Enfield Island Village football and the start of an interesting project

Another shoot on Saturday for The Islander the newsletter/magazine of Enfield Island Village Trust. This time it was a more interesting affair than the Job Fair the previous day.  Well more interesting for me.

The charity has provided funding for the local kids to have a soccer club that meets weekly in the common area. In addition, it has provided funding for some of these kids to do coaching qualifications like Hussein. He now coaches the younger kids in the village.

Hussein has benefited from the charity a great deal.  In addition to completing the coaching qualifications he has also completed C&G electrician courses.

This series of shots were taken for an article in the magazine that focuses on his footballing achievements.

I am now looking at doing some work with the other children who are part of the football club with a view to creating a series of images for the Trust website and for display in their community centre.  I think that this will raise the profile of the charity's work and in turn help to increase funding for the kids.

There are a few areas like parental consent that will have to be sorted out but the kids themselves were really keen to be involved.

Unpaid work

Recently I got involved with the local charity, Enfield island Village Trust, that provides services to the Enfield Lock Ward.  By services I mean job clubs, over 50s, coffee mornings, youth training etc.  I have volunteered to help with their quarterly newsletter which will involve writing articles (my strong point) and taking photographs for the publication (my weaker point).

My first shoot was lat Friday when a Job Fair was held at the local community centre.  I would normally have avoided this kind of scenario due to the fact that it was an indoors shoot.  However, I have been gaining confidence in using flash lately and also with shooting more challenging situations.

The shoot presented me with a few problems.  There was three different types of light to deal with.  The building had large glass panels which let plenty of daylight in on one side of the room.  The other side was mainly fluorescent lighting.  Add my flash to that and I was beginning to find the going a little tough.  The ceilings were high and access to walls was limited so there was nowhere to bounce my flash off.  I had to use the diffuser and leave the flash on the camera.

I used both flash and higher ISO settings depending on where I was shooting in the room and I feel like it was a good combination for me to work with.

It's been a long time since I shot at any event like this - I think I would have to go back to my days at St Thomas' hospital in London when I worked in the Comms Office.  However, I feel that I managed to get some okay shots under the circumstances.  I think I learnt a lot from the experience and look forward to get involved in their next event.

I found the most challenging subjects the speakers.  It is extremely difficult shooting someone who is talking, to get their mouth in the right place and the hand gestures.  I shot most of my images of the speakers trying to get this right.

Some images from the day

I shot this from the mezzanine level.  Difficult to compose for due to unsightly beams in the way but I managed to get this shot.  The blank space in bottom right hand corner would be ideal for text.  

The importance for this shot was to get all the people in the frame and to make the milling about look natural.  

Using fill flash I shot into the bright light of the window here. 

The Mayor of Enfield

The Mayor of Enfield with Charity Trustee

The motivational speaker - Charles Kennedy

Photoparley

I am always on the lookout for interesting websites and I came across this one the other day.

Photoparley was set up in 2011 by OCA tutor Sharon Bothroyd.  The website discusses photographic art with a number of photographers both established and upcoming.  It is always interesting to discover work by contemporary artists/photographers.

The posts are in interview format which makes them more accessible and interesting to read.  It includes interviews with Tom Hunter, David Bate and Nicky Bird.

Many of the articles have been re-published on other webzines reaching a wider international audience.

I will definitely be adding this to my blog list.

Photoparley
https://photoparley.wordpress.com

Assignment 4: feedback and reflections

To try and push myself for this assignment I decided to pick a subject that was of real personal interest to me.  I felt that this would enable me to communicate my ideas more successfully whilst adding a personal touch to my work.  When we look to other photographers we see that their personal projects centre round something that they have a vested interest in.  For example, William Klein’s work in New York, Lewis Hine’s series on child labour or Don McCullin’s war images. 

