Assignment 2: Submission

I finally made it, finalized the images, the narrative order and the write up.  Now waiting on feedback from my tutor.  Previously I have added the complete narrative to my blog, I am not doing that this time.  It is long and in any case will be submitted in my assessment pack.

I do, however, want to reflect on the process that brought me to this point.  Normally when working on an assignment I spend a considerable amount of time developing the photo selection, working my way through a number of candidate sets prior to arriving at the final choice.  This time around the development and finalizing of the book, "FEST", replaced that process, in effect I used the book as a means to refine my narrative flow and to reduce the number of photographs to a manageable set.  With over 70 in the final volume this was still many more than the 12 or so needed for the assignment; there still remained some tough choices.

Working on the book familiarized me with the images and provided a schema for ordering and presenting them; a narrative that started positive, dipped in the middle to show the negative and then finished on a relatively high point.  I have retained this flow for the assignment.  I appreciate that the order of the images need not dictate how each is seen as an individual entity, however, I still feel that the photographs build upon each other.  There must be a logical flow, I cannot simply gather a bunch of photos and submit them randomly.

The final choice, whilst not easy, was not overly difficult.  Each photo had to fit into a narrative but also have enough strength to stand alone. Within the book I had no constraint regarding the need for the photographs to show interaction, this created a gate that eliminated many photographs.  I also decided to retain the punchy colour of the book, I did debate inclusion of B&W for the grimier elements, to emphasize the downfall some suffer.  However, I feel that this would have made for a disjoint set and I am still wanting to be upbeat, but realistic in the narrative.

I have arrived at a personal view of the Oktoberfest, capturing the colour and chaos of the event, accepting that not all is good, but ultimately that this is an enjoyable and integral part of Bavarian culture.  I have avoided a voyeuristic eye, and hope that this set is respectful of the people involved.  This is not the Oktoberfest as the Munich city government would like to project, but it is equally not condemnatory. I had imagery available to tell pretty much any story I chose, I have told my story.

There is strong influence from Martin Parr in these photographs, his use of colour and portrayal of ordinary people enjoying themselves informed the development of both the books and this final set.  My use of flash to punch some colour into the photos was inspired by Bruce Davidson's work on the New York subway.  Using flash seemed somehow to be cheating, I really thought that artificial light should not have a place in documentary photography, I was wrong.  Flash has enabled me to add colour and depth into photographs that would otherwise have been back lit and dark.  Watching Joel Meyerovitz shooting in New York was also very influential, in a sense his technique and ability to blend into the crowd gave me security to work that way.

I have learned a great deal from this assignment, more than any other so far:

1. Selecting and editing the images provided a very clear demonstration of the ability of a photographer to craft their own message by what they include.  If this was the only view someone had of the fest I could decide how they saw it, good or bad.
2. I was far more involved with the subjects of this project than ever before.  I could not stand back, I had to get in close and take risks. 
3. The development of the narrative was a constant activity, before, during and after shooting.  I entered the event with a story in mind, it then morphed as opportunity and experience kicked in.

Let's see what my tutor thinks!

Another Book

I am really on a roll when it comes to book design this autumn, although in the case of "Mabul" it is now 6 months since I took the photographs, so I should avoid being too pleased with myself.  Earlier in the year Heidi, my Mother and I traveled to Malaysian Borneo for a two week dive vacation.  Our destination was the small island of Mabul, 45 minutes boat ride from the city of Semporna, and a 30 hour trip from Munich!

Mabul offers interesting diving, white beaches, palm trees, all the usual cliches associated with a coral island just north of the equator.  However, it is it's proximity to the underwater nature reserve that surrounds the island of Siapadan that brings us so far.  Discovered by Jaques Cousteau this is undoubtedly one of the world's best dive locations, permanently featuring in anybody's top 10 best sites.  Sadly this popularity is slowly killing the place as a dive destination.  The wildlife and underwater world are being protected by the introduction of a permit system that severely limits the number of divers who can visit.  However, this has not stopped the ongoing construction of local hotels offering diving at Sipadan.  5 years ago when we first visited we could dive there everyday, now in a two week holiday, 3 or 4 visits is all that can be expected, soon it will be one. Then all Sipadan will offer to the serious diver is to say that once we dived this paradise.

