Category: photography
2016
In a small victory for my organisation plan, I am approaching the end of editing every photo I took in 2016. Next on the to do list is every image I took in 2015: a task I’m looking forward to, as by now I’ve formed a technique for doing such edits quickly.
I’ll also be looking forward to completing 2017’s images and refining what I do this year; as I work through new knowledge on Photoshop, these edits will hopefully be more impressive than the more basic work I’ve done so far.
2016’s photos have taken in gigs, get-togethers, walks, demonstrations and holidays. They’ve also seen my change from regular use of my Panasonic Lumix compact to near-permanent use of my Fujifilm X-Pro1. Both are lovely cameras, but sticking to just one image maker has led to an enjoyable fluency that can only improve with future use.
Images will end up on the website, my stock supply and various web photo streams. I’m really looking forward to a completed filing of all my photographs.
Eight rolls of film
Amid the sorting through boxes, files and notebooks, I have just come across a box of exposed film rolls. Six are 120mm medium format, two are 35mm, all are filled with images from holidays and projects from… when? 2015? Good Lord! Exposed, wrapped up, boxed up and hidden away for over two years. I wonder if they can still be processed. I also wonder what the images are; it’s been so long since I took them.
Meet our heroes
These are the most recent rolls of film I’ve exposed. Since then, I’ve used digital cameras exclusively, but this situation may change soon. Previously, I worked with both media: while getting used to the digital workflow, I enjoyed taking film photos and sending the films to developers, for colour images; for black and white film, I loved spending the day in the darkroom, either at the now-closed Stables Gallery and more recently at the Photofusion centre.
Other projects, day jobs and life in general got in the way of regular film use. I’d also got deep into digital imaging: my Fujifilm X-Pro1 was being put to regular use on holidays, at gigs and in street photography. But developing these rolls of film may see my using film photography again.
I love the detail in my twin lens reflex viewfinder and on a medium format image. I love the flare of light across the exposed roll of 35mm images. I haven’t experienced this in over two years. These eight rolls of film may bring that experience back, maybe strongly enough to continue shooting on film in future. We shall see.
Old and new
The first photo I ever took was of my parents. I wandered into their room one morning, aged about four, picked up their Polaroid Colorpack camera and took a photo of them while they slept. The flash woke them up and I was forbidden from using the camera again.
It was unsurprising that my first use of a camera was with a Polaroid, as they were astonishingly popular at the time. I remember attending countless family and children’s parties when a model was guaranteed to be taken out for a quick image.
I still possess a couple of the photos taken during my family’s get-togethers. I’m amazed by their quality and colour reproduction, their square shapes and white borders: true moments in time.
Looking back, I should have been quite pleased to have a Colorpack in my home, but what I really wanted was a 600 model, with its fabulously modern photo eject system (what a sound it made!) It was a while before I could acquire one.
In the meantime, I got into using Instamatic cameras and 35mm cameras in my teens: my use of Polaroid cameras was sporadic until I attended film school. There, in a lecture on continuity, we were informed of the use of Polaroid cameras as a production tool. At about the same time, I became aware of film production Polaroids for lighting, costume and make-up tests. There seemed to be a use for this camera tool in my work, so (missing the advice to acquire and SX 70 with its better picture) I bought my first Polaroid camera, a 635CL, in my mid 20s.
Over the next few years, I used it for production continuity, location research and portrait tests, along with the odd fun image, but I never felt fully conversant with it. A few years later, Polaroid decided to discontinue production of its instant film. Some stockpiled the last stocks, but I didn’t rush to join in: I didn’t see myself using it much in the future and was fully involved with 35mm SLRs.
One image taken with Polaroid film back in the day
But over the following years, I kept hearing and reading about Polaroids: about their use on fashion shoots; about portraits taken with their large format instant film; about books and exhibitions of their images. And then I heard about the Impossible Project.
The Impossible Project, now known as Polaroid Originals, took up production of Polaroid’s instant film after buying Polaroid’s production machinery. They have produced film for the SX 70, the 600 and most recently 8×10 cameras. I bought an early product and was disappointed at its results, which may have been down to my lack of experience with the camera as well as my being unused to this new product. I lent the camera to a friend.
I began to wonder what a Polaroid image was actually for. Digital images seemed to have taken over: feature films, even those shot on film, tended to use digital cameras for lighting tests; fashion shoots would use a tablet’s camera for costume and make-up tests. Watching my friend use the Impossible Project’s latest products, showed me that this instant film was rather slower to develop than in years gone by. I wondered whether a Polaroid photo had gone the way of the telegram: supplanted by faster, more versatile technology. Why take a Polaroid now?