Adding this subjective element to my work presented a few problems.  As the message I was trying to communicate had an emotional element or sentiment to it I found it harder to pin down.   In hindsight I think that the theme may have been to complex and it would have been better for me to have chosen another subject that was personal to me – perhaps something I had recently experienced.

As a result I lost my way a little and the message I was communicating wasn’t as clear as I had originally planned.  My tutor was quick to point this out and suggested that I could have looked at focussing on one of the themes I introduced in the assignment.  I think my dilemma was that I felt if I had done this my work would have been too restrictive.  Again in hindsight I believe he was right and if I were to redo this assignment I would focus on one of the aspects I introduced. 

Despite all this, I am really happy that I was brave enough to challenge myself to break with my norms and work on a more personally inspired project.   I believe I made some strong statements about life in Hackney by including the place where Agnes Sina-Inakoju was shot dead.  I also believe that I captured some of the essence of life in the borough in Hackney People. 

I think one area where I need to improve in my images is thinking more about my audience and what they will see when they look at my work.  It is clear here in this assignment that what I think is interesting isn’t always the case as my tutor pointed out in my first image for Inner City Living.  Focusing more on narrative will help me move forward.  Avoiding the obvious will help too.  However, I think having a clear message to communicate will provide the best foundation for future assignments. 

Note on colour management:

My tutor mentioned that my colours were slightly off in some of the images and that I should  think about calibrating my monitor.  I’ve been calibrated my monitor for over a year so I was a little confused by this.  I have since spoken to my tutor about this and resolved the issue.  

Lock to Lock Festival

I was at the Lock to Lock Festival on Saturday which was held locally in the Lea Valley Park.  It was a day full of activities that were being held along the canal route from Ponders End to Enfield Lock.

Unfortunately, it rained pretty much all day so the turnout was low.

Here are a few of my images from the day.

I waited for a little while to see some interesting kids turn up at the ice cream van.  And these two came along.  

Father, son and dog. 

The Beached Boys 

Bouncy Castle

Study visit: Photography and the representation of motherhood

The OCA has organised a study visit to the Photographer's Gallery and the Foundling Museum this autumn.  The galleries are showing two linked exhibitions curated by Susan Bright.

The Photographer's Gallery presents Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity which looks at the work of eight artists.  The Foundling exhibition looks at Home Truths: Motherhood and Loss.

I've recently been reading about ways in which I can determine subjects for my photographic projects and gender is one of them. I haven't got any further than identifying womanhood as an area of broad interest so I think this exhibition will be very relevant.

I have just had confirmation of my place.  I am looking forward to meeting up with fellow students again after missing the last study visit.

Martha Short's Context and Narraitve

I’ve been re-reading Maria Short’s book Context and Narrative and several questions have rose their head about where I need to take my photography.  How do I communicate my ideas visually? How do I do this more effectively? How do I bring a concept to life? How do I ensure audience engagement?  

According to Short to be a photographer…”you need to be passionate about communicating ‘something’, as this will inform every choice you make in relation to your work.” She continues, “you also need to to interested in the world around you; you need to be interested in things beyond photography. The substance of the work is in your commitment to your subject, as this will show in your photographs, this commitment will make your photographs breathe; this is how your personalise your work.  If you are clear about why you are photographing your subject then you can choose how to photograph your subject, and in turn this should help your audience interpret the photograph.”

I believe that somewhere along this course I lost direction and my work suffered as a result.  On occasions perhaps I had too much to say and on others not enough.  I do feel though that towards the latter part of this course I found that I lacked 'commitment' to my subject.  Or maybe my subject was too big to commit to and I became overwhelmed and confused about the message I was communicating.

So in order to address this I am going back to basics.

There’s a three-way relationship between photographer, subject and audience – a communication triangle if you like.  The treatment of the subject by the photographer and the visual language applied has a direct influence on how the audience interprets the picture in front of them or if they care to interpret it at all. 

