Project: Yorkshire Fashion Industry

Project: Yorkshire Fashion Industry

For one of my University assignments this semester, I have been tasked with creating a body of work that encapsulates a genre of photography. In my case, I was more or less directed to stay away from fashion and contemporary portraiture for obvious reasons. With those limitations in mind, I also thought it would behoove me to steer away from still-life and music photography as well. 

It took a few weeks of very hard thinking to conceptualise a project that would maintain my interest as well as help to further my individual pursuits. Inspiration finally came after I remembered a little snippet I read on Joe McNally's blog quite a while ago regarding how National Geographic spreads are shot. Now, I know most people associate National Geographic with wildlife and pretty landscapes, but I associate it with brilliant reportage and documentary on all manner of subjects; the article I always think of first when I think of National Geographic is one on Caffeine. In Joe's post, he reflected that it used to be 1500 rolls of film used to be shot for a single article. That single sentence provided incredible insight to the quality of photography that National Geographic is famed for. Also stuck in my brain, were that these articles were not comprised of any one genre of photography, but rather encompassed all genres.

With these two notions in my head, I proposed to my tutor that I actually prepare a documentary article on the subject of the Yorkshire based fashion industry (focusing on South and West Yorkshire) and present the final product in the form of a magazine. 

Once I had her approval, I began evolving the idea further. More inspiration for the project came from the unlikely source of Magnum photographer Martin Parr during a lecture he gave in Huddersfield. Mr. Parr is currently working on a project based on his fashion work in which his output is no other than a magazine. The inspiration comes from the fact that he is actually including advertising (produced himself) in his magazine as well as the content. 

Along with my own ideas for the project, the bits of inspiration from these two legendary documentary photographers helped me to provide a solid plan for my project as outlined below:

Goal: To create a photographic and journalistic article that documents the current state and history of the fashion industry in the region of South and West Yorkshire and produce  the final output in a magazine format with intent to exhibit the body of work at a later date.

In order to achieve this enormous task, I intend to research and document the following:

• Independent Designers and their workspaces
• Fashion Retail
• Independent Boutiques
• Street Fashion
• Textile Industries
• Independent Craft Fairs
• Fashion Recycling/ Charity Shops
• Shopping Culture
• Beauty Industries
• Fashion Shows and Trade shows
• Fashion Related Advertising (Billboards, shop windows, etc)

I need to have the majority of the work done for the beginning of May in order to prepare the final output for the hand-in date, but it should be entirely possible to finish the project in that time frame.

I am open to virtually anyone getting involved in the project as long as it is fashion and beauty based (even if it's not covered in the list above). Please feel free to get in touch via the comments section, the contact forms on my website or by Facebook.

I'm very excited about undertaking a project with huge potential and I very much appreciate the time you took to read this! If you can help in anyway, please don't hesitate!

Martin Parr

Martin Parr

The other week, I had the incredible pleasure of attending a lecture by legendary Magnum photographer Martin Parr!

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect from the lecture. Of course, I was well aware of Mr. Parr's work and while I'm one of a seemingly minority who can say I didn't hate it, I was on the fence about whether I loved it or not. I certainly appreciated the messages, the technique and the ability to create those images; however, I didn't understand the "why".

In a short hour and a half, not only was the "why" fully explained, but it was truly inspirational. Martin removed any doubt that he might have been relying on shock factor in his images and that fact alone turn me into a fan. The point I had been missing was how much of himself he had put into the work. The reason his images come across as awkward is because he shoots subjects that make him feel awkward, not to shock and make the viewer feel awkward, but to confront his own perceptions.

Amazing.

Also addressed in the lecture, Martin discussed how he conceptualizes entire projects and such rather than focusing on a single image. Though not a new concept to me, it is one I often struggle with resulting in the fact that I more often than not wind up subconsciously focusing on the single image. This again left me full of ideas and inspiration on how to carry my work forward.

The final aspect of the lecture I'm going to discuss here is a project that Mr. Parr is currently developing. I first read about the "Fashion Magazine" project quite a long time ago, but I admittedly forgot about it amongst all the other information taken in from similar sources. As one of my projects in this second semester is very, very similar hearing Martin talk about his project gave me a ton of ideas to incorporate into my own project. For example, shooting advertising for the magazine along with the editorial parts.

