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V&A Friday Late

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From Friday Late at London's V&A held on the last Friday in every month starting at 18.30.

First, a vertical light box on which people can write ideas about destiny, romance and conquests.

Then, Volume, an installation which responds to movement. After a disorderly wait in the rain it was a rushed wander through the pillars of LED lights - which also housed loud speakers. The patterns responded to peoples' movement but it was difficult to make out with so many people. This would have been excellent as a solitary experience.

Volume is a collaboration between design collective United Visual Artists and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack and co-writer Neil Davidge (as part of their music production company, one point six).

See also - small ritual & jonny baker (both of whom appear fleetingly in the video).

Believe Mr Cash

Jonny Cash has just auditioned for a contract at a record company. He sang a gospel song and now we hear the company boss tell him his performance  is not good enough. Great clip from a great film.

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Great Photos: 3

Extraordinary Places

This photo by Russell Davies reminded me how valuable our viewpoint can be to others who are denied the same opportunity. I don’t know if Russell had special privileges but it looks like a dangerous place to be (an aircraft engine).

The value of some photographs comes not from their technical quality but from the unique way they are able to transport the viewer to a time or place otherwise inaccessible. This inaccessibility can be to do with time or location and is why we have photo-journalism. Indeed the technical quality can be an obstacle to the credibility of some pieces of work.

The introduction of the digital Beta-Cam format to television newsrooms presented one such issue. The sparkling, crisp quality of news images from war-zones made the coverage look like a TV drama rather than a hastily shot news piece. I remember seeing Jeremy Bowen reporting from Israel and thinking it was a specially shot promo with lighting!

Paradoxically, the clearer the image the less believable it is and this is a fact which is being considered as High Definition is being introduced. In some cases the deliberate degradation of image quality is desirable for achieving an appropriate style. I guess we have come to associate grainy black and white images with reality and full resolution colour with marketing.

Those revolutionary shots taken on a mobile phone during the London bombings have shaken traditional journalism. News teams are realising that the public is now able to capture more immediate and intimate images of events than reporters. Importantly, they are also able to distribute them to a worldwide audience. In some cases a bloke with a phone can, without any planning, capture a human drama and transport us into a unique and private world effortlessly. Technology has pulled the rug from under journalism’s ability to control the way the world is seen and events reported.

The point I’m trying to make is that we should not underestimate the value of our own view of the world and the opportunities we have to capture what we regard as very ordinary images. I’m excited by the way people are grabbing shots ‘on the fly’ with little concern for the technical quality and yet the impact and interest of such shots can be very powerful.

To someone on the other side of the world even the most ordinary shot can seem extraordinary; the challenge for us on this side of the world is to understand that.

Apple iPhone - Want one

Great Photos: 2

Tell a story

"If your pictures aren’t good enough," war photographer Robert Capa used to say, "you aren’t close enough."

Of course it's not essential for a great photo to tell a story, but some of the most memorable photos do. Think of our own family albums in which generations of family experiences are told in narratives which move from children's parties to silver weddings - or less conventional events!

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On a international scale some photo's have helped define an era. Photos that changed the world is worth a look. Here we see (largely from an American perspective) significant moments from  history.

You might ask what role a powerful photograph plays in making events historic - is it a chicken or an egg, a horse or a cart?  If the events were not recorded in such a powerful way, would they be seen as so significant? 

It is interesting that through the selection of images we can edit our own stories and the way we remember or past. Happy memories of times on the beach or the pride of a graduation ceremony can become defining images in our own story.  With the growth in digital photography will our stories change or become less well defined in so far as we have the freedom to record every step of our journey?

So what makes a great a great piece of photo journalism?

I don't know the answer, but perhaps you do?  I can only say what I have observed from working with TV designers who have an amazing talent for injecting meaning into every detail of costume and set dressing.  What is the setting?   The location in which the photo is taken can place the action in time as well as place. The characters can be vividly portrayed by their body language, dress and relationship to the events and other people in the scene.

The power of a strong photo telling a story is not so much in what is portrayed but how clear the preceding and following action is. It is often in what is not shown that carries the most power. In that sense we participate as viewers.

Being on the spot at the right moment is, of course, essential (though somtimes not nice). But so is the relationship between the photographer and the event itself. Often we can understand as much about the person  taking the photograph as we can the scene shown. For example, what can we say about the people able to take the photographs shown above? Are they really detached? should they get involved? Tough one.

Straight 8

Here's a film from Nick Scott  - Earth to Earth - for the Straight 8 competition (click thumbnail).

Straight 8 is a great idea in which the filmmakers shoot a film on a single cartridge of super 8mm film.  They hand over their exposed but un-developed, un-edited film for processing. They also burn an original soundtrack onto cd.  The first time they see their work is with a packed cinema audience, also seeing it for the first time. The projectionist will simply play the CD when he sees the first frame of the film. No written instructions to the projectionist allowed. Reminds me of Grace 9.

A great deal of creativity happens because the creators are constrained in some way or have to overcome obstacles.  In many ways TV and film has removed such obstacles - I mean, given enough money you can do anything you can imagine in post production or with CGI, but in many cases the spectacle of such productions has replaced the creativity and ideas.

Great Photos: 1

Kill Your Darlings

I had some interesting conversations over the new year about what makes a great photo.

Apart from the subjects themselves, I'm particularly interested in composition which I've resolved to learn more about. Implementing some of the classic rules of composition does produce some fantastic results. I'll post more about these as I explore further. In general terms, though, it always pays to have an inbuilt set of criteria by which to be objective in assessing the quality of work - especially if you are doing it for a customer. Straight opinions often aren't good enough in a business relationship.

David Bailey, in a talk I heard him give, said that he didn't like to get emotionally involved. He turned down photographing Picasso because he felt he would be emotionally overpowered by the experience (though he said he regretted it)

As a TV Producer, approving work has always been a challenging business. It's stressful when you are faced with a creative bod who has just put their heart and soul into designing a piece of work and you have to tell them it can't be accepted. What do you say?  Why?  Emotionally great, objectively rubbish! So, in the next short while I'm going to develop some ideas on what makes a good piece of creative work.

For starters please have a look at the attached word doc. kill_your_darlings.doc  This provides a check list by which to tick-box photos and a test for your gut reaction.

I've made the assumption that it's a bad thing to have favorite techniques (darlings) and that these inhibit our ability to be objective. I don't necessarily think suppressing emotion and passion is a good thing but it's an interesting conversation to have.

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PS Links to add to the mix

Joseph Rowlands on Obejctivity in Art

Michael R Nelson

Photography Composition Articles

Nativity Window

Nativity Window
Originally uploaded by markwaddington.

This is the nativity window at St.Mary's church in Ealing. Photographing windows is very tricky - getting the detail right. I made two images of this, one under exposed by one and a half stops. Then using photo shop made up two layers to enable me to bring out the detail in the highlights.

Happy New Year

The sound of fireworks over London to celebrate the start of 2007.  Happy new year to you and best wishes.

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