story and there were entire rows of shops that now lay empty.  

Pressing my camera up against the glass to reduce reflections and light flare I took a series images at around twenty locations.  Some had clearly been long abandoned whilst others still had remnants of the previous business still showing. 

The image shown above is my favourite from the series.  The doorway acts as an immediate focal point but then the viewer should start to notice more details.  The grimy and buckled walls and the badly stained carpets make the space feel cheap and dingy.  The floating ceiling panels serves to act as a counterbalance for the heavy darkness of the carpet and the leading lines in the image all point at the dark void of the doorway.

If you would like to see more images from this set you can find them on my portfolio HERE

Photography in the News

An amateur photographer from Shropshire has just won a £10,000 payout in compensation after he was arrested for taking pictures of a bank.  I'm not sure how many bank branches there are in my local area but I bet I could make a living out of this.  The picture of Anthony Finnegan has been taken from the Shropshire Star website and you can find more details about the story on their website HERE

Book Review: Questions without Answers

Book Review: Questions without Answers
The World in Pictures by the Photographers of VII

This book contains over 50 different photographic series from 11 of the major photographers from the agency VII.  The book contains 368 pages and is sized slightly larger than A4.  Although many of the images are in black and white those that are shot in colour are gloriously presented.  The paper seems to vary in weight and in several instances I thought that two pages had stuck together such was the quality.  Each of the photographers has their own chapter and the chapters commence with a brightly coloured insert.  In addition to the photo work there is an introductory essay by David Friend.

If you were as quick off the mark as I was, you may be able to get hold of a special edition that has been signed by 7 of the photographers - see the photo and imagine my grinning face being very happy at my purchase!

As for the book itself I totally love it.  I used to think of the Magnum agency as the best photo agency but after a chat with a photography lecturer at the University of Wales, Newport was introduced to the works of VII.  As the book is a compilation piece the variety of images means that there is something in there to please any viewer.


My favourite works from the book are:

Ageing in America by Ed Kashi.  This is a powerful series that challenges the common perception of the elderly population.  The series opens with an elderly man lifting weights and moves onto a marriage between a couple in their eighties.  The series turns darker and covers death and the impact and loneliness it has on surviving friends and relatives.  I'm impressed by the bravery of the subjects at letting Kashi into their lives at such a sensitive moment.  The use of black and white enhances the emotion of the images and removes the distraction of colour.  I would have liked to have seen some of the shots in colour for a more contemporary feel but I can understand why Kashi chose his route.

Lost Lives by John Stanmeyer.  This is a series that investigates appalling mental health care in the growing economies  in China and Indonesia.  I don't think that the facilities shown can be blamed for the huge overcrowding and squalid conditions and Stanmeyer seems to be pointing the finger at the respective governments.  The use of colour in these shots is very bold and the framing and lighting of each image is deliberately stark.  Taken in 2003 the conditions feel reminiscent of Victorian Britain and it would be interesting if he went back and recorded if any changes had occurred as a result of his work.



If it's still in stock you can buy the signed version of the book HERE, the site contains more shots of the pages and further information about VII and the photographers involved.

Welcome to my Blog!

Hello and Welcome to my Blog!

Hello and welcome to my shiny new blog.  If you want to see my latest portfolio you can look for me HERE

This image was created yesterday during heavy rain that meant I couldn't go out and capture any pictures.  I'm always keen to keep pushing my photography and so decided to try and get to grips with selections and layers in Adobe Photoshop.  I used a tripod and timer to capture the image of me looking out of the window and then imported the shot into Lightroom.  I adjusted the colour temperature to a cool blue and then travelled the internet for pictures of large aquariums. Then the tricky bit (for me anyway) was selecting the windows, brushing the aquarium image into the selection, and tidying up using the eraser tool.  I'm really pleased with the result and if you have eagle eyes you can even see the aquarium through my glasses and between the pencils in the cups.  Great use of a rainy day :)