I am lucky, I have experienced the best of Sipadan, but I am sad. I very much doubt I will ever see it again, it is simply not worth the cost and time to get there for so limited access.  Sipadan is where I grew up as an underwater photographer, where I first delved into macro and finally figured out how to shoot large scale wide angle.  It is truly a paradise for a photographer, I will really miss this.

As with my FEST book the problem with producing a book around a diving vacation is how to reduce the thousands of images to a manageable number and what narrative to weave.  I wanted this book to present the photographs at their best and to span all that the location has to offer, from the small "critters" of Mabul and Kapalai, to the vast schools of fish and hunting sharks of Sipadan.  I also wanted to include the world above the water, to chronicle a magical vacation as well as present scuba photos.  I adopted a similar strategy to my FEST book, limiting the page designs to 3 very clean layouts:

The first layout I only used for above water images, the second only for underwater.  The second layout uses the photographs as shot in their original aspect ratio.  The full bleed two page spreads then enable me to capture and present the scale of the locations we visited.  This is a large book, the pages are 11 x 13 inches, the full bleed spreads will be 26 inches wide!  By using different designs for the above and under water images I am attempting to drive visual cohesion in the respective sections, but also state clearly that these are different worlds.

In the underwater imagery I have also tried to balance colour and form in the spreads, again I want this to work visually and avoid one photograph distracting from another.  I did consider 1 image per two page spread, however, books this size have a high cost per page, so economy as well as aesthetics drove the design:

The highest impact photograph was saved for the cover

Early adoption of a narrative and structural design made the choice and sequencing of the photographs very much easier than in previous attempts.  This is now my 7th volume of underwater photographs, an annual creation that chronicles an individual dive trip.  I am thinking it might soon be time to create a single retrospective volume that looks at all that I have done over the 10 years.  I am currently reading about book design and this is generating some ideas that I want to play with.  I would like to create a book about the philosophy and practice of underwater photography, using my work as illustration.  There are many excellent books on this subject written by accomplished professionals, so I would need to do something other than a how to, something personal and reflective.

Mabul | Make Your Own Book

Family

I have spent much time considering the challenge of the photograph as a work of art, I have pondered the question of whether photographs can represent an objective reality, and debated with myself the idea that there can or cannot be truth in a photograph.  These are worthy themes and ones that should be a part of an art undergraduates thought process, however, there is a danger that I either forget or even worse dismiss the value of a photograph as a record.  I recall two comments made in the many history books that I have read over the past few years (I paraphrase):

• No matter the worth of all the religious paintings of the last 2000 years, a single photograph of Jesus Christ would have a greater value
• In the 20th century, for the first time people (other than the obscenely wealthy) were able to see what their great grandparents looked like when they were young.

Photography has many values and many failings, however, it's ability to enable us to visualize the past almost as if we were present is a powerful and very rewarding quality.  Of course, these photographs might be carefully edited, chosen to present the best of those departed, but they are still a factual representation of how someone once looked who is no more.  

Recently I asked my mother to bring some of our family photographs to Munich and leave them with me.  These photographs lived in boxes and plastic bags, jumbled together in a chaos of fading tattered bits of paper.  They were without context and risked losing any meaning as the people who once remembered their faces also ceased to be with us.  

My father died 4 years ago, only 67 and the victim of a botched operation to remove a tumor.  With him was gone not only a man I loved very much, but a large part of the history of me.  Whilst we talked about many things during his time, physics, history, art, and well pretty much anything, we rarely talked about the past and his family.  I really have little knowledge of where I come from, I know my great grandparents were from coal mining families, but little else.  I am not into ancestor tracing or generating vast family trees, but I am curious and also want to ensure that my brother's sons, Joe and Ben, aged 10 and 9 will grow up with some knowledge of where they come from and who they are.

