Assignment three The (in)decisive moment

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Brief
Create a set of between six and ten finished images on the theme of the decisive moment. You may choose to create imagery that supports the tradition of the ‘decisive moment’ or you may choose to question or invert the concept by presenting a series of ‘indecisive’ moments. Your aim isn’t to tell a story, but in order to work naturally as a series there should be a linking theme, whether it’s a location, event or particular period of time.

Include a written introduction to your work of between 500 and 1000 words outlining your initial ideas and subsequent development. You’ll need to contextualise your response with photographers that you’ve looked at, and don’t forget to reference the reading that you’ve done.

Introduction

After completing the Research Point for part 3 I decided that I wanted to approach the assignment though the traditional sense of the decisive moment. I felt that by doing this I would throw myself out of my comfort zone given my aversion to taking pictures of people I don’t know.
In my Planning and Research, I found John Sulers’ elements of the decisive moment very useful when trying to identify those elements in the images of Vivian Maier.
So in “true Henri Cartier-Bresson style”, I did not go looking for the DM shot, but focused on a subset of the elements described by Suler and Cartier-Bresson.
“You can’t go looking for it; you can’t want it, or you want get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens” Henri Cartier-Bresson , American Photo , Page: 96 (September/October 1997)

My first attempts proved both frustrating and challenging but overall very helpful.
I needed a high shutter speed which was an issue, but not as challenging as being able to see, and then take the shot in a split second. I had very few issues with people noticing me or my camera which was a great relief!

Contact Sheet

Although I took images in colour, I preferred most of them in black and white. I wanted to compare them directly with Maier’s and Cartier-Bresson’s images, which were all in black and white. Planning and Research

I selected shots that I felt had some of Sulers’ elements but I had to rotate and crop a few of them due to some innacuracies that resulted from the need to click the shutter without having the time to check if the framing was straight.

fig.6 Not framed well. Too much space at the top. In hindsight I think her shoes would have made a better image! (see fig.6a)

fig.6a

fig.7 Unfortunately the main subjects are out of focus. But I was pleased with the the shot in respect of the wording on the bridge in light of the couples embrace.

fig.8 I cropped this shot to help me focus on Sulers’ features of ambiguity, uncertainty curiosity and emotion. I think this would fall into the category of unique, fleeting and meaningful moment as well.

fig.9 This couple were just too quick for me and I didn’t get Suler’s anticipation, of completion and closure. I would have prefered the moment before the kiss, but I was still happy with the inbuilt caption on the bridge

fig.10 This is the shot I liked the most. The curved pavement indicates where he has come from, he has left the crowds behind. It is curious and perhaps ambiguous  because he is the only one wearing a dress suit. The hotdog is a bit of a surprise too in light of what his appearance. Emotion and meaning coming from his posture and expression as he takes his first bite. His posture matches the curve of the pavement. The man in the background on the right and the post on the left helps to frame him in the shot. It is a candid unobtrusive shot (I was quite a long way away from him). I believe it goes someway to being a DM in the true sense.

fig.11. Another cropped shot to help me focus on Sulers feature of ambiguity and contradiction.

fig.12 The legs of the walker next to the bench match the legs of the two subjects giving the shot some horizontal rhythm. It looks like perhaps someone is missing from the scene. They are both looking slightly to the left, has the person wondered off?

I was quite pleased with some of the images and feel they fit Suler’s and Cartier -Bresson’s elements well, with several of them fitting more then one. Most of them had an element of luck and coincidence which is consistent with the Cartier Bresson DM, and demonstrate an ability to see that was pleasing.
My ability to control the camera quickly was an issue in respect of focus and stability but I can work on this for the next set. I don’t know if any of these will make the final cut for the assessment, but I definitely prefer most of them in black and white. I think the only one that looks better in colour is the lady on the wall. (fig 6)

Colour versions below

My next few days produced some of the following shots.

 

Again I selected shots that I felt had one or more of Sulers’ elements

fig.13 The viewer is drawn by the girls gaze down to the boy sitting with his head down. It is an interesting image because it is difficult to understand what the dynamic is between the two subjects. This could come under curiosity, emotional. Have they had an argument? or are they just chatting?

fig.14  I really liked this shot. They are not engaging with each other. They both look like they are wistfully thinking about other things that they could be doing if they weren’t trapped together in a glass box!  There is also the reflection giving a suggestion of someone coming between them. I watched them for a few minutes and in reality they were very engaged with each other and chatting all the time. I just caught a moment that shows something completely different. I think this image might include Suler’s features of Visual Coalescence, Figure/Ground relationships, Curiosity, Fleeting moment, Candid, Meaning and Emotion.

I took a few pictures of the couple (fig14a and fig.14b) and decided to waited for some passers by to see if this would add anything. It did – and I appear to have concocted a whole story around them!

fig.14a

fig.14b

 

fig 15 A disaster in the making! The two boats in the back ground look like they are being drawn into the V produced by the two boats in the foreground as they hit each other. The man standing on the back of the left hand boat appears to be trying to keep his balance and we will never know if he fell in or if the other boats joined the mayhem. I think this would come under the element of Anticipation.

fig.16 This shot suggests the feature Ambiguity and Curiosity. How can three people on bikes be so close to each other? Why are the at such different heights and in such a straight line? (and still be laughing) They were in fact on one bike that had an adult seat at the back, older and younger child seats, middle and front. They also seem to be on quite a slant so maybe a bit of anticipation of a fall too!

fig.17 I waited quite some time for something or someone interesting to pass by. I think I took the shot a fraction after I should. The person with the umbrella should have been more to the right and not directly in front of the white down pipe which is breaking up her silhouette. An earlier shot would also have lost the man coming into shot on the left. I did a very quick clean up and crop to get a better idea of how it could have looked if I had got the timing just right. (see fig.17a)

fig.17a

fig.18 I liked the composition of this shot with the building on the left and the trees on the right. The fence leads the eye to the steps which take the viewer down to the water and back round. The person standing by the building on the left may only be seen on the second time round. I don’t think this is particularly a DM shot, but as I was looking for geometrically balanced images as part of Suler’s features I have included it.

Colour versions below

Final Selection

The brief asks for between 6 and 10 shots on the theme of the decisive moment, that work naturally as a series.

