During the course of unit 2 and all of the research I have done on photographers, I feel I have progressed massively, all the photographers that I have studied have influenced both component 2 and my exam shoot massively, often the themes and ideas that I have been influenced to use are a continuation from component 2 on to my exam shoot like the themes of music and art etc. I have also accumulated many techniques through the research of photographers.
I studied lots of different photographers; Gosha Rubchinskiy, Tom Wood, Simon Wheatley, Don McCullin, Martin Parr, Mazzer, Derek Ridgers, Watson, Berger, Bradellterman, Kesa, Dittmer, Ruppert, Menke, Constantine, McEnery, Friedrichs, Knorr and Ricdon and Marsden. All of these Photographers have helped to form my images, I have taken a lot of influence from their style, technique and content. Most of the photographers shoot a particular genre of culture for example; skinheads.
My research on the photographer Kesa, showed me the importance of live music, as the photographers images are raw and gritty and within the moment and time, this therefore lead me to shoot pictures of my band practicing and performing together and then another shoot of them in a recording studio playing, this influenced me further to take pictures of anything related to live music in London for example music venues and buskers on the streets. Therefore Kesa's work really helped to fuel some of my ideas, I also tried to shoot the topic as raw and gritty as possible, this helped with the aesthetic of live music.
Derek Ridgers work made me understand the importance of portraiture, this helped to develop my shooting technically, it opened my eyes to what I could take pictures of for example in component 2 I took lots of portraits, in the studio I dedicated a whole shoot to deadpan shots of people, despite Ridgers generally taking images of people outside, this also made me try to always have a main subject in my shots valuing the diversity in depth and aesthetic it adds to the image, with multiple parts to see within one image. This then further influenced my exam shoot as I took more portraits in the style of Ridgers for example I shot a punk and a rasta in camden, Watson also greatly attributed to the choice of shooting these subjects, my overall aesthetic and broadened understanding has been improved from the likes of these photographers.
My choice to shoot a subject matter like technology for component 2 was an active decision to try and capture a massive part of youth culture within modern day life, however technology for me is not particularly an interest, it's not on my subjective vision, however in doing this, by going out of my comfort of shooting things which really interest me, I think it's greatly helped to vary my overall shooting style and ability, as for my exam shoot I went to London and shot things which really interested me, despite this because of the influence from component 2, I had a more broadened idea of personal opinion and my topic of youth culture, therefore I tried to photograph all things that were relevant to my topic as opposed to things which just interest me.
Don McCulin has been a massive influence to my photography, his subject matter and ideas about what photography is and can be, one of the biggest influences form his work is just a photo of his friends who were part of a gang in London standing in a house on different levels in the frame, because of his title of a personal opinions photographer, it taught me the significance of photographing one's friends because often your friends are the ones who share the same interests, the same influences and idioms that you possess therefore having a perfect reflection of youth culture as you see it. There is a direct link between his work and mine in component 2 as I do lots of shoots which consist of my friends, in environments that are both relevant to us, partaking in the same habits and routines that we normally do, for example in the shoots of my band, in my friends room, out skating etc.
The work of Simon Wheatley helped me a lot with the understanding that it is important to also go out of the way to find out and report on relevant things within personal opinions that are not prominent in the artists own life, for example Wheatley made a series on the lives of youth in South London, getting to know and understand the group and the habits of the origin and people very well, this therefore influenced me because his type of photography is so challenging and adventurous, this inspired me to go out of my way and shoot things that I would report on as an outsider. This influenced my shoot on art and music in college, because I went out of my way to find out and go somewhere where I had never ventured before, having to ask permission to take pictures of all these students who knew their subject and course inside out, his work was definitely relevant in helping me think outside the box and report on peoples lives. This is also furthered me onto my exam shoot, in which I went to London and took pictures of people that interested me because of the subcultures they were apart of, despite influence form Ridgers in taking these pictures, I had to go out of my way to ask permission and report on their lives, this is definitely an idea that I have taken from Wheatley.
In terms of technique or aesthetic, I took most influence in aesthete through my photographers as there was not a great deal of technical ability to learn, apart from formal elements and certain components such as line or tone that the photographers have specifically focused on during shots, however each photographer generally varies formal elements each time unless they just do dead pan portraiture each time for example. So overall I was influenced by all different types of aspects focused on during each shot. One thing that sticks out from all the photographers I have researched, is that often because they are quite old photographers and all personal opinion meaning they want an authentic reflection in their work, it often means they shoot with film camera's and in black and white, black and white was definitely something I used and took form their work as I think it often really helps to accentuate the type of theme your doing if it's of a time that is not so much relevant now, or if it's just quite colourless anyway.
I feel that overall I have successfully achieved all the different parts of the exam paper that has been asked of me, I chose to shoot personal opinions because I was most interested by the topic and felt that it was the most relevant in my life. I developed my ideas on what I could do for personal opinions eventually into the field of youth culture, this is something that greatly interests me and I felt that it was current and relatable even in what the exam asks of me as the learner. For personal opinions, it states that you need to be able to convey opinions, feelings and ideas to the observer of your work, I find that I have achieved this effectively and given forth all my views on each element of youth culture that I have shot, studied and focused on, to make an eclectic mix of photography, developing and changing my style and content throughout continual shooting and research. In the question it's self it talks about the photographer Martin Parr and how he observes the british way of life out of the three examples of photographers given, I found that this was the one most relevant to me and in a way I have focused on youth culture that is mostly exclusive to the United Kingdom therefore clearly showing influence form Parr. In terms of success, I think my weaknesses may have been the fact that I picked quite a narrow select topic of youth culture, but even with this I feel like I have been successful in showing how much I can vary my ideas and themes, for example I took pictures in the studio and learnt how to use a soft box for helping the lighting and improving my overall shoot, I took pictures outside, with subjects and pastimes etc. But overall I believe I have successfully conveyed my personal opinions through the topic that I have chose.
