People and Place - In retrospect

When I came to the end of TAOP I was quite jubilant to have completed the course and excited to be submitting my work for examination, been over 20 years since the last time I have done anything similar.  However, with People and Place I am quite sorry to be completing this course, because of what I have learned and the pleasure I have taken from the activity.

When I first embarked upon PaP I was very concerned about the idea of photographing people unaware and this became a source of much worry once I moved out of the initial portraiture driven work.  However, once I got the bit between my teeth I found that I started to enjoy the thrill of bending rules or grabbing a candid shot of an unknowing subject.  Early on I was challenged when photographing near a supermarket, the staff were quite aggresive and threatening.  My initial reaction was shock and a desire to drop the course.  I took a deep breath, gave myself a break from the camera and then returned with more confidence and a "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger".  Now completing the course, I wish I could afford a Leica rangefinder and head out into the streets emulating the work of Joel Meyerowitz or Garry Winogrand.

So what did I learn from the course, in no particular order?

1. To look at the world around me and explore its photographic potential - In my study of Haidhausen I saw more of that district through the lens of my camera than I had living there for 12 years.
2. To take time to properly understand any opportunity, consider the different angles and compositional possibilities before shooting.
3. To work around any brief, if asked for 4 themes, develop 10 and select the best.  For most of the assignments I have taken a stepwise refinement process, not only of the images, but also the conceptual base.
4. That it really is better to ask for forgiveness than permission - a cliche, but in this day and age a critical attitude for anyone photographing in public places
5. To study practicing photographers, learn from their success and try to adapt some of it to my own style.  Stephen Shore and Andreas Gursky were strongly influential in my choice of subject matter and approach during this course.  The drawback is that my bookshelves are getting heavy.
6. To think about photographs as they relate to each other, I have tried very hard to deliver photographic essays, not simply the best individual images for the assignments.
7. Oddly, to take a break from photography, put the camera down for a few weeks and then start again.  Prior to Christmas I was suffering from overload, being unable to shoot for a few weeks has reinvigorated my desire and view.

I still have a huge amount to learn, clearly this is a year 1 undergraduate course, however, my biggest takeaway is a significant increase in confidence and a feeling of being able to handle pretty much any subject matter now.

Student Riots

I watched the recent student riots in the UK with mixed feelings, shocked at the degree of violence, but also encouraged that people still feel strongly enough about social issues to be prepared to demonstrate their view.  What brings people to be a student one day and then throw fire extinguishers from a roof onto the Police many floors below is a mystery, however, what was clearly visible was the involvement of the photographic press.

This image was plastered on many newspapers:

In isolation it looks as if we are in the midst of a violent mob, although the raised camera at the back starts to ask questions.  Panning back the following is visible:

A mob, yes, but a mob of photographers.  The first question this raises in my mind is the classic one of photographic truth.  These two frames were taken almost at the same moment.  It is not what the frame contains in the first image that makes the statement, it is what is left out.  The guy kicking in the window is an idiot, however is he simply a violent idiot or someone grabbing their 15 minutes of fame in front of the massed ranks of the media.  Did the cameras simply record an act or did they actively encourage it to happen.  In our current age of instant pop stars and celebrity for the sake of celebrity, maybe a short term of incarceration is worth the fame this image might convey on the subject.

Can reportage photography or social documentary ever truly be disengaged or does the act of creation of the image foster the activity it records.

A new take on Panoramas

As I work towards assignment 4 I want to experiment with framing and composition.  One element of this is the creation of limited size panoramas.  By limited I mean no more than two shots stitched together in Photoshop, I am not interested in great wide images at the moment and would not have the means to print them if I did.  I feel that streets can be best represented by a wide but short image.

My current camera set up using a tilt shift lens provides me with an interesting way of creating a high quality panorama effect.  The lens can be shifted by up to 12mm in both horizontal and vertical axes (plus 45 degrees).  By framing a shot on the center point of the image, the lens can be shifted left to take a photograph, then shifted right to take a second photograph.  These two images have an overlap and can then be stitched together.  The advantage of this technique is that the camera does not move and so there is no distortion caused by rotating the camera.  This in effect creates an effective 60mm x 24mm or a 2.5:1 ratio. versus the 1.5:1 ratio of a normal 36x24mm 35mm image.  This is a virtual 35 mega pixel super wide angle camera.

Processing is the same as for any other image, except that once the first image is processed the settings should be copied to the second and no more work done, with the exception of any spot removal.  Once complete I export from Lightroom 3 to Photoshop CS4 for the splicing and a final crop of the resulting image.

