Awayday Returns - National Media Museum, Bradford

                       Ok, so I might be a little late with this entry, but seeing as though it was paid for and I'm always up for a bit of exploring, I thought it would be daft to turn down the opportunity of a freebie seeing as though I'd never been to either Bradford or The National Media Museum before, and so making sure I was stocked up on porridge and a bacon butty just in case, in the blink of an eye I'd found myself stood on the platform of my local railway station with chattering teeth, wondering if trains had got any closer to running on time since the last time I got on one in this country about 10 years ago.....well, they haven't. 
                       Despite the best efforts of Northern Rail to complicate my day, I managed to make into Manchester and over to Victoria Station with plenty of time to spare and so it wasn't long before we were all on our way...well except for the unfortunate individual who had rang Dave to say he was on the right platform but couldn't see anyone which became less of a mystery when it was revealed he was at Piccadilly train station and unless he had really good eyesight there was never going to be much chance of us ever coming into focus. 

                                            

                        Bradford didn't really come as any surprise, it turned out just how I'd imagined it to be, a bit like Leeds, where I'd never been either, but I'd always imagined it to be just like Bradford, but not York, where I'd been, once. A quick rallying of the troops and we were soon all part of the procession on the trudge from the station to the museum where, upon entry, we were basically given free reign to just explore the place and see if we could absorb any knowledge.  A few things caught my eye including Ayr (1979) by Raymond Moore, a British born photographer who, as luck would have it, actually has a 3 part documentary about his work over on youtube and being the nice guy that I am I'll save you the trouble of searching by including part 1 below but not that nice as too include parts 2 & 3 so you'll have to go and dig those out yourself providing you developed enough interest in the first bit. 

                                       

                        Chris Killip also had some work in there including his Royal Wedding (1981) but I've already spoken about Chris here but I'll include the image that caught my eye, firstly because I hadn't seen it before and secondly, because I just guessed it to be one of his before I'd read the ticket.

                                            
                                            
                          Also in there is some of the work of John Blakemore who, to quote Lenscratch.com  "... is considered a national treasure of Britain with a career that spans 55 year years and a mastery of not only his photography and his craft in printing, but in his "knowing" of a subject.  He is concerned with the "ritual of intimacy", the sustained exploration of small areas of the world that interests him--whether working outside in the landscape or working in his studio."  The work in question is some of those from his series  The Garden - Fragments Of A History' in which he produced a series of gelatin silver prints prints created from a collection of subject matter found in and around his garden, so try and think bottles, pottery, flowers and even skulls and you'll get the general idea but not as easily as if you'd looked at the image below.....well, not directly below as that's a short video on gelatin silver prints, but just below that.

                                             

                                          

                       Other photographers that caught my eye included works by Sarah Jones (Analyst Couch), Ian Beasley (Drummond Hill), Luc Delahaye(United Nations), Simon Norfolk (Mortar Shells) and Zoltan Glass ( hands up, I've forgotten) to name but a few oh, and not forgetting The Messenger by Geoff Watson which is pretty hard to miss as it's starring you in face as soon as you walk through the doors.

                         Now it wasn't all serious studying as we were not only given the opportunity to try and absorb some knowledge but also encouraged to take some shots of our own, but not of the exhibited photos, as that's frowned up on by the powers that be.. So with that in mind here are a few of mine, maybe slighty abstract in a fashion, but I have others some of which have been seen and some of which are in colour....but I wouldn't want to tarnish my reputation now would I
                                   

           

Imperial Roll Films

What The Butler Didn't See       

                     

Lloyd Grossman

                           Now that wasn't quite the end of the expedition because by the time I'd realised that maybe I should check my watch to make sure I didn't miss the meeting time, I was already on the 3rd floor balcony watching everyone else disappear across the road towards out next point of interest, Bradford's Impressions Gallery  to soak up Yaakov Israel's exhibition The Quest For The Man On The White Donkey . There was some lovely stuff in Israel's images, which, if I'm being honest, reminded me of Joel Sternfeld's - Retrospektive that I'd seen at the CO in Berlin last November, but if I think about it logically , this is probably more to do with me developing an appreciation of medium and large format photography than anything more suggestive.