Tuesday, 26 April 2016
Final Pieces
These are just some examples of the themes that I have carried on from my unit 2 shoots, all of the cultural ideas that I have shown before have been massively developed from Component 2, I feel I have progressed massively and really broadened my ideas on culture, for example Music, in Component 2 I showed the importance of music , through the performance, and recording aspect and a few links to rave culture for example but for my exam shoot, I have form a more ecliptic series of images that show all the different type of music being live, physical etc, this shows the different ways that music can be heard and enjoyed. I feel I have successfully done this with all my other themes also.
Art/ Graffiti
Music- Venues/ Performance/ Audio
Skating
Fashion
Thursday, 21 April 2016
Shoot 2 - Work Record
When shooting for the second shoot, I took more pictures in Camden and then I moved on to Tottenham court road where I captured images in Berwick St, Regents and Carnaby. I wanted to further my ideas and continue to walk around in these locations with ideas that I already had for shooting but mostly just relating and finding things to take pictures of which I thought linked to subculture. In the second location it obviously shows off a different part of London and therefore different culture. I shot using the canon 400D once again.
In this image that I took in Camden, it is of a punk with a sign speaking to another punk out of the frame, in a busy street with ordinary people walking past. First of all I love the colours in the image, there is a lot going on and the bright colours of the punks sign, the trees and the shops behind on the other side of the road really add to the busyness of the scene. This helps to create a realistic atmosphere of camden and punks, I chose to shoot a punk because of the cultural significance, the youth subculture of punk started in the late 70's this was a massive cultural phenomenon, it is not so popular anymore and so I wanted to show how important a place like Camden because punk can still be found there, it shows he timelessness of the place. I was heavily influenced by Derek Ridgers as he shoots mainly different groups in youth such as punks, skinheads, mods etc, therefore I used his work to give me ideas about the subject matter I could shoot and the cultural importance that it has. For camera settings I used quite a wide aperture hence the depth of field and bright contrast of the image. I think the image can reveal a lot about what it means to be punk.
In this image it is in my second location Tottenham Court Road it is of road called Berwick Street, the lines of the image are the first thing that the viewer is drawn in to, there are so many different buildings, the shapes and outlines all make the image, only a very small caption of the sky is visible, the colours of all the buildings and size really contrast against my last location, there is more of an upmarket cosmopolitan atmosphere in the second shot, the colours are bright and contrasting, when editing the image I turned up the contrast a little bit to just bring out that colours a bit more, the main subject of the piece would be the bus as it is the largest part of the image which is the landscape or houses also the colur of it as it is bright red and automatically captures the viewers attention. There is also an old lady walking along the street, other people can also be seen in the background, due to my aperture and iso levels there is good amour of depth of field and quite mute lighting this helps to make everything contrast especially as where I have taken the image I am sheltered by the buildings blocking the light straight on form the cameras. The choice to take this was due to the location, Berwick Street is a massively culturally rich place, all down the street it is full of guitar shops, the rolling stones recorded in on of the studios on this road, it has a really important history and therefore influence on musicians over the years. I used the style of Martin Parr as he seems to capture ordinary British life, this image that I have taken is influenced by that because it is a culturally rich London scene, it is very ordinary as there is a London bus visible and a busy street with a high rise building in the background.
In this shoot, I have achieved all that I have set out to do I have successfully shot a different part of London and analysed the link that this therefore plays on the different type of subculture that there are. I have shown diversity in types of shots for example I have shown landscape, more subject based shots, pictures of objects and buildings, I have tried to be as broad as possible and shoot a wide range of relevant things on youth subculture.
Shoot 1 - Work Record
In Shoot 1 I decided to take pictures in Camden, in and around the lock and the market. My decision to do this was because Camden is a well known place in London which is full of culture, there are so many different subcultures existing in Camden, It is one of the most culturally rich and significant places within the UK. I chose to focus on everything that I saw around me and how and what influence it has on youth culture today. In the series of images I used a Canon 400D.
I took this image in the underground section of camden market in a vintage clothes store, the shot has good depth of field as there are lots of different points of focus in the picture, the camera settings were on a low ISO hence the low lighting quality of the shot, when I was editing I decided not to change anything because I like the deep dark tones of the shot and thought that it gave the composition of the piece an interesting effect almost as if had been taken with a film camera. When I took the image there was someone looking through clothes, this gives a completely different dynamic to the shot and therefore makes there more to look at, the subject brings the viewer into their world. The image encapsulates youth culture in terms of the camden scene, being an individual choosing how you want to dress and the availability to therefore represent a certain subculture through the way you present yourself. In this image I used influence from Mazzer, he shoots typical scenes from London and the relevant subcultures that form out of the origin of place, this is the same in my shot as it's very realistic to London and it has an accurate portrayal of a part of youth subculture.
Progression: When I shot for shoot 2, I wanted to vary location a little and focus on different elements of youth culture in London, and try to use different influences from photographers that I have studied. In varying where I took the images I was actively showing the different parts of youth culture and therefore the influence London has on subcultures.
I feel I have achieved and progressed from my unit 2, using all the skills and techniques that I have used in that unit, I have also furthered my ideas about types of youth culture, my idea for shooting in London is because it is a mecca and the first place that I think of that has a really strong influence on Britain and youth culture in general.
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