So, I have spent the last couple of weeks scanning old photographs and then arranging them into a book.  My recent development of "Fest" reminded me that I owed it to myself and my family to create another book of far greater significance.  The scanning process was laborious, I scanned over 200 prints on my flat bed Epson V700.  However, it was rewarding, tiny contact prints made from 120 roll film suddenly revealed hidden detail and a little contrast adjustment and removal of the yellowing of age brought these photographs to life.  Sadly the negatives are long gone.  The photographs were often quite battered, I chose not to correct any tears or age spots, these are part of the patina of age that adds character.  My goal was to clarify not to alter. The photos spanned 70 years from the 1890's to the 1960's.  It felt odd and almost humbling to be handling such old documents and wondering who before me had placed them on a shelf or proudly pasted them into a book.

A pile of old photos was slowly becoming a story.  I started to sort them into some kind of rough order, chronicling my great grandparents, grandparents and finally my mother and father's childhood.  I chose a very simple design for the book, mimicking the look of a family photo album.  I divided it into 3 sections each separated by a blank double spread, the first my father's family, then my mother's, finishing with their 1963 wedding.  There is no writing in the book.  I had some information that could have become captions, but chose not to.  I want the book to live and so am going to ask my mother to help me to hand write notes about the people directly onto the white pages.  I also left 10 blank pages at the end so that the story may continue if we discover other old photographs.

This was a remarkably emotional project, at times I had to leave it for a while.  It taught me that photographs are far more than art.  It should be obvious, but I have been so deep in the art side that I kind of forgot that photographs are immensely emotional objects, they convey so much history.  But, that history is local and is very fragile, a photograph only has meaning with it's story attached.  My boxes of family photographs mean nothing, unless a name, a place,  a person can be attached to those slowly fading bits of paper.  Once again the learning is that without Narrative and Context photographs can be very cold lifeless things.

This is the book cover, no words, just my mother and father when they were young.  I have chosen a very simple title and not used my name as author, just Clarke | Owen, my father and mothers names.

Similarly for the pages a very simple design, these are images of my Gran when she was young in the 1910's and 20's.

And the Book:

Family | Make Your Own Book

I want to finish this commentary with a few of the more meaningful photographs from this exercise.  They mean so much to me, but only because I now know who they are, well mostly... First my Dad's family

This is one of the more obscure images.  I am pretty certain that they are a mine rescue team and by the look of the moustaches probably from before WW1 or just after.  I am guessing that one of the men is my Great Grandfather of whom this might be the only photo.

Haydock, 1923-24, almost certainly my Grandfathers school football team, again not too sure who is who.

 I am on firmer ground here, this was taken in 1911 and is my Gran and Uncle Alf.

This is Uncle Bill my Gran's brother.  He was lost at sea on a WW2 corvette, torpedoed by a U-Boat and the source of my Grans abiding hatred of the Germans.  She would not be at all happy about where I live now.  Hansom devil!

Gran and Grandad with my father, probably in Blackpool enjoying their summer holidays in that very traditional Northern fashion.  Most photos of my Fathers family come from trips to Blackpool.

My dad, probably aged 2 or 3, love this photo, only found it a few days ago.  It says so much about a working class upbringing in the 1940's.

This is very precious, not the photo, but the way my gran cut out the newspaper announcement of my parents wedding and my dad's degree.  The fact they were in the paper in the first place speaks volumes about working class pride and formalities.

Moving now to my mother's side, this is my Great Gran's wedding, around the turn of the century.  I knew her in my very early years, a very old, very gentle and loving old lady who was always a pleasure to visit.