The answer would come in the beautiful photos that my friend took, in the exhibits of Polaroids at art galleries and books, and in how I never stopped being fascinated by the images these cameras made; great images, not to be used for another purpose, but in and of themselves. I’d see them in movies like “Se7en” and “Memento”. I loved their shape, composition and borders. I wanted to take them for myself again.
A surprise shot taken with some old Polaroid Originals film. Some practise needed, I think.
Some 20 years after I bought my 635CL, I watched a tutorial on how best to use it. I have the camera again and I’m taking some test shots now with old film before buying some new stock. As use of this camera continues, I feel that rather than going the way of the telegram, Polaroid film has gone the way of vinyl: an art form in itself and another way of recording something memorable.
Taking stock
Earlier, I mentioned that I was going through all my stuff; practically mining it for projects and ideas. Most recently, I’ve been working through photographs.
I have years of digital and film images to work through and my computer is currently crammed with images, so much so that my laptop warns me of an ever more worrying lack of free space. This is my own fault and simple to remedy.
If I look back, with my first used and abused compact and my used and cherished mirrorless follow up, my digital photo practise has been to take images, delete out-of-focus shots and upload the rest to my laptop, prior to image editing. I would cut the numbers down in Apple Photos before editing the images themselves in Adobe Photoshop and then… well, that’s where my workflow ended.
No methodical printing, display or file reducing: all would just sit on my laptop over the years; six to be exact. That’s a lot of images.
So now, I’m cutting them down, with number reductions, file size reduction and image display, partly on my website, but in larger numbers on Alamy, the photo stock website, through which I’ve had a few sales. I’m aiming to sell more.
I’m working my way through to the end of 2016’s pictures, while working concurrently on 2017’s. Marvellous amounts of space have been freed up and more will follow as I work backwards through 2015. Interestingly, while refining images, my digital darkroom technique has got more varied and capable, but I am intending to take the old images to the best point I can and finishing them, rather than tinkering with new techniques ad nauseam. The newest images will get the fullest treatment.
I seem to have a technique at last. With this order, I hope to join the dots between what I’ve made and learned to use on new image making. I will display and aim to sell accordingly.
I remember Paris
I hardly remember my first trip to Paris; a journey of rail and sea. I was eight years old. The London terminus (Charing Cross? Victoria?) was huge, dark and crowded, the ferry crossing uneventful and the train journey from Calais to Paris felt endless.
We stayed at the friend of a friends in St. Cloud, but I may have been misinformed as to the exact location; I just remember a nice flat in a quiet neighbourhood. Still, it was my first trip to Paris. I took one photo on a camera borrowed from my brother, which completely missed my family and concentrated on passers-by and traffic. I wish I still had it.
My next journey was as an inter-railer in my late teens. We crossed Paris numerous times and I’m happy to still have images taken with a fairly substandard 35mm SLR, along with more negatives. Somehow, with the excitement of travelling with friends, I didn’t really take everything in.
My next journeys some years later were when I really started to take notice: my Transport for London job gave me a Eurostar discount that I used heavily. A first solo trip; overnight stays with friends; a journey with a friend to celebrate her getting her MA; and romantic journeys with loved ones. All photographed with a better 35mm SLR, my first mirrorless camera and my second, cherished digital camera, in colour and black and white.
Parisian street art
Photographed: shops; statues; streets; people; parks; cemeteries; architecture; galleries. I will return and photograph more, but for now, I’m going through the photographs I’ve taken and putting them on my website.
The Paris photos start here.
The Information
A rather terrifying list of stuff to do…
I am currently unpacking a lot of boxes, crates and bags. These contain about a third of my stuff: the rest is in storage; a fun, yet daunting prospect.
They are full of books, magazines and papers to read; notebooks and pads full of written projects and ideas; folders full of drawings, film recordings and photos; a wealth of information from the past ten to 15 years. A lot of stuff to go through.
Added to this are a couple of crammed computers, full of screenplays, short stories and photos; lots and lots of photos… So, what to do with all this?
I’m currently working through a plan: to unpack all that’s here by the end of the month. To then spend the next five months unpacking all that’s in storage. Six months of work to sort out the gold from the detritus: and start the whole process again one year from now.
That’s everything sorted: papers meticulously catalogued; all photos edited and filed; every idea organised, but what then?
As any intelligence agency representative would tell you, a well organised file of ideas is nothing if the ideas aren’t used. Correctly catalogued photos are nothing if not displayed. The screenplays need to be filmed. All this information needs to be followed through. By all means one can plan, edit and organise, but these ideas only come alive by DOING.
There’ll be mistakes, of course, but there’ll also be a lot learned. Watch.
On photography
Late last year, I read a tweet encouraging photographers to expand their skills over a year long challenge. I followed the offered link and discovered the Dogwood Challenge for 2017; a list of 52 weekly photographic challenges for people to get their teeth into.
