- Potential subjects included people at market stalls, leaflet distributors, buskers, people loaded with shopping bags, security guards, cleaners, people living rough.
- Straightforward photos of people shopping are often not very striking, I had found. I would therefore need to find some interesting lighting conditions, colours, or movement to enhance the impact of the pictures.
- In keeping with the brief, I was looking for colourful and lively compositions.
I spent numerous days photographing in the town centre, preferring Fridays and Saturdays as these are busiest days, and on these days there is also a street market. I also visited the monthly Farmers Market on several occasions for the same reasons.
One idea was to show people buying fruit at a fruit stall. This was suggested by a photo I had taken in a street market in France last Autumn.
Fruit stall in Sarlat, Dordogne
However, in Guildford market, the closest that I got to a reasonably picture was this photograph:-
Fruit stall - Guildford Market
This was less satisfactory than the photo in Sarlat market for several reasons. The stall holder and customers are not in suitable positions to draw the viewers eye into the scene. The light levels on an overcast day under an awning are low and one of the main figures in the scene, the customer just right of centre is badly blurred. I therefore did not consider the photo to be suitable for this project. The only positive was that the fruit display is very colourful.
I also took a number of posed shots of stall holders and customers but none of these had the visual drama of typical of William Klein's street photography.
A second idea was to concentrate on the shopping that people were carrying instead of the shoppers themselves. Whilst this did not seem promising at first, it turned out to be more productive, especially on a sunny day in May. This resulted in two photographs that I have selected for this assignment.
Image 1 - Fashion shopping
Nikon 18-200mm at 105mm (equivalent to 150mm): Iso 100 f8 1/125th second
This photograph was taken from a low viewpoint in the shade on one side of the High Street, of shoppers walking down the sunny side of the street. I selected this image as I liked the matching dresses of the two young women and the similar arm positions carrying violet coloured bags. They also illustrate the fact that women's fashion shops dominate the High Street.
However, the shops behind were also in the bright sunshine. (I tried various locations looking for a "cleaner" background without success.) In order to reduce the impact of the distracting background, I used Photoshop layers to reduce its saturation and brightness.
I have selected a second photograph taken at about the same time:-
Image 2 - Lunch in town
Nikon 18-200 mm at 150 mm (equivalent to 225 mm): Iso 100 f8 for 1/500th second
It was the pink shopping bag which drew my eye to these people grabbing something to eat in their lunch hour. The point of attention in the photograph however seems to be the pink coloured finger nail of the woman's hand holding the newspaper. I am not sure whether this is because of its position in the frame or because the pink colour is more saturated. The eye then seems to be drawn to the hand holding a sandwich. On my initial review of the photographs, I wished that I had included more of the woman's face in the frame. However, I now feel that the composition works satisfactorily as it is. If I had included more of her face, this would have unbalanced the composition.
Image 3 - Dinner with friends
Nikon 28mm lens: Iso 200 f2.8 for 1/10th second
In the side streets, cafes, restaurants and bars keep the town busy throughout the evening and night. This photograph shows a busy restaurant viewed through the glass window from the pavement outside. I chose to include this picture as I feel it illustrates the subject, but contains various puzzling visual elements. It is somewhat similar to the composite photographs produced by some artists, e.g. Julieann Kost where they use photoshop to merge various images and textures to create an image. In this case, the photograph is a composite of the people in the restaurant and the reflection in the window of the shops opposite. There is a multiplicity of visual elements that I feel encourage the viewer to explore the scene. The large blue area is an important style element for this brief, as otherwise the colours would be rather muted and dull.
This photograph took a bit of self-confidence, as it was easy to imagine that the customers might be somewhat irate to see someone on the pavement outside the restaurant taking their photograph.
Image 4 - Celebration
Nikon 50mm: Iso 400 f2 for 1/125th second
According to the local press and radio, Guildford town centre has a lively night-life and music scene for young people in this region. For this assignment, I went out on a number of Friday and Saturday evenings to see what, if anything, was happening at around dusk and later on, after dark. In March and April, the streets were relatively quiet when I went out, which I put down to the bad weather. I had more luck in May however, with some better weather and the light evenings (but overcast so the light was undramatic).
I selected this photo showing a group of women who were walking from one bar to another for inclusion. As one of them is wearing a wedding dress, and the others are dressed in wedding-style dresses, I assume that this was probably a hen-party. The facial expressions show that they are enjoying themselves, even though the "bride" was watching her feet the whole time. The bright colours of two of the dresses give vibrancy to the scene. This was another photograph where I used Photoshop to slightly darken and desaturate the background so that the figures stand out more boldly.
It would be more visually interesting to have taken a photograph of youngsters acting stupidly or being sick, but the opportunity did not present itself. In addition, I was happy not to run the risk of confrontation in such circumstances.
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