Img..13

Img..8

Img.9

Img.10

Img.11.

Img.16

Img.17

Img.18

Img..18

I’m not sure that Img.18 helps them be a cohesive set? It’s different from the other images in a couple of ways: it doesn’t include people and it was the only image I took without looking through the viewfinder. I pointed the camera towards the river from a bridge and was surprised that I managed to get a shot without any people in it as the river was awash with boats full of people! But I like the loneliness of the bench with the discarded cup!

I have to admit that I was not at all comfortable taking pictures of people in the street at the beginning of this assignment but I ended enjoying the process although I did get a few negative vibes from people. In the main people don’t seem to care or just didn’t see me.
I chose a long lens which I thought would produce close images without me getting so close that people would notice. The lens didn’t attract attention but it gave me a shallow depth of field on occasion which I hadn’t fully taken into account when selecting it. Perhaps, if i feel brave enough, I will venture out another time with a 50 or 80mm prime lens.

The assignment has given me a much better understanding of the concept of “The Decisive Moment” and without doubt this part of the course has taught me a lot about my camera, my technical skills and my ability “to see”.
I have also come to understand that there is a great deal going on around me that sometimes it’s worth taking notice of rather than trying to filter it all out. My tendency to always be looking for abstract images may have been stopping me from truly “seeing”.

At the end of my planning for this assignment, I wrote:
“Going through this process  has really helped me to understand what I need to be able to achieve in order to try and capture a DM shot in the Cartier-Bresson sense, whilst also taking  Sulers’ psychological elements into account.
I need some luck, be able to see what is going on, what is about to happen, what the composition and background are giving and the skills to take the shot at the right time. How intuitive this will all be I have no idea!”
I did have some luck, and I was able to identify opportunities that might provide interesting interaction if I waited. How much of this was intuitive, I am still not sure.
I was surprised at how few images I took, which must mean that I was not just clicking away madly hoping for good shot, but seeing the shot coming together and clicking at the right, or almost the right, time.

Looking back at the brief I think I have produced imagery that supports the tradition of the “decisive moment” and that goes some way to working naturally as a series.

Re-worked material after feedback from tutor

After receiving the Tutor feedback for this assignment we decided that I would re take the images. Rather than being disappointed with this decision, I was quite sure it was the right one.

My tutor suggested that the images were a little safe and that they needed an element of surprise or be more surreal. He did say that I had achieved some peak moments and had a go at architectural framing but sometimes the shots are overwhelmed by unintentional random elements. He suggests that I go for simpler backgrounds and also opt for a 28mm lens which will afford more drama even though I will have to get closer. He also asks that I explain why I decided to convert to black and white and to have a defined subject. I converted to black and white in order to keep with the classic Cartier-Bresson decisive moment. I think I need to make sure the elements are right in colour and black and white.

In order to try and get the shots I need we discussed finding a location that was less “safe” (not in a physical way), a location that is a bit more gritty.

It had taken quite a bit of reading and research for me to start to get an understanding of the meaning of the phrase “The Decisive Moment” in a way that would allow me to fulfil the brief for the assignment and in hindsight I do believe I have understood it up to a point. I really wanted to try and get more of a feel for it and one thing that occurred to me was that the iconic image that always pops up ? is one that I don’t particularly find easy to look at and found very hard to break down into the elements that cover the traditional Decisive Moment. I think I found this quite worrying initially. Wasn’t this supposed to be the quintessential iconic image?
Spending a day doing more reading, looking at other photographers and their Decisive Moments and generally trying to figure out what I was missing I realised that I may have overanalysed and made this all far too complicated. I had also forgotten to take into account the fact that the iconic image had been taken in ? and actually for its time was quite amazing. I still find it uncomfortable to look at but have discovered a new respect and understanding.

One image that I really felt epitomised The Decisive Moment for me was found during my day of discovery. Fig.1

Fig.1 Stuart Franklin, (1986) Manchester UK

The photograph, by British photographer Stuart Franklin, taken in 1986 in Moss Side Manchester stood out for me in so many ways. My first thoughts were how easy it was to look at. I noticed how my eye followed from left to right along the mattresses, then followed the boy climbing onto the container, making a triangle with the two boys on the top. My eye then moved to the boy standing then behind the boy jumping and then onto the boy who has jumped off, where it continued down onto the mattress and back round again. My eyes followed the probably trajectory of the boy, even though he is in mid air. The boy in the foreground seems to be in a world of his own, and although I feel he probably should have been one the first thing I noticed, he didn’t really get all my attention until I had gone round the loop a few times. Is he not interested in jumping off the container, has he done it and is now bored with it, is he not part of the group at all and has not been invited to join in? He seems to have found something far more interesting!There is so much in this image that works to make it a decisive moment!
The boy jumping off the container is almost “flying” he is very much in a “superman’ pose totally in contrast to the boy in the foreground. It is a beautifully balanced and intriguing image, all the elements coming together at one precise moment.
I decided to compare this to Cartier Bressons iconic image and it has so many similar elements. The boy flying through the air having just left the top of the container and the man jumping, about to land. The boy on the bike, seemingly in his own world compares to the man in Cartier Bressons image who seems to be facing the other way, oblivious of the man running and jumping. The questions around what he is doing and why are also the same for him and the boy on the bike.

I do find it hard sometimes to describe why i like or dislike an image. It is more a feeling than words. When it happens with my own images, I often don’t know why they do or do not feel right but it is something I am aware of and need to learn to take note of.

Whilst looking at images that fit the idea of a decisive moment it struck me again that it would be impossible for me to get 6-8 images that were perfect Decisive Moments. I think the point that my tutor was trying to get across was that I had missed some of the more crucial ideas such as the backgrounds.

The cover-19 pandemic has made it harder to go out and take images on the street for the time being. I’m not sure if I need to find another way of capturing the images or if I should wait until things relax a bit more. Things have relaxed a bit more in the last few weeks and we are now able to go out more than once a day for exercise.
I wondered if it would be possible to complete the re worked assignment without going out into the streets and spent some more time looking at what might be possible inside. There isn’t really that much movement inside my house as such but there is quite a lot of change. If things are changing then there has to be movement. If I look at how things change over time rather than in a split second or moment, then this might be more achievable inside.

