S'all about the Subtext...

As I have expressed, I strive to capture emotion in photos, I think it gives more depth and intrigue. I took these shots of a friend one day and as a group I feel they have quite strong subtext.

As we Sit and Gaze...

Whilst on certain explorations with a certain group of Photographers we came across many chairs, some of them in places they wouldn't normally be found - a carpark for instance. I think a chair is a seriously interesting item to photograph because it almost looks as though something is missing (most probably a person to sit on the chair..) and so a photo of just a chair appears quite empty and somewhat lost. I felt these photos worked better in a group than standing alone and they seem to come in 3 pairs; the chairs being taken over by nature around them, the chairs spaced neatly in places they really shouldn't be and the lone wooden chairs left to gather dust.

A friend of a friend is a keen photographer and as I was browsing through his website I came across this photo which caught my eye because it reminded me of these shots. His photo is simply entitled 'Nothing.'
http://samrizzo.daportfolio.com/gallery/184264#8

How some Roll...

A skate park, I have discovered, is a very interesting place to take photos and somewhere which also links to my theme of Identity. People go there and leave their marks for others, almost instigating their territory. A skate park with no graffiti just wouldn't seem right, it creates a sort of subtextual power.

A photographer who isn't very well known is Christopher Kern. A friend of mine came across his work and showed it to me. His portraits of skateboarders really appealled to me because the style and subject is what I've been trying to aim for. Eyes are engaging with the camera intensely, hints about their identities from the art on boards along with the simplicity of the images I think make some great photos.

Dan, a guy who was blading whilst we were photographing seemed so at ease and happy for us to snap away. I like the simplicity of the top half of the right hand photo contrasting with the bottom half and also the way his 'pose' and the graffiti lines break up the solid lines of the railings.

Here the slopes of the ramps lead your eye up and over then up again to meet with the figure skating, this capture of movement I think sits well with how still the three boys on the left look and the symmetry of the two photos together and positioning of people.

Those with 'Steeze'..

Studio Portraits of students found to have special talents or hobbies some may be aware of, some may not. Finding ways of incorporating what they do in the photos I feel inhances their identities and makes them somewhat more interesting than if they stood alone with just a title.

Some welcomed the opportunity whilst others looked akward and expressionless similar to photos from James Pogson. These I am not keen on: I like the eyes of the subject to speak to the viewer and not just stare blankly.

Here, on the street where you live...

9 Photos:
3 People
3 Night Time
3 'Something and Nothing'
1 Street.

'Family Member' - My dad, his car is his pride and joy and so many people identify him by it. I was trying to get the refection of the water tower in the glass but failed miserably although the trees are a good contrast to the simple white of the car.

'Neighbour' - 'Uncle Tom and Aunty Pauline', I was trying to recreate a famous shot I've seen somewhere of a solemn couple, washed out and expressionless but trust the one time I need this couple's usual glumness to be one time they find their cheesy grins... I desaturated it slightly in Photoshop to get the effect I wanted.

'Unknown' - Walked to the garage in my road and intruded on the men on their break. There was only one woman working and wherever I asked them to stand the males would form a little group leaving the woman often standing alone but staying cheery, this photo I feel captured that. The lighting was bad in the dim garage and I used my shutter speeds to compensate.

I chose not to use my flash in these shots because it screams amature and I wanted practise with the shutter speeds. I seriously was in need of a tripod doing these but improvised with resting the camera on the floor or a tree..

I didn't have a clue what to do for 'Something and Nothing' so just took random snaps and picked three I liked, things that you may pass by and not really consider but think about them and they are actually something important to one or many people. I liked the layering of the second two with foreground and background objects and the different textures.

Avedon an experiment....!

Chipmunk

Gravesy

Belch

Guy

I looked at the works of Richard Avedon because he relys on expression rather than props or complicated compositions. I put people infront of the camera and simply asked them to be themselves, we chatted away and I snapped and chose photos which instinctively caught my eye, mostly because they've captured a moment. I wrote the focus' nicknames because I feel it added to the depth of the image: these are real people, not just images. I put them in the style of Avedon - and similar to that of Robery Mapplethorpe - with high contrast black and white. I touched them up so parts like their eyes and expressions were more the focus.

Vintage Balloonage..

