Editorial - Evaluation

Editorial - Evaluation

It was a little over a year ago I tried to shoot images at a music event in Middlesbrough for the first time. I Initially attended unpaid and was trying to create a street photography style within the nightlife/club environment. It seemed like a good way to get some experience working in difficult conditions and rack up some much needed material for learning post production skills. The thought of doing it on a regular basis didn’t really appeal to me. Having to produce quite generic event shots of people posing in big groups where some of them look like they might break their backs bending over did nothing for me at all. To prevent detection and avoid this I tried to do it without a flash, using only the venues lighting and kept my distance from people with a 200mm lens. Although these turned out to be quite candid and more natural, they excluded any form of interaction from the subject with their surroundings. 

It was in February when I started doing the riffraff monthly underground house/techno party (at the Medicine bar in Middlesbrough) when things started to take shape and develop into the collection I have taken these Editorial images from.

Looking back through my event albums and taking out the ones I felt were of interest and particularly those I felt were influenced by my research on street photographers,most notably Gary Winogrand and Tom Wood.

More recently taking into consideration the works of Billy Monk and Michael L Abramson. Each of their styles has a lot in common with the traditional street photographer ethos and it makes sense to me that would be the case. 

Winogrand stated he would like to not exist in the context of the creation of the images. That he is purely there to capture the moment and not get involved. In the dark corners of a nightclub at 3am when everyone has already partaken in quite a lot of “fun” its very similar to being stood on a busy sidewalk of a city where you can go relatively unnoticed by most people in too much of a rush going about their business.

I also drew on Gavin Watsons work as I fell this is more relevant to where we are in time today. The end of his book Skins and Punks marks what I would define as the start of the period we are in today with regards to the electronic music scene. The way in which he presents subjects that would not normally be seen in a favorable light as cool and quirky shows his affection for them in a way I try and emulate. 

The final eight images presented for the editorial have been converted into black and white before printing. I feel I have done this more to take any distractions and colour casts out rather than (as it may seem) to emulate a traditional street photography look. I feel it works better to put all the focus on the subjects expressions and the way they are interacting with their environment, rather than of which are more attractive regardless of content.

My confidence in ordering prints has increased a lot in recent moths by simply being able to purchase them for clients in my other work. The size I chose is one I have used many times now and the standard size and quality I offer for people to purchase my work on. However that said, had the new enlarger been available in time I would have been tempted to use that instead. So for the next part of this project I will be using that and going back to colour to see if the results change the way I look at the images.

As I know the context of each event I can recognise the different class and hierarchy of cultural worth. Reading into some of the theory of Pierre Bourdieu (Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste) he outlines how these are manifested and executed throughout our lives. How they dictate the way we act and how others react to us depending on our own social and cultural standing.

This will be something I must go into much greater detail for the larger project as to highlight this for the viewer where it might only be clear to someone with a specific knowledge or interest in that particular culture. A greater understanding of semiotics is would be beneficial in order to reach the full potential of the otherwise interesting documentary style images.


I feel I have achieved much of what I set out to with a group of images that in themselves tell a story of this house music scene. As a standalone group of prints I hope they hold their own long enough to engage with a viewer the way in which they are intended. 

Editorial - Pierre Bourdieu -'taste'

riffraff - High cultural capital - Middle class

Retro - low cultural capital - Working class

Taste

cultural capital (taste) & social capital (networks) together make symbolic capital - it is the latter that is required to give you leverage and power in society.

holding enough cultural capital allows for ironic expression- or indeed why helena bonham carter can dress kooky not come across as an insane bag lady.

'habitus' is how you live these distinctions - how you literally embody them in your life and practice.

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu ©1984

Editorial - Gary Winogrand

If i could just be like another photographer and pretty much emulate everything they had in their work it would be the charming Mr Wingrand. Everything about his outlook and attitude to how his images look is what i feel is good about photography. 

His images combine all elements I have tried to reproduce but in the dark.. Incredible that for so much time I had been imitating him and not really realised.  

Editorial - Mandarin Edit

From the eight prints offered for edit,these are the two in which Jason included for the magazine. He said he picked them as they were the most obvious and strongest images from the set.

It is the first time anyone has had any editorial control over images I have presented other than myself so it was interesting to see how and why they work. His choices are made directly upon aesthetics and feel of the images along side the others presented and for the greater good of the publication.

The only other thing really that i could say is i dont think if I had to choose two,It would be these together.

Editorial - Skins And Punks - Gavin Watson

As well as traditional street photographers and those who shot in nightclubs I wanted to find someone who had presented a cultural group in a favorable, non exploitative way.  

Gavins work does all that and more in Skins And Punks,a collection of his work covering his family and friends rather better than the first book Skins which concentrated skin head culture exclusively.

His story ends just as mine began in 1989, a pivotal point in the history of musical culture in the UK..the dawn of EDM.

Editorial - Port Glasgow book project - Mark Neville

Its suggested by the numerous news article links on Mark's own website that the most interesting part of this project is the way in which it was presented back to the people of  Port Glasgow rather than the content of the images. There is a feeling that he tried to soften the blow for being intrusive and some have said exploitative. It was the feeling I had on first looking through the details of the project. Although from Glasgow himself,he was and still is an outsider and in my eyes hasn't really got the right to be making judgement. That said,some of the images from the 80 in the book make for engaging viewing and having the opportunity to shoot for a year with over 3000 shots taken is not something many photographers would let pass by. 

All images from  = http://www.markneville.com/the-port-glasgow-book-project/

Editorial - Ian Macdonald crit/tutorial

I knew we wouldnt have much time with Ian so I compiled a smaller set of images for him to look through. He was very positive about the work and said that I should just keep going as long as i could.

He also expressed an interest in editing the images down once the overall project was complete,he said he would love to do it..

That said he did agree trying to represent it in such a low amount as 5 would be very difficult given the overall size and wished me luck.

here is the set i showed him,with his clear favorite at the end..