Dogwood challenges fell into artistic, technical and story categories, covering lighting, lenses, composition and editing. Instructions were given on where to post images: most of mine have been on my Instagram (Facebook, Flickr and Twitter were also suggested); and photographers were encouraged to tag and post their photos every week.
This has been a fascinating exercise. I’ve experimented more with photography than the previous five years combined. Of the exercises, those using Photoshop tools have been the most exciting and I’ll be returning to them in coming photo projects. When first seeking advice on how to use Photoshop, I was encouraged to spend half an hour playing with a particular feature: I found this difficult without a particular aim. The Dogwood Challenge has given me a new aim every week.
Among the experimentation, this was a failure: my first attempt at a stitched panorama…
Right now though, I am building a new photo website, on which I am making an account of my work so far. Building the site has been great fun, but what comes next; the photos influenced by the past few years and by Dogwood’s exercises, is what really excites me.
There are a number of sections I would like to create in this site’s future. One is street photography: I’m not particularly practised, but I’ve been on a number of photo walks (and rides), I’ve admired street and observational photography for some years. Recent reads of How to take Great Photographs of Places and Magnum’s Wear Good Shoes has made me want to pursue this further.
Most importantly, the advice of Alec Soth in Wear Good Shoes chimes with me: “Try everything. Photojournalism, fashion, portraiture, nudes, whatever. You won’t know what kind of photographer you are until you try it…” I’ve struggled with my aims in photography: should I concentrate on beauty, architectural, observational or travel? I think that this advice, to walk, to experiment and produce, to be patient and observe, will get me closer to my groove.
More time-lapse
Editing on the film continues: I’m near the end of the second cut. I shot a number of time lapse sequences; here’s one I rejected for a number of reasons:
- The climate wan’t too good; this was supposed to go with a late-Summer’s day… No.
- Again, there was a slight shifting of position: very noticeable in time-lapse; the tripod has to be super-steady!
- The time between shots was about two minutes. Pre-visualisation’s the thing: for sequences I’ve been using in the film, I’ve been shooting one image a minute. I may shoot some more with an image every 30 seconds.
Time consuming as they are, I’ve really enjoyed shooting time-lapse. In a way, they’re a symbol of the production process on this film so far: lots of little, steady steps; insignificant in themselves, but adding up to show real change. On with the second cut.
Time lapse test 1
This is going to be warts and all.
There are a number of time lapse shots that I want for the film and recently I’ve been learning how to make them.
My first practical information came from Illustratographer’s tumblr, so following the information therein, I shot my own.
On looking at my results, I did a little more digging and found some links such as this. Very informative. Anyway, this is my first test:
So, what have I learned for next time?
- Get your timing right: I decided to shoot from one hour before sunrise to one hour after, so why did I start shooting two hours before instead? Oh. Which leads neatly to…
- Make sure your battery is fully charged: mine ran out partly through the shoot; changing the battery meant a slight shift in the camera’s position.
- Keep your camera’s settings the same throughout: I went with a wide open aperture, which was great for the darkness, but not so smart in the light. I compensated with neutral density filters of increasing strength that unfortunately resulted in odd light and colour changes between shots.
- I need to experiment more with editing.
- It’s all in the planning: I can’t emphasise it enough; consider what you want to see, how long you want it to last and plan accordingly.
- Test, test and test again before signing the project off. I’m near the end of the film’s first cut, but I imagine I’ll be doing many more time lapse shots before any of them make it into the edit.
As I say, this is a first effort. Between now and the next, I’ll be looking at a lot of other people’s work for guidance.
I shot a film
I’ve been away for a while.
Shortly after my last blog entry, I left my day job. I had been working in my particular job for ten years, on a rotating 24 hour shift pattern, with people I really enjoyed being around.
Despite the pay and benefits, I found that I was unable to do what I was yearning to do, so with some planning and some savings I did something that I never thought I’d do… or would advise anyone else to do: I resigned.
In the months since the big day, I’ve had insomnia, anxiety, huge amounts of fun, larger amounts of doubt and one or two worrying illness symptoms. That said, I wouldn’t change this experience for anything, mainly because right now I find myself editing my first feature film.
The shoot taught me a lot: preparation is key; choose your collaborators well; trust your actors. The main thing I learned from this shoot is that I want to shoot more: I’m writing as many ideas as I can come up with to make my next film. There are many other things I learned about equipment, directing actors and crew, locations, photography. I’m still learning.
One thing I realised is how little I know, about films, art, music, editing… I need to learn more, so right now, I feel like I’ve just begun school. I’m reading a lot more, watching a lot more, writing and photographing a lot more, listening more. I’m drawing and playing music regularly. I’m filling myself up.
In the mean time, I’m editing the first cut. All being good, the film should be complete in six months; a long way to go. We shall see…
Burning Details 
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