58 days of Cott High...

Why hello,

All I can say is it has been crazy since April. Had that massive schedule of deadlines towards the beginning of April for uni, came home for easter and was asked to work as a Media Technician at my old high school and was doing that until today. Been so busy but it's been amazing, did the media awards ceremony, Coscars, for the 3rd time, did so many styles of print media I could make my own magazine, taught kids for the first time and did an amazing photo shoot with them and I won an award at CineClub for the Best Teacher film and got to meet Dexter Fletcher, who gave me his email address ;)

I've started uploading stuff to my flickr and vimeo site (well the vimeo stuff is slowly going on) but hoping to get the ball rolling on stuff soon.

Yeah, it's been a hell of a 58 working days...

Just for a recap...

I was reading my older posts recently and i've realised how far my idea has come from my starting point. A lot has changed since then, so I'll just list stuff that has changed.

- The whole black and white thing

My original idea was to use black and white with one item of colour in my pictures. I researched films such as Sin City and looked at various editing styles that changed the concept of the photos. I completely dismissed the use of colour all together as I didn’t think it would be appropriate but now I am using full colour, maybe because it was such a sunny day and didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

- Street photography style

It is still street photography, just in a more documentary style. My original idea was to use a similar style to ….. but it changed due to my circumstances as people not turning up etc. It is still posed but it is documentary as they socialized in each of the locations.

-Extremes of people

It was such a sunny day that people did not really wear their most extreme clothes to portray their stereotypes. In the beginning, this was my idea, to clearly show all of the subgenres of youth fashion culture. But then this developed to be a documentary style of photography after looking at the book Fruit and was pleased with whatever they were wearing on the day.

I never realised how much my idea developed...

It's all about the organisation...

So I've started putting together my sequence. I've done so much today. The overall style of the piece wasn't exactly what I wanted, wanted it to be more gritty and urban, but in the end it turned out to be colourful!

So the sequence, I'm finding it quite hard to choose the photos that i want. I think it still fits the brief in general, as it is following the group that I stayed with all day. It was quite a shock when I realised what sort of photos i got, i was expecting dull but the change really threw me off. Unfortunately, all the good photos are of the same few people, as most of them didn't turn up for the photo shoot, but that is all that I've got to choose from.

I've let my instinct choose what the sequence should be, what I feel looks right and has a flow through it. I've tended to go for portraits, as all of them show the personalities and the social environments that they inhabit. Most of them are posed but I have stuck a few random shots in there, that they didn't know that I took, just to break it up a bit and show them as a group of teenagers. hopefully the documentary style I was going for.

I think it's gone quite well...

First quick edits...

I took one of my photos and edited them in 3 different ways. To be honest, I didn't pick the best one at all, just the first I clicked. Here they are:

I like the full colour. I feel it be a shame to waste what is unique about these people. Placing the photos in black and white may take the individuality away from the people in the group, which is not what I want. The more saturated one doesn't really do it for me, however in this next image, I feel it works.

In this next image, I decided to take the picture of my sister with a flower in her mouth as it can be edited in various ways.

From these, I have decided that colour must be used in every photo, so black and white is out of the question. The sun brought out some interesting textures and colours so I must embrace them!

Ideas on editing...

Here has come to the part that I have been dreading, the photo editing. I am really not sure what will suit my photographs and convey the style/ purpose. Everything I do is for a reason and this is no different. i want the same editing style for the whole sequence.

Black and white

The roots of street photography stem from black and white imagery and I also feel that I lean towards it when doing this style. It also looks very stylish but it could take away from the environment and the uniqueness of the people. Also, it may not be the best option, as I was taking pictures in very harsh light and the shadows may become too prominent.

Sections of colour

There is quite a lot of photos that I have taken that involve a lot of colour. If i wanted to go down the black and white route but bring out key items in the photos, this would be the way around it. But I'm not sure if this will be right for it or not.

Sepia tones

This is a way of editing, without giving away or bringing forward too much colour. I quite like it, but it is all a question of if it will take too much away from documenting the people in photos.

The only way I'm going to find out is to just do it...

The unpredictability of teenagers...

I had everything planned, I took a lot of inspiration from Jacopo Pandolfi and had a lot of shots lined up in my mind. For my steam punk, I wanted to get a shot of him in the old part of town with the cobbled streets, stood isolated. I then wanted an image of him leaning against a worn brick wall staring at the camera with his gas mask on, to create a gritty street photography style.
I wanted a small emo girl, and to bring her sparkling black wings to stand her against a graffiti wall.

All of the very unusual and extreme stereotypes never showed up for the shoot and the majority of my photos had to be re-thought on the spot. So on the spot I used what I had around me. As it was an extremely sunny and hot day, the people I was photographing weren't exactly wearing their most extreme clothes. But then again, is that what the shoot was about? Yeah it was about youth fashion culture, but I had a look at the book Fruit by Shoichi Aoki. He captured Japanese youth culture and took photos of random people in the city. I like this documentary style approach, so I feel it may have been better that they were wearing what they wanted instead of being made up just for a photo shoot.

So I decided that I would follow my sister and cousins main group of friends around town, see the places that they naturally went too and then set up photos there. they went to a wide range of places, they went to the grassy park, to the main shopping area, to the marina and around the older parts of the town. Along the way, they bumped into more friends that were different and they all came together for a group photo (you'll know which one it is Mike).

All in all, it was a different day than I expected. Not the gritty street photography style that I was really after, but you never know, it could be just as good...

Posed vs Candid

I love my natural photos, just taking pictures of whatever goes on around where ever I am. It's probably why I love street photography so much as the most natural things I think are the most beautiful and interesting. However, for this project, I don't really think it is appropriate for this project. So I'm going to look at photography styles with and without posing.

One of my favourite photographers, Elliott Erwitt, did a mixture of posed and candid shots, but my favourites of his are the natural ones. This next one was a natural shot, he set it up for focus but the subjects were just passing by:

It's great for the right purpose of capturing the French culture.

This next one is also candid.

It's the right environment for this sort of shot, it wouldn't look as good posed.

Next I'll look at posed shots also by Elliott Erwitt.
This next one is of Marilyn Monroe, it looks right posed at it is a portrait

It may be due to the fact that she is an icon and we expect her to be picture perfect 24/7 but I think that it wouldn't have looked as good if it wasn't posed.

This is also posed and tbh I really like it. It fits its portrait purpose.

So, what do I think is best for this shoot?
Well, I think that posed shots would be best. As it's people in their environment, I really do think it would be more suitable. On the shoot I will take some candid shots too and see what they look like some may fit quite well in the sequence. These would be of the group of people together, could make some great shots.