FMP - Road to Nowhere In Particular - A Portrait of Youth

Project Idea:

To produce portraits of my friend group using my car and the lens from a 5x4 camera to produce 20"x16" photographs on Ilford black and white paper.
I am attempting to create afrank and honest portrait ofyouth in the current labour market. The 18-24 categoryrepresent only 12.6% of the labour force, but account forover 30% of the unemployed population.
I will get my subjects to lean in to the lens as if they are leaning in to the car asking to be pickedup. I think young people on ajob hunt is relatable to the actof hitch hiking, especially in respect to temporary
contracts and apprenticeships.

Inspirations:

Ian Ruhter - http://www.ianruhter.com/

Ian Ruhter turned a van into a super large format camera and took inspirational photographs using an old technique called wet plate collodion printing.

 
Blacking out his van in a similar way to how I do my car he then adds a lens to the back allowing precise control of the shutter, something which I needed to take forward and apply to my car to allow me to take portraits.

Eadweard Muybridge:

The secondary influence behind my work. I had already decided to use my car and use large 20x16 in paper to create photographs. But upon watching a documentary about Eadeard Muybridge I learned that as well as his motion studies he also took photographs using what he called 'mammoth plates'.
These were 20x16 photographs - the same size as I was intending to use! The documentary explained that the camera was a self contained kit that he took around Yosemite and other areas on wheels, just as I would be doing with my car. That was it, I was definitely going to use my car to take photographs. 

Steve Pyke:



Well known for his 5x4 portraits I checked out his work to help visualise the effect I was going for.
Sharp focus on the face dropping off at the ears. Strong separation of the face from the rest of the body and the back ground, and the ends of the nose out of focus.

The background work for this project began around 8 months ago when I first began to experiment with pinhole photography and making my own camera.
I used a variety of boxes to make cameras from a wide angle matchbox, to a large telephoto camera. I captured some great images and learned lessons about focal length, image circles and exposure times that would help me create my car camera with confidence.

At that point the camera was a simple pinhole camera which used a coke can with a pin hole in it to capture images over times between 4 minutes and 2 and half hours.

Evidence of these experiments can be seen on the following links:

1. First pinhole with 5x4 camera 

2. Matchbox Pinhole

3.Different cameras to test focal lengths, telephoto cameras and image circles.

4.Working out correct paper size, focal length and image circle.

5.First car photographs
 

This was the background experimenting for my FMP done, whilst also fulfilling the experimental photography brief. The next step was to add a 5x4 lens to have the control just like Ian Ruhter. Myself, and my tutors Kevin and Irena agreed I basically had to just improve my technique and go out and shoot for my FMP.

This is the first image I shot using the 5x4 lens:

All had gone well but fitting the lens in to the set up was difficult and required some improvisation that I knew I couldn't rely on for every shot. I had to refine the process of turning the car in to a camera to cut down set up time and accommodate a 5x4 lens properly.
I also had to have access to at least one door of the car. Up until this point I had had to get in the car and have someone else shut me in and cover the door. Now I had corrected this I could get in and out on my own with no fears of the sheets falling off.

I did this by getting the black out fabric customized to fit specific sections of the car, and having a hole cut to fit a 5x4 lens. This meant I could easily identify which bit of fabric went where and meant that the car was now completely blacked out quickly and easily. I also added tin foil over the weaker areas that the card board didn't quite cover.The car was now completely light tight and I could continue with my project:

Road to Nowhere In Particular - A Portrait of Youth 

I began creating photographs using my car around 8 months ago to experiment with the use of large format and pinhole photography.
Over the following months I streamlined the process of photographing using my car and added a 5x4 lens with analogue controls to allow me to capture photographs in a fraction of a second. This then allowed me to move from long exposures of landscapes to portrait photography.

My project was inspired by my worries for the future upon leaving education in three years’ time.
I decided to photograph my peer group using my car, most having now left education for good. I have tried to make them appear like hitchhikers, as a metaphor for how many young people feel upon leaving education and looking for work, hoping the next opportunity will pick them up and take them closer to where they want to be.

Young people aged 18-24 represent just 12.6% of the labour force in the UK, but account for over 30% of the unemployed population.
A quote from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) economic report Feb 2014 states:

“While the fall in unemployment rates across the different categories suggests that all age groups have benefited from the economic recovery, the 18 to 24 age category has borne the brunt of the overall rise in unemployment since 2008 […] If the increase in unemployment has been distributed evenly across the labour force, both sets of figures should be broadly similar.”

i.e. if unemployment were equal across all ages, the 18 – 24 category would only make up 12.6% of the unemployed.