                                        

                     There was another room outside Israel's exhibition space that basically was an exhibition in itself, but only in the form of 3 walls of visual reference telling the visitor what they'd missed in the past. A couple of favourites here, Jurgen Schadebrg's  photograph of two black men hiding from the S.A.P for what we presume to be fear of either violating a curfew or something else connected with the onset of apartheid ( I've heard stories about the SAP, after leaving home for the first time at 17 and crashing at my mates place who's parents were still in SA, which was where he grew up)......

                                        

                        .......and the work of Ian MacDonald and his series about the houseboats at Greatham Creek .

                                                 



                      So all in all a good day out, and I even succeeded in getting back from Bradford, via Manchester, whilst successfully avoiding the gravitational pull of some of Manchester's finest hostelries....that's a result in my book. 

Album Cover

                 Well Friday's session with Sir Richard turned out to be a bit of laugh as he'd told us the week previously to fetch in some gubbins that we could use as props to knock up our own album covers...so we did. Now it's taken some time for Mr Mbawa to emerge from behind his cloak of shyness but now that he has there'll be no stopping him from posing 'til closing just make sure you ask him nicely and don't all peck his head at once. 
                  Ok, so I had my model sorted and all I need now was my props and knowing that my mum and dad seldom throw anything away, and that if I want something out of their garage, then there's every chance it'll still be in exactly the same place as it was when I last saw it 20 years ago ( I'm dead if they read this), so a quick visit and next thing you know I'm on my way to college with a hefty bit of mirror and a baseball cap acquired from the depths of a teenage sons bedroom...who also never throws anything away. The only other thing I needed to make sure of was that I had the correct fonts and seeing as though they aren't available as standard a quick search of the interweb soon had me downloading Let Me Ride and Futura Light Condensed BT.....so it was all systems go. 
                  I'd started shooting a few shots in the morning but it wasn't until after lunch that I realised I'd forgotten all about the earring but all was not lost as a quick rummage in the back of my car soon revealed a length of twin and earth cable so it was just a question of stripping it back and knocking up a quick bit of bling.
                  The first thing I did was remove the mirror from the frame as I'd originally considered just trying to shoot it all against a couple of different backgrounds and then just  Photoshop as necessary but the problem was the mirror frame wasn't in proportion to the model so it wouldn't have looked quite right so I then made the decision to shoot both separately. 

                                        

                              Armed with my two images all I needed to do now was tax my head in Photoshop to see if I could get anywhere near where I wanted to be, so after arriving home from college on Friday I sat down and had a quick go as the knowledge from Thursday layers lesson with John was still fresh in my mind....but I gave up. Saturday I was working, but when I got home, albeit a bit knackered, I gave it another go...and gave up. So now it's Sunday and a bit nippy outside, so I piled on the carbs with a hefty omelette of the bacon, mushroom and peppers variety between two slices of toast and sat down to see what I could come up with. The following steps weren't all as straight forward as they may sound and it took quite a lot of trial and error to get to where I needed to be but I wont bore you with the ins and outs of all that and just tell you the bits that worked.... 

Step 1: Desaturated K's image a little to make him a little more street than cuddly, cloned out the NY off the cap and adjusted the background lighting .

Step 2: Created a new layer and placed the mirror image on top keeping the white background which I'd selected and brightened .

Step 3: Created a mask and used the quick selection tool to select the inside of the frame so I could bring the back ground through without running the risk of straying onto the mirror.

Step 4: Opened another image of a plain sheet of photo paper and then opened this as a layer and then created a mask to bring the bits of the back ground through making sure the brightness levels of both white backgrounds were a near as I could get.

