This photoshoot was done in order to create images that would be calmer and less chaotic than the party photos from my birthday.
Birthday
These are the main photos for my book which were influenced by Paul M Smith and follow the theme of freedom as I let anyone take the photos in any way they wanted with no limitations. I plan to increase the saturation of these pictures to amplify the idea of freedom which is an idea I got from Alex Webb’s work.
Paulina’s birthday
Similar to the last photoshoot I have taken inspiration from Paul M Smith for the photos and will edit them in a similar way to Alex Webb. However, these photos are going to create a contrast between a boys and a girls 18th party and will demonstrate similarities and differences between them.
Martin Parr is a British photographer and photojournalist whose work is often defined by its depiction of people’s leisure activities, either as a family, among friends, or alone. He has made projects in many different locations over the decades, but he has said that “The beach is always going to be an integral part of what I do – it just goes on and on”.
His photobook “The Last Resort” is a prime example of this. Taken in Brighton in the 80s, it shows a typical British summer day out for the normal people of England at the time, without glorifying or demonising the situation or the people. His signature use of vibrant colours and photographic flash make these images seem as though they could be found in anyone’s old family photo album, making them feel distinctly human and candid.
This photo is a prime example of Parr’s photographic style and the type of subjects he had in his images. The two children in the centre look like siblings and so it is an example of the sort of family dynamics of the time, where people would often have larger families and the children would be expected to look after themselves and each other to a certain extent. The colours are saturated and it’s clear that flash has been used, even though it looks like a bright and sunny day.
My chosen theme for my photo book is freedom. I am going to hold three parties and a day at the beach where I will allow my mates to take photos of anything they want without limitations. I want the photos themselves to represent freedom in the way they are taken as well as their subjects. I also want to contrast different types of freedom: sober / drunk, day / night, boys / girls. I do not want to involve any Covid related objects or themes in my book as I want to ignore Covid, which has undeniably limited the worlds freedom over the last year and a half, as if it does not exist within this small world I am creating in the book. The freedom to have fun is the main theme I am going to try and represent within my photo book. Simply, I want a book that holds happy and fun memories from a time in my life that will always be remembered as dull and restricted due to Covid. I also hope that it gives an insight into the life of an 18-year-old and is informative and enjoyable to any viewer. I am going to use Paul M Smiths themes of a ‘lads night out’ and Alex Webb’s editing style of high saturation to create my final images and show true, uninfluenced freedom.
WHAT / CONCEPT: For this shoot I plan to film myself walking through the sand dunes during sunset then sitting down to watch the church service. The idea behind doing this shoot and others which I will do later on is to show different people doing different activities and being able to watch and ‘attend church’ wherever they are.
WHERE / WHEN: I plan to film this down at the Sand dunes near Le Braye at St Ouen’s Bay around golden hour and into blue hour. This means I will start shooting around an hour before sunset up to about 40 minutes after sunset. This is because the light is at its softest and the graduation between the highlights and shadows is much softer and which makes the shadows look softer also. This means getting pleasing consistent light on the subjects face is a lot easier. I am using St Ouen’s Bay and the sand dunes because this the part of the island where the sunsets
EQUIPEMENT: because I will be filming myself, I will need a tripod so I can set up my camera as I walk through or act in the scene. I plan to use my 24-70 with an ND filter on the front. This lens has a very versatile focal range which means I can get a range from wide to mid-telephoto field of view. Because I will be shooting in 25fps, the shutter speed will need to be 1/50, the lens also goes as wide as f2.8 this means that I will need an ND filter to filter down the light coming into the lens, this filter acts like a pair of sunglasses for the camera. Because I plan on shooting at sunset, I want to capture as much dynamic range as possible, as a result I plan on shooting using S-Log which is a flat colour profile on my Sony A73. By using this setting I can recover more of the highlights and golden sky as well as having more colour grading flexibility when it comes to post-production.
BEST EDITED IMAGES – Stills from the clips
EDITING
Colour Correction – Log to Rec.709
Stylistic Colour Grade
Log footage out of CameraColour correct and Log to Rec.709 conversionArtistic Colour grade
Smith made his photography debut with ‘Artist Rifles’ a series of photos of fake war scenarios created by his own experience in the army. ‘Artist Rifles was to become the first chapter in Paul’s interrogation of the many-headed beast that is masculinity, of what it means to be a man. The most immediate subject of this enquiry was naturally to confront his own reasoning for joining the army.’ The cloning of the protagonist creates a appropriate metaphor for the army’s effect on an individuals identity and creating group identities (Brothers in Arms) This duplication of himself is a very effective method to emphasize the struggles of male identity, fitting in and belonging to a group / community.