However, the fact is that upon leaving education, young people find themselves in competition with a large amount of graduates for a small amount of jobs. Not only this, but their higher qualifications put them up against 25-34 age range who not only have qualifications, but  have experience.

They find themselves in a dangerous position: Not in Employment, Education or Training or ‘NEET’. This is bad.

This forces young people to have to move back home, take zero hours or temporary work contracts, apply for apprenticeships or unpaid internships with no promise of a job at the end, or face the stigma of having to claim benefits, and be confronted proposals that those on benefits should work for free for 'experience' in menial jobs. 

A BBC news report in January 2014 on a study by the Princes’ Trust charity “found that long-term unemployed young people were more than twice as likely as their peers to have been prescribed anti-depressants. One in three (32%) had contemplated suicide, while one in four (24%) had self-harmed. The report found 40% of jobless young people had faced symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal thoughts, feelings of self-loathing and panic attacks, as a direct result of unemployment.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25559089

The pages below are screen capped from the ONS website offer a more detailed view of the state of employment/unemployment:



Below are photos of the set up with the 5x4 lens attached. You can see where there is cream colored fabric attached to the white fabric at the wing mirror, this extension is cut to allow the mirror to fit between without obstructing the fabric. The circle cut for the lens is also taped to the lens plate to further stop light leaks.

The windscreen wipers are put of the windscreen fabric to hold it securely in place.

Here is the lens plate in position behind the fabric.

This is a photo of the sheet pulled back revealing the lens plate, tin foil and 'holding board' to keep the photo paper in place. The shutter was released by a wired shutter cable which was inside the car.

Here is what the image looks like projected upside down and reversed on to the white card of the holding board, the white card allowed for a bright image to be shown making setting up a lot easier.

This image shows the subject in position ready to be photographed.

Each shoot required the same set up and was purposely shot on days with very similar light conditions. I was relying on natural light to light the images rather than artificial light which can be seen in Ian Ruhters work.
I used a light meter (Weston Master IV) that always showed .5 seconds at f/18 which was the focal length used for each shot, so I knew the lighting was similar. 

I used an assistant for the shots who's job was to turn shutter ring on the 5x4 lens between T and '5' on the ring, and also wind the shutter on to allow me to set up the shot and trigger the shutter. 

The depth of focus on the lens was around 1inch wide meaning the subject had to stay in the same position while the shutter was turned to make sure they stayed in focus for the image. A slight movement in any direction could alter the focus point and so I had to be quick in getting the shutter set and wound and putting the paper in place. Each subject had to wait about 5 seconds after each set up to be shot. 

Richard

Lawrence

Amy

Ric

Sham

Trav

And I even managed a self portrait:

Some shots have slights imperfections from being handled and the developing process. You will have noticed the first image is quite fogged, i cannot remember a particular point where this could have happened but it has not completely destroyed the image so I have submitted it. 

The photographs of me, Sham, Amy and Lawrence had the strongest negatives and so it was very simple to  make positives of them. The once of Ric was quite fast and so I did not make a positive of this image. Instead I photographed it and inverted in it photoshop and played with the curves to get an image.

The self portrait was set up and devised by myself but I had a friend inside check I was in the right position and press the shutter. The cross markings on my head are from the edge of the lens plate where there was a slight leak. It was visible on all the images but as I was much faster at pressing the shutter and getting the paper in place, the effect is not visible on the shots where I was in the car. 

Overall I am happy with the results. I was learning as I was going along and know that by the end of the photos I was very confident in approaching the car as a camera and using it to produce photographs. I feel the images have got the look I was going for and my favourite three are Amy, Sham and Richard. Even though the Richard image is fogged I think his expression is more what I was aiming for than some of the others.

Self promotion

http://www.launchingpeople.co.uk/category/photography

http://www.launchingpeople.co.uk/project/poetry-in-motion

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Get-Zac-on-tv/273098536189480?ref=ts&fref=ts

Types of location photography

Architectural Photography. 

Architectural Photography is the practice of producing photographs of  man made structures. 