This is my other Great Grandmother, on my mother's father's side.  I never knew her or for that matter my Grandfather, this is all I have to show that she ever existed.  She was quite pretty but also looks strong.

My mother's father died when she was 16, a great loss, she loved him very much and I suspect I would have as well.  A farmer who was tough but fair and generous.

 My Mother aged 7, now 70, amazing she seems to have hardly changed

And finally my parents wedding, very 1960's...

This project has taught me more about photography than anything I have yet done.  It has brought home the immense value and power of photographs.  They can transport us into the past and bring the dead back to life.  They remind us of who we were and why we are.  This is social documentary at its most basic, the story of a family and why ultimately I am writing this today.

I wonder how many more boxes of photographs lie under beds or in attics slowly losing any meaning, documents that could help future generations better understand themselves and value their lives.  At least two little boys will grow up knowing who their great great grandparents were and what they looked like.  That was worth a couple of weeks work.

Odds & Ends

I was hoping to have done a little more work this month, but once again my real job had stepped up a gear and I am back to 12 hour days and 60 hour weeks.  I really should be hard at work finalizing my Photos for assignment 2 and building the accompanying narrative, however, am simply knackered so have been doing some lighter more fun photographic activities.  Most important has been the scanning of over 200 aging  family photographs, some 100 or more years old, and the production of a book to archive them.  The book will be my principal Christmas gift for my Brother, his two young sons and my Mum, a little family history.  I'll comment on this is more detail once it is done.

In the mean time I bought myself an early Christmas present, annoying Heidi in the process who was thinking along the same lines for my Birthday and Christmas, two event two weeks apart, and a pain in the ass for the gift giver.  I am the proud owner of a brand new Fujifilm X-F1 camera, a tiny and yet pretty capable device. I did not need a new camera, I kind of succumbed to retail therapy, but now have a go anywhere carry anywhere camera that is capable of very nice images.  It is not a DLSR or even a Mirrorless replacement, but is something I can take with me all the time.

And yes I did get the brown one with the matching leather case - accessories are important in a Man's life.

Friday was meant to be a days vacation, I still have over 20 days left to take before the end of the year, I managed a morning before the phone dragged me back to my laptop.  I used the morning to take a relaxing walk around the neighbourhood and try out my new toy:

I must say that for such a small camera I am very happy.  It is a typical Fuji providing vivid colour, maybe too vivid, but that is my taste anyway.  I like the manual zoom, it seems better controlled and is a neat way to power the camera on and off.  I do wish it had a viewfinder, but that would make the camera much larger.  I am not a big fan of using a screen for composition, but this one was quite bright even in the strong light that morning.  I also suspect my problem with on screen composition  has more to do with growing longsightedness and an inability to properly focus on the screen.

It does beg the question of why I have so many cameras and continue to buy new ones.  For quite a while I have pondered whether I should simplify my kit and that this would bring a greater focus on the image rather than the process.  I concluded that it wouldn't, the image is about my eye not the technology, the technology helps me to achieve what I want to do, but my problems are in the "WHAT" and not the "HOW".  New cameras bring better performance, smaller platforms, convenience, speed, flexibility, all of which enable me to easier achieve my vision, but none of which helps me to decide what that should be.

One of the many developments in my thinking about photography has been the realization that pixel perfect image quality is simply unnecessary, even wrong for many images. There is the risk that image quality detracts from message, or rather that an obsession with image quality can prevent thought about message.  But, I keep buying cameras, although today I look at the package rather than the output, trying to optimize size and capability.  If I wanted better imagery my best bet right now would be to upgrade my 5D2 for a 5D3, however, I already have more image quality than I can use in the current model.  I am also becoming increasingly frustrated by the weight of modern DSLRs, wanting a small versatile camera that offers "enough" quality.  The Fuji X-F1 is not that camer perhaps it's bigger brothers the X-Pro1 and X-E1 would fit the bill, however, it is the go anywhere do anything camera that makes sure I get the shot.

