Eugenio Franchi

Eugenio Franchi can be summed up as being a still life advertising photographer who until recently used film cameras mostly shooting on 10x8 transparency's, and even though this is not the area of photography I am most interested in and see myself getting a career in,  I found his talk to be of great interest. I liked his passion for doing as much work inside the camera and not on photoshop and he kept stressing that photographers shouldn't rely on photoshop to make their pictures better. He was revealing some of his story's about how he produced some really well thought out pictures without digitally manipulation.   

His talk took us through his progression as a photographer starting of with his education and then joining a cruise ship and taking photographs of the passengers on board to becoming an assistant firstly for Adam Toher, Nadav Kander and then for Graham Ford. 

Eugenio mentioned how then he started to enter competitions which and started winning some (Absolute Vodka and the AOP Assistant awards) and how these act as god media he then went on to talk about how he made this transition from assistant to working for himself and how he did this on the back of winning the awards to help boost him. He suggested making a list of all the contacts that you make whilst as an assistant and taking them your portfolio as they are likely to be a lot more receptive and will grant you a meeting. In his first year as a freelance photographer two people gave him jobs out of one hundred contacts he had taken his work to.  The first jobs he said a photographer will receive once going freelance would be low paid and low risk work and that you must gradually build up until you start receiving higher paid higher risk work. 

Eugene also talked a lot about portfolio's and what should be in them he suggested taking a mix of commissions and personal work. He said it was important to keep taking personal work as this can create commercial work later on whether an art director wants the idea applied to a commission or it could be bought in a stock library. 

Eugenio talked about having a signature image for him it is city skylines made out of objects which he has redone time after time with different objects, he mentions how this is important as art directors will want to use the same photographer who shot the image they have seen before as this eliminates a lot of risk. He has shot this signature image for Waterstones, Channel Five, Galaxy which just goes to show how a signature image can go on to create a lot more work. 

James Nachtwey

Just watched a documentary on War photographer on James Nachtwey, It was really interesting to see James on location in Kosovo, Indonesia and Palestine. He had an onboard camera on his camera recording whilst he was shooting taking us almost through the lens. It was amazing to see how he works and how his subjects accept him being there and how he is free to roam around their lives.

Short clip from the movie.

Week 25 Rankin and 7 Photographs

I watched an interesting program by Rankin on Seven Photographs that changed Fashion, Rankin in this program selected several photographs and reinacted them. The photographs included Cecil Beaton's Pill Box Hat, Richard Avedon's Dovima with Elephant, David Bailey's Jean Shrimpton and an untitled photograph by Guy Bourdin. This program was interesting as firstly Rankin explained why he had choosen each photographer and the impact that they had on the fashion world, but also because he reinacted the shoots the way the original was done, using 5x4 cameras and rolliflex and other techniches cameras from the time. 

The end was interesting to see where modern day fashion photographers get there influences from. I have been looking at a lot more fashion orientated images lately as I am doing an assignment for a 3rd year fashion student so have been doing research, I came away from he program learning a lot of the history but I was also closely looking at the dialogue with models and lighting set ups used.

Clip about Guy Bourdin from program

Week 24 William Eggleston

I watched a short video on William Eggleston who is the photographer who got colour photography accepted as an art form. But the the part that interested me was he was discussing how he was upset that everything around him was ugly, so a friend told him to take photographs of the ugly things. this really interested me as I am sometimes complaining about how there is nothing to take photographs of. 

My placement search has also taken a step up as a friend of mine is good friends with the managing editor of Wonderland Magazine and has put in a good word for me, really hope this goes through as I am so excited about this opportunity to work at an amazing magazine and interested in the contacts that I could potentially meet here. 

The Video of William Eggleston

Week 23 Welcome Back

First week back at University and we have been given our new assignments, I have decided for the Creative Applications and Practice to do the documentary assignment with the title "Is Community Dead?" for this I want to carry on the short documentary I was doing over christmas on the group of squatters in The Red Factory, but as the brief is asking us to show empathy and not be patronising I have decided to firstly swap from Black and White to colour as like Joel Meyerwitz said "To photograph it in black and white would be to keep it as a tragedy". I have also decided to shoot in medium format rather than 35mm as they can be pushed/pulled with better results as my first few visits showed that as there was very little available light my photos were very grainy, and as I have to produce prins at A3 size this might mean that my results become to grainy. 

Our Digital Darkroom project also sounds interesting but I haven't had much time to develop any ideas yet. I have also taken up Mark George's advice,on joining local publications advice and joined the Bournemouth University's Magazine Nerve, to gain both experience and meet contacts as well as gaining some more shoots. 

Week 20 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Went to the Wildlife photographer of the year award exhibition at the museum, the standard of photography is really high and the photographs that interested me the most were the ones shot underwater with flashes. 

so I looked into this whole area of photography, found out that warm colours are absorbed if you dive to as deep as about 50 feet which is why most underwater photography is done either wide angled with the subject in the foreground or macro close up shots, and to eliminate as much water as possible, I would love to do some underwater photography and was always a keen watcher of David Attenborough documentaries whilst I was young, I just don't think I am going to be able to finance this for a while, but it was interesting to learn about this other side of photography.

Below One of the photographs from the exhibition.

Week 19 David Maisel

David Maisel is a photographer I stumbled across whilst reading an interview with Simon Norfolk who rated him of one of his favourite photograpers, I decided to check out his photography work which is mainly of areal shots showing environmentally affected areas, I thought this was interesting as the areal shots give a lot more impact than a landscape photograph would have done because this wouldn't have shown the scale of the damage. 

Also on his website was a small documentary of tin cans that contain peoples remains which have over the years started to react with the tins giving these amazing purple and blue colours. The thing that I want to take from David Maisel is that is important to do your project justice but also for a portfolio point of view it is important to have a mix of different types of photography rather than just one although with your style.