For example, Interior and Exterior photographing of houses for advertising purposes, perhaps to sell or to include in a property portfolio. 

http://www.livingwithwhite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/white-home-interior-4.jpg

http://www.trendir.com/house-design/mullen-street-house-1.jpg

http://www.commercialphotographerkent.com/commercial-photographers-kent.html

I recently took an architectural style photograph for a brief, I am using my car as a pinhole camera and took an interior shot of a multi-storey car park. I chose this location as a previous shot had been of a rural landscape and this interior urban environment provided contrast. This is a digital image I took as a test shot to check my light meter was working correctly.

A good example of architectural photography work not produced for advertising purposes are photographs taken by German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher.  In their work they produced a typology of industrial buildings 

On instantexpert.com there is a good description of the work and the way it is created and displayed:

"The Grid

The Bechers began working together in 1959 (they were married in 1961), and continued until Bernd’s death in 2007. Their constant goal was to document the architectural forms of industry—gas tanks, grain silos, water towers, blast furnaces, storage barns—mostly in Europe but also in the United States. A group of shots of one specific type of structure would be displayed together, either in a monograph or hung in a grid, in order to create a formal comparison or “typology.” It is this emphasis on form that is most crucial in the Bechers’ work.

The workers inside the factories are not directly acknowledged in the photos, which never betray any hint of labor, activity or motion—human or otherwise. They are taken under overcast skies, to avoid shadows, and from the same exact perspective. Nothing distracts from the pure form of the structures, which are elevated to the level of sculpture. The Bechers have made direct reference to this connection by titling an early show “Anonymous Sculptures,” and when their work won an award at the Venice Biennale in 1991, it was in the sculpture category. "

Street Photography:

Traditionally 35mm black and white, street photography is a commentary on society. A documentation of people and public spaces. Helped along by the introduction of hand held portable cameras, 'fast' films and lower costs, street photography became a popular genre of photography gaining momentum around the 1930's.

http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Valerie-Jardin-Street-Photography-3.jpg

Notable photographers in this genre are Henri Cartier-Bresson and Garry Winogrand.

Garry Winogrand.

http://www.sfmoma.org/images/artwork/large/2000.672_01_B02.jpg

Henri Cartier-Bresson. Bresson would often find a location and wait for the right person to walk by.

http://www.henricartierbresson.org/hcb/redimg/photo.jpg

Street photography is candid, instantaneous, in the moment photography. Often tongue in cheek, nostalgic or ironic, street photography is a celebration of everyday urban life.



Photojournalism and Editorial photography.

Photojournalism can in some ways be closely linked with street photography. Photojournalism is a style of photography used to provide images to document a news story. This can be along with text or stand on its own. The images are taken in a similar fashion to street photography, but with more of an agenda, they aim to create propaganda or expose truths. Street Photography is often more light hearted in relation to more hard hitting work involved in photojournalism.

This photograph was taken by South African photojournalist Kevin Carter in March 1993. It was part of coverage by a group of photojournalists called The Bang Bang Club, who photographed around South Africa during the Apartheid. This photograph created controversy when Carter revealed he took 20 minutes to take this photograph wanting to get the best shot possible before chasing the bird away.
He received a lot of criticism for the photograph for which he won a Pulizer Prize in 1994, which is speculated is one of the causes pushing him to commit suicide later that year in July 1994.

A quote from www.fanpop.com explains some of the other factors that may have attriubuted to his depression.

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/photography/articles/2845/title/kevin-carter-consequences-photojournalism

"Carter's suicide is not a direct result of the Sudanese child, nor the accusations that he staged the scene, or criticisms that he did not assist her. Carter had spiraled into a depression, to which many things were a factor, his vocation as a photojournalist in 1980s Africa definitely a large part of it. Carter and his friends Ken Oosterbroek, Greg Marinovich, and Joao Silva longed to expose the brutality of Apartheid to the world. They captured the violence of South Africa so vividly that a Johannesburg magazine Living dubbed them "The Bang-Bang Club." The title stuck.

On April 18, 1994, only 6 days after Carter won the Pulitzer, the Bang-Bang Club made their way to Tokowa to photograph an outbreak of violence there. At around noon, Carter returned to the city, and heard later on the radio that Oosterbroek had been killed in the conflict, and that Marinovich had been seriously wounded. It was obvious to his friends that Carter blamed himself for Oosterbroek's death, and he even confided in his friends that he felt as though he "should have taken the bullet." "

So although photojournalism relies on in the moment candid photography, the subject matter is quite different and more dangerous than street photography with a political agenda/journalistic edge that street photography doesn't have. 