Care needs to be taken to avoid people moving through the frame, however, in my first few test shots this was not a great problem.

My first shot is a typical street scene, in fact the best Traditional German bar in the district:

Although the light was poor and this image needed to be pushed hard the result is interesting

My final two shots are of the small area of traditional houses in Haidhausen

This is a technique that should not be overused, I will submit a maximum of 1 image for my assignment, however, it does create really interesting possibilities.

My Personal Direction

At this stage in the course I am starting to actively consider how I should steer my path towards the planned for degree qualification at the end of my studies.  In the last few months 2 distinct threads have driven my engagement with the course, firstly a rapidly growing interest in photographing the urban environment and the people who dwell there, and secondly an attempt to understand critical theory and its impact upon photographic form.

On the latter topic I now have a bookshelf replete with works such as (in no specific order):

• On Photography by Susan Sontag
• Ways of Seeing by John Berger
• Photography a Concise History by Ian Jeffrey
• How to Read Photographs by Ian Jeffrey
• Basic Critical Theory for Photographers by Ashley la Grange
• Photography after Frank by Philip Gefter
• Between the Eyes by David Levi Strauss

Luckily I have a few long journeys to make in the next few months and so hopefully time to make a dent in this list.  I have just finished reading Crisis of the Real by Andy grundberg and The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton and am currently reading/blogging,  a chapter at a time, Photography: A Critical Introduction edited by Liz Wells.

The question I need to answer for myself is whether to supplement this reading list with a formal course to help me to structure and better understand the historical and theoretical aspects of Photography.  I have read in several places that an Arts Graduate needs a grounding in the history and critical theory of the subject, and coming from a Theoretical Sciences background I can agree with this viewpoint, the question is really how to obtain it, by unguided self study or through following a structured course of learning.

If I was to opt for one of the theoretical courses offered by the OCA it would necessarily slow down my photographic development, although by how much I cannot judge.  My current leaning is towards continuing with my reading program and see to what extent I can development my own thoughts, in parallel to starting to take a greater interest in the broader world of visual arts.  Here in Munich there are superb public and private art collections in accessible and inexpensive locations - the policy of charging 1 Euro to all city museums on Sunday is a gift I should not ignore.

The question is then one of where next for my photography, following through with the level 1 courses would lead to DPP, but I am starting to wonder if this makes sense, the current level 1 courses are fascinating to work on but not terribly challenging, perhaps it would make more sense to complete all three level 2 courses, replacing DPP with PWDP.  I have looked at DPP and some of the blogs of other students and conceptually I know most of what is there and indeed practice much of it already, however, I need better skills in preparing images for high quality display.  I am not at interested in the use of Photoshop to create surreal Digital Art from photographs, but will need a good grounding in image preparation prior to the level 3 courses.

This then leaves the thorny subject of the Landscape course, I have no passion whatsoever about conventional landscape photography, the prevalence of which seems to be the raison d'etre of most amateur photography magazines.  I have Collection 2 and 3 of Landscape Photographer of the Year, it is nice, but it is not me.  I also have a superb book of Ansel Adams' photographs, which I greatly admire, but again have no interest to emulate in any way.  I have access to some pretty impressive landscape, the Alps are a 40 minute (at German speeds) drive away.  However, the thought of using a car to access the landscape seems counter to what the very photography often wants to preserve.

On the other hand what I have seen of Fay Godwin's work is very inspirational, she mixes urban images with the impact of humans on the natural environment.  I am also in awe of Andreas Gursky's work, which has many of the wide angle aspect of landscape images, but it very distinctly urban.  I also admire Alfred Stieglitz's  work in New York and the photography of Stephen Shore and William Eggleston.  All three, in their different way set out to capture landscapes amongst their images, even if they were city skylines or suburban dwellings, they are still landscapes.  If I sign up for landscape it will be the work of these 5 photographers that would guide me, not the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, inspirational though that may be.

The 6 million dollar question, is, can I get away with it? I think so and the feedback so far to a couple of questions on the forums has been positive, I guess it might depend upon the tutor I am paired with for the course.

The other level 2 course Social Documentary is a given, my immense enjoyment of People and Place, far greater than with TAoP makes this a shoe in.

I appreciate that it early to speak of personal style, but a concentration on the city and the people that inhabit it seems to be my direction.  I am surprised by this, as I came to the course from the very controlled and detailed world of underwater photography, however, self discovery is a key part of studying.