A Vintage Fayre I attended; when looking through the photos I took there seemed to be a reoccurring theme of balloons and I liked these selection of photos as a group...

Babies are for life, not just the weekend...

A task to incorporate a toy baby into a photo which has something to do with the theme of our work for A2 Photography...

I am a big Audrey Hepburn fan, she was nicknamed

'the girl with the eyes' in her acting career and I thought it was quite fitting because the baby I was using had beautifully blue eyes. Audrey Hepburn was a huge family woman, she would spend as much time as possible with her children whilst juggling her career and would never neglet them. The first photo I liked the angle of but I really wanted to have the blue eyes of the baby in the photo somewhere so I took the second photo and using (POLISH!!) PhotoShop layered the pictures. I changed the colours slightly to match better which I think worked and I also previously cloned the bag in PhotoShop to get rid of the distracting 'Boots' logo.

Documenting a piece of Theatre...

A play my sister was in, I couldn't use flash which initially panicked me but after a while I enjoyed it and doing it made me more confident and now im not a fan of using flash!!

A Wee Trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival...

The Fringe Festival was amazing, the atmosphere was incredible, everything was alive and smiling no matter what the time was. I didn't even bother carrying my camera case around because there was just too much to photograph all the time.

An overly tattooed man was sat on a bus by himself. He was on before we got on and stayed on after we left and he didn't look as though he had any intention of moving. He was quite scary looking but so hard not to stare at and wonder about all the stories his body art told. He was slumped on the bus just as his arm was slumped over the chair infront, the many tattoos I thought paralleling with the many cars in the background, all with different places and stories.

I touched the picture up slightly in Photoshop because I couldn't spend lots of time playing with settings on the bus so it was slightly dim and the tattoo colours less visible.

I photographed such a sentimental and personal message, simply scrolled onto the side of a building for anyone to see and wonder about who Adem was. I wondered why this building in the backstreets of Edinburgh was chosen and whether council would be heartless enough to have it cleaned off?

In contrast to this emotive message, this sign in a festival venue was very obviously being disobeyed... I stopped for a while, hoping to get a shot of the man taking a drag but after seeing how little of the cigarette was left and receiving some odd looks from his companion I settled with this shot, quite liking the way he appears to be looking away from the sign with his nose in the air as if to blatently point out there was no way he was going to stop smoking because the sign had said to.

The next few images are ones I took which I like, be it because of what's happening in the picture, the colours, composition or emotions of people captured...

And then she got bored with having the same titles so called it 'London'...

I went to London with my family to see 'Oliver!' which provided a great opportunity to take photographs.

I just happened to lean over a bridge and capture this shot, the contrast in colours caught my eye and the child just looked so lost, as if all the other kids at the party had run away. Your eye is lead into the photo by the angle the wall is at and how it meets with the lighter grey shade at a diagonal, the very spot the boy is walking to.

There was alot of street theatre by the Thames which was great to watch but I became quite fascinated with surveying the audiences' reactions and photographing them rather than the actual acts. These children got asked to help out in one of the acts, they had never met before but were so comfortable with holding hands and showed no embarressment which amused me because in a few years time I bet it'll be a different story! I was pleased with how the pictures came out with the foreground in focus, it highlights the main part of the images.

And then there were two...

The balloon idea came about because I was looking at Circuses -such interesting events to photograph - and whilst mucking about and making a balloon sword it got me thinking about things that are shown to be something but actually are something else. Theatre, (something I am really hooked on) can seem so real and the characters so believeable and yet they are not what or who they seem to be whilst on stage.

And then there was one post...

I began the summer determind to work on my technical skills using my camera so did some experimenting with shutter speed and not using flash but still trying to capture a moving object. I wanted the object to seem as though it was moving but the background to be still. Ooo photog chums please shell out any tips you have on this matter because these photos didn't turn out great...

And so it began...

I'v got to say, photography's become a big part of my life. I'm always skipping about and then I see something, be it a scene, an object or a moment just so mesmorising that it would be a crime not to catch on camera... These always seem to be the times I've come out without my camera.

Even so, I carry on looking for other unique moments and when I manage to get a shot of them they become some of my favourite photos. ..I have more to write here but my essay draft is on my memory stick which I left at school yesterday... so bear with..