About This Collection
Around and About
These images were all taken on-the-hoof; just around and about as I happened to have a camera with me. I say 'happened to have', but of course it was a deliberate act, to always carry a camera. Which I did, everyday for years. Sometimes you don't make a photo, it does in fact just come to you. Actually that's misleading. It isn't so ordained as all that - rather if you make a habit of carrying a camera you will find that you are inviting photographic opportunities.
I think they are good images, but they languish somewhat as they don't cohere into any greater story - other than story of my time on lunch or immedieately after work; which is how and when I took them.
About The Images
Lasting Sex
The not-so-subtle hoarding and red builder's fence prescribe an obvious 'theatre' for a photograph. Not only do I follow the 'see red, shoot red' rule but there is a chromic-balance offered by the two wide bands of red in the image (the fence and the text of the hoarding).
All I then had to do was to wait for the right actors. And I must be doing something right to have been offered this sweet, yet venerable, couple.
I think the story writes itself.
Oxford Street Twilight
This was quite possibly my most popular image when I posted it to facebook. The decision to take it was made in a fraction of a second. And good job too, because that bus you can see behind the taxi was travelling much faster than I had anticipated. Certainly I wasn't able to check the histogram on my camera's LCD screen, as is my custom.
Photography can sometimes dangerously seperate you from your immediate surroundings; but not in a concrete sense, like a bus can.
Time Precinct
I used a long lens (105mm) in order to compress the space between the clocks, so they would stand together as sentinels.
The people are actually moving quite fast, so with a slow shutter speed they create a stream around the sentinels. Yet there is sufficient detail to discern a face here, a foot over there. I think I did a number of trials; some streams of folk are more pleasing than others it seems. Even in Canary Wharf.
The exposure time here was just shy of a second, so I was using a tripod. Which drew the attention of the local security personnel. Apparently using a tripod makes it more likely that I am undertaking industrial espionage, or worse still, planning a terrorist attack. But I know my rights, and I knew that in Canary Wharf I had no rights. So I was utterly pleasant and engaging. I showed them the pictures and went into a deep explanation about trying to use photography to warp time.
I was about done anyway so after that we parted on good terms, and I had my shot in the can.
The BBC
I moved to London after a couple of years of shuffling back and forth every fortnight on the 500 mile round trip to spend weekends with my (now) wife Christine; who would shuffle herself back and forth by train or coach, on the alternate weekends. I think my wife had the rougher end of the deal not only because she had to spend weekdays alone in London (which isn't always the most caring of environments) but also because she had to rely on public transport whereas I was zipping along in my 2.0L VW Polo.
Putting a 2.0L engine into a little car like a Polo is a ridiculous idea. A ridiculous idea that becomes an utterly insane idea if the intent is then to hand the keys over to a reckless and irresponsible driver such as I was back then in my youth; goddammit but I loved that car.
We were neither of us really troubled by all the weekend travelling, it was just how things were. Given the circumstances, it was what we wanted to do. I think it demonstrated the key to our relationship; we've never really worried about 'what does it mean for the future?'; rather we worry about 'are we happy today?'. If we can be happy day by day, then we'll handle whatever the future throws at us on the day it hoys it in our direction. So there were no big conversations about what it would mean if Chris took a job down sarf; it was the right job for her, so she took and we just handled what that meant. For 2 full years.
Until I landed a job at the BBC.
It was a good job. I was suprised how much I enjoyed it, given that the BBC is such a bastion of the state. For a long time, I did good work; winning a BAFTA for The History of the World in 100 objects (by democratising the proposition and proving that crowd-sourcing could mean so much more than harvesting photographs of snowmen for the so-called-news department).
I was based in old Broadcasting House on Regent's Street. Every lunchtime I would go awandering taking candid street shots. They gave me an unexpected 'productivity' bonus that I spent on a 1938 Leica IIIb film camera, a beautiful but cantankerous little thing; everyday I had a camera with me and everyday I took photographs.
Of course it all went tits-up. They moved me out to White City and Broadcast Centre where all the upper-echelon lunatics hung out and did their damnedest to bleed the meaning out of the work. Things became quite acriminous and I was basically at war with idiots for the last three years (although, I shall never forget the sweetest moment when my 'boss' broke down in tears after I opened his eyes to the fact that he was a workplace bully).
But the BBC brought me some real opportunities: working with the British Museum on our BAFTA winning project; Winning the staff photography competition; visiting TVC for a photoshoot before they sold it off... and basically just funding my creative and hedonistic lifestyle for over a decade. I would say thanks, but they were also tw@ts, so I won't.
About The Images
Colour Select
I suppose I shall have to remember to add a keyword for the variant spelling 'color'.