Editorial Photography has a journalistic/doucmentary nature but is not as off the cuff. Editorial photography is photography produced to accompany an article. Editorial photography is often posed or pre-arranged images such as studio photographs of a celebrity or politician - an example of an editorial news sources is The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/16/portrait-photography-suki-dhanda

                   
Often stylised to fit the overall theme of the website, blog, or printed edition, editorial images are produced with an article in mind and the magazine, news paper or blog will have invited the personality to have an interview with them - or it will be set up by their agent to appear in a certain newspaper or magazine that they want to be associated with. This is a main difference between photojournalism and editorial photography, photojournalism adapts to occurring events and is intended to quickly get images to accompany a story as it emerges, whereas editorial photography is part of a pre-planned process. Stories and images for editorial photography can taken months in advance to fill later issues and don't have to adapt immediately to trends, although they still are influenced by current events.

It's not just newspapers hat have editorial photographs, 'glossy' magazines do too, such as Harpers Bazaar. The shoot is pre planned and only flattering images are used, the shoot and article is based on an agreement between the personality, their agent and the journalist / media company.

So, even though photojournalism and editorial photography are close there are slight differences. Editorial photography is more advertising photography whereas photojournalism is news.




Environmental Photography

Environmental Photography is photography documenting people and objects in their natural environment. Environmental photography is not studio based so it means adapting to each location to produce photographs. You should be able to document both the subject and the environment and the  connection they share in the same photograph. You are not just capturing a portrait of the person, but also a portrait of the environment.

Uyuni

Picture: Javier Arcenillas

Photographer : Evelina Pentcheva

Mongolia

Picture: Alessandro Grassani

Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) 'Environmental Photographer of the year 2013'  winner Michele Palazzi 

'Michele Palazzi has been awarded the CIWEM environmental photographer of the year award 2013 for his image entitled ‘Gone with the Dust #02’. Palazzi, who is from Rome, Italy, was awarded £5,000 by CIWEM’s president, Paul Hillman, at a private awards ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society on 9 April 2013. His striking image shows a young boy and his sister during a sand storm in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia '

The photograph is from a series called 'Black Gold Hotel'

from the photographers website: http://www.michelepalazziphotographer.com/black-gold-hotel/ :

In the last decade the economy of Mongolia has grown at an unprecedented rate, with GDP expanding by more than 10% per year. All this mostly depends on the mining industry: attracted by the large deposits of copper, gold and most of all coal, all of the industry’s global giants have invested and invest in this small country of Central Asia.

In this accelerated and deregulated development local populations and traditional ways of life, based on ancestral nomadic herding along routes across the steppes, are undergoing a crisis. Many families have left their activities and moved in large urban centers in search of work opportunities in this new industrial society, often slipping into economic and social poverty. Others, however, try to resist, dealing every day with pollution, dusts that poison the vegetation, and living conditions which get more and more difficult every day.

Black Gold Hotel is a journey in the daily lives of a few families from the Gobi desert, where the pasture which has been the main livelihood for centuries, is disappearing in a few decades,  On one hand, those who chose to continue the tradition of the steppe despite all difficulties, on the other those who preferred to take their chances in the large cities, unfortunately facing the reality of a space which is deteriorated and invaded by unreachable western cultural models."

The image of the boy and his sister in western clothing, seemingly lost in the wastes of the Gobi desert is an accurate visual representation of the message the photographer is trying to portray. The lone camel  out of focus in the distance could be a link to the traditional way of life that is being lost.

Children are often used as an emotive element in photography, but in this image the children could represent the relative infant state the east is in compared to the west in aspects such as technology, medicine and government.

A deserving winner.





Location fashion photography and Location advertising photography:

I think these two categories are close enough to be talked about together as one usually leads to the other.

Here are some example images:

 Location Fashion Photography:

Photographer: Emmanuel Rosario

Location: New York

One of my own images for a brief to shoot images suitable for a magazine.

Location advertising photography:

The reason the two categories can be linked is that fashion photographs are often made to advertise the clothing or objects in the image. If not, they are produced to add to a portfolio by the photographer or for the model thereby advertising the photographer or model themselves. 

Location photography can range from raw barely edited images - think American Apparel, to highly polished images destined for magazines such as Harpers Bazaar. Both are location fashion photographs both are location advertising photographs, each intended for different audiences.

