‘The single photograph is always fragmentary, only part of the story it shows’ Henry Luce, the founder of LIFE magazine, personal take on the importance and need for the modern photo essay format. He suggested we can see much more of the story by using many powerful photos rather than one well taken photo. I will be looking at the development of the modern photo essay, specifically how W Eugene Smith was the pioneer of the modern photo essay. W Eugene Smith was the fundamental photographer when it came to the creation of the modern photo essay. It first became apparent after his ‘Country Doctor’ project, he spent 23 days photographing a local doctor in charge of caring for the entire ranching town. Smith created this project while working for LIFE magazine, one of the couple of large magazine firms he worked for, this being on of the most significant. Smith created one of the most known photo essays to exist even in modern day, having done this he quickly became associated with the modern day photo essay format. He captured the indexicality needed within a photo essay, the point of life, death, presence and absence needed to tell a story, bitter or joyous, through a photo essay.

The photo essay was a movement, with the invention of the handheld film camera and halftone printing, magazines were created. The starting point for the photo essay was the magazine, Life being the first one to make a significant impact with 50% of the American population reading the magazines. The idea of printing and linking photos with text seems obvious, a ‘magazine’ wouldn’t be overly successful if it was just text. As the magazine movement spread worldwide, more and more magazines started to introduce more photos and less text, simply using text to link the photos together. In 1931, the more illustrated style of magazine was dramatically increasing its popularity, right up until world war two. Within world war two, the production stopped, instead the printing presses were used to print German propaganda. LIFE magazine was quickly taking over in the world of photojournalism, having started before the war in 1936 and then continuing onwards after the war. The term ‘photo essay’ was coined by Henry Luce the owner of LIFE magazine, Kurt Korff an editor within the magazine was the one to introduce and trail a new magazine concept. The photo essay was born, leaving behind the previous formalism photography style for one that focused on raw emotions and reality, telling a story through powerful photos. This led to the founder realising people wanted a true sight with many photos rather than a well written article, they wanted something they could glance at and understand. In 1936, pre world war two is when Luce, the founder of LIFE, started to implement this within the magazine. The first copy, using this photo essay style, featured the Columbia river dam, a political, controversial, attention grabbing image. Commenting on America and its historical progress to be building this dam while encouraging people to pick up the magazine. And, inside the same issue of LIFE a photo of a new born baby, mere seconds after birth. This was something that wasn’t an average photo to be in a magazine let alone without an article, although this image did have a caption. The caption however, doesn’t describe the photo or the reason for it nor does the image illustrate what is being said in the text, these are revolutionary steps within the photo essay production. LIFE became the known source for unique, entertaining journalism, developing the photo essay as they went, until W Eugene Smith produced his own take on the photo essay within LIFE and this became the format we know today. It is worth noting, while W Eugene Smith is considered to be the pioneer of the modern photo essay, his style was heavily influenced by the original creators and his publisher, at the time, take on photo journalism. 

