AD4803 Street
6 Practitioner In-Depth Research
Analyzing practitioner's images.
Matt Weber
Matt Weber is a famous street photographer. The reason I like his photographs is his attention to framing which makes his photos look so great. When looking at his photos we can see that he doesn't only focus on the subject but also the background, light, and street furniture so that he can create a good frame for the subject in his photograph.
What I will take away from him moving forward is the use of sub-framing and the placement of the subject in the street to try and improve my street photography.
Fan Ho
Fan Ho has a very interesting approach to his photography. When looking at his work we can see his obsession with lights and shadows. The use of hard shadows and harsh light is almost consistent throughout his photography which makes his photos stand out.
I really like his photos and so when it comes to my street photography I am going to try and focus on light and harsh shadows to enhance the mood of my photographs and make the subjects stand out. To do this I will need to be taking photos in the noon or afternoon when it is very bright and the shadows are really harsh, sadly since we are in the UK it is not going to be as easy to have very harsh sunlight but if I focus on my positioning and the timing I should be able to creat some similar affect in my photos.
Robert Frank
Robert Frank's photographs are very different from the other photographs that are seen daily. His photographs are almost always made with a small flaw. He sometimes has his camera tilted and the lines don't add up, things are in a perspective and not straight on, there is no light in the face and the eyes, and much more; these aspects of his photography are in fact intentional and create an uneasy feeling in his photographs.
The thing I will take away from Robert is that even though it is important to know the rules it is sometimes a good idea to experiment with breaking the rules to try and create an effect that will enhance the image.
Alex Webb
When looking at Alex Webb's photograph we can see that he consistently uses strong and matching colors in his photographs which help with connecting the subjects, creating different moods, and making the photos stand out. We can see him doing this by using different objects, people and their clothes, street furniture, and light.
The takeaway from Alex Webb's photography is to pay attention to the surroundings and the subjects and try to find colors that match and/or complement each other and make the scene we are photographing stand out by implementing them in the frame.
Constantine Manos
Constantine Manos is another famous photographer that stands out for a certain reason. When looking at his work we can see that he pays a lot of attention to the details; it is seem that sometimes he even photographs the shadow of the subject instead of the subject themselves. In his photos the thing he captures is the meaning and the atmosphere and so the photos will end up looking really great.
Something I can take away from Constantine Manos is the attention to the details, this maybe different items or shadows. I can do this by not only focusingon the big picture and sometimes maybe focusing on small elements and aspects of the scene in order to create a more complete and meaningful frame.
Andre D Wagner
Andre D Wagner is a photographer who's photography I really like. He mainly shoots film street photography and he shoots the life around him. because he shoots what he knows and he is familiar with we can see that his feelings are transferred through his images to the viewer.
The reason I really like him is that he does not only focus on the are and the idea of street photography but he also expresses a feeling.
The thing I'll take away from his work is to not just spam the shutter with the idea that it is street photography, but to focus on what I am shooting and try and tell a story. I will also try and make my photos relate to each other and follow a same sort of tone or theme.
Class exercises
A collection of the class exercises
30 days street photography
Contact sheet for the 30 days/nights
Street photography
Contact sheet for the street photography
Final edit
Final chosen photographs; after trying out multiple different themes I decided to go with the theme 'working on the streets of London'
Evaluation
Final evaluation
For this assignment I have captured street photography images in different towns such as Cheltenham, Britsol, different cities in cornwall like Penzance and London. I have use a range of different street photography skills like prefocus and flash photography and have photographed a wide range of themes.
In the end I decided to choose London as the main city to shoot in and chose the theme 'working on the street'. I did this since I thought it would allow me to capture a wider range of photos in the quality that I would like and London was the best place for it.
I managed to capture many different people doing work on the street including mainly but not limited to street atritists and performers.
The main issue I had when photographing for this assignment was choosing a theme, there were many options but at times I felt like I could neither go with a general theme nor something too specific. Unlike shooting a normal photostory my subjects would keep changing so eventhough I could shoot the same location I could not shoot the same subjects multiple times and just doing street photography was also not good enough cause that would be too broad to be considered a theme for this assignment. I also thought going to the same place and doing the same thing every day would be too boring of a task to do and not challenging enough to help me grow my skills so only choosing one location as a theme was also not an option.However, in the end I am happ with how the photos turned out so I would say that I chose a theme that I personally preferred.
If I were to do this again I would aproach it differently by focusing on a message I would like to give and knowing what I am shooting for and trying to stand out.
I have managed to learn many skills by doing this assignment but I have also learnt that at least for me something like street photography is too broad of a subject similar to photojournalism itself so a task similar to 'go do street photography' is not as easy to aproach since you also need to know why or where you are doing it for. For me this was done for an assignment and I think that was the main issue I had with it since it was too broad yet too restrictive at the same time. That said, the knowledge I have gained through this assignment is something that I will be using a lot going forward and even the idea of a street photography is still something that I will be looking at in a good light.
A technical issue that I faced when taking street photography was the constant change of light, I did this shoot on the move by visisting different locations rather than waiting somewhere and waiting for people which meant that I would go from places with direct sunlight to places with a lot of shadows and vice versa a lot; flash was an easy fix in this case but I preferred the shots with a more natural light so I ended up having to change the settings of my camera a lot throughout this shoot, if I were to approach somnething similar in the future I would either try to bounce light, askmy subjects to move around a bit for better light or use presets in my camera that I have set before the shoot.
In the end I can say that I have came across some challanges in my shoots but I managed to develope my skills, learn more and become more comfrtable with photographing people in general and doing street photography.