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.
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