Step 5: Cropped my image to 300mm square ....album size to those old enough to remember.

Step 6: Another layer with the first font that I'd had to locate and download via the wonders of the internet, then just a few tweaks with an arc.

Step 7: As above for the second.

Step 8: Wasn't too sure how to add a frame but soon discovered it be via the  Edit > Stroke option and bit with the brush tool to fancy up the 2 right hand corners.

Step 9: Download and plonk on a final layer with a parental advisory sticker...not that it's really necessary as I've never heard K swear.

Step 10: Flatten image and size for blog at 72 p/i.

                                                                            

                                After all the serious stuff had taken place we were asked to reproduce a classic album cover as a group so with the aid of one of Anita's many wigs and a slightly dodgy leather waistcoat (probably Richard's) we all took it in turns to pose against our make shift back drop before Rukudzo volunteered his services as the man who would piece it all together in photoshop.....I've still no idea why I never got to wear the waistcoat 

                                            

     

Studio Photography - High Key Unit 25

                                                        

           

                The high key style of photography was a method used throughout the 50's and 60's by photographers such as John French and David Bailey and in simple terms it's aim was to reduce shadows yet make every part of the subject matter visible. John French (1907-1966) was an English fashion and portrait who originally worked with the Daily Express but went on to pioneer  a new form of fashion photography suitable for production in newspapers which involved the inclusion of reflected natural light where possible and low contrast to produce high key prints where most of the detail was in the lighter areas. To achieve this , he often rejected popular tungsten lighting for softer daylight photography, by bouncing light off reflector boards. I've chosen this image of Patti Boyd in a Mary Quant dress with the Rolling Stones, England, 1964 as what I see to be an example what was produced by this reflected natural light as it also includes the white backdrop which has since become a main feature of high key photography.

                                            

                         Now the above image still contains various amounts of shadowing to the some of the faces that would imply the lighting in the foreground wasn't completely balanced, with even a suggestion of natural light, yet the lack of shadowing on the backdrop suggests that it was still evenly lit to ensure this and in turn produce a high key image. Now I've included another image of his Marla Scarafia in a Federica printed cotton sunsuit, London, 1958 to show how with the backdrop lighting being set 1 or 2 stops higher than the lighting on the model, then the backdrop then becomes blown out yet the detail and tones are visible evenly across the model with minimal shadows.  I would also take this opportunity to point out that this is merely my interpretation on the lighting of both these images as I haven't been able find any additional information on his lighting techniques as yet so any feedback would be appreciated in the comments box below .

                                              

                         On his death his wife donated a large proportion of his images to the V & A Museum but if you'd rather just see a random selection then I selected mine from a live fashion journal at bygonefashion .  

                         Bringing things forward a little, modern high key photography is often interpreted as simply a bright white background with the subject dominated by bright tones, usually relatively low contrast. Now you can drive yourself bonkers ( I have) reading different peoples opinions on what is and what isn't, but high key is simply a high setting on the key light  to bring out the detail on the subject where as low key would do the opposite. I've included a lighting diagram that best explains how this can be achieved and as I said earlier the way the blown out background is just simply a matter of having the lights behind the model set one or two stops above those trained on the model.

                                      

                                   
                             This is a standard set up and the thing to keep in mind is that the light on the subject should be evenly spread and that there are no harsh shadows or contrasts. You can also use a white reflector placed between the 2 front soft boxes (and below the camera, obviously) to help bounce light back and fill in shadows that may occur under the chin. You could also prevent the light falling onto the subject by placing some panels to block light spilling onto the subject from the lights facing the backdrop.

                f2    ISO100    1/30

                                            


                This is my interpretation of high key photography with this being shot in the studio using a medium format camera. You'll notice I've managed to remove the majority of the shadowing under the chin via the reflector but the lighting comes across as slightly uneven to the left hand side of his face perhaps brought about by the slight twist in his head but I feel I could prevent this by either a slight reposition of the light or even just controlling the light via the use of another reflector or polyboard to bounce the light back down that side. A lot of high key photography is considered to convey a positive or upbeat tone and could be considered to be flippant, lively, dreamy or young with many high street portrait photographers using such images in window displays to promote their trade  as they are usually eye catching and often used in accentuating the cuteness of children or the more as a ,more flattering approach to photographing the fairer sex. Personally I'm not such a big fan of the modern take on high key photography, especially when it becomes borderline over exposed, it does however serve it's purpose well in such instances as newborn baby portraits, glamour and even as floral wall art.