In short, for an hour and a half, I was able to listen to the most inspiring yet humble man I have ever seen. I am certainly no longer on the fence regarding his work as I am now a total convert and utter fan! I can only hope I can imbue some of the passion he talked with into my own work in the near future!

Second Semester

Second Semester

Well, the first semester of the Commercial Photography course has come and gone and my classmates and I are a good few weeks into the second.

I don't know what I can really say about the first semester. It was a learning experience for certain, though I feel that I didn't actually learn much; except for the darkroom stuff and that was nothing short of amazing.

After the feedback for the assignments though, I feel that I really let myself down. I could have achieved much higher than I did. Though I feel as if I didn't completely comprehend what was expected of me until the last few weeks, I also realise that I didn't push hard enough, internally and externally to find out exactly what was expected.

With that lesson in the bag; however, I feel I know exactly what I have to do this semester and I am going to use the opportunity to really push myself to the limits. Several of the module assignments are stupidly exciting and allow for maximum creativity whilst pushing my existing knowledge and capabilities to their absolute limits. Needless to say, this is exactly what I signed up for.

I will be outlining one of the projects very shortly, but in the meantime, I leave you with an image I had to create for one of the modules in the first semester. The goal was to recreate a still-life from an old master (painter). I chose Van Gogh as a bit of a challenge to myself as I am really not particularly a fan of his work. It was also a bit challenging because I was not the only student to choose this starting image.

Alas, here is my version of Van Gogh's "Boots".

Action Plan For Personal and Professional Development

Action Plan For Personal and Professional Development

As part of the natural progression of the course, it was required to complete a series of exercises in order to determine my personal strengths and deficiencies as they related to both my academic capabilities and my capabilities as a professional photographer. This sort of self-assessment was not alien to me as it was very similar to many of the methods of various courses and coaching I received whilst setting up my business a year and a half ago.

The first of these tasks was a series of computer-based exercises to acquire a visual representation of some of my strengths and weaknesses. This revealed, to an extent, much of what I was already aware.

My strengths included:

-         Guiding My Own Learning

-         Use of ICT

-         Writing and Analysis

-         Assertiveness

Whilst my weaknesses, as expected, included:

-         Time Management

-         Coping With Stress

There were also a few items of interest that fell into more of a grey area where I have “some of the required skills, but could still improve on”. These included:

-         Presenting Your Ideas

-         Research and Information Processing

Though not covered in these exercises, it is important for my own development and the resulting action plan to follow that I mention my awareness of the fact that my organisational skills are dire at best.

Having done these exercises, the next task was to evaluate my preferred “learning style”. An ideal result of this questionnaire would be an equal amount of answers directing towards each of the four learning styles: Activist, Pragmatist, Theorist and Reflector. Though I had never done anything of this sort before, I was fairly unsurprised to find that my learning style leaned heavily towards activist and reflector with a middle range value towards pragmatism and almost no emphasis on theorist.

Essentially, this means I am much more likely to jump into a task and ponder the outcome afterwards without trying to understand specifics or formulate a well thought out plan. Seeing this result on paper, I instantly recognised these traits in my day-to-day life and see how these “strengths” work for me on a daily basis.

However, acknowledging the obvious deficiency in the pragmatic and theoretic learning styles can help to understand my dilemma with time management and organisation even though I have been aware for years.

Subconsciously forgoing proper planning in favour of blind “activism” has clearly left me with no clear approach to the way I deal with tasks or my surrounding environment. Therefore, it is clear I must make a conscious effort in the future to apply these learning styles forcibly and make a real effort to overcome my weaknesses in this area.

To help with this, I have procured several generic time management sheets and “to do” list sheets as used by my local council. By filling these in at the beginning of any given week, my time should be sufficiently allotted to conquer anything I might be required to do. Furthermore, by ensuring that I give appropriate time to organise all of my goings on and assets on a regular basis, I should be able to significantly improve my organisational skills in no time. To supplement this, online resources such as “Lifehacker” and “Zen Habits” will provide to be regular sources of information on both of these main weaknesses and I will strive to apply techniques from theses sources and others in my daily routine to fix my problem areas.

