Studio Session 1
During the first workshop in which we were in the studio, we experimented with the lighting that was available in both low key and high key. This was enjoyable to work with as we got to collaborate as a team to help each other create something a bit different to just a ‘school portrait’ which is what most people think of when in the studio with lights and a white backdrop. I have had a previous experience in the studio at A Level but with much less equipment and less help. This experience has opened me up to more studio shooting which I thought wasn’t for me because I like the more candid outdoor shooting with little instruction, capturing the little moments that I see.
Socialising
During a break in a lecture I pulled out my camera to take just some random portraits of some of my friends just for fun, the resulting images are quite effective and have a very casual feel about them.
Workshop Photos
During one of the workshops in early February when people were taking images of objects, I decided to capture the people of the class as well, I found that this worked sort of well as this was a good environment to capture emotions of the class more candidly and more ‘real’ I was using my own camera so it had my 50mm f/1.8 prime lens on, this lens does have a flaw as the focus is ever so slightly off all the time for some reason and has no image stabilisation so it is a pain to work with but can create an amazing image if used correctly because of the glass in the lens being static and no moving parts to it.
The images I have chosen from this shoot have been edited and I feel work quite well as a collective.
The Americans and my previous experience photographing people on the street
Street photography is something that I have had a secret love for many years, living in a bustling environment for a couple of years Newcastle has always inspired me to try my hand at this, I have created a set of images in the first year of college which was portraits of people walking away, I would stand in a location and wait for someone to pass me that looked interesting and I created a set of six images like this. It was a different approach to a portrait brief but it felt like I t would fit, having done this before I wanted to recreate this with what I have learnt from doing photography for much longer now and since I have learnt so much since I last did this sort of thing. Since moving down to Lincoln where the pace is much slower, I feel like this is a challenge to take pictures of people from the shadows much like Frank.
What I love about Frank’s work is the way he captures America at that time, nothing screams more real than this. His work has a roughness to some of the images with wonky composition, which I presume is captured on the fly when trying not to be noticed in some locations and others seem to be more controlled and though about, thinking about what he was capturing and why he was capturing it.
Sources:
Frank, R. (1978). The Americans. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture.