After a good start to my work at the fest, the middle weekend proved to be a little disappointing. The weather turned against me and whilst it adds a new dynamic to the photographs, generally increasing the misery, heavy incessant rain effectively stops me from taking photographs. Whilst I have mainly been using my Canon 7D, I have also turned to the more discreet Fujifilm X100 for some trips. The X100 is not weather proof and even though the 7D has some water proofing, it cannot stand up to heavy rain. Thus I spent much of my time in cover ducking out to take a shot every now and then or walking with camera tucked into my jacket. I got some reasonable photographs, but it certainly limited the range of what I could do and my movements were every much more restricted.
Once again the question of colour versus B&W was raised, this time in response to a photograph on the OCA Student Flickr forum. The comment was that the immense amount of colour in the images was confusing to the eye and that B&W might produce an even greater sense of a voyeuristic study. The latter point is interesting, this is essentially a voyeuristic approach, I am not asking people's permission to take their photographs, indeed I am doing the opposite, trying to snatch an unguarded moment. My goal is to document the interaction of people with each other and not with my camera. I am "taking" their photograph, and am aware of being open to the accusations of behaving improperly in this pursuit. In answer I refer to Winogrand, Meyerovitz, and every other street photographer who has dedicated themselves to a study of the human species in the urban environment. I want to document the joy and stupidity of this immense festival, not to create a series of portraits of people at the fest, although that would also be an interesting approach, perhaps next year for YoP. I am trying to smile and interact after taking the photo if spotted, otherwise skulk away to track the next tableaux.
Returning to colour and the confusion that is generated by complex highly saturated images. This is an area of risk for this work, I may over complicate things and lose clarity in presentation, however, somehow I think that might be an important outcome. This is a confusing place, wildly colourful, full of people having a riotous time. The confusion is part of the message. In the final edit I will need to balance this. Questions will need to be answered over how I mix photographs, do I mix high colour and complexity with simplicity do I include B&W, how saturated should the images be, natural or stylistic?
In any case here is a sample of a rainy weekend at the Oktoberfest!
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