In a previous Zoom EYV meet-up my tutor had discussed the indecisive moment to help students continue to work on the assignment during lockdown. By going back and looking again at the slides for this presentation, I was hoping to get a better understanding of the indecisive moment and perhaps find a more creative way to tackle this re work. Looking back at the slides used in the presentation, it struck me that there were a few images that I would have dismissed at the start of this course. The set “Washing Up” by Nigel Shafran (2000) and “Cup of Tea” by Martin Parr.

“Washing up” Nigel Shafran (2000)

“Tea Cup” Martin Parr

Fig. 13

I think I would have dismissed them through my inability to understand them. I’m not saying I fully understand them and the meaning behind them but I do “get” why a photograph of something ordinary and mundane can be quite beautiful. I am a person who does tend to see the unusual in the usual but I guess I don’t think that other people would be interested in it just because I am! Is it a personal thing or something to share that other people might appreciate? During this pandemic lock-down lots of things have changed for me and my partner and our daily lives, but lots of things haven’t. I think I am noticing the “mundane” everyday things around us more. I don’t believe this is because I am less busy. The fact is I am far more busy due to trying to keep a business going when the pandemic has put in place regulations that have completely stopped it in its tracks! It may be because I have to be super organised with things like food shopping and planning to allow me to keep to the recommendations, carry on trying to save the business and try and fit in my photography study. By having to be super organised I am noticing things that I was aware of but perhaps not conscious of. The biggest aspect of this seems to be around food and drink. Planning food for two weeks so that I don’t have to shop too often and patterns in what we do on a daily basis that hadn’t had a chance to evolve into or be noticed as patterns because they weren’t happening everyday. Cups of tea, Breakfast, coffee, lunch, Cups of tea, snack, (News update), dinner, snack.
Our similarities and differences seem to be evolving through our food and drink.  (just to add to this reality – my partner has just said to me “is it time for a cup of tea?” it’s 15:38 so according to the above then yes it is!). We, like many other people do not normally spend the whole day in each others company and eating and drinking are very often at the mercy of of other events and commitments and usually do not happen at the same time every day. The pattern that has evolved has done so because of the pandemic.
So – a new plan for indoor (In)decisive Moment images.
I immediately took a couple of shots of the cups of tea and the first thing I decided was that they have to be at a focal length that is similar to that of the human eye! When I took the shots I just picked up my camera without thinking about the lens. I had been using a macro lens which didn’t give me what I wanted. I realised that I wanted the shots to look like the viewer themselves were in the kitchen looking at our cups of tea. This seems far more appropriate. I want them to give a sense of intimacy. This was going to require a 50mm lens. I also thought that there needed to be some pattern in the shots to give a feeling of the rather mundane aspect of (normal) food and drink over the period of a couple of days and at different times of the day. Nigel Shafran took some of his images at different times of the day thus giving very differently lit images. Thinking about the images I would be taking (Cups of tea – morning, breakfast – morning – coffee – morning, lunch, cups of tea – afternoon, dinner, cups of tea evening), I realised that if I did this over 3 or 4 days I would have far too many images for the assignment but if I were to create merged composite images or images that are a composite of more than one,  this might give the feeling of the passing of time which would work nicely for the idea of duration. This is in contrast to the fleeting split second of the Decisive Moment. I hope this will also show a creative side to understanding the concept of the  (In)Decisive Moment

I decided to Look more closely at Martin Parrs work and in particular his images of food and drink.
Martin Parr is a British documentary and photojournalist. Born in 1952 his intimate portrayal of modern life documented the social classes. I discovered that the “Cup of Tea” image was actually part of a large body of work called “Common Sense”, 350 images taken between 1995 and 1999 in the UK and abroad (Fig. 14). The images are tightly framed and have a very saturated colour. The Tate website describes them as depicting “images of global consumerism in tight close-up and lurid colour” and being “designed to be displayed in a horizontal grid of at least three images by four. The artist has specified that it is not necessary to display all the photographs in the series when the work is shown. The selection of images can be arbitrary” (Tate)

Fig. 14 Martin Parr (1995 – 1999) “Common Sense”

“Common Sense was first shown in 1999 as an exhibition staged simultaneously in forty-one venues in seventeen countries. This organisational feat earned Parr a Guinness World Record. To coincide with the exhibitions Parr produced a book, also called Common Sense, in which 158 images from the series were reproduced” (Tate)

I picked out some of his food and drink images:

 

 

One of the words that struck a chord with me during the feedback was “Surreal” I decided I wanted to go back to John Suler who had a piece on surreal photography that was really interesting.

One of the words that struck a chord with me during the feedback was “Surreal” I decided to go back to John Suler who had a piece on surreal photography that I had found really interesting and see if I can get some inspiration.

He describes some the features of surreal images

  • Intense sharpness, detail, and contrast
  • Intensified and unusual texture
  • Intensified and unusual colour
  • Composites and blendings
  • Frozen movement
  • Perceptual distortions and illusions
  • Strange juxtapositions
  • Primitive content

Looking back at my final set of images I wondered if any of the above features were contained in any of them.

Image 10.
I remember thinking that it was a bit surprising that someone dressed so smartly should be seen eating a hotdog in public. So could this come under strange juxtapositions?

10

Image 11
I think this has come from the same idea as above where is surprising to see someone dressed so smartly with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Perhaps another strange juxtapositions?

11

I had decided to retake the images for this assignment in a less “safe” location once I had tried to get a better idea of what I wanted. Unfortunately I  waited too long  and found myself in lockdown due to covid -19 and unable to go out at all.