W Eugene Smith, was the driving force of the modern photo essay, his country doctor essay becoming the known standard and style for photo essays within photojournalism. Showcased within his work is sheer depth, looking into every element of life, forcing the viewers to acknowledge all the good but more over the less documented raw reality of some of the subjects, from war and all its atrocities to the bleak reality of a country town doctor pushed to his limits. Unlike previous photo essay structures Smith left no rock unturned taking photo journalism to a new level, showcasing a new photo essay style in which he pushed to the limits to get a true account, unlike previous styles that simply took some good formalist style photos and left it at that, providing biased, unrealistic images. Smith, focused the country doctor essay around a single rural country doctor, following him and creating the narrative we know to be the ‘Country Doctor’ photo essay. By shooting for days beforehand without film, understanding what he wanted the aesthetic of the shoot to be, how he felt he could best represent the never ending, gruesome job of the country doctor. Smith was a realist and dedicated his life to the craft of allowing others to see the true reality, within the country doctor photo essay there are photos of life, death and everything in between. This is reminiscent of Smith’s earlier work, becoming the first photographer to produce a photo of a man dying, forcing the world to see the war in its all. Add photo This shot wasn’t taken with the formal elements in mind, completely contrasting the previous ideas on how to shoot for a magazine, Smith crossed lines many daren’t to go near. Looking at this shot, the situations Smith put himself in for the photo he felt the world needed to see was unlike many others. It would be simply immoral to judge this photo on anything other than the story it’s telling and how it is telling it. Smith didn’t work in photos that had good technical elements; he wanted people to feel and experience a snapshot of the scene in a quick glance, expanding peoples worlds with a series of images. Within my own work I have composed shots, which does contrast Smith’s style, however I have considered what I wanted to show, how I can add text (captions) in the style of LIFE editorial style. Having noticed Smith uses largely human emotion of the subject within shots to convey his message, I have constructed photoshoots in which I can connect and capture the emotion between the car/bike and owner. Smith always shoots in an ‘environmental portrait’ style due to the task of photojournalism. I have kept the same theme, allowing the background to speak for me in my images. In particular I like the comparison of this image and ‘country doctor drinking coffee after a long surgery?’  They are wildly different images of Smith’s being associated with the pinnacle of life and death and mine being focused around a sentimental car. I like the similarity of lack of camera acknowledgement and emotion portrayed within both shots. Even the dog within my photo adds not only another element to the photo but provides another emotional element, the shape of the dog looking down suggesting the interest and confusion as to how the car is dearly loved but in the current condition its in. Similar to Smith’s photo in which the Doctor appears exhausted and overwhelmed, having completed a job in which not only is he essential but he must have had some love for to commit to.

In contrast to W Eugene Smith’s photo essay development, within LIFE magazine, LOOK magazine attempted to make a similar photo essay. However they took a different approach, LIFE used a more formalistic style, creating high quality, technical photos. This contrasted Smith’s style of the many, small insight photo styles. LOOK was often considered to use a picture story style rather than a photo essay as such, while they seem similar the photo essay is less focused on technical elements instead looking at emotion, reality, whereas picture stories look to tell a tale through good quality photography, using well composed shots. Within Smith’s photo essay development he produced hundreds of photos, he actually aimed to create projects too vast for a gallery. LOOK on the other hand, while is the most comparable in terms of photo essays, how they were used and how they were developed, actually focused more on the single shot. Within my own project I used Smith’s photo essay, creating hundreds of photos, choosing the ones that while not being the best single images, told the story I hoped to show. LOOK used dramatic single shots on the cover of their magazines, normally completely unrelated to the contents inside, completely contrasting Smith’s developed abundance of photos often complimented with large chunks of text, explicitly, his Country Doctor essay was a true display of the contrast and development of the photo essay. LOOK started producing their magazines in 1937 which was over ten years before Smith produced what is considered to be the modern photo essay, however even when this was released LOOK stuck to their picture story style, focusing on single shots. 

Both LOOK and LIFE had a hand in developing the modern photo essay, but it is clear, truly W Eugene Smith was the developer of the modern photo essay format. His work is still known world wide to this day, even more so the historical impact of his work is something still deeply moving and eye opening to the modern viewer. This is largely due to his style but also the photo essay format, allowing the viewers to be transported to a new world, someone else’s life, good or bad. LOOK on the other hand, created world wide known work but it wasn’t revolutionary in style. Smith was the pioneer for the modern photo essay, in the format of large amounts of photos, not taken solely based on the formal elements, often complimented with text, but not describing the photos but trying to put the emotion and impact into words, further developing often already intense photos, forcing the point home. My style was similar to Smith’s to begin with creating photos ‘I could feel’ photos that others might not understand to begin with but hopefully once a collection of them are placed in front of them they can feel the impact and intention behind them. I love how Smith approached adding text into his work, further developing his photos rather than deconstructing them, making them devoid of meaning to a degree. Having said this, I have some photos I will add captions to explain the significance of the shot, as a few of my shoots are inanimate objects so need the explanation, alongside human elements in the others and following Smith’s idea of many good photos to tell a narrative rather than one which can be misleading and not allow people to truly understand.