Wow you must be good at Photoshop

I wonder how many of us have heard this statement when showing photographs to friends?  I have certainly heard it a few times and it really grates on my nerves, however, it is not really an unfair comment.  I shoot raw and without any processing my images would be in a word, bland!  There is an ongoing debate about the ethics of the cloning tool and the newer more sophisticated tools for removing unwanted objects, now even people from the frame of the photograph.  Currently my working model is to get it right in the frame at the time of shooting and come back and try again if that does not work.  My only use of "clone" tools is to correct for the fact that I have not cleaned my cameras sensor in a year.  However, I do appreciate that an image is whatever the image maker wants it to be; a photograph is a subjective vision provided by the photographer not a record of objective reality.  Presented in context any edit to an image is fine, but only if in context.  Removing an ugly building behind a beach resort and presenting the image in a brochure for prospective holiday makers is deeply dishonest.

This set me to considering my own use of image manipulation tools and in particular how I edited the photo's for assignment 3.  I have developed a personal workflow that enables me to manage reasonably large numbers of images at a time.  To place this in context I have taken 17,886 photographs so far this year, which would be just shy of 500 rolls of 35mm film and is one reason why I switched to digital many years ago.  I can only manage these amongst the 102,000 on my hard drives by adopting a very careful workflow.

My tool of choice is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, I have a copy of Photoshop CS4, but rarely use it other than for printing, Lightroom has all the tools that I need for working on this course.  This is essentially how I work:

1. I only shoot in RAW and at present use the sRGB colour space for editing as most of my work goes to the web.
2. I edit on a workstation with two screens, one with the image the other with tools or the images in grid form that I am working on.  I have a 30" HP screen as the main monitor and this is colour calibrated every month.  My camera is also colour profiled and I only use profiled paper in my output.  Not an expert on colour management yet, but learning.
3. When I have finished a shoot I use Lightroom to import the photographs directly from my CF card and use the very useful feature to make 2 copies to two separate hard drives as I do so.  I have 4 1TB external USB drives for this purpose.
4. All Images are placed in a folder using the date of the shoot as the first 6 characters and then a useful description, e.g. 100922 Munich Olympic Tower
5. To my regret I have not set up a keywording system - the longer I leave this the harder it will become
6. When I want to gather images for a project, I work through all appropriate images and add them to the quick collection if they might meet my needs - this is fast and easy
7. I then save the Quick Collection to a normal Collection with a label determined by the activity
8. I group the Collections into Collection Sets, by course or assignment
9. I then go through a second time and throw out obvious rejects
10. This typically takes and hour or so and leaves me with a group of likely contenders for the next step of "developing" the RAW images
11. The actual process I use depends upon the images but I generally use the following workflow:
1. Automatic Lens Correction (most of my lenses are supported).
2. Slight adjustments for perspective and distortion if needed
3. Crop to output dimension - very subjective and depends upon the image and target media, screen, A4, 5x7, etc. 
4. Set the White Balance either using the clicker or if I was smart using a pre-photographed grey target
5. Add Sharpening - use 100% enlargement during this process
6. Add Luminance or Color noise reduction - sharpening can create this, so best to do second
7. Add Vibrance to richen the colours
8. Either add Clarity or Contrast - for people clarity is better, otherwise I mostly use contrast
9. Add Fill Light and Recovery to deal with shadows and highlights
10. Adjust exposure and Blacks
11. I use the spot removal tool for any sensor dirt
12. I sometimes add a gradiant filter if the sky is very washed out - overdone this looks very fake, so I try not to use this often
12. This is a quick process, taking no more than a minute per image - important images such as for assignments get a second or third careful going over
13. I then go through again and remove any images that did not work well following the develop process
14. Now that the images are as I want them, I do two separate exports, one to JPEG to add to the web, such as this blog and a second to 16 bit TIFF.  
15. If I plan to print images they go into CS4 for printing, I do not like the printing interface in Lightroom. I understand CS4 and get the results I want

Having done all this, what is the difference.  I have created before and after sheets for all of the images that I produced for Assignment 3.  The image on the left is as it came out of the camera with no adjustment other than conversion to JPG, on the right is the image after editing.  The change in aspect ratio is due to the fact that the final destination of these images is A4 photo paper for the grading process.  The images are not large enough to show the impact of sharpening and noise reduction, but the colour, contrast, and exposure changes are quite clear:

The Theoretical Basis of Photography

In the last few months I have focused much of my energy on taking photographs and working through the exercises and assignments in People and Place.  I have also worked steadily through an expanding bookshelf of works concerning themselves with either technique, critical theory, or discussion of a particular photographer.  Currently my bookshelf is growing faster than my reading pace, although this is in part due to a desire to create a small library of photographers images to furnish ideas for the upcoming assignments 4 and 5.  My recent acquisitions include books covering Alfred Stieglitz, Fay Godwin, Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, and a wonderful volume covering the key photographers from the Düsseldorf School of Photography.