Here's an example where concrete narrative matters less. My driver here was to simply make the most of the building's undulation. I think the image still has narrative, but one that is not so bound to the creator of the image than is oft times the case. BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME. Make your own story...
I used my widest of lenses at an effective 25mm - which has a warping effect anyway; perfect for undulations. Then in post I turned the whole shot black and white, taking a colour selection from the original as an overlay. The selection had to be quite precise, or is that imprecise? There's a lot of diffusion caused by all of the glass so a sharp-edged selection would show up in an extremely ugly fashion. Fortunately the vivid blues in this case are well seperated from other colours in the image. It is typically extremely difficult to colour select such a diffuse source.
It also helps to change the blending mode of the colour selected layer with the new black & white layer from the default (or 'normal' as photoshop calls it) to 'colour blend'.
Here's what the colour selected layer looks like:
It's all Geometry
A lot of my work relies on precision of geometry. Upright verticals and round circles. Looking for that specific line of sight that makes all of the inherent shapes 'cohere'.
You can do a lot in post-processing to fix any tilt or pitch you may have introduced to the attitude of the camera; but once the 3D world has been projected onto your 2D sensor, there is no true recovery for errors of yaw (z-axis) alignment.
Perhaps the only thing we can't digitally rewrite in post is the picture composition. It might seem as though we can modify the composition post-capture with perspective adjustments and crops; but the truth is, it is extremely rare to be able to do so wholly satisfactorilly. Composition must be right in camera, at the point that the 3D to 2D projection is accomplished.
Here I have used a colour cut-out on top of a black & white base layer to isolate and emphasise the extreme perspective of the close-range wide-angle shot. I think its a treatment that suits the TARDIS, as if and as though it were setting off on a journey and we, the viewer, are being carried along. Look! There's that narrative I insist photographs must have. Sometimes. Mostly.
NB I've never found a consistent set of terms to describe a tilt of the camera in each of the 3 spatial planes. Photographers are used to the terms Tilt and Pan, but that only covers 2 of the 3 cases. Also 'panning' means something quite specific (especially in action shots) and so can be confusing when talking about the attitude of the camera to the subject.
So in this context I use
'Tilt' to mean the lens is off-the-vertical (pointing up or down)
'Pitch' to describe a rotation of the camera between landscape and portrait orientation
'Yaw' to describe a swivel offset, where one side of the camera is nearer the subject than the other.
Photographic Merit
I shot this from a distance of about 75 feet away, which was mostly up. This statue of Helios sits atop a tall column at the heart of the Television Centre 'doughnut', and as such really isn't seen by that many people in the greater scheme of things.
One purpose photography has is to show the unseeable, and I felt this subject was worthy because of the rarity of sighting.
It is deeply flawed. You can see strong noise in the shadow areas. It was particularly dim when I took the shot and with a subject so far away there was no opportunity to add any artificial light. The processing in the sky is also rather poor, I ought to go back and re-work the raw file really, but I guess I feel the image is never going to be of any technical merit, so I let it stand. Choose your battles.
Street Candids
As a principle of law you can stand in the street and take photographs. Obviously its way more complex, and subtle, than just that.
One (of the many) things you have to consider is your right (be that legal or moral) to photograph other people. In fact documentarians and street photographers may go so far as to consider it their duty to photograph people.
But what do the photographed have to say about this irrespective of your rights or duties?
In the UK we're pretty lucky as most people are generally fine with being photographed; but really I suspect that's because they never expect to see the results. If they were to believe they may wake up one morning plastered across billboards, they may not be so accommodating.
In a public space photograph who or what you like (current terrorism legislature allowing). But if you feature people as obvious subjects in a way whereby they could be recognised you need to be careful with how, and where, and if you publish the image.
And these days, you should know to speak to the parents before shooting kids.
I don't feel anyone in this shot would have thought to complain if they found it here one day, so I have published without any permissions, in this instance.
When it comes to candid shots of people, I think it's a case of 'use not abuse'.
[pre]visualization
I wrote about taking photographs on the wonk in my article Working with Dutch Angles.
Turns out (from the exif data) I shot this at half past eight in the evening - it should come as no suprise that I had been for a cigarette given that this data means I must have been still at work at that ungodly hour. It had been on my mind for sometime to capture the stairwell, and at that time of night there was very little chance anybody would trudge by just as I was arranging the shot. I don't see how having a person in view could possibly have worked.
Since this is the BBC, I naturally wanted an anonymous state machine feel to the image.
Is this what Ansel Adams meant when he talked about previsualisation? He seemed to make the whole concept rather complex for my mind. Sometimes, particularly with still subjects, its good to construct a narrative; whether or not that's the story you end up telling.
the term [pre]visualization refers to the entire emotional-mental process of creating a photograph
Ansel Adams
It shouldn't be hard.