Picture making is not divorced from the photographer’s life experiences and beliefs.  In many images the influence of the photographer is apparent.  They construct the image, it is a trace of what they see and how they want the audience to render meaning from it.

Due to a lot of personal issues in the last few months I feel that I have been temporarily separated from my work.  I was not able to fully engage.  I think this cane be seen in the work I was producing.

So here I am again turning to this book and asking myself:

What is a photograph?

It is an image of the past, a moment that was captured and frozen in time.  It is a document of what happened or what was present. 

Photographs can be simply records, like medical or forensic images, or they can be something more.  They can tell a story.

The key to a successful photograph is engaging with the subject. 

A photograph is a way of expressing an idea, of developing a concept and of storytelling.

What is narrative?

A narrative is basically a way of telling a story.  It usually has a beginning, middle and end.  In photography, a visual narrative works slightly differently.  It can have the basic structure of beginning, middle and end or it might simply imply what has happened in the past or is about to occur.  It may be a fictional interpretation of a given person, place, thing or moment. 

Linear narrative

In photography a narrative can take be communicated in a linear sense, but it can also be cyclical.  It can be a series or images or a single one.  It can be a collection of images that only make sense when brought together. 

Visual continuity

Images can be linked by using visual continuity whether that is weather, subject, location or another linking factor. 

Sequential narratives

Narratives can also be sequential stories or journeys like a pilgrimage that takes you from A to B. 

Visual punctuation

Visual punctuation includes the breaking of the sequence by including a black and white image or one of a different size – something that interrupts the flow.  It can be a one off. 

Juxtaposition can help raise an argument or present a question; the tension between hot and cold, light and dark for example.

The eye of the camera also plays a role.  Is the eye a fourth wall, the eye of the subject or the eye of the viewer/audience?

Symbols and signs

The study of signs is called semiotics. 

To familiarise use with the models and terminology we can look at the work of two philosophers.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Dyadic approach.  The signifier (form which the sign takes) and the signified (the idea/concept it represents).  

Charles Sanders Peirce

Three tiered approach

Representament – the form the sign takes

Interpretant – the sense made of the sign

Object – to which the sign refers. 

Barthes on a more basic level looked at the ‘studium’ which he described as the general interest in an image and the ‘punctum’ which arrests the attention. 

Symbol

Something that represents something else.  In this case the signifier does not represent the signified – this relationship must be learned like rules or language.

Icons

The signifier is perceived as resembling the signified or imitating the signified.  For example, in a portrait, cartoon, with gestures or sound effects etc.

Indexicality

Indexical signifier is physically or casually linked to the signified.  This link can be observed or inferred.  Natural signs like smoke = heat, footprints = footsteps. 

Indexicality is very important to photography because it is a literal ‘trace’ of the original subject according to Peirce.

 Visual Metaphor

Use of a subject as a visual metaphor for something the photographer wishes to express.  This can be seen in the work of Short herself in her collection Gall. In this body of work she uses a horse as a visual metaphor to “express how I felt about the challenges that faced young women in relation to their sense of identity and social placing.”

This enabled her to raise questions such as “when is protection suppression? When is freedom a cliché?”

By going back to basics I believe that I can overcome the problems I've been having and get back on track.  

Old family portraits and their meaning

On a recent visit to Ireland I spent some time going though some old family photographs.  I have never met any of the people in the images below.  They had died by the time I was born.  However, it is really interesting to have pictures of them and the see what they looked like.  When we look at the history of photography we see how the portrait developed and how the painted portrait was overtaken by the accessibility and cost of the photographic portrait.

All to often we find that we see old photographs in photography books but we don't know the subject's stories.  In this case I do know their stories which makes them even more special.

However, they don't give too much away about their personalities.  Most of them have adapted the serious looking pose with the exception of my grandmother who is holding her first born daughter in her arms.  There is an element of maternal love and pride in that shot.  I like the way the focus is also on the daughter.  Her mother is looking down on her so we don't see her face on.  She draws us, the viewers, to her daughter sitting on her knee.