Studio Photography - Low Key Unit 25

                In the studio low key photography is used to create darker, sombre and sometimes even more menacing portraits for dramatic effect and this can quite often be achieved by the use of one key light with either a carefully controlled fill light or just the use of a strategically placed reflector. Ideally shot against a dark background you are looking to produce darker tones and shadows to try and add some atmosphere to the image and although traditionally used with male subject matter it can be used to good effect in certain female modelling assignments but that's down personal choice and what you are hoping to purvey. 
                When it came down to selecting an iconic image as an example of what we were looking to produce within the studio I thought it would be easy, but the reality is it took me quite sometime to root something out that I was happy with before eventually settling on this one of Robert De Niro by Hedi Slimane a French born fashion designer who now works as a photographer capturing the likes of Pete Doherty and the Berlin club scene so I wont say any more about him as it is this image I'm really interested in.

Robert De Niro by Hedi Slimane

             Shot against the typical black backgound, I feel this to be a classic example of a single light source being used to full effect to create the shadowing down the left hand side of the face yet allowing the light to pick out the finer details that we associate with the man himself. Again, I presume there to be a subtle use of a reflector to bounce some of the light back so that all not all the features down the darker side of his face are left in the shadows. Classic suit, rugged features and strong hands all define him as an iconic figure yet the lack of eye contact suggests he's not to be taken for granted and what you get as a photographer is what HE wants to give you. I could of course be completely wrong about  all of this but as with any image it is down to the viewer to take from it what he will and see what he wants to see, because if we all agreed about everything, then the world would be a pretty boring place. 

                    So to find out how we went about trying to produce a similar sort of darker more serious image, we set the studio up as below with just a single light source, dark background and reflector as required but with the light shining through two black polyboards to reduce the spread.

                                                

                                     
                       In general low key photographs should have a darker tone and contain plenty of dark areas but you also try to highlight the contour lines of your subject which is where a controlled fill light or reflector and the key word here is controlled as a 1:1 ratio from say the front, may make your image too bright for your desired effect.

f2    ISO100     1/30s

The above image was one of those taken during our early studio sessions and I chose not to use it as my final  submission for the studio brief because I wasn't happy with how the light hadn't caught enough of the face to show at least one eye but it was early days and I think we were all a bit edgy and a little apprehensive about moving things around that had previously been set up by John.   I didn't necessarily feel it's a poor image but more that I thought I was capable of producing something better in a more relaxed studio atmosphere so I decided to use the one below from the tail end of a reshoot I was able to do when Mina had booked the studio and let me borrow her model. 

                                                                                                            

f9   ISO100  1/100s  @50mm

                  The initial set up included 2 soft boxes but I'd decided to switch one off and move myself round at about 45 degrees and concentrate the focus on the eyes. I'm pleased with this shot as the catch-lights came out really well and the single softbox has given it a softer light which compliments the rather contemplative type of pose. 

