Oscar Pistorius

I have to admit like many people the world over I've become consumed by the Oscar Pistorius murder charges. Did he actually kill his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp? If so, why? Why would someone so successful destroy their career by killing someone. Was it a crime of passion?

His version of events seem a little hard to swallow at times. Although people will try desperately hard to digest them.

Why do we find it so hard to believe he could commit murder? Is it because he has a disability and people with disabilities are incapable of doing something bad. Instead people with disabilities tend to get people's sympathy.

Is it because it was a tragic accident and people are in mourning bit just for the murder victim but also for a national hero.

Whatever he reason the trial should shed more light on the events of that night.

In following the bail hearing that lasted four days one thing I found interesting was the role of the media. Photographers were allowed in the courtroom to shoot Oscar's arrival but on e the magistrate entered they had to stop. After his first court appearance an image I a sobbing Pistorius appeared on many newspapers and tv screens across the world. The picture was shot during proceedings the photographer ignoring the magistrate's instructions. Pistorius's lawyer is now talking about taking legal action against those publishers.

Journalists allowed inside the courtroom kept everyone on the outside up to date with proceedings. The BBC and guardian newspapers ran a live blog each day and South Africa Eyewitness news reporter Barry Bateman tweeted minute by minute updates. Once word spread his Twitter following increased by 130k in the space of a few days.

Whilst this new role of social media in society is interesting, I found the constant scramble by photographers before proceedings to get the shot of Pistorius more interesting. Siphiwe Sibeko's image made the headlines on the second day of the hearing and has to be the image of the bail hearing.

The courtroom itself appears to be very dimly lit and s has made the optimum use of available light. Here we see an interesting person in an interesting place. Pistorius looks a broken man. His life as he knew it is gone. Things will never be the same. But right now he is in a very lonely place. Isolated from those around him. A fallen hero seen in a very different light.

Hackney artist creates Oscar in Shoreditch

Exercise 21: Making figures anonymous

This exercise asked me to take a number of photographs that include a person or people in a place and make them deliberately unrecognisable.

I could do this in a number of ways:

• By having the people small in and in numbers
• With the person facing away
• In silhouette
• Partly obscured
• By using motion blur

In the notes it states that a 'successful image will be one that is primarily about the place, but in which one of more figures play a subsidiary role to show scale and give life' or in other words to shoe that the place is in use.  

With this in mind I chose to shoot in London and keep my options open as I spent a day shooting the streets.  

Facing away

This image focuses on the London City skyline.  It was taken along the Thames riverside.  We can see the old and new high rise buildings.  However there is a couple of people facing away from the camera and looking at the buildings.  

When I look at this image I first see the high buildings and only when they have been taken in does the eye wander down to the couple.  They provide scale for the buildings and also a human presence.  

Small and many

Taken in the Tate which seems to be my favourite place to shoot at the moment.  Here was see people in the  Turbine Hall.  The figures are small, the building huge in comparison.  We can't identify the people they are too small and far away from us as viewers.  Our attention would be to the building first and the lighting and the we see the people.  They give a sense of the use of the building.  

Partly obscured

Again taken at the Tate, this image looks at the outside of the building and in particular the cafe.  Our attention is drawn to the words first.  However behind the glass we can see a number of people which are partly obscured by the glass but also by the lighting inside.  On the left hand side we can see a woman's head clearly but her body is the hidden by the frosted glass.  These people give meaning the building.  This is a place to eat.  

Obscured/silhouette

In this image of the basement of the Lloyds Building we can see the outlines of two people sitting at their desk.  Because these are faint outlines we only see them after we have scanned the building.  Looking back at this shot I believe I could have opted for a more interesting composition.  However, it does show that the building is in use.  

Exercise 20: Busy traffic

For this exercise I had to look at busy places where there is a constant flow of people.  It was noted in my course notes that railway stations and airports are obvious examples but with today's security it is not usually possible to shoot in these places.

I looked at several locations for this shot, both inside and out.

The first image I took was at the Millennium Bridge near the Tate Modern in London.  Every time I visit this area the bridge is always busy.  There is a constant flow of traffic on the bridge.

Here we can see the people coming over the bridge towards the camera.   I chose to stand to one side of the bridge as the earlier shots I took in the middle gave too much focus on the people.  They also looked out of proportion with the background buildings.

For an interior shot I looked at Leadenhall in London.  This was taken at lunchtime on a Friday and we can see that it is very busy with people buying food and drink.  It was difficult to get this shot as the people were moving so quickly into the frame they were interfering with the initial composition.  However, i feel that this shot capture the busyness of the place.  

Studio lighting course - speedlights

Friday was the last part of the course and it focused on a variety of types of lighting and touched on the use of flash/speedlights.  

