Category: digital
Dreaming in black & white
On being donated a few rolls of 35mm black & white film, I decided to run them through my Voigtlander rangefinder camera.
While taking photographs (and enjoying the immediate results) with my usual digital camera and new phone, I enjoyed the time spent on setting up photos with a film camera for images I will not see until they return from the (yet to be chosen) printers.
Its this time taken over that has been the most attractive thing about taking photographs on film again. A roll or two into this venture, while scanning a plethora of old transparencies, I thought both about the film images I took, developed and printed in the past, as well as the cameras I used to take them.
Towards the end of the recent photo podcast I took part in, we were asked about which photos we wanted to take in future. I said that I wanted to take more time over my images: slower, more considered photography, if you will. I thought about my medium format camera and how using it slowed down the whole process of image making. I thought about large format cameras and how precise one had to be in using them. I considered returning to previous digital images in order to refine them by taking better versions with improved compositions and lighting. In all, I thought about a photography beyond “snapping”.
This may lead to my taking fewer images, which may be a relief considering the many digital photos I’ve catalogued recently. The opportunity to really craft photos, for lighting, composition and subject, will develop my practice in extraordinary ways.
Realities
I’ve just completed a short film that I’d been working on for a few weeks.
“Realities” takes an idea from a science fiction feature screenplay I’m currently writing and imagines it in another setting. While I may not have brought complete clarity to the idea, I enjoyed making this short film and may rework aspects of the feature script as a result of making this.
Realities from Burning Details on Vimeo.
Two of my favourite aspects of this short film were building props and recording sound, the latter of which has been a problem in previous shoots. My next hope is to use more lighting, which I have also found difficult previously: short films offer great opportunities for experimentation.
Now “Realities” is complete, I’m going to make another short science fiction film, from a screenplay of about equal length. I have a few other ideas mulling around, as well as the opportunity to try some new editing platforms: I’ll see what new aspects I can bring to these productions.
New phone, who dis?
My last mobile phone had repeatedly given me warnings that it was overloaded, running out of space and was going to be functioning badly soon. Despite my clearing as much data as possible, the warnings continued, so I bit the bullet and finally bought a brand new phone.
This was a painful process: the research, the choices, the buying; all aspects of shopping are draining to me. Eventually I have purchased a phone that I am pleased with.
Previously, when I’ve purchased a new phone, I’ve happily worked through a few features and geared the phone’s looks just the way I wanted. Not now, though.
This new phone is being used, but not with enthusiasm. It has the same cover, the same menus and the same app placements as it had when it arrived from the retailer.
I want to regain that fascination with technology that I’ve had with previous purchases of phones, cameras and computers, but it hasn’t happened yet with this item. It feels slightly disrespectful.
I think often about the fact that a mobile phone has 100,000 times the processing power of the guidance computer that landed man on the moon. Staying with the Apollo, realising that a single search on Google would use as much computing as the entire 17 mission programme, has had me wanting to put a little more respect on learning the capabilities of this small new phone in my possession.
Feature films have been shot on mobile phones. They’ve been used to make amazing TikTok videos. What else can be done with these great little machines?
Thames Walk
I’ve been transferring my photographs from my website to my Behance profile, mainly because of the freedom I have to put together themed collections.
The most recent one I’ve made is for the river Thames, between Erith and Greenwich.
Living in south east London, I have visited most spots between these two points over the years, photographing them on film and digital. It’s good to see them all together.
My hope is to get bigger projects made, not just collecting photos around a theme, but making them also: travelogues, that unify place, point of view and style. But for now, I’ll be collecting place by place.
Self
One rainy night in Austin, Texas during the South by South West festival in 2015, I watched the audience from a sheltered area while waiting for a show.
In the crowd, a young woman took numerous selfies, illuminated by the stage and auditorium lights, one after the other, until she got the shot she wanted.
Prior to that moment, I’d always been disdainful of selfies, looking on them as superficial, but I saw that young woman’s photography as her saying, “I am here,” and wanting to see herself in her best light. Good for her, I thought.
That vignette made me think back to my attendance at that same festival the year before. In an on-stage interview, the actress Tilda Swinton talked of how her family had painted portraits of themselves hanging in their grand home. She said that the sight made her used to seeing herself “in the frame.”
These two festival memories stayed with me when I decided to use my newly acquired lighting equipment to take self portraits. I’d been uncomfortable with this: the time taken to set up a shot of oneself felt indulgent, but I had wanted to take portraits and understand how to light them; in this current pandemic, who better to experiment with other than one’s self?
I’ve been using one light so far: Rembrandt lighting from 45 degrees up and to the side; and from a height at a 70 degree angle. I take the photos on a timed exposure of ten seconds, giving me enough time to pose after setting up the picture. (I may buy a long cable release for this purpose.)
I’m learning, slowly. Good focus takes some effort. I definitely hope to use what I’ve learned with other sitters. I am nowhere near a portrait “style”. But it’s very interesting to sit for a portrait and see myself in the frame, especially as a black person, interpreting and representing what I look like in a photograph. I am here.