Hackney Wick
My friend and Stentorian Knight, Kevin Headley (RIP), would rope me into all kinds of off-beat performance events; most often down in Hackney Wick.
For a time Kevin was homeless, so faced significant challenges, yet focussed energy on making performance opportunities for others. I would make a point of tuning into his internet radio shows (were they called Baby Bear?) just to know he was streaming to someone at least. That's the kind of thought he would inspire. He was a man who made you feel as though you wanted to help make his ventures succeed.
He was a nice guy. Of course sometimes the ventures didn't succeed, but that was really all part of the fun. I remember warring with mean hippies after spending 8 hours sat on an empty pallet waiting for the event to happen. I ended up going home 4 hours later having still not participated. Utterly exaserbating! But it didn't stop me wanting to help his further ventures succeed, because he was a nice guy.
Plus, he gifted me the opportunity to take the photographs in this album; So that album is for you Kevin.
About The Images
Fence: Point-of-view
I took this from a low vantage point so as to suggest we are looking over-the-top of the trench at the razor wire of an insane battlefield in an eternal war.
That eternal nature springs from the absolute abscence of anything suggestive of time or place; other than battlefield.
Photography is often about what isn't there, which is why super simple compositions can carry such power.
Thames
For time in the very centre of London Chris and I would often choose to take a bottle of wine on the southbank. Sometimes this would mean buying a couple of glasses at the BFI (so we could avail ourselves of their patio seating) which we would then keep topped up from a bottle of supermarket Pinot, on account of their fancy London prices. And anyway, the patio seating was always overcrowded and somewhat uncomfortable.
Other times might see us camped outside of the Festival Hall, a good spot for people watching as the streams they make come to a confluence around the steps from the Golden Jubilee Bridges.
We would often stop to watch the bad skaters - kids come from miles around to mis-execute their finest skateboard tricks; I don't think I ever once saw any of them perfectly execute a stunt. They are bad skaters.
About The Images
Cycle: Blurring Action
I think this image is right at the limit of what is effective in terms of using blur in an action shot. The essential features (a person and a bike) are still readilly discernable, whilst the overall blur is quite extreme.
It was a long lens (105mm) which is more susceptible to shake than wider lenses and the image was shot handheld at around 1/10th of a second, so quite slow. The aperture was at f/4, which gives very little depth of field; especially with a long lens.
See Red...
...then shoot it.
Never hesitate to photograph anything red; it will give you a pleasing image.
That's just how it is.
The red backdrop building looks something akin to a fortification against which the statue is railing. Somewhat oblivious the man weilds his phone as the statue does its sword; the handle of his suitcase kicking back like a scabbard, in concert with the kick back of the statue's cloak - so that the two are in perfect harmony.
This precision in the balancing of the elements is most certainly good fortune. You take care of what you can and leave the rest to fate. BUT one must be prepared for good fortune lest it be wasted.
Typically on the street I will select and arrange a 'theatre' - some clear section of the scene through which I can watch people pass. It is then a matter of looking up and down the way to see who, or what is coming; so that the shot can be anticipated and timed.
Vehicles
One of my greatest pleasures lies in the knowledge that my wife is both a geek and a petrol head. I am also just a little bit soft for a gleaming classic car.
When I was, maybe 16, I would get some 'driving lessons' from my dad in his car of the time - a deep blood red Rover 90. If you don't know the Rover 90 take a look at the images, it really is quite a beautiful machine. To look at. It drove like a tank. And the front bench seat meant the gear lever was somewhat odd to operate. But I never actually crashed into anything and I think driving something more modern when I took my test really seemed like a breeze after such an introduction. I was 21 or 22 before I actually took my driving test.
About The Images
Warrior
For some reason I was on something called a 'shoot experience' day. I don't remember a lot about it, I think it was like a field workshop with a list of 'tasks' to be accomplished; but I quite fortuitously stumbled upon this scene. The courtyard is clearly reminiscent of a jousting arena, complete with the lord's stripey tent to watch proceedings, and the two cars look ready to rumble. The stupid name (warrior) of the foreground car resonates with this narrative.
It is an unusual composition as the main, central, area is essentially empty of any physical object but is stuffed full of anticipation. One can almost construct the film-real in the mind's eye of these two challengers setting off at a gallop...
This photograph is about anticipation. It is not always necessary to capture the 'decisive' moment, if the energies in the scene are enough to foreshadow it. It is always important to understand the timing of the image, why it was taken at that moment; be the moment decisive, insisive or some other compelling point in time.