This part of the course introduced us to cold lighting - use of fluorescent bulbs - and gave us the opportunity to take some shots using a variety of different lighting.  We used cold and hot lights and studio flash and we also looked at speedlights.  I was interested to learn more about the use of camera flash as this is the only artificial lighting set up I have.  However, I didn't learn anything new really only that you can get cheap Vivitar flashes that would work great for second or third lights.  They would also make good primary lights if you purchase a trigger to firm them.  A lot of the TTL technology in the Nikon and Canon range is all very well but you don't have to have it. 

My learning outcomes from today were mainly on the use of cold lights.  This was something I was unaware of.  Like the hot lights these are not very bright and you can't use a very fast shutter speed like you can do with flash.  However I could see the benefits of using them.  

In addition I felt it was beneficial to see what was covered in relation to speedlights.  Even if I didn't particularly learn anything new it was good to be able to reinforce that what I did know was right.  This is very useful for me because I am self taught and you never really know if you have truly understood or got things right.  

This image was taken using speedlights.  I feel that that the light is not to harsh as it was shot using an umbrella.  I have always tended to get harsh light from my flash and this is probably because I wasn't making the light bigger.  

I have an umbrella now and I am going to experiment more in the coming weeks and I might also look at buying a light meter.  I feel that this would be useful to me and my own personal workflow. 

Overall I felt that the course was pretty good.  It was only an introduction but I feel that I have a much greater knowledge of working in a studio set up and more importantly about light in general.

There is a second part to this course that starts in April and I will give it some though over the next couple of weeks as to whether this would be useful to attend.

Gerry Badger's The Genius of Photography

I have recently revisited the history of photography thanks to The Genius of Photography by Gerry Badger.  It has been a while since I looked at the history of the medium perferring to focus on individual photographer's work of late.  However, I have found this book to be a very informative and good read. 

Badger's approach is frank and straightforward and he takes you through the history of photography from the invention of the Daguerrotype to the arrival of the digital age.  His language is simple and easy to understand which makes it easier to understand the various movements he introduces you to like pictorialism and postmodernism. 

This book is unlike the other history books I have read.  It is not text heavy instead having a lot of images which makes it easier for you to link photographers with their work or movements with relevant examples with ease.  I have found that there was a clear linear progression in the book which introduces you to movements and developments as they happen which I felt was lacking in some of the other history books I have read.  This made it a less confusing history lesson. 

Although I was familiar with a lot of the photographers and work in the book I feel that my knowledge of the history of photography has improved.  I think before I had a lot information running around in my head and that now that information has been filed and put in to order. 

Some areas I found particulary interesting are:

Place in photography
In chapter 4 chapter he introduces you to the changes in landscape photography that we can see in Stephen Shore's American Surfaces and Uncommon Places.  He photographs Adams' Yosemite but focuses on people rather than the mountains which take a back seat to the vactioning family.  He also looks at the work of Roger Mayne, Lee Friedlander, Gary Winograd and Tony Ray-Jones. 

However it was his summation on the spirit of place that I found the most interesting.  Here he looked at the work of Martin Parr and John Gossage.  I was familiar with Parr's New Brigton work but not with Gossage's work in the Berlin wall.  Getting to know your subject intimately enables you to produce a more informed series of images.  The way you shoot and what you shoot is very different if you are looking from the outside in to if you are already on the inside and familiar with your surroundings and subjects. 

Portraits
I have read quite a lot about portraits for the first assignment of this course but found Badger's coverage of the topic new to me in many respects.  He explores the ways in which the dynamics of the relationship between photographer and subject have an impact on the portrait result.  I had been aware of this but I feel that perhaps I never gave it as much thought as I should have.  Yes there is a difference between society and social portraits but there is also a difference when the sitter is involved in the making of the image too.  This can be seen in the series of portraits of Comtesse de Castiglione by Pierson where she played an active role in deciding how she would be represented to the world. 

He also looks at the portrait as a sense of identity and how it can immortalise the sugject.  The portrait lives on long after the subject has passed away. 

Colour
I had been aware of that the introduction of colour film technology was not embraced by many photographers who regarded it as cheap.  Black and white remained the preferred medium for serious photography long after the introduction of colour and I believe that this still remains a little today.  People tend to see black and white as 'better' than colour which is certainly not the case. 

I found the added dimension of colour interesting by those who embraced it like Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. 

Photographic Movements
I have a greater understanding of photographic movements especially the way in which European photography and American photography went in different directions especially after World War II.  Where the Europeans took more of a humanist approach the Amercians became more conservative and inward looking.  In contrast the Magnum photographers set out to capture the changing world. 

The book has opened me up to the feminism in photography something I haven't given too much consideration to before.  In a male dominated world women set out to photograph in a different way by exploiting the norm like they did in many other ways - literature and art. This can be seen in the work of Cindy Sherman and Diance Arbus. 

The quest to make photography an art.
I think I didn't give a lot of consideration to the long journey photography has made to become accepted as an art.  I was aware of the science versus art debate but I don't think I truly appreciated what this meant or the impact it had on the way certain photographers worked. 