Going back to the feedback from my tutor and trying to find a solution to not being able to take the images at the current time, I decided to go back to an area in the research point where I had paused a video to answer the door and unintentionally created a Decisive Moment. The feedback comment from my Tutor for this was:

“Your screengrab is a perfect example of a DM. Imagine you had a stream of visitors ringing your doorbell while watching ‘L’Amour de Tout Court’. Each time, slightly irritated, you have to pause the film and you take a screengrab. At the end of the film you have your assignment”

This sounded like a really interesting project to try! I doubt there will be a team of people ringing my door bell during lock down but to get round this I will leave the video on a loop on a separate computer screen and every time I have to move away from it I will pause without looking at the screen and then take a screen grab.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

American Photo (September/October 1997) page 96
At: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AU_di09SdbkC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq
[Accessed 18/09/2019]

Figures 2-12
At: http://nigelshafran.com/category/washing-up-2000-2000/
[Accessed 23/05/2020]

Figure 13
At: https://www.jamesmaherphotography.com/historical-photography-articles/history-photography-martin-parr/
[Accessed 23/05/2020]

Figure 14
At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/parr-common-sense-p78371
[Accessed 25/05/2020]

Figures 15-
At: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K1HRG66IOHA#/SearchResult&ALID=2K1HRG66IOHA&VBID=2K1HZS58G2IYT&PN=2
[Accessed 25/04/2020]

Suler, J (2012) The Psychology of The Decisive Moment
At: http://truecenterpublishing.com/photopsy/decisive_moment.htm
[Accessed 28/08/2019]

http://users.rider.edu/~suler/photopsy/surreal.htm

 

Cartier Bresson, Henri (2001) L’amour de court
At: https://vimeo.com/106009378
[Accessed 10/05/2020]

 

 

Exercise 3.3: What matters is to look

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Brief
Alberto Giacometti had already mastered the art of drawing when he discovered the problem of seeing both the whole figure and the detail simultaneously. When he concentrated on the whole, the details disappeared and conversely, the whole disappeared when detail took over. He didn’t know how to draw without compromising one or the other. The only reasonable solution was to let the brain choose the right movement without concentration.
Find a good viewpoint, perhaps fairly high up (an upstairs window might do) where you can see a wide view or panorama. Start by looking at the things closest to you in the foreground. Then pay attention to the details in the middle distance and then the things towards the horizon. Now try and see the whole view together, from the foreground to horizon (you can move your eyes). Include the sky in your observation and try to see the whole visual field together, all in movement. When you’ve got it, raise your camera and release the shutter. Add the picture and a description of the process to your learning log.

I have to say that I was unsure of the point of this exercise when I first read it. l spent time trying to analyse what I was seeing when I looked at a scene and then when I looked at the same scene directly through the viewfinder of my camera. I have to admit that when I am looking through the viewfinder, I am usually looking to photograph something specific and rarely take much notice of anything else. I do look for things in the frame that might compromise the shot, but when I started this exercise it was quite surprising how each scene could itself be split into several scenes before becoming whole again. I guess I had never really thought of it in that way before. Although I am still not sure if that was the point of the exercise.

Whilst completing the Assignment I spent time wandering the streets and sitting watching without taking any photographs. I found myself using this technique to look at what was in the foreground, mid ground and background. It really helped me to “see”

Exercise 3.2: Trace

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Brief
Start by doing your own research into some of the artists discussed above. Then, using slow shutter speeds, the multiple exposure function, or another technique inspired by the examples above, try to record the trace of movement within the frame. You can be as experimental as you like. Add a selection of shots together with relevant shooting data and a description of process (how you captured the shots) to your learning log.

Out of focus or movement blur in shots are often seen as the photographer’s nightmare. Photographers spend time and money to ensure their images, or at least the subject of their images are crisp as this makes them easier to look at. Blur of any kind has to be used carefully used or it can be interpreted wrongly, as a mistake or just be difficult/uncomfortable to look at.
Robert Capa’s images of the D-Day Landings in 1944 published in Life Magazine became the subject of myth and investigation in part due to their look and style. They were grainy and blurred, which actually added to the images, giving them a reality that reflected the subject and situation in which the photographer found himself. Capa sent the raw films to John Morris, the the photo editor of Life magazine in London. Morris described on video the moment he was told they had been accidentally ruined. John Morris (2012). Only eleven frames survived. Whether the grain and the blur are due to the mistake in the darkroom, is hard to judge. I can’t find any good evidence to suggest either way. I would suggest that the grain may well have been something that Capa was couldn’t avoid given the light conditions at the time.  One shot in particular (Fig. 1) has become iconic, in part due to the grain and blur, but more because to get the shot, Capa must have been ahead of the soldier in order to get the shot. Photojournalism at its bravest, epitamising the seriousness, terrible conditions and courage required.

Fig. 1 Rober Capa FRANCE. Normandy. Omaha Beach. The first wave of American troops lands at dawn. June 6th, 1944.

Using blur as style rather than an accident was a technique used by Robert Frank for his book The Americans (1958)
Sean Ohagen (2014) in Robert Frank at 90 writes “The Americans challenged all the formal rules laid down by Henri Cartier-Bresson”
“With his handheld camera, Frank embraced movement, tilt and grain. Contemporary critics reacted to the unflattering view of America with a mixture of scorn and outrage, accusing him of being anti-American as well as anti-photography”.

Fig. 2 Robert Frank (1955) Elevator, Miami Beach from the series The Americans

Getting it right with movement-blur is a tricky business! Too often it can just look like an accident, caused by movement of the camera or subject.
I find some images with movement-blur difficult to view without assigning them a deeper meaning. I find it hard to view Robert Frank’s Elevator (1955), (fig.1)as just as an image, but when I imagine, for example, she is the lift operator, taking people to and from other destinations, while she is stuck in one place and time, it starts to become far more interesting.

I have a tendency towards the abstract, so looking at Maarten Vanvolsen’s Contraction of Movement 3 (2007)  taken using the strip-scan process (where the camera moves rather than the subject), was really interesting. I have to say that I didn’t particularly warm to the images but they are fascinating never the less.
I downloaded a strip-scan app to my phone and took some images focusing on lights in a ceiling. (Fig 3, 4, 5). I liked the effect but would need to spend more time delving into the technique.

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Of all the references I followed for this exercise, the one that I found the most intriguing was that to Wong Kar-Wai’s film Chunking Express (1994). The student manual gave reference to the opening chase scene which had been shot at 1/8 second instead of the normal 24 frames per second. This produced motion blur and a sense of a much longer chase.  I found it hard to watch and certainly had it gone on much longer, might have started to feel sick. But I did find the film interesting enough to watch the rest. There were two other scenes that I found even more fascinating.  Both have people as the main subject, and other people as the foreground/background. In both scenes the subjects appear to be moving in slow motion whereas the foreground/background has been speeded up. If you look carefully it appears that they have been directed to move at such an extremely slow pace, so that even when the film was speeded up, they still look like they have been slowed down.
I have to admit that I have taken a guessed the technique rather than found anything to substantiate it. If you look closely at the main subjects you can see slightly jerky movements that suggest someone doing something very slowly and struggling to hold muscle movement longer than normal. Whether it was actually done the way I’m suggesting or using some other technique, I think it is a great way to portray different durations and feelings in one scene.
To me, it gave the impression that the main subject either felt time was passing much slower ,or indeed was wishing that it would!