On another note Christmas is coming and the annual Shaun calendar needs to be produced.  This year I am going with a rich colourful landscape, versus the B&W urban view that was 2012.  There has been quite a lot of debate on Flickr about Joe Cornish and "that" style of landscape photography, with some surprisingly heated comments.  I am not the early morning, half-way up a mountain kind of photographer, too lazy for that so maybe I dismiss the genre on the basis on a couldn't rather than wouldn't basis.  I did struggle during the Landscape course with what a landscape actually is, before deciding that it was whatever I wanted it to be.  Instinctively I am drawn to the landscape of the city, finding joy in the shapes and forms of buildings as they interact with the greenery that surrounds them (well at least in Munich where trees are an obsession).  I also find that I can say more with a study of the city and can offer a viewpoint that is personal and not risk the cliche.

The 12 photos selected have a seasonal variation and almost all are taken from work done over the past 12 months whilst studying Landscape.  They are all taken in the city, although it is not always obvious.  This is not quite what I would put on the wall if this was only for me, I have to respect the taste of those who will get this as a Christmas gift.  It is, however, my voice on landscape, each image is one that I am proud to present as my work.

It is a busy time right now, so much to do and so little free time.  I still have post its with to do lists lurking above my desk.

"The Myth of the Airborne Warrior" by Stuart Griffiths

Amazon

This book brings together two developing strands of thought, the importance of vernacular photography as a record and how the design of a book influences the way that we read photographs.  At a secondary level this book also illustrates very well how context drives meaning, how a photograph can be lifted from snapshot to art work, simply by being taken from a plastic container and being printed in a book.

Stuart Griffiths is an ex-Paratrooper who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles and this book, "The Myth of the Airborne Warrior", presents photographs he took during the late 80's and early 90's.  The photos were taken on a cheap Canon Sureshot, the film precursor of today's bargain basement digital compacts.  They are poorly framed, poorly exposed, poorly, pretty much everything.  But, they are a record of a difficult time presented from a unique perspective.  Collectively they rise and present a frightening picture of boredom, fear and ultimately abuse.  The Para's are revealed as a bunch of vulnerable young men trapped in a nightmare from which they cannot escape.  The enemy is everyone, trained to engage a uniformed military they do not even know who the enemy is until they are shot at.

Stuart left the army and in 1997 was enrolled on a Photography degree alongside Gordon MacDonald, now Head of Publications at Photoworks and Editor of Photoworks magazine. Stuart did not speak much about his experiences and it was not until 2009 that he shared the images.  The subsequent book had to do more than simply present the photographs or make a political point about the troubles, it needed to convey the experience he had beyond the merely visual.  The book design has to carry this weight and it does it well.  Most photographs are faced on the opposite page by a block of text telling his story, the size of the block exactly mirroring the photograph.  The text is, however, mostly blacked out, the censors black marker redacting his story.  It can still be read with difficulty.  What remains almost reads as fragments of poetry.  This conveys the sense that not only was their life miserable and boring it was also something that the government of the time did not want to be seen.  The book is further augmented by the inclusion of bits of paper containing "rules of engagement", small leaflets warning against fraternization and a really welcome touch a single print signed by the author, 1 of an "edition" of 500, but nice all the same.

A small, but very interesting photobook, yielding new ideas for design and use of imagery.  I wonder how many other stories sit inside the albums of amateur photographers  never to be told, but containing important visual history.  "Serious" photographers seem to spend so much time looking for the remarkable, when it is so often to be found a few feet away in our everyday lives.  We may not know it now, but one day these records might be a priceless artifact of a time passed.  Photography has an important archival role, that occasionally can be transformed into art.

Looking Forward

Had a useful chat with my tutor this week, discussing the options I face as I progress towards the end of Level 2 and into Level 3.  With the changes occurring to the level 3 courses I had started to worry about what was the best approach and in particular what to do if there was a significant delay to the start of the new courses.  The call helped me to perform an attitude adjustment.  The change in the courses is an opportunity, both pathways are now open to me, and I have enough information to make an informed decision.