Bibliography

Landwer-Johan, K. W. Eugene Smith – Master of the Photo Essay. [online] https://www.kevinlj.com/w-eugene-smith-master-of-the-photo-essay/ [accessed 7th Jan 2025]  

Kaninsky, M. Eugene Smith -Country Doctor A Photo Essay By W. Eugene Smith [online] Country Doctor a Photo Essay by W. Eugene Smith [accessed 9th Jan 2025] 

Khan, N W. Eugene Smith: HOW MINAMATA REDEFINED PHOTOJOURNALISM WITH A MORAL PURPOSE. [online] W. Eugene Smith: How Minamata Redefined Photojournalism with a Moral Purpose  [08/16/2024] 

Graf, C. The birth of the photo essay: The first issues of LIFE and LOOK [online] [accessed 28th Jan 2025] The birth of the photo essay: The first issues of LIFE and LOOK 
Sutherland, P. The Photo Essay [online] [accessed 29th Jan 2025] 1 The Photo Essay Patrick Sutherland University of the Arts London Email

The photo book I chose to observe, research and take inspiration from primarily is The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy, by Nan Goldin.

Exhibition. Jun 11, 2016-Apr 16, 2017.

Details

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 144
Publication date: 2012-10-31
Measurements: 10.28 x 9.37 x 0.73 inches
ISBN: 9781597112086

The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy by Nan Goldin was first produced in 1986, and is a photo book that holds over 700 images of the artist herself along with loved ones. Within the book, Goldin uses it as a diary to document the difficulties of intimacy, love and identity.

Nan Goldin was born in 1953 in Washington D.C. and was deeply affected by the suicide of her older sister, Barbara, at a young age. This early trauma shaped her artistic vision, as she later used photography to document moments of intimacy and connections between people. Goldin studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she was introduced to photography and began capturing the lives of her friends, many of whom were part of the LGBTQ+ community, sex workers and drug abusers.

Goldin’s aesthetic is characterized by rich, warm colours, often enhanced by artificial lighting with a snapshot-like quality that gives her work an immediate unfiltered feel. The use of the flash in her photos creates a sense of realism, as it suggests that the photographer is interfering in a private moment. Overall, Nan Goldin’s work challenges societal norm by focusing on people and experiences often excluded from mainstream narratives.

The images in the photo book surround the theme of relationships, self-destruction and sub-cultural life. These themes influenced my focus on youth and femininity as Goldin shone light on similar narratives to what I am aiming to show, through capturing moments of vulnerability and reality without romanticisation. This immediately inspired me as the aim of my personal project is to show the reality of growing up as a young female, who has to follow specific expectations in order to be seen. I want to take a similar approach to Goldin by portraying an unfiltered and raw view on my key themes and apply them to my experiences.

Many of Goldin’s images address the domestic violence she has faced, showing and sharing her experience with millions of other women who have faced the same thing, especially since her images were taken between 1979 and 1986. This was a time where women were devalued and dehumanised, due to the firm gender inequalities in society at the time. Therefore, her photo book tells a story which portrays conflict and increases awareness of the issues happening at the time.

“In part a love poem to the bohemian life style of young people in New York City, it is also a melancholy meditation on the joys and terrors of romantic relationships, both straight and gay.” –The New York Times

This quote from The New York Times tells me that Goldin’s work is very inclusive when portraying love, through the end of the quote: “both straight and gay“. In the 1980s, LGBTQ relationships were not common and often removed from the mainstream culture, meaning that people of this culture would often keep quiet about their sexuality to conform to the societal norms. However, Goldin provided a realistic view on queer relationships. This is significant to me because through my photo book I am including aspects of female friendships and the importance of intimacy in them to develop healthy and comfortable bonds. “Joys and terrors” is a juxtaposing element in this quote that tells me Goldin incorporates both beauty and brutality in her work, showing she does not romanticise relationships as she focuses on the theme of love, yet also violence.

