Tag Archives: Week 1

M2 Wk1: Introduction – Segues in Time

Posted on by

Forum: Looking Back

Find an old image that has some meaning for you.  Scan / take a photograph of the image somewhere that either contributes further meaning or contradicts it.  Post a short summary of that experience.

Lawrence Clarke (low res)Original image: Washington Post (2012) – Jason Richardson Hurdles (semi) 2012, London

The original image, taken during Heat 1 (Semi Finals) of the Men’s 110m Hurdles at the London 2012 Olympics, is a masterclass in the flight phase of hurdle technique.  As Head of Athletics, it is something that I show upcoming athletes to stress the importance of maintaining the trail leg at right angles (for both the knee and the ankle), when above the hurdle.  Richardson went on to win that heat and then gain a Silver medal in the Finals.  Interesting and technically brilliant, but for me, little of that has particular meaning.

DCP_0362 fbDominic Price (2012) – Olympic Games, Men’s 110m Hurdles Final, London

I was in the stadium on that day: 08 August 2012, sadly without a pass allowing me to look down the straight.  Nevertheless, I was well positioned, immediately above the television interview booths, just beyond the finish line; able to capture an image that encapsulates the winning moment for Aries Merritt while showing the top five positions in the race.  However, photography was not my main interest… in the lane to the left of Richardson, during the semi finals, was Team GB’s Lawrence Clarke, someone I have known since he was eight years old and to whom I introduced the hurdles in 1999.

At school, Lawrence showed promise (clearly!) and went on to win the event at Sports Day in subsequent years.  We remained in contact as he rose through the ranks of GB athletics and he was always kind enough to send me tickets when competing.  On that day in 2012, against all expectations, Lawrence qualified for the finals with an impressive PB of 13.31s.  In the final he came fourth, 0.27s outside a podium place.

My composition shows Lawrence Clarke competing at the London 2012 Olympics, on the grass track where he learnt the discipline, with the addition of his bib label and running spikes from the 2012 Olympics.

Interestingly, neither my image nor the Washington Post’s are particularly flattering of Lawrence – of course he was coincidental to the latter, with an American newspaper keen to promote their athletes rather than ours.  To neither have I given wall space, but that does not detract from the fact that they mean something to me: content and meaning in this case being more important than composition.

M2 Wk1: Introduction – Segues in Time

Posted on by

Activity: Place Over Time

  • Step One: Choose a previously made image that relates to your project / subject of interest. You might wish to select a few images as alternatives.
  • Step Two: Revisit your chosen image. Feel free to approach this in your own way or make use of / adapt one of the strategies introduced.
  • Step Three: Display the original image and the new one together in a space / place of your choosing. Photograph the result and post it in the discussion box below.
  • Step Four: Describe your approach and experience in no more than 180 words. Perhaps talk about how the image was chosen, why a specific strategy was adopted and what compromises you had to make in achieving it. Perhaps also mention the impact that the space had / has upon the two images and their relationship.

I am the slave of time on this activity as I am about to head off to the Somme with a group of Year 8 pupils!  This prevented me from focussing on a chapel or aspect of stained glass, however, I have managed to produce a crude interpretation in the style of Ahn Sungseok (I am not including this in the 180 words!):

The original image was an 1898 postcard of the main school building – a façade that is almost unchanged to the present, barring some alterations to the grounds.  This I placed digitally within the current view, including two generations of new buildings to provide a sense of change.  It was interesting to note how wide the original lens must have been, as I needed to shoot at 17mm.

Unable to use a projector in the available time and in the absence of a screen, I was forced to print and matt-laminated the image.  This I planted in the appropriate location and quickly realised the error of having used a 17mm lens: I now needed something for the final step in which I intended to replicate the style of the original postcard.  At just 30cm from the print, a 12mm lens at f/22 just about coped, but I would have liked to include far more within the final picture and without the significant edge distortion.

It was surprisingly windy this morning which proved demanding when photographing a laminated card sheet.

DCP_7060 Edited (low res)

A couple afterthoughts… the original colour image:

DCP_7035 original (low res)

Following feedback requests, here is more technical data relating to the shoot: Unless I am travelling light, in which case I use a Canon G3X, I always shoot full-frame, with a Canon EOS-1DX MkII.  The 17mm shot was taken using a Canon 17-40mm f/4 L.  The 12mm image was courtesy of a Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM (who decides upon these names?!).  I don’t use the Sigma lens very much, but in controlled environments (i.e. indoors) the image quality is pleasingly good and distortion surprisingly minor).

Despite my best efforts, and perhaps unsurprisingly, research in the archives has failed to reveal any record of who produced the assorted school postcards in the 1890’s and as a result, I am unable to elaborate on the kit used for the original image.

M2 Wk1: Strategies of Looking

Posted on by

Week 1: Independent Reflection

In keeping with much of Module 2, my ability to follow the prescribed path will be determined by my work commitments during the second half of the busiest term of the year in a boarding school.  It is almost certain that I will be unable to carry out any photographic work specific to my project until early-mid July.  However, I will be carrying out assorted other photographic tasks relating to my work, which as likely to be the focus of these initial blogs.  Thus I will maintain my CRJ and carry out weekly Independent Reflections, but they may not tick all of the anticipated boxes.