The quality of these images is not great having used my iphone to shoot them.  They were all framed too and I didn't want to damage the images by taking the out of their frames.

My grandmother Kathleen Deane.  Kathleen had five children before she died aged 39 from an asthma attack.  My father was 3 when she died so he never got to know her.  I estimate that this image was taken circa 1923. 

My grandfather John Patrick Deane.  John died in his 90s after having 6 children from two marriages.  He was heavily involved in politics in Ireland.  He was involved in the War of Independence and received an Old IRA medal.

Dr Annie Teresa Deane, my Great Aunt who was GP in the town of Ballycastle for many years until her retirement.  She never married and died in 1961.  

May Deane sister of Annie.  May immigrated to America and ran a deli store in Cleveland Ohio.  She returned to Ireland in her later years.  

My Great Grandmother Elizabeth McAndrew nee Quinn

My Great Grandfather Martin McAndrew.  I love his beard.  

Brits Abroad: photographing expatriats in their new life

There are over 5 million British people living abroad from places like Australia to Spain.  We tend to know little about these people do, what they do, why they went there or indeed how long they've lived there.

Photographer Charlie Clift embarked on a project to photograph expats living on the Mediterranean coast for his series Brits Abroad.  All images can be viewed on his website.

Clift says of his work, "Immigrants are so often spoken about in terms of statistics or stereotypes.  I want people to understand the variety within a group showing how different each person can be."  Instead of looking at how the media stereotypically covers immigration is looking at those immigrants living in Britain Clift wanted to "focus on British people themselves who are immigrants themselves in other countries."

This is interesting especially when looking at the work I did myself on immigration for this course.  I wanted to explore the lives my ancestors lived in their destination country too.  However, we chose to do it in very different ways.

I like his images.  They are very colour as are the characters.  We are introduced to people who have retired to Spain, those working in the expat industry, fish and chip shop owners, cleaners, artists and writers.  This is a diverse group of people with one thing in common - being British.

I like the way in which he has used the subject's place of work for the portrait settings. It enhances their story and establishes an intimacy between the viewer and subject.  It makes you think about the life they left behind.  Was the grass actually greener on the other side? Have these people integrated into Spanish life?  Or are they simply living a British life abroad in the sun?

I like this work especially when thinking about in relation to place.  What does this place mean for the subjects of his pictures?  It seems to differ from person to person.  Is this home?  Or will Britain always be seen as home.

I would like to look at working on a project for the Irish that are moving to Britain today.  Apparently, about 400 arrive in Britain every week.  It would be interesting to tell their stories.

I'm not sure whether Clift is going to look at other countries where expats are living.  It would be interesting to see if the level of integration differs from place to place.

Charlie Clift is a editorial and commercial photographer in London.

My Auntie Annie

On a recent visit to Ireland I met my Auntie Annie for the first time in years.  I think it was about 15 years to be precise.

I always remember when she came from Dublin to visit she always had wonderful presents for me.  Things you wouldn't find in the shops near us.

She hasn't changed too much.  She's still glamorous and attractive and calls herself Auntie Annie.

I got a portrait of her.  A bit rushed but it captures her spirit perfectly.


I'm not sure which I prefer.  The black and white or colour.  They both are appealing in different ways.

Freezing Time: The Autobiography of Eadweard Muybridge

I have just finished reading Freezing Time: The Autobiography of Eadweard Muybridge by Keith Stern.  It wasn't necessarily a book I was dying to read.  I just came across a copy of it and thought I'd give it a go.  The book looks at the lives of four interesting characters that shaped the life and work of the early photographer Eadweard Muybridge.  We have Muybridge himself at the narrator of the story.  His wife Flora who was half his age.  Her lover the con man Larkyns and Senator Leland Stanford the benefactor of Muybridge's work.