Image comparison between Justine Kurland and Nan Goldin:

Justine Kurland and Nan Goldin both explore themes of identity and challenge traditional stereotypes of females. The aesthetic of Goldin’s image in particular has a more spontaneous effect due to the chaotic scene and a less staged approach. This contrasts to Kurland’s image because we can clearly tell its staged due to the subject in the background observing the 3 subjects in the foreground. Another main difference between the two images is the lighting and colour. Kurland uses natural daylight, and reimagines her photographs in a mythical way as they are carefully composed and cinematic, whereas Nan Goldin’s image is capturing a moment as it is happening.

For this photoshoot, I walked around the finance and office area on the waterfront. I aimed to capture images similar to my artist reference, Alex Upton. I also attempted to get images of old and new buildings together so that I can have them in the middle of my photobook to link the two styles.

This was my route:

Photo Selection

Contact Sheet

Image Selection

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Here I tried takings some pictures of a D1 Jersey game using a long focal length (100mm), as well as switching to a shorter focal length to get a wide variety of different shots. For the first half of the game I used aperture priority with an F-stop of 2.8 to 5.6. However, I didn’t turn the ISO up enough, as well as decreasing the overall exposure causing a lot of the images to be blurry since its a fast paced game with lots of movement. So after half time I increased the ISO to 1600 and decreased the exposure to -1, giving me a shutter speed of around 1/1000, allowing me to capture better images in the game. Also at half time, I looked at some Neil Leafer images for inspiration and realised he often had a shorter focal length to capture more action instead of a single player. He also seems to wait for something interesting to happen before he would take the photo.

I changed the camera angle a lot, getting some shots from higher up and lower down. Shots coming from a lower angle are more traditional for sports photography in basketball since the photographers are usually sitting on the floor around court side to take the photos. I thinks shots from lower down created a much more dynamic image and add drama, since the legs of the athletes become the main focus, and it distorts the player in a way to make them look powerful and big and creates a perspective of grandeur. I often kept the rule of thirds in my mind to make sure the composition was on point, but sometimes I tried out different compositions to and more variety in this photoshoot. It seemed that taking photos when the players where running towards the camera leads to much better photos as the subjects faces are in frame, allowing viewers to make more of there own judgement on the image based on the players faces. It also adds more emotion when the players face is in frame.

This was below was taken in the 2nd quarter just as tommy (the one in the dark navy) was going up for a layup. Unfortunate, since the photos where shot with a compressed file, it was hard to edit without the image becoming grainy. However, I still managed to add a vignette and rotated the image to make the subjects level and to make the image even more dynamic. I also added a layer mask to the subjects in the centre to draw the eyes towards it. Number 4 looks likes he’s being picked up by number 2, which makes this image more interesting a more amusing.

Below are some more photos edited in the same way:

Below I tried a montage of 3 photos of a free throw. This was the second free throw so other players started running in to get the rebound. I used the wider angle lens to capture more action in the shot. I created three images to show the create a montage of players running towards the centre. Below you can see how I edited the image.

I like this image as the subject with the ball is in the centre, with other subjects evenly spread out around the image, giving it good composition.

For this image below I changed the angle to match the alignment of the face of the person holding the ball. It also makes the image look more dynamic which is what I want for a sporting image.

Below I montaged 3 images together that have a similar pattern (looking away from camera and focused on one player).

This image below was taken during a free throw shot that would tie the two teams. This obviously isn’t good for the team other team which is no longer ahead who this player was on. You can see the hope in his face that the free throw does not go in.

Things I would change next time

Since this is my first time doing sports photography, I made few mistakes, firstly when using the long focal length It was difficult for me to take photos of the action since it was so zoomed it, meaning I should of taken more photos from the other side of the court. Another issue was that a lot of my photos are fairly uninteresting, so I might try going closer to the court next time with a wide angle lens to capture action close up (which is how Neil leafer did it). Finally I think I could decrease the exposure even more and shoot with raw files allowing me to increase the shutter speed making the photos less blurry. I can increase the exposure in post production.