The book highlighted for me the importance of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and its role in photography. 

Some things I have discovered

• Weegee
• Lee Miller and her brutal images of the second world war.
• Stephen Shore as an artist as opposed to just the author of The Nature of Photographs.
• The importance of William Klein's book Life is good and good for you in New York.  We all hear about Frank's The Americans but Klein's book is equally if not more influential. 
• Donovan Wylie and his work on the Maze Prison in Belfast
• Photographers who direct their work by staging and setting up the scenes like Thomas Demand and
• Photographers who make their work using other people's images - Richard Prince
• The role of the photobook in photography and its changing role as it becomes more accessible in the digital age

Exercise 19: A single figure small

This exercise looks at small figures in an image.  I had to look at finding a place that was pretty much free of people but with an occasional figure present.

This exercise was not easy to plan for and it was by chance I stumbled across this scene.  The man is not obvious at first, you have to look for him.  The lower part of his body almost blends in to the dark part of the building.  The viewer's eye is preoccupied with the tall buildings.  I feel that this adds interest to the image.  The scale of the buildings are much larger than the man which further adds intrigue. 

The man is positioned slightly off centre and to the bottom right of the frame which makes for a more dynamic composition. 

I find that this composition allows size to become an important factor in the photograph.  In relation to action we can see the man is looking at his phone and smoking a cigarette. 

Quiet places, busy places

Figure as accent

Having people appear small in the frame does not necessarily make them insignigicant.  It shows them in a different context.  A tiny person in a large space may seem to be more of a landscape than portrait picture.  However, it is a way of establishing a connection between people and their wider surroundings. 

These figure in a landscape shots work well pitching a small being in a large, dominant location therefore making size key.  It is important that the figure has sufficient contrast to be noticed.  Ways in which this can be achieved are by having a dark figure on a light background or vice versa.  You may also consider tonal differences. 

One thing we lose in this type of extreme composition is the identity of the person.  With the person so small we can't tell who they are or indeed what they are.  Action comes into the fore in these circumstances as this is something we can see.  For example we don't have to see the person's face etc to see they are running. 

Studio lighting course - still life

Well last week's part of the course was a bit of a flop for me personally.  I was looking forward to having a go at shooting some flowers or candles with flash lighting but the session turned out to be a bit of a non-starter.

Up until now we had been working in groups - the same group every week - and this was working well for me.  I enjoyed working with the couple of girls I was partnered with - one was pretty knowledgeable when it came to lighting and the other like myself was a quick learner.  However, last week the tutor changed the groups round and it appears I drew the short straw.

It is difficult to work with someone who's not a team player.  I think that is the most diplomatic way of putting it.  And when you are left to do most of the setting up your self it takes a chunk of valuable shooting time away.

However I did learn a few things from a photographical perspective especially about light shapers.

• You should never put a metric thread into your camera.  Cameras take whitworth sized threads.  

• Super clamps are very useful for holding your camera on a table or a tripod leg.  They are also useful
•  for moving your light around.  

• Rostrums are useful if you do a lot of shooting down on things.  

• Snoots make the light smaller and more directional. Produces hard light.

• Honeycomb filters create a beam of light rather than spreading out the light.  The light is soft edged.  

• Black wrap can be used to make snoots.  You can buy Cinefoil from good camera and film shops. 

• Compact mirrors can be used to direct light onto your objects. 

However due to the group I was working with and the time constraints I didn't get round to experimenting too much with the above.  I used the black foil to make a snoot for the light.  I didn't get too many good shots either so I have none that I want to share here. 

We also got the opportunity to shoot tethered.  This was interesting.  I have Lightroom and I was under the impression that if you are a Nikon shooter you have to have some special Nikon software to shoot tethered but apparently Lightoom does the job.  

I saw shooting tethered as shooting where your pictures are automatically displayed in Lightroom.  However you can also use Lightroom to shoot the image.  

I'm not sure if I will get to make good use out of shooting tethered as my version of Lightroom is on my PC and not my laptop.  I suppose if I wanted to take pictures in my office it would be useful.  

My last session of the course is tomorrow and I will not be wasting another lesson working with someone that hinders my progress again.  

Man Ray

I have recently been looking at the work of Man Ray and Surrealism in photography.  I have been reading Gerry Badger's book The Genius of Photography which covers the history of photography.  I am finding this a good an enlightening read.

This book has opened my eyes to image manipulation and I feel that this is something I am warming to.  A year ago I didn't view manipulation as positively.  I suppose once you begin to understand something in greater detail you start to appreciate it more.

I won't go into too much detail about Man Ray in this post as I am going to the National Portrait exhibition shortly and I will cover him in more detail in that post.  However, I do find the whole idea of illustrating the imagination - the dream world interesting.

The Man Ray exhibition runs from today to 27 May.  The BBC has a piece on their news website today which gives a very brief overview.