However, a greater interest has been in reading more about Critical Theory in Photography and how the current thought processes at any given time influenced the subject matter and style of contemporary photographers.  Many years ago I studied as a Theoretical Physicist and worked for 2 years as a research fellow at Imperial College's physics department, before realizing that my future was in the IT industry.  Back then I read extensively around my subject digging deeply into theory or the testing of theory through experiment.  However, this theory was all grounded in Physical Principals and explained through the very precise medium of mathematics, a concept had a clear beginning and end, it could be right or wrong, proof came through its ability to predict reality.  Theory built models of the observable world to either explain or predict phenomena, experiment then sought to confirm or tear down.  A complex, but structured world.

Clearly reality was more complex that I have just described, personality and fashion influence science as with any other subject area, however, Mathematics underpinned all with a rigorous structure.  Coming to artistic theory I feel as if I have landed on a different planet.  The concepts that I have come across are complex, however, they are obscured by language that seems to exist simply to hide the meaning of what is being said.  I realize that I have much to learn, but did not realize that my vocabulary was so lacking.  Beyond the challenge of the academic language, the concepts themselves are very nebulous and difficult to pin down, ideas seem to drift with time and fashion, absolutes or axioms do not exist or themselves seem to drift in meaning.  This is all very different from scientific theory, however, it is interesting and understanding such theory is critical to appreciating why modern photographic art deals with the subjects and structures that it does.  I also suspect that as I progress into the latter stages of this course such an understanding will be assumed not desired.

At present I am wrestling with how to go about developing a deeper understanding. The course "Visual Studies 1: Understanding Visual Culture" looks appealing and would certainly be an excellent solution to learning about theory of how we look at art.  However, I am reluctant to commit to a course that is very much book learning based, I am getting so much pleasure out of the photographic modules of the course.  The choice for completing the year 1 courses is this or DPP, which I am also not so sure of, I already have a good understanding of Digital Photography developed through working the first two courses and my general photographic practice.  It seems that my options after completing PaP are:

1. Embark upon DPP
2. Embark upon Visual Studies 1: Understanding Visual Culture
3. Slightly ambitious, but do VS1 in parallel to a level 2 course, permitting a mix of photography and theoretical study

I think this is a topic for some external advice, my tutor should be able to help and perhaps the forums could be a good place for debate around this.

In the meantime, I am not going to wait so am slowly working my way through Photography: A Critical Introduction, edited by Liz Wells.  This is the recommended introductory text to critical theory on the book list for both AoP and PaP.  I must admit that whilst doing AoP I think this might have been rather intimidatory, however, now working on PaP I think it is essential.  

Amazon

Thus far I have read the first two chapters of the book and was happily plowing through it, but was not really fully taking in what I have learned.  Study skills are not really taught to Physics students, learning is more through reproducing the maths and extending it through solving parallel problems.  Sitting and reading a complete book was unknown to me at the time, perhaps the reason I am no longer a physicist.  Subsequently I have decided to step back a little and reflect upon what I am reading, the concepts are not hugely difficult, but need serious consideration.  I have decided to read the book a chapter at a time and briefly blog, chapter by chapter, the key points and what I understand of them.  

Legal Challenges

On Friday afternoon I managed to finish work a little early and thought I would head out with camera to do some local research for the third assignment.  I have been very impressed with the work of Stephen Shore and purchased his book "Uncommon Places - The Complete Works".  What intrigues me is his ability to take mundane everyday locations and turn them into a timeless record of life as well as a piece of photographic art.  His work is very much in tune with the goal of assignment 3, the use of buildings and how people interact with them.

I cannot emulate his style completely, nor would I necessarily want to, however, I thought it might make an interesting exercise to do something similar.  I have a 24mm tilt-shift 35mm lens, not the easiest to use, but capable of capturing great detail and at the same time permitting correct recording of perspective and thus is an ideal lens for anything involving buildings.  The added "benefit" is that is requires a very measured approach to photography, the lens is manual focus and generally is best used at pretty small apertures, f/16 or f/22.  This means the lens must be placed on a tripod and each photograph has to be very carefully composed prior to hitting the trigger.  When the lens is shifted the camera is no longer able to measure correct exposure so requires manual exposure setting prior to shifting.  This means the workflow for a shot is as follows

1. Find a location that will work at 24mm
2. Set up the tripod and ensure that the camera is completely level, I use a spirit level that sits in the hot shoe
3. Check that the image looks correct when the lens is shifted - live view is useful here
4. Manually focus, again with live view I can zoom in on the image and ensure that focus is where I want it to be
5. Set the aperture, speed, and ISO manually
6. Tilt the lens
7. Take the picture
8. Review and adjust, start again

This is reminiscent of the process involved in using a view camera, as used by Stephen Shore.  Using a 35mm digital camera does speed up the process, but this is still a slow considered approach to photography, very different from the rapid shooting style of Street Photography.