The Outer Limits
On a filmmaking course at Raindance, the lecturer Elliot Grove talked of the abilities of the equipments that we could get our hands on to make our films.
He talked of instruction manuals and encouraged us to read and test our equipment by them. Then he stated an extraordinary fact: the instruction manuals did cover a lot of what the equipment was capable of, but not everything. The cameras, sound mixers and editing platforms we would use could do up to 50 per cent more than these manuals were letting on, and we would be well-advised to experiment with these as much as possible.
A musician friend once told me of the myriad ways he could work with a newly acquired mixing software package. I paralleled this with my photo editing gear: with so many features, how could one know exactly what to use in one’s work? Experiment, he answered.
Acquaintances introducing me to photo editing software talked of their experimentation: slowly working through all the features and finding out what worked best for them. I’ve continued doing so, and I think that my digital darkroom skills have improved as I’ve done so.
With my cameras, I continue to work my way through instruction manuals for years-old equipment. There always seems to be something new to discover. I find it hard to imagine buying more equipment if I haven’t reached the limits of what I’m currently using, be they a still camera, a handycam or a phone camera. “Better” photography could result as much to skilful use as well as better equipment.
In his terrific book Digital Film-Making, director Mike Figgis talks of using a camera often enough so that it becomes an extension of your hand, like a pen or a paintbrush. I love this approach. The idea of really knowing a piece of equipment and taking it to the limits of its capabilities is far more appealing to having a new piece of kit.
New filmmaking
After making my environmental short, I have started work on a new short film.
I wrote the script some months ago, but put it to one side as I had started writing a feature screenplay that expanded on this short’s idea. As writing progressed, I returned to this short as I found myself more and more interested in playing with its ideas.
Although realising this short film is a daunting prospect, the shoot has been enjoyable so far, with props and shot set ups I haven’t used before. Where I think things will become complex is with the sound, which will be a huge part of this film.
In any case, I’ve greatly enjoyed the process. I’m looking on short films more as sketches or practice and I’m enjoying making as many as possible, on any media I can use. And the more I do it, the less daunting it will be.
TikToking
The social media platform TikTok, with its short form videos displaying stunts, humour, music, politics and mischief, has amused and fascinated me for some time, so I’ve decided to make a few short films for the platform myself.
While the features of the platform allowing you to upload and edit phone videos are straightforward and simple to use, some content creators have done some fantastic work with transitions and camera moves: all very inspiring.
Most inspiring for me are the people I’ve come across on this platform. I’ve learned about design, architecture and cooking. I’ve listened to varying views on politics, economics and cinema. I’ve been fascinated by historians and polemicists. All these individuals, with their interesting, at times irreverent but always well put together videos.
Every social media platform seems to have a “moment”: Facebook’s first flurry in the early part of the century; Tumblr’s glow up a few years later; Twitter’s intersection with politics and culture a few years after that. All these moments have been extraordinary, and all have soured somewhat, whether with content problems or algorithm issues. Even as the platforms themselves have gone on from strength to strength financially, much of the same user affection from those earlier highs evaporates.
TikTok is having such a moment, with users trolling the former president and content creators building careers off their micro-short uploads: maybe bigger moments are to come. But in the meantime, it’s great fun to use.
The air around us
Following my WHO Health for All film festival entry, I decided to follow up on another idea I had for an environmental short film.
The idea was concerned with air pollution: I’d read news stories about people suffering respiratory illnesses near busy carriageways like the North Circular Road and Park Lane; also Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s case had been in the newspapers for some time.
On researching air pollution’s effects on the body’s organs, I depicted these with watercolour paints on a pristine white shirt, intercutting them with images of road traffic.
I enjoyed making some work around the subject of the environment, which is becoming ever more urgent as time progresses. As usual with any creative endeavour, there are many things that I’d do differently next time. Nonetheless, I learned a lot, which I hope to bring to my next short project.
WHO Health for All Film Festival
Late last year, I saw by chance that the World Health Organisation (WHO) was organising a short film festival.
The WHO Health For All Film Festival has been running for two years: this year, it requested short films on three possible categories. Universal health coverage, health emergencies, and better health and wellbeing were the topics on offer and I chose the first, as it was partially concerned with non-communicable diseases.
Having had personal experience of Alzheimer’s disease through family and friends, I made a film about this illness’ effects. I remember thinking that it was like having parts removed from something familiar, so I took my idea from there.
Alzheimer’s from Burning Details on Vimeo.
Recently, I received an email detailing the competition’s finalists. My film was not among them, but the shortlisted films displayed a standard of craft in storytelling, sound, photography, editing and design that I found wholly inspiring.
The craft of filmmaking is an ever deepening field. One of the many pleasures I get from making films is discovering more of it. I hope to bring some more of this craft to my work when I enter this competition next year.
Burning Details 
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