Fig. 12

Movement blur is often used to give a spiritual, ghostly, surreal feel to images. For this exercise I used one of the same subjects that I used a previous exercise.
Of course I had the opposite problems taking the movement shots to those I had taking the fast shots and I probably could have done with using a filter to allow me to take even longer exposures. This time many of the shots were over exposed rather than under. Again I had to do a bit of tweaking in Photoshop on some of them.
I wanted to produce a ghosty impression of the boats on the water but wasn’t sure how long an exposure I would need. Too long and there would hardly be anything to see (Fig. 7). Too short and they would be easily recognisable as rowing boats (Fig. 6), which I didn’t want.

Fig.6

Fig.7

I prefer the images that hardly captured the boat, but only gave the impression that something had been there due to the water displacement from the blades (Fig. 8,9)

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

My favourite shot, however, was one that included the boat fairly clearly as a thick white line, but “ghosted” away the rowers, leaving only a trace of colour above the white boat. There was a small yellow lane buoy in the background which I would probably remove if I was to do any tweaking to this shot. (Fig. 10)

Fig. 10

Contact sheet

As I was taking the shots, I wondered what the results would be if I panned to the left. The boats were moving from left to right so I would effectively be panning in the opposite direction. Up until this point, my camera had been still and the boats moving. I was aware that if I panned to the right (the direction of the boats) I would effectively be trying to get a less blurred image. I wondered if by panning in the opposite direction, I could give them more blur and therefor use a faster shutter speed, thus helping with the issue of overexposure.
I’m sure the physics is right, but I’m not sure it was a solution. It did, of course mean there was movement blur on the background as well. (Fig.11). I would like to pursue this idea of “reverse panning” because I was surprised how much I liked the image and can certainly see some potential for the technique.

Fig. 11

 

Bibliography

Ohagan, Sean (2014) Robert Frank at 90
At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/nov/07/robert-frank-americans-photography-influence-shadows
[Accessed 01/09/2019]

Figure 1. Capa, Robert (1944) D-Day Omaha Beach
At: https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/conflict/robert-capa-d-day-omaha-beach
[Accessed 02/09/2019]

Figure 2. Frank, Robert (1955) Robert Frank (1955) Elevator, Miami Beach from the series The Americans
At: https://www.mfah.org/art/detail/6526
[Accessed 02/09/2019]

Morris, John (nd) Debunking the myths of Robert Capa on D-day
At: https://petapixel.com/2019/02/16/debunking-the-myths-of-robert-capa-on-d-day
[Accessed 01/09/2019]

Figure 12   Kar-Wai, Wong (1994) Chunking Express
At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLpnleQbsHY
[Accessed 05/09/2019]

Exercise 3.1 Freeze

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Brief

Start by doing some of your own research into the photographers discussed above. Then, using fast shutter speeds, try to isolate a frozen moment of time in a moving subject. Depending on the available light you may have to select a high ISO to avoid visible blur in the photograph. Add a selection of shots, together with relevant shooting data and a description of process (how you captured the images), to your learning log.

I don’t often take snaps, selfies, holiday, or family photos. I have learned over the years that if I keep my eye to the viewfinder I miss a great deal of what’s going on. I prefer to have memories that derive from my own experience of places that I have visited rather than by taking pictures and looking back at them. I guess this was all most people had before photography.
Painting reproduced a scene or a person, but it was always the artists view rather than an exact replica. Photography, allowed people to capture an image that would show subjects “as they were”.
Although photography is still comparitively young, it is moving forward at a rapid pace due to advances in technology. It is allowing us to view more and more of the world.
One of the biggest challenges in the early days of photography was to fix the image of the camera obscure. Nicéphore Neipce a french amateur in the brand new world of photography, found a way to do this in 1822 and called the process heliography, but exposures could take over 8 hours.
He teamed up with Jaqucques-Mande Daguerre for a short time until Neipce’s death in 1833.
Daguerre came up with an improved method which he named after himself, “The Daguerreotype”.
The first camera being manufactured in any quantity was the Giroux Daguerreotype in around 1839. I guess this was the start of photography for the masses.
One of Daguerre’s most important daguerreotypes is Boulevard du Temple, Paris (Fig. 5) taken in 1839.
The exposure could have been anything between 5 and 10 minutes which begs the question as to why the shoe shiner and customer are so clear in the shot? There were probably other people coming in and out of the frame that didn’t stay long enough to be captured in the image. There has been suggestion that the shoe shiner and customer were staged. “The image was perhaps set up, as the man having his shoes shined seems all too perfectly positioned and improbably near the street when the pedestrian area is as the road” (Ang 2014).
The image itself has features which show Daguerre’s ability to produce a pleasing image using methods that are still valid today. For example, the curve has been reversed and the avoidance of distortion in the verticals.

Fig 5 Boulevard du Temple, Paris. Jacques-Mande Daguerre 1838

Any movement during the exposure either caused blur, or, prevented moving objects being captured at all. This was seen as a defect rather than a way in which to convey movement. A great deal of work was put into trying to increase shutter speed and consequently reduce motion blur.
In 1877 Eadweard Muybridge (1830 – 1904) devised a series of cameras with trip wires to record  horses galloping. The aim being to settle a debate as to whether horses lift all four hooves off the ground when trotting or galloping.
His image The Horse in motion (1878) proved that they do but it required faster shutter speeds.

Fig 6. The Horse In Motion (1872) Muybridge

Harold Edgerton, an American Engineer moved things forward again by incorporating flash. His method captured moments in time such as Moving Bullet (1964) and Milk Dip Coronet (1957)

Fig 7. Moving Bullet (1964) Harold Edgerton

Milk Drop Coronet (1957) Harold Edgerton

Not only are these images fascinating but scientifically they opened doors to a whole new, previously unseen, world.