Regarding “Professional Development” specifically, I am well aware that I have been on a plateau with my capabilities for a while. To combat this and further my technical and creative competencies, I will endeavour to ensure that I attempt to learn at least one new camera or lighting technique and one new retouching technique per week. This, as a bare minimum, should provide me to constantly “infuse” my work with a breath of fresh air and help me to further vary my portfolio in the interest of various types of prospective clients.

Out Of The Ordinary / Extraordinary: Japanese Contemporary Photography

Out Of The Ordinary / Extraordinary: Japanese Contemporary Photography

When I first heard that there was to be an exhibition of contemporary Japanese photography staged at the Civic in Barnsley, I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The very prospect of combining my passion for photography with the many intricate facets of modern Japanese culture, of which I gleefully experienced first hand whilst living on Okinawa for three and a half years, was enough to leave me figuratively salivating. However, the words contemporary photography in “fine art” environs were enough to negate that excitement as my experiences with this sort of photography usually left a sour taste in my mouth.

In the past, I have found that photography that falls in the contemporary art genre relies on a certain aesthetic, often bleak, gloomy and unrefined; and is usually tenuous at best conceptually. This is in sharp contrast to my personal preferences towards the glossy, highly polished images used in high-end advertising. To illustrate this point, it might even be worth noting that the only photography book of dozens I own that has gone almost completely unread is “The Photograph As Contemporary Art” by Charlotte Cotton as the tedium of the content, in relation to my tastes, left me largely un-stimulated. 

However, in execution, the exhibition itself proved to be the antithesis to both of my estimated possibilities.

“Out of the Ordinary / Extraordinary: Japanese Contemporary Photography” featured the work of eleven Japanese fine art photographers in an immaculate gallery setting.

Immediately upon entering the gallery, you were drawn to a series of A1 prints on the far wall. At first glimpse, you could have been forgiven for automatically assuming the series “In My Room” by Takano Ryudai was the typical contemporary art fare of which I referred negatively to above. A closer inspection; however, revealed something more intricate. Whilst the portraits portrayed bare posteriors, naked lower bodies with trousers at the ankle and the expected gloomy expressions, these shock tactics soon gave way to what I perceived as what may have possibly been unintentional satire. It quickly became clear that these were actually “fashion” images of a sort. All of the images in the series were photographed on a plain white background with the floor being either wooden boards or laminate. This aesthetic is not one that normally conjures images of Eastern culture. To further add to this, none of the wardrobe on display in the photographs was remotely Japanese in origin. Blue jeans, denim shirts and black stockings and garters, to name a few, all seem to point to the point that these are all Western stylings. I, of course, may be entirely off the mark with this supposition and I may indeed be drawing from my own experiences of a small Japanese prefecture that plays host to no fewer than 50,000 foreign troops, but in my mind’s eye that seems to be the most obvious intent. The ultimate result of this left me with much higher hopes for the rest of the exhibition and I am of the opinion that this particular artist flawlessly achieved an aesthetic similar to that of Terry Richardson’s much lauded and simultaneously, much ridiculed work.

With my prefabricated expectations dissolved, I devoured the rest of the exhibition. It was obvious that the Japan Foundation went to great lengths to choose extremely varied and equally eclectic bodies of work for this exhibition. From a mixed media installation involving the concept of pregnant men by Okada Hiroko, to a much more intimate study of personal objects in Ishiuchi Miyako’s “Mother” to the satirically scathing approach to social commentary in Sawada Tomoko’s series of self-portraits: “Cover” and “OMAI”.

Finally, I feel it’s important to point out a concept much more subtly illustrated in this exhibition. I, personally, find a lot of people either forget or misunderstand the magnitude of the fact that Japan is the only post-apocalyptic society on the planet. Even while living on Okinawa, which is hundreds of miles from Hiroshima and Nagasaki on mainland Japan, it was impossible to escape that this very fact is a very large part of modern Japanese culture. Everything from films, to television, to comics seem to more often than not result in some cataclysmic climax. I fully expected to see this in translation at some point in the exhibition.

