Street Photography Evaluation

Coming from the kind of street photography that’s mostly scorned upon i.e. using your phone to take opportunist snaps as you go about your daily business into our first assignment with a 35mm manual SLR has been a rewarding experience. Both in terms of getting to grips with the technical side of using such a camera and getting to be involved in a tried and tested medium for creating interesting images.

The basic elements that make up the genre have not changed a great deal over the last hundred years. The technological advances have made it possible to be a much more spontaneous with quicker expose times, so the subject no longer has to be stationary and as such doesn't need to be aware.  Prevalent themes from the most recognised are subjects with personality, edge and some humour in their most natural environment from the human element. Strong use of contrast, usually from shadows  and direct sunlight and that extra element of being in the right place at the right time to create a frozen piece of imagery only seemingly  possible once in a life time.

It hasn't come as much of a surprise to see that none of the images from my first developed film have made it into the box. An error made while processing put paid to that. Adding developer into the drum before the stop solution and then the lid coming off while agitating meant I was left with a very cloudy negative. Making most of the images unusable and the rest to be returned to when i have a better understanding of how they can be saved. I was glad to get onto my next two rolls although there was also a problem with one of them. I had reloaded a film accidentally so in effect shot it twice over. This brought some interesting combinations of crowd shots from a daytime music event and a shoot which had intended to be a practice film for the new camera of my daughter and some of her friends on her fifteenth birthday party. The rest of the seven films were developed without much incident and by the book barring a few kinks caused by jamming of the wheel whilst feeding on in the blacked out room. Patients and a better technique at this should prevent it from happening in future 

Getting the most from the images was difficult at first in the darkroom,trying to emulate a certain high black and white contrast look from each negative without taking into full account the conditions the shot was taken in was almost impossible. It was only after experimenting and trying to bring out the individual qualities that my best results were seen. Blurred edges from cropping the image too close to the easel and not holding it down during exposure spoiled early prints  by leading the eye away to a not very aesthetically pleasing border.

Varied locations from across the region Stockton riverside,Hartlepool town center,Middlesbrough Center square,Wakefield  and Sunderland helped to create more interesting backdrops to the images although it has been argued street photography starts right out side your front door. Going to places where I wasn't used to seeing meant i was looking with fresh eyes and more interesting elements of the buildings and structures seemed to appear. Although not ready to commit and say this is the style of street photography as my own,I have found that I am comfortable to try and convey emotion in my images. If there was a theme to the final cut it would be highs and lows in the mediocrity of life and death. 

And the surprise sixth image,after much deliberation and discussion with Jill I felt i couldn't really leave out my favorite image from all seven films shot for this assignment. Conceptually it is exactly as i visioned when shot. The statue,buildings and trees,both real and manufactured reaching up from the near silhouette bottom third into a textured early evening sunset lit partly cloudy sky. The only reason its not in the five is the omission of a first hand human element.

Critiquing the crit

It seems that everyone is an expert in almost everything these day and photography is no exception. In fact its probably the only professional trade where you will find people absolutely busting at the seems to tell you with up most glee they have never had a days formal training along their journey to be the most amazing photographer in the world. Of course there are those who are just gifted and can turn their creative hand to almost anything and produce amazing work, for the rest of us its more about practice and long term education. Its also probably worth noting that its almost always someone who hasn't got a degree in any subject that will be the one telling you that its not worth the paper its written on.

Critique is often confused with criticism,those of us on Facebook who have dared to venture into any of the north east based "photography" groups will know all to well how things can escalate quickly from a simple comment expressing how an image doesn't quite look right or could be better into sending message via inbox to arrange a meet up to discuss things,how should i say it,on a more personal level! The groups were probably made in the best intentions or at very least as a self promotion tool for the admins. Mostly everything on the internet although not always obvious at first has been manipulated and structured around getting something for the creator. Make a group and invite all your friends,make sure the title sounds something a little official so when others go looking for a community they want to join it sounds safe enough. "Lets tall photography" just for example, now lets say you want to share a picture of your dog,kids,fireworks or the moon. as long as its not too out there or either too good or bad you'll be pretty safe and maybe get a couple of likes and "nice shots" which is all great,its not bothering anyone but its not really going to help you get any better at photography is it? You notice this after a few weeks and your not stupid so you want to push the boundaries a little,however you don't really understand the rules of engagement. Up until now you've been under the radar from the creator of the group as your images aren't going to threaten his or her position as alpha tog in front of all their friends.