Smith has used this technique multiple times after his Artist Rifles project with himself and others. For example his advertising campaign with Robin Williams or his second self portrait project ‘Make My Night’
‘Make My Night’ follows a group of lads on a night out consisting of good laughs, pranks, fights, drinking and, inevitably, the rough morning after. ‘ As before, he becomes the anonymous everyman but this time is more overtly the narrator as well as the protagonist of a frequently observed ritual.’ Unlike past projects where I have mimicked Smith’s repeated protagonist effect, this time I am going to use his staged ‘night out’ photos as inspiration for my images. I plan to show the stages of the night out, like Smith, from the bright eyed beginning to the sickly end. Smith uses his imagery to influence a positive view upon masculinity. I am interested in this view and what to incorporate a sense of it within my own work. Overall Smith’s work is very positive but it is likely that only the staging of the images will affect my photo book and less so with the meaning.
Smith, like Alex Webb, also used high colour saturation to emphasize the freedom and vibrance of a night out. This will be another influence for the editing process of my images as well as the production of them.
Smith uses the repeated protagonist in order to show that it does not really matter who the subject is, it is about the meaning of masculinity to respect to anyone. I am going to try and emphasize this meaning through the comparison and contrast between a lads night out and a girls night out. I hope that this contrast will convey a similar message to Smith and that the difference between these two is easily understood.
Technical – Smith’s use of all natural lighting in this shot supports its realism by not using any artificial lighting. He has create a specific colour pallet / tonal range of blue, green and beige.
Visual – Smith has raised the saturation in order to vibrantly bring out the colours within this image. This creates a lighter and more enjoyable photo which suits the ‘lads at the footie’ style. He has used the space well and even had moments where his protagonist overlaps with himself which causes a much more difficult editing process.
conceptual – Like ‘make my night’, Smith’s project with Robbie Williams enforces a strong sense of masculinity upon the viewer and provides certain scenarios that follow more of a false representation of men but a funny / fantasized one.
Alex Webb is best known for his complex and vibrant color photographs of serendipitous or enigmatic moments, often in places with socio-political tensions. Over the past 45 years, Webb has worked in places as varied as the U.S.-Mexico border, Haiti, Istanbul, and, most recently, a number of U.S. cities. “My work is questioning and exploratory,” he says. “I believe in photographs that convey a certain level of ambiguity, that ask questions rather than provide answers.”
I was drawn to Webb’s photography due to his editing style with high saturation images to emphasize certain freedoms and limitations. Although my work holds no political agenda and most of Webb’s does, I have used a similar editing technique of bright, strong colours in order to convey similar meaning.
Webb worked in Latin America and the Caribbean in his 20’s. This is where he transitions from B&W to colour photos and credits these two cultures for amplifying his love and interest of colour. He has produced 16 books during his career many of which were made with his wife who is also a photographer.
“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner”
Alex Webb
Technical– Webb’s photos always consist of natural lighting or at least appear that way. He uses bright and saturated natural light to give his photos an upbeat feeling and also develops a large tonal range with his imagery.
Visual – The standout visual techniques in Webb’s work are his colour, framing and tones. He uses high saturation to give a physical representation of freedom through ‘happy’ colours. the mix of an orange/pink sky and large green wall in this photo draws the viewers attention immediately. The framing of the photo and positioning of the five people within the space adds to the ambiguity of the image and asks questions of what they are looking at, why they are stood there and who they are?
Conceptual – “we all are conditioned by our culture, our education, our experiences — what makes us who we are. Nonetheless, I make an effort to be as open as possible to alternative possibilities, possibilities that may contradict what I rationally might expect.” Webb attempts to show other cultures to his own without being biased to educate and inform the public
In order to figure out how to create a good photobook I had to research different books in order to inspire me and create new ideas.
Growing Spaces – Chris Hoare
Chris Hoare is a photographer which was born 1989. His work surrounds areas of society that he thinks are overlooked and likes to create visual stories in a metaphorical way. He worked on 11 sites across the city. The work started pre -pandemic but its timing worked well to highlight the demands that the pandemic brought the workers to create and harvest produce.
I like the way Hoare created juxtaposition between the two images as it forces the reader to look for the similarities and differences between the two images. Overall I like the colour scheme used by Hoare as it creates a warm and emotive feel to the images which helps us to create a bond with the workers and their workplace. I think the story he creates displays the reality of working in the fields and outside whilst still showing the beauty of the greenery which helps make their hard work worth it in the end.