All these photos will indefinitely be edited the same. I want to make shadows a very prominent feature of the photos as well as keeping natural highlights one of the main focuses. I want to look at the vibrancy and saturation of each photo, focusing on levelling out colour and adapting each vibrancy to each individual photo.

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Virtual gallery –

After a lot of development, I want to re-edit this photoshoot to black and white. This will make it fit my project and my other edits a lot more.

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Narrative

The narrative behind my book is about where my grandad loved to visit when he came on holiday here and where he had the most memories. I have taken photos at these specific locations to build up the narrative of his life when he was visiting Jersey.

Story

The story behind the images is about my grandads life and then I have taken restaged images with my dad in them to recreate the special photos that were the most important to him. I wanted the photobook to represent the particular landscapes he liked but also to have some recreated images that he was in, also in the book to show that the places he loved the most are still loved today. I want the images I have chosen to show that he was a special person to me, and that the photos show the importance he had in my life. For my photobook I want to put the photos in a specific order to show those favourite places and then towards the end of the photobook I’m going to put landscape images in that have a lot of sunbeams and sunlight in them to show he is looking down on everyone from heaven.

1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

The story is communicating the life of an old man and his love for flowers and his wife who he lost it also shows what life was like for him being in a home by himself without his wife. The first page of images shows a photo album where the only pictures are of his wife and flowers showing his two most precious things in life. The first image was of his wife and the images were in a photo album, suggesting that they were very precious images to him.

2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)

The photographers I’m using are Mark Power and Ansel Adams. Mark Power made these images to document the special places that people had strong memories with, these memories could be happy joyful memories or sad and quite solemn memories. For example he took photos of hospital waiting rooms that could be a memory that was sad but important to that particular person. he also took images of landscapes and buildings many of his landscape images are of houses that are abandoned or derelict or places that have been knocked down and are no longer there, suggesting that they could be images of places that used to be special or where that particular person may of grown up in. Power won Terence Donovan Award and an Honorary Fellowship. Ansel Adams took images of nature and landscapes showing the beauty in the nature world. His work shows romanticism and how he made his images showcase that. Ansel Adams did this because as a child he loved nature and took lots of photos at Yosemite National Park where he first discovered his love for nature. His work is for anyone that appreciates the wonders and the beauty of the natural world. Adams won the Hasselblad Award in 1981 and then won the Sierra Club John Muir Award in 1963.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

How does the book feel/smell ?

The book smells like its very old and worn and it feels precious and special like your holding someone’s life.

Paper and Ink – use of different patterns/texture/colours or black and white for all images.

I want to do coloured images but then have some in black and white to emphasise the solemn feelings about the story. There will be no textures in he book or on any of the photographs.

Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3/ number of pages.

The photographs will be both portrait and landscape as there are a lot of photos with the surrounding environment there will be filtered through the portrait images of my dad.

Binding, soft/hard cover, image wrap/dust jacket, saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ Laperello

The cover will be a hard cover and the stitching will be a saddle stitch. I might put a dust jacket over the hard cover to protect it.

Cover: linen/card, graphic/printed image, embossed/debossed, letterpress/silkscreen or hot-stamping.

The cover will be a card cover and then will have a printed image on the front with debossed writing that I’m then going to make gold so it stands out against the dark colours of the image that’s going to be printed on the front cover.

Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing

The title will be literal and will be relevant but I want to make it as intriguing as I can to make it sound interesting and worth looking at.

Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?

The story will unfold from the first images, there will be photographs of my grandad in the front pages and then there will be the landscape images and the restaged images throughout the rest of the book.

Structure and architecture: how is it designed/ repeating motifs/ or do specific features develop a concept or construct a narrative.

There will be specific features that construct the narrative and add to the story to help develop what the book will be about.

Design and layout: image size on pages/single page, double-spread/ images/grid, fold-outs/inserts.

The portrait images I want to put on one page but some of the landscape images I want to put on a double page so they are bigger. For the first page I might do a grid of images of my grandad and then the rest of the photos in the book will be one landscape or portrait image on individual pages.

Editing and sequencing: selection of images/juxtaposition of photographs/editing process.