That's when you post the best photo you've taken  and your excited to see how many likes you get,its like an addiction,if you don't get anything you have been lucky and should cut your losses and run. But you don't! You see it as a challenge and cant understand why its being ignored. Again you post an image that's up there with the best in the group. That's when its too late,it starts in spurts of little niggly comments of the "I wouldn't have done this", "you shouldn't have done that"  kind. The pack is circling,and the big tog hasn't even come out of their cave yet. You weather the storm brushing it off with your retorts of "I meant to do it like that,because" and silence falls over your comments and your post starts to slip down the news feed. Your glad you think its over and are still licking your wounds when you refresh the page to see there at the top is a post that's been running the whole time you were being berated. The top tog has laid the killer blow,signalling their disdain to the group of how "newbys" should learn to take criticism in the manor its meant and not get upset when their images are in effect ripped to pieces. Consider yourself well and truly served by a pro,don't take it personally though its just a game.

My personal favourite public group execution came a few weeks ago when i watched as an acquaintance posted a picture he had taken of a lock off a garden fence. he was into abstract images and clearly thought this was sufficient enough reason to post for some friendly "feedback" The first comment posted was from one of the group minions who went into great detail to tell him what was wrong with the image and a long list of the do's and don'ts of the group,their rules. He was quite exhaustive with his explanation and even i thought well fair enough that is what the group is about and sometimes its good to have rules. 5 minutes later the minion posted a picture of the selfie kind swagging a bottle of Jack Daniels with the comment "bottoms up,its the weekend"..It didn't end well.

So,we will be having none of that kind of behavior,which is actually the point of this blog post if that has been lost somewhat. Jill kindly presented us with some guidelines of how to approach critique in the manner it is intended. To offer a balanced opinion after taking into consideration many aspects of the image.

Here's how ours looked from our group critique of 35mm work so far

I was slightly disappointed the only negatives were from my blurred edges from printing but thankful for small graces all the same. 

Another great way of approaching this would be to compile your own check list like this one which is similar to that used for an editorial. Literally ticking all the right boxes can make an image successful or not make the grade needed.

Street Photography Final Five

Trying to capture every element of what we have learnt about the great street photographers into 5 images in such a small amount of time was never going to be easy.
4 or my final 5 have turned out pretty much as i imagined and hoped when i took the shot,BoB however was a happy accident with the addition of a portrait from a double exposed film but if anything it adds to the overall look.

Best Of British

In Loving Memory

Locked Dreams

Predator

Riff Raff

 

Visit to Northern gallery for contemporary arts

Sorry to admit its the first time in a long time that I have visited any kind of arts gallery,after this it certainly wont be long until im at another. The collection is based around the tittle "You are the company in which you keep"  and featured work from Craig Ames,Paul Graham, Bob Jardine,Martin Parr,Tim Mitchell and my personal favorite Yee I Lann "Through Rose Coloured Glasses" The way it was arranged inside of 4 walls inside the gallery progressing across the different kind of images backgrounds gave a great feeling of viewing much greater than that of one image like a giant mosaic effect. Below are some that caught my eye,but to be honest i could have picked many of hundreds.

http://www.ngca.co.uk/

Some of the best

Henri Cartier-Bresson is as famous for his quotes as he is as a photographer. Ive always found that when people who's first language isn't English or are translated into English it adds a kind of authority to their point,as if they are trying harder to articulate in a Yoda off of star wars kind of way...

"The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt." -Henri Cartier-Bresson


"Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

HCB1

HCB2

HCB3

HCB4

Paul Strand

Another early photographer whose work I admire is Paul Strand,known mostly for his "Wall Street" image in the street photography genre. Comprising of a large oppressive even monolithic wall of the outside of the JP Morgan bank in New York. It was seen as a social commentary of how powerful this institution was compared to the people who worked there as they almost scurry along the bottom of the image like small animals.

Wall Street

Final cut

We will be handing our Street Photography assignments in this Friday so I've been going through my final selection of 35mm black and white negatives to pick my final 5.
 I spent all day uploading these using a Hasselblad negative scanner( Similar to the one below) to get them the required 50MB which can then be used to make large prints if required.Its a slow process and some work touching up with Photoshop is required afterwards. I felt it was a better option than the alternative of using scans of prints which would have already have been through some manipulation in the dark room.