The Gardner follows a set of images or urban gardens in different countries and continents such as Nairobi, New York, Warsaw, and Yerevan in Armenia. The owners of the gardeners are members of the village from low income communities; they create the gardens with what they have at hand including reusing materials to give them a new purpose which will help them in their gardens. Each garden is arranged differently and structurally which interests Jan Brykczynski as it is a space for the villagers to express themselves and aid them with their everyday lives.
I like the way Jan edits his images to enhance the greenery in the photos; I think it works well as it helps add dimension to the images. I also like His use of two page spreads as it allows the important parts of the image not be distorted by the spine of the book.
Te Ahi Kã – The Fires of Occupation is a book which follows the Whanganui tribe which live by New Zealand’s Whanganui river and shows their connection to the river and the Maori. Toft photographed them whilst the tribe worked on reversing the acts of colonialism.
He has two covers one for women which is the green cover with a design of a fern which the Maori Women used in terms of protection, purification and prayer. The Male version which is the yellow cover with a flame design as embers are said to be “traditionally wrapped in a Ponga tree leaf (silver fern) to carry the fire from one village to another as a symbol of occupation.”
I really liked his use of monochromatic images in order to highlight the detail and texture of the trees and plants. On certain pages the page opens up on both sides to reveal a photo with colour and on the left side and pages of writing on the right side which gives more information about the Whanganui tribe including some of their traditional songs and conversations with the members. I love his consideration of of background, midground and foreground in his portraits as he photographs the people in their homes or outside in their land which makes for much more interesting portraits that help to tell the peoples stories, cultural heritage and traditions.
Similar to Tofts Idea, I want to gift my book to my parents so that they can have something to look back on to show their life and work in this job in order to help them recall and tell others about their work and stories that came with them.
Now that i’ve gone through all my images and put together a rough layout of how I want them to be in the book, I have to actually put the book together. I’m doing this in Lightroom to make it easier to navigate before moving it into Blurb.
I used survey view to rearrange the images into the pre-planned layout then carried on rearranging it through trial and error, as the way they were before in the rough plan didn’t entirely work out.
This rearranging process involved reviewing how certain images fit in with the project as a whole. For example, the image above on the right was previously paired with a different image, but on consideration it didn’t look too good with the others so i switched it out for another image from a different shoot. I also removed about three other images because they just didn’t fit in.
After I had completely worked out the layout I used the “book” tab in Lightroom to begin actually putting together the photobook, and because I had rearranged them before doing this they were already in the correct order.
I decided to modify the layout of the portrait images and add a small border, essentially creating a frame within the page for each portrait image. I tried this with the landscape images, but it didn’t have the same effect, so I kept them the same as they were before.
The images above are the only example i have in the photobook of a triptych-style layout. I experimented with a couple different layouts, for example: all three small on the same page, the first two on one side, the second two on the other side, different sizes and orientations. Eventually I went with having the first two images on the same page and the third as close to them as possible on the other page.
At this point i thought i should probably have a title and cover page. I immediately knew what image would work best to represent the narrative of the photobook; it features dead leaves from winter on the back cover and the new, fresh green leaves of spring on the front cover. I went through a couple of variations on the title, for example “rejuvenation” and “vernal equinox” which is the proper name for the spring equinox. I liked the look/sound of the word “equinox” though. so i just dropped the “vernal”. I wanted to have the title in clear view on both the front cover and the spine of the book, and in the beginning I had them in the colour white. However i thought this look had too harsh of a contrast and although I tried experimenting with the opacity, that just made the writing look grey in the end. I thought a pale green would be a good colour as it is often associated with spring and the season of transition, as well as the fact that there is already green on the cover so it looks more cohesive.
In the beginning i intended to have a few words here and there throughout the book, possibly about people’s perceptions of spring and the changing of the seasons, or even some more formal famous poetry of some sort about the same thing. However after working with the images on their own I felt that having words would be too distracting to the overall effect. But i thought it would make sense to have some sort of text at the beginning to clarify the link between the title and the photobook narrative, as well as add some explanation about the narrative itself. So i created a couple lines mimicking a dictionary entry, just before the photos begin.
EXPERIMENTATION IN THE LAYOUT-
I chose to mix up the layout of some of my images so make it more interesting; I did this by making some images full bleed instead of having that same white border. Some I had only one image in the pair be full bleed, but i also had one where both were full bleed. I also made a couple of the singular images into a full bleed two-page spread for further effect. Above you can see examples of some of the changes.