The images will not show juxtaposition but they will contrast against the landscape and portrait images.

Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/essay/statement by artists or others. Use of captions if there are any.

The images and text will be linked together and I will put statements from the artists in the book to help understand the meaning behind the images.

My best images

To conclude, I think this photoshoot is my favourite from the five photoshoots I have executed for my personal study project. This is because I took a unique approach compared to my other shoots, as it has a different location and I am portraying a different aesthetic to the others. This photoshoot took inspiration from Ramona Wang, as I have exploited my subject the same way she has, through the use of doing typical female activities to represent the stereotypes. I am wearing a vintage fur jacket over a red dress, which highlights the significance of women existing only to look pretty. On the other hand, a disadvantage of this shoot is that all of my best outcomes look the same or very similar, so I decided to put some in black and white i order to allow them to stand out, and also so that the viewer can pick up the minor differences between each image.

What I think went well:

• Subject expression – the facial expressions of the subject are successful as they represent the photographic gaze
• The props – the clothing helps add to the dramatic effect and symbolise women being objectified
• Portraying typical female activities – links to my themes of femininity and youth due to me getting ready for a night out, and these themes are associated with young women

What I think I could improve:

• Range of camera positions – my camera position is the same in most of the images, limiting the uniqueness in each one.

William Eggleston`s Guide, at the time of when this book was published (1976) colour photography was mainly linked with advertisements or just random images instead of professional, serious artwork. William Eggleston`s work was heavily important in showing how colour could highlight or improve storytelling in documentary style photography. This photobook was produced apace with his solo exhibition at the Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. John Swarovski, the director of photography at the Museum Of Modern Art, was a key role in making William Eggleston`s Guide catch the public`s eyes. Swarovski helped Eggleston not only by choosing his excellent solo exhibition in 1976 but also helped by writing an introductory essay to the photobook. In this essay, Swarovski states that Eggleston`s work is “perfect” and he also says that Eggleston`s work is “related in iconography and technique to the contemporary standard of vernacular camera work,” highlighting Eggleston`s focus on ordinary subjects.

The photographer is William Eggleston and he created this timeless photobook to capture the ordinary suburban lifestyle of North America at the time period. Nowadays this would be seen as unique and foreign to us due to the contrasting aspects of the decades. He made this collection of photos to present and he stated they were repeatedly inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s pioneering candid, street photography. His intention behind this photo book was to convey his images to the public for the first time. The William Eggleston`s Guide was displayed at the Museum Of Modern Art in 1976.

Holding William Eggleston`s Guide brings out a sense of importance and curiosity. The cover of the photobook is elegant, well made and still lightweight, making the book easy and comfortable to handle and it makes the viewer interested to view its contents. However the image on the front cover does not portray what is on the inside of the photobook, I think that that the image is quite boring and basic, I also do not like the angle that he has taken the image in, however this might be a statement from Eggleston showing that he is proud of every capture of his. The paper on the interior is smooth with a slightly textured surface adding a physical quality which compliments Eggleston`s images. On the cover of the book, the title is written in gold adding to the rich aesthetic the book has inside and out. The book first interior pages consist of the essay written by John Swarovski which is placed on 8 pieces of green thick paper, with the rest of the pages being glossy white. The images on the white pages are vibrant and the ink used is highly saturated highlighting his incredible use of colour, the colour in his images come to life in the photobook as the printing is done with clarity and detail. The whole photobook is in colour and there is no images in monochrome, this was a key part of the book as colour photography had not been widely known or accepted in the creative space. Eggleton’s photobook is in portrait and is quite big in size, allowing the images to be larger and overall making the photobook more intriguing, the book being relatively large allows readers / viewers to look at the images with a lot of attention to detail as the images are bigger too. This book is quite small in comparison to other photobooks, William Eggleston`s Guide has 112 pages to be exact. The smaller amount of photos entices the viewer to engage more with each image and actually take in each image one by one, revealing Eggleston`s thought behind his image selection. Eggleston made this a hardcover book and had the cover image printed straight onto the hardcover instead of putting a dust jacket on the book and the binding of the book is regular and traditional keeping the focus on the images themselves rather than the book itself. The title of the book: William Eggleston`s Guide is extremely literal, instantly identifying the photographer and classifying the book as a “guide” to his unique way of seeing the world. The title of the photobook fits in with the overall minimal design seen throughout the whole book. The book as a whole captures the everyday life in the south side of America including Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Kentucky. Aside from the introductory essay, the photobook only has small, sly captions which is found at the bottom of each page, this feature of having small captions at the bottom of the page is very minimal, and is done on purpose to keep the attention and focus on the images rather than taking the viewers attention off of the images and onto the writing. The images selected are rather random however they are all showing the same story of the ordinary daily life in south side of America, focusing on the overlooked, dull subjects.

