More City

Out again today photographing the city, trying to pull together all the ideas, advise and inspiration up to now:

The Snow Factor

Snows really quite distracting, I don't mean the inner child snowman desire, it seems to distract me from the project ideas I already have. This is probably because the world looks so different under snow, though essentially its the same, its only a bit of cold water.


Having said that a couple that I made did turn out alright, here you go:

A Brief

I response to a question to Hugh this morning, he mentioned the brief, or my brief. This reminded me that the brief he gave us was quite vague and writing my own brief might be helpful.
I'm not going to make this any long winded thing, just a brief brief to outline my intention. Come to think of it, its only recently that my intentions for this project have become slightly clearer, even to me. This considered, now is probably a good time to lay down some intentions; after the photos are taken.

I want to represent the city of Nottingham through its life today, through its people. I also want to include myself but not in too obvious a way, more just I was there, I was a part of it. I am not an impartial observer, I live here too. Through composition and construction of the images I hope to deliver meaning to the viewer, though I understand this is difficult to achieve.
I want to portray Nottingham as a pleasant place, it has a reputation for crime but I've never personally witnessed this, I'm sure its no worse than any other UK city, and this reputation is just down to statistic wrangling by the media. I hope to show this is true with my photographs.

Single Image

Good point Julia, this photo does stand well on its own, you have the dish representing my world, with me in the centre then you have a patch of green on one side and the gray buildings on the other, representing the countryside where I normally live and the city where I live now, all tied up in one image.

Just to see how the meaning could change I went back to this spot today in the snow. The meaning is lost because you cant see the green grass symbolising the countryside.

More Work - Reflections

Ive been working at improving my composition, and bringing more meaning into my photos. Looking over Friedlanders work some more, one thing he uses a lot are reflections, often including himself. Ive given this a go myself to see what it says to the viewer about me, to see if it can carry some of my own feelings and opinions about the world.
Let me know what you think.

Todays Photos

Today ive been out around the city again with Hughs advise on getting closer and Friedlanders work in mind. I think these are a step forward from Mondays images, let me know what you think.

Registry Office, Shakespeare Street

Bus Stop, Mansfield Road

Railway Station

Railway Station

Family and Youth Courts

Lee Friedlander

On Hughs advise I've been having a close look at Lee Friedlander, an American photographer who's work stems from the 60's to now, so a very similar time period to the Riboud stuff. I'm mostly interested in his street work from the 60's & 70's as this reflects closely the style I'm working in.
Looking at his photos there is a real essence of him in the images, be it his shadow or reflection or just the way you can sort of feel his presence from behind the camera, I've read that he always worked alone so this presence could be some sort of loneliness coming through.

© Lee Friedlander New York 1963

© Lee Friedlander Lafayette, Louisiana 1968

Formally a big majority of his photographs incorporate strong vertical lines, this is clearly to divide up the scene, like the two above they are used to separate the people from one another. The revolving door image seems like a divide of class, the working man on one side and the well to do woman on the other, could this also be a bit sexist?

In the second image Friedlander seems to be playing with the subjects, the telegraph pole which acts to divide the picture is part of him, his shadow is on it and it is preventing the army/police looking types from taking the parade any further into the photograph, with a click he freezes them like this forever.

I'm beginning to understand from this that the photographer has tremendous influence over the subjects in the image, compositional choices make a real difference to how we perceive what is going on and the opinions we draw from it.