Blurb-
Finally, I uploaded the book from Lightroom to Blurb and adjusted how I wanted it to be produced. I decided to have it portrait because most of my images are portrait orientation so it would make the most sense. I chose the paper to best show the photographs, and I chose hardcover because I like it the most. Then I finalised the upload to Blurb so that the photobook is able to be ordered and bought.
After gathering my footage, I took to the software Premiere, a software that I have used previously, to put all of my footage together and edit it. Due to using this software in the past, I felt comfortable and at ease when using it and made my editing process that much easier.
To begin with, I started by importing my footage intro Premiere. The screenshot above shows the library in which the footage sits in when editing. I normally import all of my footage (from my SD card) so that I can look through them all and select the footage that is most suitable and that I like the most.
After importing and selecting the footage that I like best, I then take the footage from the library and drag it into the bar shown above. This allows you to see how the video plays and also puts it into different sections such as V1 (video 1) and A1 (audio 1). This allows you to maneuver around the different sections of audio/video without any confusion. This bar is where all your sections of video and audio lies, creating your film.
When adding my footage to the bar, the audio will come with it and appear in the A1 section. To get rid of the background audio (because I will be adding a different audio over the top), I lock the V1 section and then delete the A1 section. Locking the V1 section will allow no footage to be deleted when I’m deleting the audio from it.
After uploading all of my footage that I am happy with, I then play around with the order of the videos. Sometimes certain videos don’t go well next to each other so I experiment by shifting the footage around to create a sequence that I am happy with. You can do this by unlocking the V1 area and simply dragging the different sections of footage to other areas. I feel as though experimentation is key to making a film or a photo book because you never know what you could create through experimentation, additionally you can point out the weaknesses of your film through this process. If I didn’t think that a piece of footage was suitable for my film anymore, I would simply delete it and insert another video that I feel would be more appropriate to my film.
Also, after adding all of my footage, I would render my clips so that it ran smoothly and there were no sign of any glitches/jumps etc. This also allows the video to be exported easily and increases the quality of the video when it comes to exporting.
I wanted my film to be lacking in colour, with a lack of contrast etc to create a dull, sad and mundane atmosphere to my work. Therefore, I clicked the color tab at the top of the screen in the Premiere software and used the basic correction and the creative tab (as seen above). I experimented first with the saturation/vibrance/fade/brightness/exposure etc and eventually got to a colour that suited the overall vibe that I was looking for. The exposure varied in every clip depending on how dark it was, for example, if my clip was filmed in the dark I would increase the exposure more than usual. My saturation, sharpness and fade was all standardised however. In every clip I desaturated it to 51.9, I then increased the sharpness to 30.9 and then increased the fade of the clips to 42. I did this to every clip so that my whole film looked the same. When adding the effects, I made sure to also render the effects in and out so that again, there were no glitches and everything would run smoothly.
After I was happy with how my footage looked and ran, I then began focusing on my audio. My audio was filmed via video so that it would be easy to import, the importing process was the same as the videos. When adding my audio though, I made sure to lock my V1 so that no footage would be overlapped by the audio footage. After placing my audio in the A1 area, I then deleted the video footage so that the audio was the only thing left. I had around 10 minutes of audio so editing it was a long and time consuming process. I had to listen to the audio a various amount of times and cut out sections I thought were the most important.
This tool was very helpful when it came to editing the audio. Since I had so much audio to listen to and edit, this cutting tool made it easy to quickly eliminate any sections of audio that I didn’t wish to keep. After chopping the audio and keeping the bits that I liked and that were relevant to the film, I was done with making my film. In addition to the audio of my Mum speaking, I also went to Sound.org – a website that provides a range of audios available to download. I felt as though some background noise was needed to provoke some emotion and to make the film more hard-hitting. So, I went to the website and found a slow heart beat sound, downloaded it and placed this into A2 (audio 2) – making sure to keep the video 1 and audio 1 locked just in case anything gets mixed up.
After all the video and audio editing was done, I wanted to make an outro that revealed the title of the video – ‘A Slow Progression’. I was looking at using the graphics that are available in premiere however nothing really grabbed my attention and there was nothing I really wanted. So, when the video became blank at the end, I selected the text tool (the ‘T’ above) and typed the title and placed it in the middle of the black screen creating an effect. I adjusted the text and size in the effect control panel.