Whether freezing moments in time fragments it or isolates thin slices to reveal something new, as suggested by John Szarkowski (2007), is an extremely interesting question. I don’t actually think it is one or the other but rather both, with how much of either depending on the reason for the image and the subject itself.

Whilst watching the video of photographer Philip-Lorca DiCorcia’s talking about his series Heads, I wasn’t sure initially what I thought of the images. But I was struck by the fact that they captured was a moment in time and in their lives that may well not reflect who they are at all. Someone who looked rather sad or down, may actually have been laughing and smiling seconds earlier and the camera may just have captured an expression that may be purely and simply unrepresentative, but, which the viewer can only interpret as sad or depressed. He used a flash to capture shots of people from a distance, who were unaware that he was taking their photo. (Fig. 9,10). We were not shown any images taken before or after and DiCorcia doesn’t explain if he took any great interest in the before and after. By freezing these moments we may be seeing something “untrue” as well as fragmented and new. That’s the nature of photography!

Fig 9. Heads, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia (2001)

Fig 10. Heads, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia (2002)

Looking at the photographers’ work above, it occurred to me that it wasn’t just the ability to capture slices of time that allowed people to see previously unimagined detail, but also the detail provided by the macro lens. The technical advances in photography have allowed huge leaps in our knowledge and understanding of the world. I has moved from images that took hours to expose and where any movement rendered objects blurred or completely missing, to the capability to freeze ever briefer moments in time. It seems that photography has come a very long way indeed. Freezing moments in time has become a well trodden path for advertising, sports, abstract, scientific and educational photographers. (figs. 1-4)

Having spent some time thinking about the exercise, I realised I would need a subject where it was both obvious that there was movement, and that the movement had been frozen. So, for example, a car moving along the road might easily look like a parked car (unless some amount of panning was included).
In our garden we currently have quite a few insects around and I wondered if it would be possible to freeze their movement while they were flying.
One of the more interesting insects we see is the hummingbird moth. Its wings move at around 85 beats per second and I wondered if I could capture a frozen moment, mid air.
Having watched them for quite some time I realised that I had taken on rather a difficult challenge!
There were several problems. The moths are very agile so when they are in mid air they are only in one place for a split second. Trying to get one precisely in focus was impossible. It was equally impossible, however, to follow their movement with the camera. I reverted to using lenses that covered a wide area and took several photos in the hope that at least one of them would give me a frozen shot of the moth and its wings. Of course this also meant that the moth itself was very small in the frame (see below). The moth is not in focus and the noise from the fairly high ISO is visible in the both the original and the cropped version.  I was quite pleased to note however that there wasn’t too much blur on the wings which was what I was initially hoping for.

80.00mm, 1/1600 sec, f/5.0, ISO 800, Shutter priority

Cropped version

A few months earlier there had been great many more of these moths on the plants. I think I need to focus on a plant and wait for the moth to come into view. But I will have to come back to it next year as they are all but gone for now.

I’m very lucky to live in a town with access to a river and copious numbers of rowers of varying skill levels. I have previous experience of photographing them so decided they would be a good subject for this and for exercise 3.2 Trace.
I decided to focus on the boats rather than the rowers, and on the water splashes and droplets caused by the blades.
The first issue I faced was trying to get the exposure right. It was a sunny day, fairly bright, but not bright enough. Most of the shots were underexposed which I tweaked in photoshop. I tried shutter speeds between 1/1600sec and the max for my camera of 1/8000sec. Unfortunately the fast shutter speeds and Shutter Priority mode meant wider apertures and shallow depth of field that again made focusing difficult. I had a very narrow margin to work with and the speed of the boats and the blades meant that the more successful shots needed an element of luck. I got better at guessing where the blades and the splashes would happen but many of them were either out of focus or I missed them completely!

Image 11 Underexposed but droplets quite clear

Image 12 Was underexposed (tweaked in photoshop) Lots of movement but not sharp

Image 13 Underexposed and not framed well.

Image 14 Tweaked in photoshop,

Image 16 Droplets not in focus and  blurred movement

Image 17

Image 18

Image 19

I prefer shots 16, 13 and 11 due to the contrast and colour.

This exercise was far more challenging than it should have been but I suspect I made it harder for myself by the subjects I chose!

An impromptu visit to a showjumping competition was an excellent opportunity to try and get some more shots for this exercise.
Once again in shutter priority I came up against the underexposed problem and ended up with 1/4000 sec f/4.5 – f/5.6 and ISO 640. I could have gone up a bit with the ISO but it seemed to be giving me the shots I wanted.
I tried to get shots that had some impact. Such as the horse on tip toe or in full flight.

JLM1598

JLM1601

JLM1563

JLM1543

JLM1494

This was an extremely useful exercise. Keeping the camera mode on shutter priority really proved to be useful in understanding what was happening at a conscious and unconscious level, and what other elements would have to be controlled.

Bibliography

Ang, T. (2014) Photography The Definitive Visual History. UK, Dorking Kindersley Limited, p. 25

Figure 4. At: https://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2014/jul/05/world-cup-25-of-the-best-photographs-ever [Accessed 29/08/2019

Figure 1. At: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/nbarank-bestimages-19414246/nbarank-ranking-best-nba-images-all [Accessed 29/08/2019]

Figure 2. At: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/fruit-of-the-loom-goes-totally-80s-with-comical-freeze-frame-ads-for-sweatpants [Accessed 20/08/2019]

Figure 3. At: https://www.rmshowjumping.com/2018/01/show-jumping-show-business [Accessed 29/08/2019

Figure 5. Daguerre, Jaqucques-Mande (1838) Boulevard du Temple
At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boulevard_du_Temple_by_Daguerre.jpg
[Accessed 29/08/2019]

Figure 6. Muybridge, Edward (1872) The Horse In Motion
At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge
[Accessed 29/08/2019]

Figure 7. Edgerton, Harold (1964) Moving Bullet
At: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/bullet-through-apple-32694
[Accessed 29/08/2019]

Figure 8. Edgerton, Harold (1957) Milk Drop Coronet
At: https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/picture-of-the-week-milk-drop/
[Accessed 28/08/2019]