I had been planning to do all of Assignment 3 using this lens, to provide a consistent look and feel, but also to slow me down.  HOWEVER, this weekend I ran into real problems and a very ugly situation that left me doubting both my approach and even my commitment to continue on this course.

I decided to head over to a recently built small shopping center, thinking that this would make for a good subject for my work, very much a building with multiple uses and presence of humans.  I started off by taking a couple of "landscape" shots that show the access to the center and also the architecture of the site

I am happy with these images and they show quite clearly the access to the building a key part of how people use such a space.  I then decided to head down the ramp and get closer to one of the shops a local supermarket and shoot in close.  The first image tried to image people coming into the store.  The low light required a longish exposure time of 1/8s, blurring the people as they entered the store.  I like this effect as it shows how people move and also makes them very anonymous. 

I then thought that a show of the tills and people paying would work.  This is when the problem started

Two things to point out first, I did not step inside the shop for this shot, but equally did not ask permission.  Immediately I was confronted by staff telling me photography was forbidden in the store.  I explained that I was not in the store and that I was a student and not involved in any form of commercial activity.  They phoned management and iterated again that I could not take photographs.  I said, OK, apologies and agreed that I would cease taking photographs.  This is when it became unpleasant as 3 people surrounded me, not aggressively, but requiring that I delete the photographs.  I refused and stated that I had taken the photographs legally and anyway what was the issue, after showing them the images what offense could I have made.  My German is poor, luckily the store manager spoke English (most Germans do), however, one of the staff started to suggest in German assuming I could not understand at all, that they confiscate my camera.  At this point I was getting pretty upset.  Passersby were on my side, however, the store employees were getting quite insistent.  

I explained the following 

1. I had not entered the store - they replied that my camera was photographing stuff inside the store and that the outside pavement belonged to them as well
2. I mentioned that I could return with a 500mm lens and from public ground take the same image, this seemed to worry them
3. Peoples faces were not visible - they said that their logo was
4. I pointed out that every person in the store had a camera built into their phones, they could be taking photos and spying for the opposition - apparently I was much worse because I had a "proper" camera.

In the end I simply said goodbye, turned my back and walked away, perhaps not the best solution, but the argument was getting worse and I was getting more angry and might have said something I would regret.  They did not try to detain me which was smart as that would have been assault.  During the conversation I suggested several times that they call the Police, they really did not want to, so I figured best to leave.  This is a supermarket I shop in quite often, guess I will not be back in a hurry.

I headed home, too upset to do any more photography and have been trying to get my head around this very since.  This was not the first time I have been challenged, it really makes completing this assignment quite challenging.  I checked the law when I got home and will consult a lawyer who is a friend and a passionate photographer - he is on vacation at the moment.

From what I understand of German law:

1. Photography in a public space is permitted of any structure that is permanent 
2. Photographs of temporary structures, deemed as art is permitted, but it is illegal to sell them without the artists permission.  This was due to someone photographing the Reichstag when  wrapped in cloth and selling the image.  The resulting court case resolved my first comment as it distinguished between permanent and temporary installations - permanent is fair game.
3. Selling a photograph of a building that is under copyright, many modern architecture is, cannot be done without permission
4. People can be photographed in public space without permission, however, persistently photographing a single person could become harassment or obstruction.

Sadly this did not really help me as a shopping center might not be deemed to be a public space as it is privately owned.  However, there is free public access to this space and it is not covered and thus not technically inside a building. The first 2 shots were fine as I was on a public pavement.

What this means for my work is that I need to be more selective of subjects that are either public or easily viewed from a public space.  My goal of using the 24mm tilt-shift is therefore not really viable, perhaps is never was in any case.  I am not as an individual very good at handling this type of confrontation and much beer was applied to gain a better perspective chatting with my wife and best friend.  

My conclusion, persevere and develop a thinker skin, however, find a definition of German law on photography and put it into my camera bag.  I want to continue onto the Social Documentary course and so this is unlikely to cease to be an issue.

As far as the current assignment, become more creative, try and select public buildings and space, although what defines public is a question I have yet to resolve.