It's an interesting read if somewhat strange at times but that in part is due the narrator himself.  I suppose Muybridge is most famous for his work on horses particularly Horse in Motion.  However, the book introduces us to his landscape work at Yosemite, his attempts at photojournalism and the work he did of Chinese workers on the railroads and of the native American people.  The book also introduces us to what became his most important work - the motion picture what was to eventually become the movie.

I think the most striking thing about his photography and his approach to his work is that it is a science and not an art.  This of course opens the old debate of whether photography is art at all.  At the time that he was working photography was very much in its infancy and had limitations, some which he was keen to explore.

I think the most I got out of this books was an insight into the work and commitment of early pioneers of photography.  I think that with modern technology the camera is something we take for granted and few know how it actually works.  I think this is an interesting concept - the idea that people take more pictures that ever before and most have even less control over how they are made.  It also shows the change in the meaning of a photograph.  Muybridge used his images to prove scientific facts and make discoveries.  Today images are used to such a mass extent that their meaning (if there was indeed any in the first place) has been lost.

Muybridge is portrayed as a disturbed genius who led a colourful life.  His legacy can be seen in the work of others like Thomas Eakins, Thomas Edison and Francis Bacon.

Assignment 5

Here are the images that I submitted for Assignment 5.  As I wrote about in my brief this assignment focuses on the Irish in London.

Departure

As we left Dun Laoghaire there was drunkenness. The younger men were drunk - not violently so but tragically so, as I was, to forget the dreadful loneliness of having to leave home... For us, as it was then, it was the brink of hell...

JB Keane Self-Portrait (1964)

Tools of the trade – 1

The first wave of immigrants to reach London worked in the services industry mainly as cobblers and tailors.  They were an essential part of the workforce but survived in hellish conditions. 

Tools of the trade – 2

The Irish are best known for their work in the construction industry.  Over the years, the pub was the place to organise ‘the start’ and a few simple tools either borrowed or begged was enough to secure employment.   

Navvies – Building the waterways

Irish workers were in demand from the late 18^th century during the canal boom.  Using spades and picks each cut or channel was dug by hand.  Today there are 2,200 navigable canals and rivers in the UK.  

 Navvies – The men who built the railway

Tramping from job to job, navvies and their families lived and worked in appalling conditions, often for years on end, in rough timber and turf huts alongside the bridges, tunnels and cuttings that they built. In the 1840s there was no compensation for death or injury, and railway engineers like Brunel resisted all efforts to provide their workers with adequate housing and sanitation, or safe working conditions.

Despite cruel exploitation and extreme deprivation the navvies achieved amazing feats of engineering, equipped with little more than gunpowder, picks and shovels.

An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger)

During The Great Famine (1846-51) the Irish population fell by 25%.  One million people died.  One million people emigrated. 

“The famine was a defining event in the history of Ireland and Britain.  It has left deep scars.  That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today.  Those who governed in London at the time failed their people.”

Tony Blair, British Prime Minister 1997

 Cead mile failte

"The Irish hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our pure religion. This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious race have no sympathy with the English character. Their ideal of human felicity is an alternation of clannish broils and coarse idolatry. Their history describes an unbroken circle of bigotry and blood.”

Benjamin Disraeli

 Living conditions

Due to London's high cost of living, many Irish families frequently shared a single room. In 1849 a  house in Saffron Hill was investigated by Thomas Beames where he found 88 men, women and children living in a single five room house.

Fancy a pint?

“Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.”

George Bernard Shaw 

If music be the food of love, play on

“For you can't hear Irish tunes without knowing you're Irish, and wanting to pound that fact into the floor.” 

Jennifer Armstrong, Becoming Mary Mehan

Be fruitful and multiply

The Roman Catholic Church believes that contraception is “intrinsically evil” in itself.  Catholics are only permitted to use natural methods of birth control.  As a result the Irish migrant population continued to grow until the fear of God and the Church diminished.