Figure 9. DiCorcia, Philip-Lorca (2001) Heads
At: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/philip-lorca-dicorcia-head-10-2002/
[Accessed 28/08/2019]

Figure 10. DiCorcia, Philip-Lorca (2002) Heads
At: https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/2yptcm/philiplorca_dicorcia_head_23_2001
[Accessed 28/08/2019]

 

Assignment two Collecting

1 Reply

Brief

Create a series of between six and ten photographs on one of the following subjects:

  • Things
  • Views
  • Heads

On reading the brief before starting part 2, I was instantly drawn to “Things”. I kept an open mind, however, as I looked at the examples during breaks from the exercises. On coming back to the assignment when ready to start shooting, I still felt the subject “Things” was the one to go with. I often see interesting images in everyday things, so I perhaps this is why I find it more appealing.
I find everyday tools quite amazing from a visual perspective; normal domestic tools that people have around the house, and also larger professional tools and industrial equipment such as you might find in large factories. I think something like this might be a great subject for the assignment, so will start off with this in mind and see where it leads me.

On planning the assignment I felt my first challenge was to try and get a feel for what I wanted the images to say. Do I want to show them in situe as tools of a trade, or do I want to use them to create abstract images where the object itself is almost or completely unrecognisable, something in between, or something else entirely? The fact that I’m even deliberating what I might want them to say is new to me and testament to the course thus far! I feel perhaps the best way to approach this is to get the camera out and have a play with various lenses and compositions and see what happens.

Going back to the examples and looking at Walter Benjamin’s’ “A Short History of Photography”, Andrew Langfords “Species” and Ishiuchi Miyako “Hiroshima”, I became aware that in many of the collections, the idea was to let the images speak for themselves. This was particularly evident in the images by Ishiuchi Miyako (2012) in her series “Frida” Fig 1A, Fig 2A, which I came across while researching her Hiroshima series. They are fascinating and such an amazing legacy. The images do just speak for themselves. The items are photographed on a plain background, as they are in her series “Hiroshima” (2008) Fig. 3A. I would have imagined they would come across as sterile but this is not the case, perhaps the items are simply strong enough in their own right. Having visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum a few years ago, none of the artefacts or photos needed anything to help them say something!
I loved the beauty and simplicity of Andrew Langfords images in his series “Species”. They are beautifully photographed and I find the symmetry very attractive. They are, at the same time educational and intriguing. Once again I am drawn by images of things taken from different perspectives.

The images in the photobook “Beautiful Things” by Albert Renger-Patzsch are not items belonging to famous people or artefacts from atrocities. They are just things. I took some time to look at a variety of his other photographs and was fascinated by his images of tools and industrial equipment.  Although he sees the photograph of a way of capturing a true image of an object, a study, they have a beauty that I feel is brought about by the composition, the detail, developing process and the objects themselves. Fig.1,2,3


This seems to fit well with my thoughts regarding tools being my subject for the assignment, although I am still unsure what I want my images to say.

I started to experiment with a very simple picture of an everyday tool (Fig A.) and realised that there was a lot more going on than I first imagined. Although it’s a great object or “thing” in its own right, on close up the wheel used to adjust the spanner was, in my mind, far more interesting than the spanner asa whole. This caused me to go on a search for tools that had hidden shapes and angles and that would complement this idea. I ended up with a pile of predominantly older style everyday tools (Fig. B) with a few unusual ones thrown in because of their visual complexity. I took a few shots and decided to move to a macro lens to get the shallow depth of field and detail that I wanted to capture.

I love the shallow depth of field that the macro lens gives, but found it quite difficult to get the focus right. It was easier to place the item on a mat and move it towards and away from the camera lens rather than use the focus ring.
I decided to have a play with the macro lens and some the other tools, and was quite pleased with the results (see below).
I noticed that some of them looked black and white which I found quite appealing. It seems to give an impression of “precision” rather than the rather big, clunky tools that most of them actually were. I also preferred the images that gave a sense of a purpose. For example, the cogs, springs, wheels and screw grooves all have a feeling of working instruments.
The light played an important part in the look of images and I took a bit of time changing the angle and amount of light hitting the objects. I eventually shot with natural light coming from a window to the left. This seemed to give me the best highlights and shadows (particularly on the metal parts). I didn’t pay too much attention to the histogram when taking the first set of images so there may be some issues with blown highlights or blacks. I will have a look at this when I take the next set. I also wasn’t sure about the strong orange colour in some of the images so will look for areas with no or minimal colour and see how this changes the set.


From what I had discovered taking the first set of images, I am going to seek detail without much colour and parts of the tools that give a sense of purpose. I also noticed that for some of the images the area in focus was slightly away from where I wanted it to be, so I will have to be more rigorous. After taking a few more test shots, it was clear that I was getting some blown highlights. Using a diffuser helped to smooth out the light on some of the metal surfaces as visible in Figure C and D:

 

In his series “Welles Garage and Machine Shop”, John Leuba uses the tools and machines to create abstract images.
“In the shop there is so much too look at – wonderful shapes, curves, lines, tones, light reflecting off the machines, details hiding in shadows. It starts to become abstract” John Leuba (ND).
I am beginning to realise that I am attracted to both the abstract and sense of purpose in these objects, which appears to be what is evolving in my own images for this project.

One of the things I was unsure of in my own images was colour. Although most of them were giving an impression of black and white, one had a very strong orange colour. I came across an image by Jim Laurence that made me wonder wether this might not be the distracting element I first thought. His image of lab pipes with intermittent blue and orange controls and a yellow line on the floor was very striking. I think I need to make sure I don’t just dismiss the colour element! The colour draws the eye to the centre of the image allowing it a place to land before following the pipes and lines into, and around the rest of the frame.

 

Fig.9 Jim Laurence (2008)

Looking at work by all these photographers, and in particular John Leuba, I wondered if the depth of field was a bit too shallow and perhaps I needed to bring a bit more of the tools into focus.

Final Images

Spiral



Cog



Screw



Plane



Screw head



Spanner wheels



Screw driver



Jigsaw

I placed the images as a set (see below) so that I could show them together as a series. I wanted  to give a sense of “purpose” in an abstract image. I didn’t want the viewer to know exactly what the purpose of each object was, just that there was one! I wanted the images to be interesting, familiar and perhaps a bit mysterious without being completely unrecognisable as man-made objects. I think I have achieved this in part, but perhaps need to come back to the images when I’m less absorbed in them to allow me a fresh perspective.