Though possibly more conceptually related than literally, Yoneda Tomoko’s three images of a B-52 bomber, miniscule in relation to the sky, returning from a bombing run in Iraq easily conjure, in my mind at least, images of similar sorties in 1945 over mainland Japan.

In the end, this exhibition managed to shatter my preconceptions of contemporary fine art photography as each installation was brimming with conceptual brilliance and technical finesse. If nothing else, it reinforced to me the importance of subtlety in some instances when conveying a message in order to maintain interest in the viewer. It also helped to show that images can have shock factor to garner attention, but then have subtler messages underlying to convey the artists’ true intent.

Experimenting With Film Stock Presets

This afternoon, I've spent some time playing around with something I swore I never would: digital presets. I think using such tools undermines a large portion of the image creation process. Lately; however, I've found my mind wandering to the dark side and to see if judicious use of these tools could actually add anything to my portfolio.

The final answer: I don't know. Not from a scant hour and a half of fiddling around anyway.

The program I decided to try this out with is Alien Skin Exposure 3. The reason I chose this one is that there are a lot of presets that try to emulate old film stock rather than just do some crazy, gimmicky digital effect. From just a glance, there's dozens of different films to choose from and virtually everything you'd expect to be there from Fuji, Kodak, Agfa, Ilford and even Polaroid.

Once you've selected the "film" of choice, you then have a huge multitude of options to fine tune and adjust the desired effect. Since I'm never happy with any global adjustment, I did play with these sliders quite a bit for some interesting results.

Again, as I was just playing, I can't really make a decision on whether I can use this program in the future, but the option is definitely there should I feel that it can indeed add something to my images. I think some more experimentation is in order to see if I can achieve some subtler effects. That is if I can get over the dirthy, filthy feeling of betraying everything I feel about using presets and actions.




Polachrome - Cool/ Faded



Fuji Pro 400H



Fuji Neopan



Agfa APX 25 - with the effect brought down to desaturate rather than convert to black and white.



Polachrome


Yeah, I honestly have no idea what to think.

The First Few Frames

Well, in the last post, I related my excitement to have the opportunity to shoot on a Mamiya 645. Saturday evening, I fired off the first three frames of the first roll: Kodak Portra 160VC.

Before I enter into the details, I must say: Wow!

I always knew shooting on medium format would be a totally different experience and all I can say after the first few frames is thank God that everything I learned from was film biased. Everything I've done since 2005 is digital and I've all but completely forgotten how different the workflow is.

The first issue is that film's expensive. Even though I managed to get all of them for under £3 a roll, it's still going to total about £15+ a roll after processing and scanning. Therefore, each and every frame is precious to me. These 12 rolls might very well be the only ones I get for a long, long time and I want to do my absolute best to make it a one shot, one kill scenario. Ideally that would translate into 180 different frames of film. There's only one real way of doing this and that is to take test shots before hand to make absolute sure everything is right. In an ideal world, this can be accomplished with Polaroids (or rather Fuji Instax nowadays); however, that stuffs expensive too, so it's the dSLR that substitutes in this case.

For the shot I'm going to talk about here, I used a two light set-up to light a still-life of a Raspberry Tart procured from a continental market in Barnsley the same day.

The first step was to get a rough position of the tart on the mirror so I had a starting point to begin lighting it. Happy with what I was seeing framing wise, I  had a problem with the wooden frame of the mirror dissecting the frame. This was fixed simply by adding two sheets of A3 printer paper in a curve shape against and up from the mirror in an attempt to replicate a white seamless background. This wasn't so perfect. It took a fair while to get them positioned so there were no visible lines or edges. Once I did; however, everything was smooth sailing for more or less the first time ever!