                                   

                                             

Studio Photography - An Introduction Unit 25

                 The first thing to remember when entering the studio is to be aware of your surroundings as not only are you going to be in the presence of a whole host of expensive and fragile equipment, you also have to observe health and safety issues so watch out for trailing leads, remember that studio lights get very hot and above all else that electricity can kill. With these things in mind, when you are setting up your lights the first thing to do is to inspect all power leads for any signs of damage and as obvious as this may sound it is can often be over looked as people are inclined to presume that who ever used it last would have checked it so it must be ok. Don't presume anything....check each lead by feeding it through your hands checking for plug damage, insulation damage and whilst you're at it, make sure there are no knots in the lead and then you can proceed to setting up your lights, which you should also inspect, and make sure you try and route your cables in such a fashion that you aren't going to be tripping over them as you move around between shots.
                   Now that we've got the scary stuff out of the way I want to talk about the range of equipment that's commonly used in the studio starting with the lights....

Compact Flash Heads/Monoblocks

                  These units have all the electronics built into the head itself and are often favoured by both amateurs and professionals alike as the head contains a a lamp holder for the modelling lamp, the flash tube, all the circuitry and a fan to keep it cool.

               

Power Packs 

                    These units are generally used when they high speed over a long period of time is going to be required, such as fashion photography, as they can generate a huge amount of power (up to 6000w/s) . The parts that generate the most heat are housed in the head and the electronics are contained in the pack itself which is fan cooled. Care should be taken when setting up lights to the power pack especially if it has different rated  output sockets which are usually colour coded. 

                                            

                                               

                                      

Lighting Choices

  Hot lights: Also known as tungsten lights, they are basically ordinary quartz halogen lights around 500-800w they are more of a continuous lighting source for such things as product photography and not really suitable for portraits as they appear brighter than they are so it may be necessary to adjust the ISO, they produced heat so can make the sitting uncomfortable as can the glare in the sitters eyes,  plus they can be warm in colour so white balance is a thing to be considered. Simply called hot lights because they get hot .

  Cool lights: As with hot lights they produce little in the way of power but being fluorescent they run cool so a sitter is made more comfortable. As they are considered to imitate daylight, they work better with flash and if there is natural light in the room from an external source.

  Flash: Either hot shoe or studio and with far more power than either the hot or cool lights and without the limitations of either. 

 Modifiers   

Umbrellas: Mounted so that the strobe faces away from the subject and so bounces the light back of the reflective surface of the umbrella to produce a diffused, soft light. Choices of lining mean silver is more efficient and can concentrate a more direct light than white which has a wider spread of reflected light and gold which produces a warm tone.

                                                 

Soft boxes:  Usually square or rectangular and in a variety of sizes, they are attached to the front of the strobe facing the model and the light bounced of the inner reflective surface and diffused through translucent front to produce a soft light. More controlable than umbrellas as the light is contained, where as when using umbrellas the light can spill outside the boundaries or the subject matter and cause problems if bouncing of other reflective surfaces.

                                                            

Soft light/beauty dish: These create a hard light with soft edges but without any hot spots yet are considered to have a sweet spot where they work best. It's recommended to keep them within 2 feet of the subject to get the full effect and because of this they are mostly used for portraits.  I've also included a short video here on the beauty dish to give you (and me) some idea of what results to expect. 

                                                 

                                              

Snoots: Being of conical shape, they are used to produce a narrow, concentrated, harsh light and for this reason are often used as a spot light or to light a background as well as a hair or rim light when lighting the model from behind.

                                                  

Barn doors:  Usually consisting of four flaps that allow a little more directional control of the strobe by means of adjusting the flaps to control the spill of light but not as directional as the snoot.

                                                      

Honeycomb: This is quite simply a grill that fits on the front of the light source, be it a dish or a snoot, and it works by directing the light as a concentrated beam to produce a hard circle of light with soft edges they can also be used as back light or hair light as the spread of light is restricted so it can prevent any flaring.

                                                 

Deep reflector: These are used to produce a large patch of light and can be considered quite contrasty especially those with an internal silver reflective surface.

                                                      

Used in conjunction with the above, the studio should also have a range of gels that can placed over light sources to change background colours and create moods, bounce reflectors that are used to fill in shadows such as under chins and large polyboards used as either large reflectors or just simply as screens to shield from unwanted light spills.