Harpers Bazaar: 

American Apparel:

For shots like American Apparel, they use any camera from polaroid to mobile, to high end DSLR. The eclectic mix of cameras creates a mish mash of images that reflect the youthful unorganised target audience. They use artifical lighting but usually in the form of pop up flash or a flash gun attachment. They do use studio work to advertise their brand, but most of the images they use are on location.

For shots such as harpers bazaar, a location will be booked, the shots planned and whilst on location it is likely a mini portable studio will be used to create lighting effects desired. In American Apparel there is less planning and more adaptation giving a more spontaneous and fun feel which the brand is trying to associate itself with. Whilst not cheap, in relation to the £10,000 dress in the second Harpers Bazaar image, American Apparel is cheap fashion. As such American Apparel can be more spontaneous and care free with their advertising photography. In Harpers Bazaar, the images have to fit the rest of the magazine, and be elegant, and look expensive as their audience is generally richer and want to buy luxurious items, not the cheap sex charged style of American Apparel.

On my shoot I used a combination of natural light and and a speedlite flash gun attachment. This allowed me to eliminate shadows and get a clean and bright shot every time.  

Chris Kilkus is a fashion photographer who specialises in location photography.

BIOGRAPHY 
Originally from San Francisco, Christopher Kilkus discovered his love of fashion and photography early in life through the influence of a successful fashion model, his mom. He pursued careers in bicycle racing and fashion model management before beginning his path to becoming a professional photographer. After starting out in San Francisco, he spent two years working throughout Asia, and 7 years in New York City, where he developed a reputation for excellent work with a great attitude. Christopher currently splits his time between New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles.

CLIENTS INCLUDE 
BCBG Max Azria, Herve Leger, Forever 21, bebe, Macy's, GAP, Banana Republic, Wet Seal, Arden B., Jockey International, Skechers, Fox Girls, Billabong, Sony Music, Island Def Jam, Interscope Records, Vogue Magazine, Marie Claire Magazine, Cosmopolitan Magazine.

His work is often sunny and bright, and most probably influenced by his lifestyle of living and working in L.A., Miami and New York. His images have a young carefree vibe which is commercially desirable.



Landscape Photography:

Arguably the most recognisable landscape photograph of all:

Landscape photography is literally photographing landscapes. Landscape photography is the capturing of images of a scene, be it natural or manmade - from rolling hills to a  skyscraper filled skyline, and can cover any size area rom an alleyway to as far as your lens allows.

Unlike portrait photography where the person is the subject and the background is secondary, in landscape photography the scene itself is the subject.

A problem that often occurs with location photography is correct exposure. Getting the sky and the landscape correctly exposed together can be a challenge as the sky is often brighter then the landscape and this can lead to a blown out overexposed sky and a well exposed ground, or a very underexposed ground and a well exposed sky. 

To correct this there a a few methods that photographers use:

HDR - HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, the photographer will take multiple exposures to expose correctly for the sky, correctly for the ground and a 0 neutral exposure. They will the combine the three images using photo editing software to get an image with a better exposure.

Unfortunately it is hard to find a good example of this technique on the internet as it is usually overdone intentionally or otherwise and creates a surreal effect. This is because even the eye cannot see scenes with perfect exposure for both bright and dark objects and so the look is unnatural. This technique often results in game-like images and is probably a reason why computer games are still distinguishable from real life as they employ a similar HDR effect to graphics. 

 

Another way is to cut and paste. Photographers can take images in a similar fashion to HDR but instead of combining the three full images, they take the parts of each image that they want and skillfully combine them using blending tools and layers.
I have done a rough example which you can see below:

 

A third way to affect exposure is to use filters gradient filters. 

 

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photography-beginners-forum/118046-how-not-blow-out-skies.html

These filters come in a variety of colours and gradients to apply to different scenes, and are often used for filming, Jeremy Clarkson explains on Topgear the use of filters:

A final way that most photographers use is to shoot in RAW. RAW files are different to Jpegs because they are not compressed or altered by the camera once taken. The photographer is in complete control of the image once it is taken and can have a lot of input in to the final image achieving the exposure they want:

My computer is unable to handle raw files so I used Jpegs to the best of their abilities by pushing the histogram.

In digital photography the more exposure the better. You can always tone down an overexposed image but it is impossible to bring details out of an underexposed area. By understanding your histogram you can make sure you have as much detail as possible visible in your histogram without blowing out any areas.

by making sure my histogram is as far to the right as possible i make sure I have captured the most detail in my image as I can without using RAW. This makes my photos much more editable in post.