Guildford Inside Out - reflections and presentation of images

Completing this assignment has prompted some thoughts on what features were part of my existing photographic practice, and what features were new.
Most the photography that I do is what I consider to be travel photography. When we are on a holiday, I aim to take a sequence of photographs portraying my impressions of the place and its people. Whilst this may include some photos of the major sites, I also try to record details of normal daily life, for example, the dogs that roam the city centre in Santiago de Chile, the homeless man sitting on a pavement in Madrid carving a wooden plaque, young people chatting each other up outside a bar in a narrow side street of Madrid. My aim is to take well composed and visually interesting pictures which show the viewer what the place would be like if they were standing in my shoes. The output, these days, is usually a photojournal of text and selected photos telling the story of the trip for sharing with friends.
The key techniques are identifying the character of the place, anticipating possible subjects and locations but also reacting when a photo opportunity appears. To a large extent, my methodology for this assignment has been similar, except I have been doing this in my home town.
However, there are several ways in which what I have done is new and different:

• There has been time to look and wait for photo opportunities which would be impossible on a holiday. 
• I wanted the images to be eye-catching and colourful. In a photojournal, the photos can be relatively low key as long as they are well composed and illustrate the theme. For a potential publication, I felt the photos needed to have more impact individually. This affects the choice of subjects, the selection of images and the extent of post processing treatment. I have attempted to learn and apply techniques for touching up images using Photoshop, beyond those available in Lightroom 3.    
• The requirement to produce square format pictures has similarly impacted the planning and creation of the assignment photos. 

On the other hand, as book illustrations, I did not feel that the images needed to meet the exacting standards of fine art photographs which would be hung in a gallery or home. Like the photographs in Jakarta Inside Out, the photographs could be effective and lively despite some latitude in sharpness and image quality.
I considered various options for presenting the printed images for this assignment, ranging from just preparing prints of the images (as for previous assignments) to preparing individual page layouts including titles, narrative and images. I have ultimately decided to present the work as pro-forma pages containing titles and images with a black line surround, printed on A4 paper with a white border for handling. The supporting narrative will be printed as a frontispiece to the other pages. There were various reasons for this:-

• The narrative that I have written to accompany these Guildford Inside Out photographs is very brief and far less extensive than the equivalent text in the Jakarta Inside Out book. It will fit conveniently into one page.
• Omitting the narrative leaves the photographic pages uncluttered for easy review. 
• It took some time to learn and apply techniques for creating text and image layouts using Photoshop. It is simpler to place the narrative on a separate page. 

Genesis - Sebastiao Salgado photo exhibition at Natural History Museum, London

I chose to visit this exhibition on a trip to London a few weeks ago, as I was interested to see his view of some wilderness areas of the world and some of the indigenous peoples who survive. To my mind, this is the adventurous frontier of travel photography, following in the footsteps of National Geographic photographers over many decades. According to Lelia Wanick Salgado, the curator of the exhibition (and the photographer's wife) the aim was to photograph people and places that "so far have escaped the long reach of today's world".
The photographs are extremely eye-catching monochrome images. My notes on the style of the photographs included:-

• Extreme contrast - dark greys and whites. 
• Limited midtones - gives a "wet look" to foliage. 
• The composition and lighting gives an iconic quality to the places and people. 
• It does not however look like the real world.  

Laura Cumming writing in The Observer on 14th April 2013 wrote : Salgado's habitual monochrome runs all the way from coal black to silver and burning white, with a thousand tones of grey in between. The lighting is characteristically spectacular, with plenty of backlighting and operatic contrasts.
I think that the Genesis photographs are somewhat similar in style to those of Larry Louie, a winner of the Travel Photographer of the Year in 2010. In an earlier blog on some of Larry's Indonesian photographs, I commented that:-
The composition and enormous tonal range make the images strongly eye-catching and he clearly merited the Photographer of the Year award. I would differ however with the observation made on his website that his photography is "Realism at its best". For me, on the contrary, these photographs portray an visually exaggerated view of these scenes and places. The images seem to be touched up that they represent an imaginary ideal of the world. This is somewhat similar to the comment that images of women in magazines do not portray what women are actually like. These are very memorable images, but they convey little sense of the actual place.
I had exactly similar feelings about the Genesis photographs. In fact, I think that hyperrealism may be a suitable term to describe this style. The saturated colours may be replaced by saturated blacks and saturated whites, but the visual effect is quite similar. 
For a couple of the locations in Patagonia, I had taken pictures of the same locations. I have included two  examples:
Perito Moreno Glacier