I really enjoyed this assignment even though it was very challenging. I found focusing very problematic but stuck with moving the object rather than using the camera. I decided to go with the strong colour for one of the images but I’m not sure it works. It still seems to stand out from the others. But I do like it as an image in its own right. I included a bit of colour in some of the other images to try and balance it out, but I’m not sure this has succeeded.
I was also aware that the images may appear too similar but I don’t think this is the case. I do think they work as a set (first time I’ve ever said that), which I think is because of the similar subject matter, camera settings and composition.

On reviewing my images and reading through the assignment I realised that I hadn’t come back to my thoughts on depth of field and how much of each object should be in focus. Having another look at Albert Renger-Patzsch’s images I found one that really emphases the different purpose and take on the objects (Fig.10,11) He wanted them to be images that were a study of the subject and therefore wanted detail and clarity. I wanted them to be less of a study and more abstract in their nature, whilst giving a sense of purpose.

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

Assessment Criteria points

  • Demonstration of technical and visual skills:
    Technically I think the images are OK. I managed to deal with the focus and lighting issue to a satisfactory level. I spent a great deal of time composing the shots to fit my own brief and believe they show a certain amount of visual awareness, design and compositional skill.
  • Quality of outcome
    I’m still getting used to writing things up in the blog so I’m not sure how coherent my presentation is. I think this is something I need to work on and will endeavour to do so. I do think I communicated my ideas well enough, but I might need to organise my thought processes in the blog in a better way (not sure what that might be yet).
  • Demonstration of creativity
    I’m not really sure how creative I have been! I think selecting everyday tools to create abstract images is quite imaginative but seeing images in everyday tools and the like is normal for me. I did experiment with different settings and lenses until I got the type of image I wanted.
  • Context
    I feel my reflection and research was satisfactory. Critical thinking ? I think so but I await feedback on that one!

Bibliography

Figure 3A. Miyako, Ishiuchi (2008) Hiroshima
At: https://www.straight.com/arts/museum-anthropology-artist-ishiuchi-miyako-turns-her-lens-vestiges-hiroshima
(Accessed 23/07/2019)

Figures 1A, 2A.  Miyako, Ishiuchi (2012) Frida
At: https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/exhibitions/23/overview/#/image_standalone/307
(Accessed 23/07/2019)

Figure 1. Renger-Patzsch, Albert (1928) Flatirons for Shoe Manufacture, German
At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/albert-renger-patzsch/ (Accessed 30/06/2019)

Figure 2. Renger-Patzsch, Albert (1950-1959) Schubert & Salzer Factory, Ingolstadt
At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/albert-renger-patzsch/ (Accessed 07/07/2019)

Figure 3. Renger-Patzsch, Albert (1950-1959) Ringspinnmaschine (Schubert & Salzer)
At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/albert-renger-patzsch/ (Accessed 07/07/2019)

Figure 4,5,6,7,8 Leuba, John (ND) Welles Garage and Machine Shop
At: https://johnleuba.photoshelter.com/gallery/Welles-Garage-and-Machine-Shop/G000056gJXaNDlsA/ (Accessed 02/07/2019)

Figure 9. Laurence, Jim (2008) L3 Lab pipe corridor
At: https://jpgmag.com/people/bigeasy/photos/page3?sort_criteria=newest (Accessed 02/07/2019)

Figure 10. Renger-Patzsch, Albert (1925-1928) Study of machine gear
At: https://www.philips.com/detail/ALBERT-RENGER-PATZSCH/UK040112/73
(Accessed 29/07/2019)

 

 

Exercise 2.4 Woodpecker

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Brief
Find a subject in front of a background with depth. Take a very close viewpoint and zoom in; you’ll need to be aware of the minimum focusing distance of your lens. Focus on the subject and take a single shot. Then, without changing the focal length or framing, set your focus to infinity and take a second shot.
As you review the two shots, how does the point of focus structure the composition? With a shallow depth of field the point of focus naturally draws the eye, which goes first of all to the part of the image that’s sharp.
Again without moving the camera, select a very small aperture (perhaps one stop above the minimum to avoid diffraction) and find a point of focus that will give you acceptable sharpness throughout the entire field, from foreground to infinity. Take a third shot and add it to the first two to make a set.

In Image 1, where the focus was on the fence, the detail has been lost in the background although not so much that it is not recognisable as bushes and trees.
In Image 2, where the focus was set to infinity there is loss of detail in the fence and more focus on the background.
In Image 3, using a small aperture has kept detail in both the foreground and the background

Image 1. Focus on fence. 135.00mm, 1/160sec, f/10, ISO 500

Image 2. Infinity. 135.00mm, 1/160sec, f/10, ISO 500

Image 3. Small aperture. 135.00mm, 1/250sec, f/22, ISO 4000.

Note to self: don’t shoot on a very bright sunny day for these kinds of shots and check the metering mode which was set to spot metering. I had to change ISO a great deal when focusing on the background which was extremely bright and the foreground that was in shadow.

 

 

Exercise 2.3 Focus

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Brief

Find a location with good light for a portrait shot. Place your subject some distance in front of a simple background and select a wide aperture together with a moderately long focal length such as 100mm on a 35mm full-frame camera (about 65mm on a cropped-frame camera). Take a viewpoint about one and a half metres from your subject, allowing you to compose a headshot comfortably within the frame. Focus on the eyes and take the shot.

Looking at my first attempt, there are a couple of things I need to change. The background is a bit busy and my subject needs to be a bit further away from it. I took 2 shots, one with an aperture of f/4.8 and one with an aperture of f/11. There is a definite blur to the back ground in the first one but I was expecting a more.

 

Image 2. 98.00mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 4500

Image 1. 98.00mm 1/180sec, f4/5, ISO 4500

My second attempt worked much better. For Image 1, the subject has popped out of the background, still recognisable as trees, but with the focus very much on the person. There is no doubt as to what I want the viewer to see as the main subject. Image 4 is more a picture of a person and, equally, trees!

Image 3.

Image 4.