Contact Sheet

Edit One

This photo needed the exposure reducing so the car was true to colour. Although this shoot was done in day light I wanted the editing style to be similar to my first photoshoot with the ford escort, my mothers car. Which was done in the dark so I am editing with a style choice of slightly noisy, lower exposed adjustments.

Edit Two

I liked this photo, the angle of the car is appealing, cropping the front of it out and focusing on the seat and number. I lowered the exposure, while increasing the contrast to give the deeper colour on the car.

Edit Three

Unlike the previous shots, this one was more abstract, hiding the majority of the car and looking at details that show the cars original owners influence. I lowered the exposure to maintain the editing style, darkening the wheel and bonnet. This made for a better photo, removing some of the glare from the original photo.

Edit Five

This photo is similar to the previous in terms of what is in the shot, however I preferred this angle. After editing both I can make a comparison on which is the more fitting photo. I like the previous photos colours and lighting, but the composition of this photo is much stronger.

Edit Six

Niche to this style of car is the pedals, often forcing the driver to wear racing shoes due to how close the pedals are. This was an important element of the car for me to show, having been told this fact by my father as this car has previously been his. The colour was good in the original shot, but I found the shot looked busy so chose to use black and white with increased clarity to remove the busyness without removing the tarnish on the pedals.

Edit Seven

A simple detail can add huge amounts of context to a photoshoot, this is the badge of the car. Another important element within my connection to this car through my father and how he spoke of it when I was growing up. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found key points like this have helped me negotiate the motorsport world.

Edit Eight

Having seen photos of the car when my father owned it, the car was red. Now the car is gun metal grey, there is some remaining red elements, the leather panel is still red and where the exhaust comes out of the car you can see the remaining red paint. I want to place this image next to an archived image to show the comparison. I needed to reduce the brightness of the gravel alone as it took the focus off he red paint so I used the brush tool having already edited the rest of the image.

Edit Nine

Most of the photos are close crops of the car, showing snippets of parts individual to the car, ones someone who doesn’t know much about the car might not pick up on. I liked this as it shows the roll bar and the drivers seat, linking back to the drivers connection to the car.

Edit Ten

While this photo isn’t significant to the connection, I do like the photo as a whole, introducing us to the car. From the central point of the seatbelt text, showing the viewer it is used to race in, to the leathers texture contrasting well with smooth metal sheets.

Final Photos

These photos were interesting to take as I had to go in with a plan to get similar shots that worked well together. I aimed to edit them in a similar style to the original photoshoot with the ford escort. Using small crops and high contrast images, I created a set of unique, story telling photos. I will be able to pair these with the achieve photos, which were the original inspiration for the photos. The archive photos didn’t have the person in them so I didn’t have a person in these photos. Instead I want to add captions next to the photos, explaining the reason for the photo and adding connection to the photos to the book. By mixing black and white photos with colour, I have referenced the original colour of the car as well as adding dynamic and interesting photos through a mixture of both colour and B&W photos. This shoot is reminiscent of Keith Dotson’s style, I looked at his work of rusty cars in the woods and this is the opposite. However, he used close up shots, small details and unusual angles while keeping eyelevel with the car so I took this approach to create these photos. The overall photos work well together and tell a story about the car, having captured the small details it allows me to make a comparison between the archive photos (when I put them into the book) and how the car is now.