 







One would not guess by Salgado's 2007 picture from a higher location that this is "one of the major tourist attractions in southern Patagonia. It is less than two hours by bus from El Calafate (airport) and many tour companies run daily visits. A large visitor centre at the site features a walking circuit which allows visitors to view the southern flank and east facing edge of the glacier" according to Wikipedia. I think that Salgado's photograph was taken before the walkways were constructed to prevent erosion of the soil due to the large number of tourists.
Cerro Torre

 












Salgado's 2007 picture of this scene is taken in clear weather from further back.  This is a stunning spot, which is not yet visited by coach loads of tourists. It is however "the stuff of climbers dreams" according to the Adventure Journal. They estimate that no more than a thousand people have ever stepped foot on the top of Cerro Torre, one of the hardest climbs in the world. Many more will have trecked in the surrounding national park. This is no longer, therefore, the absolute wilderness. Ironically, some of the visitors may have been prompted to travel to such locations as a result of seeing the dramatically lit iconic images that Salgado has produced.

Hyperrealism exhibition at Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza, Madrid

In April, we spent a couple of days in Madrid. This was my first visit and one priority was to see the artworks in the Prado Gallery. We also found time to visit the Thyssen - Bornemisza Museum and I chose to look at their Hyperrealism exhibition which surveys the work of the Photorealism and Hyperrealism movement over the past 40 years.
The 66 works were arranged by theme: Still life, On the road (vehicles etc), Cityscapes and finally, People and portraits. Whilst only one work was a photograph, there were numerous similarities with photography.
The earlier works, produced in the time of film photography were referred to as "photorealistic", but with the advent of digital photography, the terminology "hyperreaslistic" is considered to be more appropriate.
The still lifes were uniformly large in size, width and height of 2 metres or more. This large scale allows the viewer to consider every detail of the subjects portrayed. This imitates the impact of blowing up photographic images to this size or larger. From a photographers viewpoint, the huge size reveals the artifacts of photography, for example, shallow depth of field, blur and manipulation of shadows and highlights. I looked carefully at the still lifes to see if I could see any apparent anomalies in the presentation of three dimensional space, lighting etc. Prompted by Kander's maxim (previous blog), I had half expected that the artists would include something "not quite right" to intrigue the viewer.  The only one where I thought something might be wrong was a painting by Audrey Flack "Queen" (1975-6). To me, the three dimensional space seemed to defy gravity. In addition, some of the shadows seemed artificial and the objects which were partly out of the frame did not seem quite right. The saturated colours of this (and the other paintings) add to this feeling of unreality.
I have subsequently had the chance to look at the artists website and to watch a brief interview she gave at the exhibition opening. This was interesting is several ways:

• She works from photographs, taken mostly with a Hasselblad camera. As a result, the compositions are square, as the Hasselblad produces a square image. 
• She suggests that one the main aims of these works was to counteract the art school policy prevailing in the 60's and 70's that abstract art was superior to representational art. It did not seem, therefore that the intention was to reveal the artificiality of photographs. Indeed, she produces photographic works with similar subject matter. 

Some of the more recent works, especially the cityscapes for example Raphaella Spence Las Vegas (2011), presented views where I felt the unreality derived from  the artificial manipulation of shadows and highlights. They gave me a similar impression to photographs where HDR techniques have been pushed to, or even beyond, the limits of normality. An example was
I was interested to see that Tom Blackwell had used shop window displays and reflections to create layered compositions. This was a professional version of what my photograph Image 3 - Dinner with friends was trying to achieve.
In the On the road section, I was pleased to see Ralph Goings "Airstream" (1970) which I had seen in book illustration some years back. The most striking painting was however "Gator Chomp" by Peter Maier. The colours and shapes of the shiny bodywork of the vehicles are extremely eye-catching.
These images are interesting as hybrids between photography and painting. It seems that many of the artists worked from photographs. The initial process of creating the composition was probably the same procedures that a photographer would have used. It is the "post production work flow" to use photographic terminology that diverges between the two. A photographer will typically reproduce the image for gallery display using digital printing equipment, selecting papers and mountings to suit. Painters adopting the hyperreaslism style would reproduce the image manually using canvas/board, paint etc.
I was fortunate recently that a friend used one of my photographs from the Olympics as the composition for a watercolour painting. The painting now hangs in our flat, and I know think of it as a painting, not a photograph.