In the academic world of prep. school education, we have come to exam week for all but those who have succeeded in passing into their future schools by way of scholarship entrance.  For that lucky group, the majority of the week was spent in the Somme Battlefields, learning of the lives and deaths of Old Boys from the school who fought in The Great War.

My part was, as always, to recorded images of the sites visited for the school’s social media, its archives, and also for a post-visit project being put together by the boys.  In addition, I provided the technical background to the weapons; the intricacies of warfare, and advice on identifying the various artefacts found on the field trip.

Sadly GDPR precludes the inclusion of some rather poignant images, but below are some that are rather more generic…

IMG_5046 (low res)IMG_5060 (low res)

My current practice:  For this week it has been predominantly one of reportage photography.  This is probably my preferred discipline or at least, the discipline with which I feel most at home.

What did I do / feedback received / response to feedback:  Throughout the week, my photographs were tailored to different audiences.  The school required something akin to picture postcards of the trip for social media purposes.  The image gallery for the boys’ projects necessitated views of each site visited; images of any significant artefacts and images of any war graves of our Old Boys (something also required by the Archives).  Beyond this, I am always keen to improve the composition of pre-existing archive images (I have visited and documented battlefield sites across the globe on some 20+ school trips) and also bolster my own portfolio.  The feedback was entirely positive largely because I have a good long-term understanding of the needs of the various target audiences.  However, from my own point of view, I am still hunting that ‘perfect’, if clichéd, image of poppies in a field – typically thwarted by the time constraints of supervising children.

My methodology:  This is something to which I rarely give a moment’s thought.  So much of photography has to be instinctive and as such, the methodologies of my work are inclined to be almost subconscious.   At least I think that is true of my methodologies, but to ensure that I can tackle this requisite appropriately, I have just Googled ‘photographic methodology’ which produced the following pretentious drivel…

Photography-led research demands a methodology that embraces the implicit in order to generate results that inform practice by making unconscious mental constructs explicit: i.e. a methodology that is able to support an objective theory utilising a subjective medium.

Notwithstanding, I will take a retrospective stab at the methodologies I have used – throughout I hold tight to the importance of composition, with the rule of thirds being a significant consideration whenever possible.  I am always conscious that any faces seen in images for school use should look appropriately for the situation: two children laughing while in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery would not make a usable image, for example.  Because almost all of my work is candid, the wastage is not insignificant – children are never predictable, and where composition is concerned, they are rarely where you want them to be.  So often I miss the ‘perfect’ shot, because as a school master first, I am dealing with a child, rather than looking through a viewfinder.

The forms my project / photographs could take moving forward:  For this week’s work, I am unable to relate the comments directly to my project.  However, thinking of the images I have taken, I know that some will feature in a new gallery that I am creating along a corridor within the school.  For ease of updating and to ensure a reasonable level of child-proofing, the picture frames will be permanently mounted clip-frames typically associated with commercial point-of-sale applications.

Reflection on Week 1 Forum: Looking Back

I much enjoyed this mini-project – it gave a pleasing, holistic glimpse at two aspects of my work that coincide so well.  The post was well received by the small number of colleagues who commented, but feedback was unable to prompt any response from me besides a warm internal glow.

Reflection on Week 1 Activity: Place Over Time

Another enjoyable, if frantic mini-project.  With a tiny window of availability for this work, I had to think quickly and clearly on what I could achieve in a matter of hours.  The results were pleasingly true to Ann Sungseok’s composition, although I took my work to a third level of image which may have been superfluous – the largest image was certainly the most challenging!  I am very happy with the outcome and the idiosyncrasies of the lenses used happened to play to my favour.

It was useful to receive feedback relating to the need for more technical information – rather a foolish oversight on my part.  Such information I duly added and I now take much more care in commenting upon this important aspect of my work.

M3 Wk1: From here to there

Posted on by

Week 1: Looking Back

My project is a study of the stained glass windows within Oxford’s chapels. With 47 chapels to contend with (I keep finding more!) I am focusing on just one window per chapel, although in reality, I typically photograph three of four. Using multiple exposure blending in order to create an image that demonstrates the wide and full dynamic range depicted within each window necessitates as many as thirty images of each window to be captured.  A composite image is created by piecing together, manually, the optimum individual glass pieces from the available range.  That image then receives a final edit, removing any damage and eliminating the horizontal support bars.  Depending upon the size and complexity of the window, post production can take 20+ hours.

A significant concern is the time and requirements it takes in order to secure access to the chapels.  Some of Oxford’s Colleges are very accommodating indeed, but rather too many play hard to get, or require an extraordinary level of paperwork. I am in a bit of a battle with one at the moment: I have filled out the very detailed two page ‘Tour, Filming and Photography Application Form’, which first has to undergo a committee hearing, then, if approved, has to be passed in front of the Governing Body for ratification.  This process should take less than two months.  However, they require me to have £10 million liability cover in place for photography in interior locations and currently I only have £5 million of cover.  I do a lot of competition target shooting… somewhat perversely, were I to travel into the chapel with one of my rifles, I would be covered for the required £10 million liability insurance!!

