USING THE WIRELESS FLASH INDOORS AND OUT

I have found that the wireless flash system I'm using works better indoors than out.  This video explains:

CROSS LIGHTING TECHNIQUE

This is the lighting technique I am using:

ERIC O'CONNELL

Happened upon Eric O'Connell  today quite by accident and noticed that he has some interesting images on his website that are good references to my work.

Some images capturing atmosphere, use of light and night shots.

Others employ similar compositional style as my own.

JASON HYNES

I found Jason Hynes’ images on the BJP website.  However, I cannot find anything written about them, so I may contact him about them.

The image style is similar to what I am doing and I’m presuming these images form a project about workers.   

TREVOR APPLESON – FREE GROUND

Like Glenn Busch, below, these images both contain the style and content of my pictures.  The following is taken from the book ‘Free Ground’:

‘Free Ground’ is an English translation of Afrikaans ‘Vryground’ which is the name of one of the most memorable locations for Appleson’s portable studio portraits. Vryground was supposedly gifted to local fishermen and their families in the 1930s, but under apartheid, the area was declared public land and the inhabitants no longer had any legal right to live there.

Trevor Appleson photographed these people by rigging up a background and photographing them on random beaches suggested by the work of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.  This developed into a more resolute and conceptual approach involving using a studio on location.  Appleson worked at dawn or dusk and took his studio to beaches, car parks, shantytowns and shipyards – anywhere where he could gain access to people in an informal way.

People were attracted to his studio – it looked like a small film set – made up of a large backdrop and lighting.  The studio is a neutral space in which it is possible to photograph people in their natural environment.  The black background creates a neutral space within this environment, a setting in which a ‘model’ can be present as part of an ongoing narrative.

Working at dawn and dusk is a defining element of the process, not only because of the quality of light, but also because of the randomness of the people who happen to be on the street at these particular times of day.

All these photographs are taken as three-quarter lengths, whereas mine are full length.  I have to worry about cross-shadowing which I was, at first, trying to avoid, but I like it now and I don't think I will worry about it too much, unless it becomes distracting.

GLENN BUSCH – WORKING MEN

Glenn Busch’s book ‘Working Men’, featured portraits of male workers in New Zealand in the 1980s.  As you can see, his style is exactly like mine.  I think these types of images work better in colour as it would give more of a sense of the workplace.  I feel that black and white ‘dampens down’ the reality and gives the images a ‘bleakness’.

There are no women pictured in this book - I would like to get a good balance of men and women in my work, but it all depends who agrees to be photographed.  Busch photographed only manual workers, which is a male-dominated area. 

Sheridan Keith in his review of Busch’s book feels it was a pity that for comparison there are no car salesmen, retailers, lawyers, accountants or MP's weren’t included and that it would have been “interesting to see if the common themes that emerge in Busch's group were consistent throughout a wider range of wage earners.”

I like the way Busch has captioned his pictures, ie Jack Taylor, Boat Builder and John Dale, Labourer, Demolition Gang.  This is similar to how I am thinking of captioning my pictures.  However, I may omit the workers names as they are representative of all workers in their particular field and feel it may be uncessary naming them as individuals.

AUGUST SANDER

In the 1920s and 1930s, German photographer August Sander photographed workers.  His portrait style shows workers with the accoutrements of their trades, but they are not shown actually working.

SHAUN WAUGH - 'ME37 NIGHTSHIFT FREEZING WORKERS'

Shaun Waugh

ME37 Nightshift Freezing Workers by Shaun Waugh was a billboard project, featuring 54 portraits of individuals employed at the Belfast freezing works, the images explores photography’s uneasy position between subjective and objective modes of representation.

This is what I am trying to do with the people I photograph. 

Each worker is photographed in their overalls and white gum boots against a relatively blank background of insulation panelling and concrete flooring. There are no overt props, just  the odd pair of plastic gloves, ear-muffs or a hair net.

These photographs play with the conventions of traditional portraiture and the social documentary image, whilst also referencing recent trends in contemporary photography.

Waugh’s images reflect upon what it is to see and be seen; what it is to be subject and viewer. In an attempt to minimize his presence as photographer, he offered only minimal direction to those who stood before his lens; participants were simply asked to stand facing the camera. Of more importance to Waugh is that his subjects respond to the camera in as raw and intuitive a way as possible. Within the highly structured composition of each image, then, he offers his subjects a certain freedom of expression. Yet it is interesting to see how each individual continues to respond to the camera according to an established set of conventions; although each slightly different, the poses we see here are certainly familiar stances within the realm of the photographic portrait.

Text taken from: http://www.coca.org.nz/exhibitions/60/

HOW TO LIGHT PEOPLE

The BJP this week has a feature on how best to light people, cars, paper and animals:

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=872565

Below is an extract and is copyright BJP.

They say that flash is often the only way to achieve a certain look, feel, or level of control, but that doesn't mean the results have to look uniform. Portrait photographer Richard Ansett says his flash technique is what separates his work from documentary photography, for example, while Satoshi Minakawa uses innovative lighting to add a daring twist to his car shots, and in William Selden's hands lighting helps create subtle yet sophisticated fashion and advertising. These four photographers use flash in highly idiosyncratic ways, defining their styles and achieving their distinctive looks.

Richard Ansett

Richard Ansett is known for his social-documentary approach to commercial work but says his style is defined by 'deliberate use' of flash lighting.

Ansett always carefully manages his light. 'I almost entirely direct a light right-to-left, and use a single soft box,' he says, and adds that he also likes to 'feather-light' his subjects, direct light from a single soft box to just miss the subject. It gives a softer, more natural feel to pictures, and also casts more light onto floors and backgrounds. 'A direct soft box means a lot of light on skin but not much elsewhere,' he explains. 'We've got the flash mounted on a shopping trolley, which means I can direct my assistant to make these minute adjustments until I get it right.'

 

William Selden

For the Jarvis Cocker portrait shown, William Selden put the lights up high to mimic midday sunlight. 'I hate low-angle lighting that tries to recreate evening light,' he says. 'For this shot, I may have half-closed a brolly to soften things up, but I like to avoid fill (flash). I altered the shadows in Photoshop to achieve a softer look.'

He's a big fan of digital capture, which he believes has enabled his lighting style. 'Photography's changed so much in the last 15 years, everyone's huddled around a monitor (on shoots) now,' he says. 'It's more collaborative. There must have been more photos taken in the last 10 years than in the 150 years before, thanks to digital. And I suppose that deadlines are set for digital nowadays -clients want things next-day, the benchmark's for digital.'

EVAN BADEN – THE ILLUMINATI

Evan Baden photographed people lost in a virtual world.  I like these photographs because they are shot in low light conditions – the gadget’s they are using being the only light source.  I like the subtlety of the light, but it is also enough to illuminate the face.

SIRKKA-LIISA KONTTINEN – BYKER REVISITED

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen photographed Byker in Newcastle in 1984.  She returned in 2004 to photograph it again.  It is the style of the 2004 photographs that I like best.  The use of colour gives a kind of ‘rawness’ to the pictures, they seem more real to me.  Like the images of Brascher and Fischer, the images have the quality of a painting.