If I opt for the new courses, the earliest that they will commence is going to be Autumn 2013, perhaps even later.  At my current rate of progress I expect to finish my current course by end of May or thereabouts, so another concern was a gap forming in my studies.  I gave serious thought to adding a further course, but none of them seemed to add much that I could not achieve anyway.  So decision time, how to manage my time and retain flexibility in Level 3 course choice.

I started studying with the OCA in 2009, my first blog entry for TAOP was on September 9th, that month I added a further 24 posts and completed 15 projects, phew...  This is just over 3 years ago and since then I barely slowed down, the OCA studies becoming the mainstay of my personal time.  I took longer over the the Landscape course, there was little choice with the workload it brought.  Back to Social Documentary, my current feeling is that I need to slow down and pace myself a little more, read more, reflect more.  I have a bookshelf of unread photography theory and piles of photobooks that would benefit from a more critical assessment.  A second course would simply add distraction and pressure.

I am also finding that while I do enjoy photographing people, I am still at heart a photographer of the urban landscape   I can include this in my social documentary studies, but it would only ever be a secondary element, given the emphasis of the course on people photography.  I would like to do some personal projects that would expand the range of what I am currently doing, but also, perhaps, feed into the thought process I will have to follow to develop my practice for level 3.  Recent OCA blog posts and Dewald's exploration of a growing Chinese city have sparked an interest once more in the marginal space around a city, where the urban gives way to the rural.  When I started Landscape this was going to be a key element of my work, but my direction changed and I headed into the formal public spaces of the city instead.  It'll also do me good to get out and about camera in hand.

In the spirit of that exploration of different themes and also simply because it is that time of year I have continued to examine how I look at Autumn and what it means to me.  It is a time of change and for me an almost spiritual time of renewal after the long heat of the summer.  Enthusiasm returns and a desire to explore.  In a previous post I got in close trying to create "colour fields" that abstracted the season.  More recently I have expanded my view and looked at other elements of the season that resonate personally with me.  The colour is beautiful, but that is not really interesting to me photographically.  As they say, it has been done to death.  What interests me is the light and how the light plays with the colour:

These three images were deliberately very dark, an attempt to capture the light filtering through the decaying canopy with the sun picking up blasts of colour.  They are perhaps too dark, but not for me.  These images are very representative of my view on the darkness of the oncoming winter, but the last blast of the summer sun.

More conventionally the light and colour of autumn, still brings out the cliche in me:

These are far more conventional views of the Autumn, but I was still looking for the light versus the colour, although both clearly interact.

My last of images for Autumn, before I expire from cliche overload, is something utterly different.  In these images it is all about colour and specifically a very unusual contrast.  Over the weekend we had a very early and very large snowfall.  This created havoc in the parks as wet heavy snow landed on trees still burdened with leaves.  Rather than fall through barren winter branches the snow settled and its weight pulled branches down, often to breaking point.  The aesthetic affect, though, was quite magical.  Normally the yellow leaves were the bright point in an Autumn image, now they were mid-tone at best or even the dark point.  This created a very strange soft landscape of yellow and white

The most visually interesting areas were the pathways.  The snow pulled the trees down to create virtual tunnels and the foot traffic melted the snow to expose the carpets of fallen leaves.

Particularly strange was the newly fallen leaves on top of the snow

I have never seen anything quite like this before and perhaps will not again or at least for a long time.  It lasted for a day before the snow left,.  In essence this is the magic of photography, that ability to preserve a moment and to reflect on what was and is no longer.

Autumn brings the new for me, as the old leaves fall, I gain new energy and purpose.  I don't really do Autumn as a photographer, but there is something in the season that pulls me out into the fresh air.  I now need to harness that energy into some personal work and start to think more deeply about what I do and why I do it...