Vice Versa Thinking In this exercise I am tasked with taking what worked well from the section’s exercises and then interchanging it with the parts that didn’t. On reflection, I found the individual portrait in a controlled environment the easiest to complete as an exercise (Same Model, Different Background – Exercise 2.3) but, I don’t […]
Author: Tony
Exercise 2.3 Same Model, Different Background
For this exercise I needed to capture 5 images with the same person but with different backgrounds. Aside from my main job, I own a share in traditional pub which is run by our manager. Our manager, Jude, works incredibly hard and has to cover a range of different skills to run the business on a […]
Exercise 2.2 Undercover
For this exercise, I wanted to capture street scenes whilst I was out and about on holiday in Tuscany. Whilst this might sound like I was simply taking holiday photographs, this could not be further from the truth. In Assignment 1 for this module, as per the brief, I took portraits of complete strangers and this […]
Fill-in Flash to balance daylight, and the effect on what the viewer sees – Ken Grant
As part of my feedback for Assignment 1, my tutor suggested I take a look at Ken Grant and in particular look at how the images with flash compare to those without the flash. The images below are taken from Grant’s collection ‘The Birdhouse’. He has not captioned the individual images on his website (Grant, […]
Background and outside context
I am currently in the part of the course that deals with street and studio and so I am coming to appreciate the significance and choices of either approach and the impact that it can make. I’ve been reflecting on the fact that outside context is equally important and today was reading an article on […]
Assignment 1: Post Submission Reflection
Technical and Visual I think the technical quality of the images is high. I used a fixed 50mm lens on my full-frame DSLR and the shots were taken with very wide apertures to throw the background out of focus, typically f2.0. In all cases the focus is sharp on the subject’s eyes, which is where I wanted […]
Assignment 1: Draft Submission
This assignment is the first time I have ever photographed a set of strangers who were posing knowingly, therefore not just in passing in a street for example. I found that it was fairly terrifying approaching the first subject but that it got easier as I progressed. I also found that taking time to talk to each […]
Leaving Space
Having just completed Context and Narrative with a key learning point of leaving space for the viewer to make up their own story, it is a point that is very top of mind at the moment. Today I was talking with my wife who is learning to paint in watercolour and she has learned the […]
Exercise 1.4: Archival Intervention
I recently had my 50thbirthday and my wife was kind enough to arrange a party for me and all of our family. Between us we have seven children and six grandchildren so family parties such as this are very rarely brought together. At the party, people had brought old pictures of them and me so this […]
Diane Arbus and random portraits
Having read ahead to Assignment 1, I have already started to think about just how that might pan out – and wondering if it is really is possible to simply walk up to several strangers. With this top of mind, and whilst researching Diane Arbus as part of reading the course text, I found this […]
Exercise 1.2: Background as Context
Assessment of August Sander’s Techniques This piece exercise looks in detail at the images created by August Sander as part of his project “People of the Twentieth Century”. In his work, Sander adopted typology to classify people into one of seven categories: ‘The Farmer’, ‘The Skilled Tradesman’, ‘The Woman’, ‘Classes and Professions’, ‘The Artists’, ‘The City’ and […]
Exercise 1.1: Historic Portrait
The image that I have chosen is of a native American taken by Edward Curtis (see fig. 1.). This image was taken in 1907 and shows an elderly man who appears to be quite senior, at least that is what I deduce based on the relatively large headdress that he is wearing. Whilst much historic portraiture […]