While I have enjoyed aspects of the previous modules, the one stand-out feature is that they prevent me from working on my project.  I can commit to one or the other, but not both. My aim for this module is to attempt the impossible, managing my job, my project and the module.  Quite how others cope with the addition of a family, I cannot imagine!

‘The break’ for me was the start of a new academic year, so since late August I have been working seven day weeks in-school… much looking forward to next Saturday and Sunday, being the first Leave of the term!  However, last Wednesday afternoon I did dash into Oxford and photograph three stained glass windows within Oxford’s smallest chapel: The Chapel of St. Edmund’s Hall, but these have yet to leave my camera. I hope to get the chance to work on these images during my off-duty nights this week – if that is the case, images will follow…

I was hoping to have edited two lights from the east window, but time only allowed for one…

DCP_8529 croppped (low res)The ‘before’ shot is the middle of the 25 exposure bracketed images, with the final image being the result of about ten hours of multiple exposure blending, followed by eight hours of editing to remove the supports bars (this image being particularly awkward as a result of the patterns on the assorted gowns).  The final part of the process was a return to the chapel, with the image saved on a tablet so that I can compare the edited image with the actual window or light.  In this instance, it required no further work… I was keen to brighten the image as it appears quite murky in places, but that is true to the original, so I have left it looking, perhaps, rather dull…

St. Edmund Hall - Ecce Agnus Dei (cut out) UPDATED PNG (low res)

This window is the earliest example in Oxford by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris (1865).  The finished image suffers a little because the entire window is quite dirty… resulting in the blackened specks in many of the individual pains of glass. Additionally, I have noticed that the earlier pre-Raphaelite windows are significantly less vibrant than those of the late 1890’s and beyond.

The Latin quote, ‘Ecce Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi‘ is from John 1:29… ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!’

M3 Wk1: From here to there

Posted on by

Week 1: Reflection

Module 2 presented a number of difficulties for me largely as a result of the heavy work load and extracurricular commitments that surround the summer months.  My hope for Module 3 is that I will have the time to tackle the weekly assignments, webinars and course trappings on time – not least because I do not have the advantage of any holiday period in which to play catch-up.  Sadly, a newly introduced, restructured working day seems to overlook the need for any breaks in the day.  This would not be a significant problem if weekends were time off, but unfortunately in boarding education, the weekends are normal working days.

‘Alarmed’ does not come close to describing my feelings when I realised that the entirety of this university term and all the various deadlines, fall within the Michaelmas academic term of the school in which I teach.  Looking towards the end of the course and term, while writing 240+ end of term reports in the slack time around teaching, supervising and planning (a task clearly designed to test ones ability to work unhindered through prolonged sleep deprivation), I will also be fretting about the Oral Presentation – something that has thus far occupied me for more than a week of holiday each time I have produced one.  More worryingly, it looks as though the Sustainable Prospects course does not even allow a slight pause to accommodate assignments!

However, it is Monday of week 1, and I am in the process of completing much of the weekly expectations… just a day or two late.

I have enjoyed the opportunity this week to visit three of Oxford’s chapels, housed within New College; Mansfield College and Harris Manchester College.  This has provided me with many tens of hours worth of editing – in fact well over 150 hours worth, if I edit all of the stained glass windows that I have photographed.  The time it takes to produce just one edited image is a source for concern.  I do invest heavily into selecting, where possible, windows that require less complicated editing, and that editing is becoming ever more efficient, but one completed stained glass window still represents 20+ hours of editing.  Clearly time-management is of vital importance, but difficult to achieve when salaried work commitments in term time weigh in at around 60 hours per week.

Week 1 has been an interesting journey through the ideas of photographic employment.  I have no doubt that many will have listened to and read about the wealth of varied jobs that fall into the umbrella of photography, and realised that they currently do most of them unaided!  I have been described as a ‘control freak’ and a ‘perfectionist’ by those who routinely experience my photographic, reprographic and design work: I struggle to step away from any aspect of a project.  Clearly if I am to move into full time photography, it seems clear that I have to accept that I will only be one part of a process.  Perhaps it is time to rationalise what I currently do… difficult… I love the freedom of composition and image capturing; I enjoy the ‘chase’ of image editing and the satisfaction of a completed image; I quietly enjoy the appreciation by others of my work, and just occasionally I have the gratification of payment!

Time to Play:

Retrospectively, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of taking a photograph each day.  There were a couple days when I rather forgot, but the results seem fine and the annotations resulted in a narrative that painted a rough picture of my working life.

Looking Back:

I suspect that there is little by way of reflection that I can add to the a piece that is in itself a reflection, although I am rather sorry and surprised that a piece of work from the ‘break’ cannot be included in the Module 3 Work in Progress Portfolio.