Guildford Inside Out - Culture and entertainment

In July each year for the past  five years, a three day pop music festival called Guilfest has been staged in an open park just down the hill from where I live. This is one of the largest events in the South East, and I had planned to include photographs of this event from the time that I had first thought of Guildford Inside Out. In 2011, I scouted around the outskirts of the festival with my camera, just before I started this course. In July 2012, we got tickets for the festival and I photographed various aspects of the festival which I planned to use for this project.
Image 9 - Music festival - fun costumes

Nikon 18-200mm at 200 mm; Iso 200 f7,1 for 1/125th second
For me, one of the surprising things about the festival was the large number of people dressed up in all sorts of bizarre and colourful clothing. The festival is an opportunity for ordinary people to express their individuality. I selected this photograph for inclusion in the set for this assignment as I felt it was visually one of the strongest and because it was the most colourful.
The composition also is susceptible to tipping the horizon to align with the eye line of the central figure. There are a number of photos in the Jakarta Inside Out book with a sloping horizon that worked to add interest to the composition. In this case, the horizon is not a major element in the composition, but I considered it was worth trying Nadav Kander's maxim, that it is good to include a visual element that is "not quite right".
The photograph was taken at about 7 o'clock in the evening when the sun was relatively low in the sky.
I chose image 9 in preference to another with a similar subject:
Headdress

Image 10 - Passion play
 

Nikon 18-200mm at 200mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/180th of a second
On Easter Saturday, a Passion Play was performed in High Street. There was a large group of colourfully dressed performers making quite a spectacle. The weather was overcast but reasonably bright, allowing a reasonable shutter speed. The players moved in amongst the crowd of onlookers at quite a pace, which made taking photos quite a challenge: first to follow the action and then to get a clear viewpoint. I selected this image showing the actor playing Jesus addressing one of the pharisees in the temple for two reasons:

• The gaze and hand gesture of Jesus and the flinching posture of the pharisee make a strong subject. 
• I liked the expressions of the onlookers, adults and children in the background. Whilst a plain background would have been more striking, the faces encourage a viewer to spend a little more time browsing the image.  

The colours of the main subjects are rather muted with brown and beige predominant. Viewed in the context of the set of ten photographs, I decided that the overall effect is sufficiently colourful and bright.

Guildford Inside Out - University of Surrey

The University of Surrey was established in the 1960s on a self-contained campus, not far from the town centre. Whilst the students increase the town's population by about 50%, their presence is virtually invisible in the town centre as almost all student activities take place on campus. I knew from earlier visits that during normal lecture days, it would be hard to find photographic subjects. I therefore needed to go to the campus when there was some event or activity.  
Being aware that the end of term was approaching, time was limited. The university website contained details of various public events that were planned in May and June: shows by the performing arts students, a poetry festival, Surrey Youth drama festival and an open day at the end of June. The last two however were not until the end of June, which would not leave much time for completing this assignment. In addition, I came across the examination timetable which showed that the exams would be taking place from 24th May to 14 June, just the time I was looking to take photographs at the university. There are two or three exam sessions every day for this period, which would allow several opportunities to take photos, at various times and locations as long as I could get access.
Image 7 - Emerging from the examination

Nikon 50mm: Iso 200 f1.8 for 1/80th second
I was fortunate that there seemed to be free access to the university buildings. Furthermore, I was not alone in waiting outside the exams for people to emerge. I had decided not to take photos of students waiting to go into the exams as I did not wish to intrude at a relatively stressful moment. When leaving the exams, however, I hoped that the students would be in animated conversation telling their friends how the exam went.
I chose this particular location as there are tall windows on the left hand side providing good levels of natural light. The windows face north and there is not therefore too much contrast. I positioned myself to photograph the students face on as they made their way out. I set the aperture to f1.8 to give a shutter speed that would freeze their movement. The shallow depth of field also helped the figures in the foreground to stand out against the background figures. It was also good that the walls and carpets provide a colourful environment consistent with the objectives of my brief.
Two of the photos captured something of the animated conversation that I was looking for. I chose Image 7 above as I think that the crowded background contributes to the scene. I preferred this to the following picture, where there are few background figures, although the central figure here is more expressive of the elation of the moment:

Image 8 - Graduation

Nikon 18-200mm at 50mm (equivalent to 75mm): Iso 1600 f5.6 for 1/3200 second
I had selected Guildford Cathedral as one of my subjects for the "buildings in use" project earlier in this course. By chance, I went there on an afternoon when the university was holding one of its graduation ceremonies. Anticipating my subject for this final assignment, I took various photographs of the graduates and their families. I selected this image for inclusion, even though the camera settings were not set correctly for these lighting conditions. When I arrived at the cathedral, people were already starting to leave, so I whipped out my camera and started shooting without remembering to check the settings. It was several minutes before I realized that the camera was still set for photos of an open-air nighttime concert at Guilfest music festival a few days before.
The photograph shows four female graduates throwing their mortar-board caps in the air. The faces of the two nearest girls are the main point of interest initially, but the eye subsequently follows the direction of their gaze to the mortar-boards in the top corner of the frame. Even though I allowed a lot of space above their heads when I framed the photograph, the caps were only just inside the frame.
The predominant colour is the red and cream of the cathedral walls, but this contrasts strongly with the saturated blue of the collars of their graduation gowns.
It seemed appropriate to include the pictures of the university exams and the graduation, as this is the "core" business of university education.

Guildford Inside Out - Sport

There are plenty of sports photography opportunities that I had noted in the photography brief. I have explained below the particular reasons for including these as potential subjects:

• Cycling - The town centre becomes a venue for professional cycling a couple of times a year, e.g. it is the finishing line for one of the stages of the Tour of Britain. 
• Walking and horse riding - these are popular all year round activities on the North Downs, just on the outskirts of the town.
• Kayaking and rowing - I had photographed these activities for Assignment 4 and these are also all year round activities. The attraction of kayaking for this assignment is that this is not only a colourful activity, but that the river is narrow so that it is possible to get close to the competitors. 
• Surrey Sports Park: This is home to two professional sports teams, men's basketball, women's netball. There is also a professional ice hockey team at the Spectrum sports centre. I wanted to go and see one of more of these teams to find out if there would be some photo opportunities. 
• Lawn bowling - the Castle Green bowling club plays on a green just below the castle in the town centre. I knew from previous photographic visits that the gardens catch the afternoon and evening sun so in good weather the light should be good. Furthermore, in the sunshine the players in their light coloured clothes stand out well against a dark background of stone and foliage.

At the time that I was ready to take some sport photographs in May, the ice-hockey, basketball and netball seasons had already finished. The cycling events in the town centre are only going to take place in late July and August which was after the due date for completing the assignment. At the Surrey Sports Park, however an international women's basketball demonstration competition was being held between six countries, including Team GB for which tickets were available.
Image 5 - Women's basketball

Nikon 28mm: Iso 640 f2.8 at 1/160th second
Without a fast telephoto lens, I appreciated that I should not expect to get close-up action shots of the kind that appear in the sports pages. I arrived early and found that there were few people in the audience for the first match between Germany and Greece. I was able to sit close to the pitch on an elevated seat close to shoulder level with a clear view and space to move around.
I experimented with my different lenses (18-200 mm f3.5 to 5.6, 28mm f2.8 and 50 mm f1.7) sometimes panning to follow the action, sometimes without panning. I selected this image as the one that showed the best action:-

• The focus of attention is the two players in the middle ground. Their movement is largely frozen and sharp. 
• The posture of the blurred figure in the foreground conveys a sense of speed. This also directs attention towards the two female players.
• The cream playing surface and mid blue walls contrast well to make a colourful picture. 

Image 6 - Bowls - a close decision

  

















Nikon 50 mm: Iso 100 f1.8 1/4000 second
I planned to go along to two bowling matches at the Castle Gardens, one afternoon match and the second an evening competition. The afternoon was sunny and I was able to get a number of reasonably good photos over the course of an hour and a half. The purpose of returning for an evening match was to take some photographs of the players in silhouette against the light sky as the sun went down. However, the weather on the evening that I could go was darkly overcast, so I did not return to photograph this match.
I chose this photograph over others where the players were in the act of bowling as I liked the matching postures of the two figures. I may have been influenced in this, by the uncanny resemblance of the two captains to a pair of penguins about to incubate their eggs. By coincidence there was an excellent programme on TV about the life cycle of penguins the previous evening.
The whites stand out well against the mid and dark greens, even though the grass is a relatively muted colour.
I had taken a large number of photographs of a kayaking competition along the river through the centre of town last December. I thought that one of these would be suitable for inclusion in this Assignment. However, I did not find one that I thought would be fit within the requirements of this brief.

Guildford Inside Out - Shoppers and street life

I had taken various photographs of people shopping for the candid photography projects earlier in this course, and this had given me some ideas of the sort of images of shoppers that I was looking for:

• 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.