Hasselblad Neg Scanner

So here in no particular order is those which I liked but didnt quite make it into the hand in...

Big Brother's Bigger Brother

Captain Cruiser 

Warped Church

Death Wall

Monumental

Subway Rat 

The Flying Claw

Shit Club

Ghost Train Station

Sunderground

Film 7 contact sheet which was mostly shot in Sunderland during our trip to the NGCA and the last image that either hadn't made it into the final selection or the final 5.

Bus on a bridge

In the beginning there was Jacob..

Street photography has been around almost as long as photography it self. We can find examples of this from as early as 1887 in the work of Jacob Riis and his "How the other half lives" project. Set in the tenement blocks of New York. The image below "Tramp" illustrates how his style is varied from the way most street photographers work today by seeming to be somewhat staged and the subjects mostly appear although in their natural environment, to be aware of his presence and are posing for the shot.

How-Other-Half-Lives Amazon Preview

Eugene Atget was a prominent artist in Paris around the same time 1890 until just before he died in 1927..he carried around an 18 x 24 cm. view camera that was fitted with a brass rectilinear lens and had no shutter.He produced glass plate negatives from long exposures and any moving objects would be captured with trails and blurs as they would today. Similar to Jacob then that any subjects in the images must have been aware of what he was doing in order to stay still long enough to come out in his images naturally and not be distorted.

The forty years he spent as a photographer accumulated over 5,000 negatives and 10,000 prints of street views shop windows and anything else he felt fitted into his systematic documentation of Paris.

 flickr.com/Agtet1

flickr.com/Atget2

Both these images have come from the George Eastman House Flickr pages where they have displayed some of the 500 prints they have of his in their collection.

flickr.comgeorge_eastman_house/sets/Atget

Film 6ix

Shot around the train station and monument area in Hartlepool during a rare day of strong sunshine in the hope of more shadows and strong contrast images. There wasnt as many people about and i lost probably my favourite shot due to the camera locking the shutter open on bulb setting for the last few shots..the one of the dog in the van but from the front so it looked like he was driving..I know!!

Some prints from film 6

Impossible view ( printed with the negative shiny side down so the writing is the right way round from this side of the sign)

Predator

Once,Twice,Three smiles on ladies

North east vibes in the area

For film 5  I wanted to go out on my own and try and get a bit of the local area in on the action after going further a field experimenting. So i went to the side of the river Tees in Stockton at just before sunset

Contact sheet

And here are some images from it..

14 Vs the Tree

Happy with your wash 

PigDog

In Loving Memory

Ooh a Mazda 

Home straight

Its quite insightful how reserved I have become with the SLR over its digital counterpart, typically with the latter i could easily take 150-200 shots in an hour and get it down to around 50 sufficiently different images to work on in Lightroom and create an album for a client. Knowing that the process for each image on the SLR will require a much longer amount of time in the dark room and physical costs of print paper and films, developers etc. It makes the medium much less disposable,which I like. It reminds me very much of the way house music has gone in the last 10+ years from days of buying vinyl and being very selective of what you bought and played to now where its almost all digital downloads with none of the tactile qualities and a disposable view focusing more on quantity over quality.
Also similar in music there is the argument you cant be a real dj unless you can use vinyl turntables and mix properly.  it still rages on now with technology making it easier and easier to do what the old generation had to learn over time with a much slower learning curve, adding into that before the days of the internet and youtube tutorials  you would have to either know some one  or be in a pretty well off to afford a private tutor/teacher to learn. It was considered quite elitist and those who had achieved a good technical level were held in high regard.

Having now spent the best part of 6 weeks using a manual SLR for the first time in my life and watching those around me produce images on the same level playing field, I can say now it is something which should be respected. Yes

it can and does go wrong alot of the time and the hours that are put into each image you could argue you should be able to create something at the end. The technical side doesn't cover the whole story though. Behind each completed image is a spark of imagination or connection with your environment. The more you do it the more the more ready you are technically to make that connection show at the other end . Some of the best known street photographers openly admit they never consciously went for a particular element of a shot that makes it special,it was more of a split second feeling that something was about to look and feel a certain way. To me, that's the difference between an image being good technically or aesthetically and one which you can connect to and have apathy for.


"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life."


Henri Cartier-Bresson