The first step in lighting the pastry, was to set up the background/rim light. For this, I pointed a bare bulb strobe into a V-flat which was then directed at the white wall behind. Cue test shot. (In the future, I will remember to get ALL of the test shots off of the memory card before formatting :S )

I should point out here, after last week's lesson on apertures and shutter speeds, I decided to only work in full stops with the Mamiya. The reasons for this are to place myself under limitations so as to force myself to work the scene and the lighting around the camera rather than the other way around. Forcing myself to reinforce and practice technique this way can only serve to help me to operate technically and creatively in tricky situations in the future. The second reason is simply ease. The aperture ring on the fully manual lens on the Mamiya only displays full stops and it conveniently clicks into place at each one. Doing this also leaves little room for idiotic error, thus reducing the chances of wasting precious film.

Back to the test shot. A quick shot at f/4 revealed that I got it exactly how I wanted the first time. That doesn't happen very often, so I carried on rather pleased! The second light was fitted with a white umbrella high and to camera right. Test shot 2. Perfect. OMG!



Happy, it was time to bring in the Mamiya. Now, working with such a small subject, my choice of lens for the test shots was my beloved 50mm f/2.5 Macro. This immediately posed another problem. The minimum focusing distance of the macro lens is about 2 inches, whilst on the Mamiya's 80mm lens, it's just shy of 3 feet. Though I was aware this was going to happen, I didn't give it pause and carried on anyway. Lesson learned. The whole set up was for a tightly framed closeup of a tart and it's reflection. The final image on film will have to be cropped very significantly to fulfil my initial intent. This isn't exactly a problem as such, but I feel it's a waste of a lot of precious real estate on the huge negative.

My other slight issue with the 645 was with the focusing. Having only worked with 35mm SLRs and APS-C dSLR's, the split focusing screen was completely alien to me. I figured out how it worked pretty quickly, but I still found it really difficult. After having all the test shots done, it must have taken me nearly 10 minutes to get to a point where I was daring enough to actually push the shutter. I can only assume and hope this will change with practice.

All in all, I'm still very much looking forward to seeing the final result when the film gets back. So I can run a comparison, this is how I would have retouched the shot had I been shooting digitally:



and this is what it looks like run through Alien Skin's Exposure 3 set to simulate the characteristics of Portra 160VC.



If I've done everything right, hopefully this is how the print will look when it comes back to me!

Well, three frames down 177 to go!!

All I Can Do Is Drool

When I first started with my photography, I eagerly devoured every magazine on the shelf every month. There were significantly fewer magazines on the shelf at the back end of 2004, so the plethora of options now available at even a modest WH Smith's, such as the one in Barnsley, more or less sums up how much the demand for information from a keen photography enthusiast consumer base has grown in a short time.

That; however, is not the major shift that has shocked me. I, in fact, am rather unsurprised. The difference I find was the speed of the all encompassing digital takeover. In September of 2004, nearly all of the gear reviews and virtually all of the articles on technique revolved around film cameras. Usually Medium Format cameras. They always left me drooling. Beautiful, efficient and built to last 40 years. Usually, I could care less about gear, but these beasts had my attention.

At the time, the Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) was still freshly out of the gate and heralded as the first affordable dSLR and ultimately my first dSLR as well.

Fast forward two years and film had all but disappeared from the magazines. The landscape specific titles still featured them as full frame 35mm sensors were still a way off, but as far as new information and new gear were concerned elsewhere, it was just not to be.

Four years on and we have 50+ Megapixel digital MF cameras. We have gargantuan beasts of cinemagraphic cameras that are capable of billboard resolution stills in every frame of video. We have a very well regarded  publication that always swore off digital as heresy publishing entire issues without a spool in sight. We have dozens of photography titles on the periodical shelves only referring to film in nostalgic pretences.

All I can say is thank God for lomo and JPG in that sense.

For years now, I've been searching Ebay constantly with the slightest hope that one day I might be able to somehow find a deal that would actually let me experience Medium Format Film. It hasn't happened yet.

When I found out about the prospect and ability to use it on this course, the only way I can describe what I did is "squirm". Excited was and is an understatement. So, as I sit here with a Mamiya 645 and 12 rolls of 120 film beside me, believe me when I say I can hardly contain my six years of anticipation!

However, before I go and throw myself in at the deep end: the very first thing I did with the Mamiya was, of course, take photos of it!



All I can do is drool!