Looking ahead

Planning ahead gives me the opportunity to maximise the use of my time on the various projects by having an idea of what it is I want to achieve in each element. Necessarily the planning has to be provisional as actual experience leads me down paths that I had not previously considered i.e there must always be an element of flexibility. I also have to think about the skills that I have that are relevant and what skills I need to acquire in order to be successful. There is also a need to think about what equipment I need and how much I already have that will meet the needs generated by the projects as I proceed. There is also the consideration necessary of what I already have and what I can achieve using existing equipment. Whilst it may be nice to have a tilting lens or a large format camera for specific elements I know that that cannot happen within the budget I have available. There is of course whether I would be pursuing that type of photography after I have finished my degree.

Portraiture

Equipment - Some of the photography will be studio based so the choices I have are to buy the necessary lighting etc., hiring the equipment as I need it or hiring a studio that has all the necessary equipment to hand. [Note: as I was going ahead with this assignment before final agreement with my Tutor on the structure of the Course  what is written here is a summary of what I have already done.] There are numerous sources for equipment and I am fortunate that one of the major web suppliers - Wex Photographic - have a warehouse only 50 miles away in Norwich that has a 'shop' area and, more importantly, very knowledgeable staff. I was both able to price various combinations and see the equipment in action. There were a number of hire sources and that was a possibility. There seemed to be a dearth of studios for hire in the area and those that were available charged high prices. In the end I decided to buy the equipment as this allowed for any change of heart about whether I would continue doing studio work. If I decided to sell it on the 'depreciation' would match the cost of hiring because of the number of days that I would have needed it. Fortunately I have the space within my house to create a temporary studio so that was not a problem. I purchased two strobe lights with soft boxes and stands, a remote control and a backdrop.

Model - My ever suffering wife 'volunteered' to be my first model so that I could gain experience in the use of the equipment and test out, in practice, the theory I had garnered from a range of reading that I had done. We spent a couple of days trying out various lighting positions, adjustments to the power of the lighting (strobes with a modelling light) and ensuring that the camera and lights worked together. The latter took some time until I worked out that the provided cable was not necessary and was more of a hindrance than a help and that ensuring a good contact between the hot shoe on the camera and the wireless transmitter was important. I am of the old school whose approach to anything is "When all else fails read the instructions"! The lesson learned was the importance of being comfortable with your equipment before engaging someone outside your immediate family.

My model for the actual shoot was the daughter of one of my nieces. She has previous modelling experience and this proved most useful as we chatted about what it was I wanted to achieve and the sort of pose action I was looking for. It also meant that she was able to anticipate changes and hold various positions as I took the images. I would recommend to anyone having a model who has previous experience because the actual shoot is no time to have two people (the photographer and the model) trying to work out what to do. Emily, the name of my model, has a younger brother and sister and not surprisingly they wanted to be in on the act as well as their big sister. Although on first consideration this seemed not to be one of the best ideas , in practice it worked well because it allowed Emily to take a break whilst I had good practice taking shots of children who had their own ideas about what image they wished to portray. Overall it was a successful day although exhausting. One forgets just how much energy young children have and offering them virtually unlimited amounts of food and sweets that they like really makes them hyper. Even though they were extremely well behaved, Nana and Mum were there, my wife and I were left shattered.

I will describe the actual shoot using examples in another entry in this blog.

Informal portraits will be essentially street photography and as I have a fair amount of experience in this area and enjoy the process I am hoping that there will be not too many problems.

Built Environment

Picking up on the changes proposed by my Tutor to create a photo/study essay exploring the changing face of the built environment over time I felt there was a need to decide fairly early on about the particular elements of the built environment that I would like to photograph. Although the temptation is to simply point your camera at something and hope that you can make something of the resulting images it can prove to be a time consuming and sometimes wasteful way of proceeding. I have provisionally decided to look at - Coastal defences through the ages (e.g such places as Dover Castle; Martello towers; Radar installations and the modern early warning systems); Schools (e.g. public schools such as Rugby and Uppingham; Victorian schools with their separate entrances for Boys and Girls; 1930 buildings such as former Grammar schools, 1960's schools with their predominance of glass and recently built schools reflecting the architecture of today; Religious buildings from the time of the early chapels; the building of cathedrals originally surrounded by the buildings of a monastery, the great 'wool churches' of East Anglia and the modern churches built since the second world war such as Coventry Cathedral and the churches on new housing estates; Housing early housing as presented in such places as Stowe village in Suffolk; the Victorian terraced houses; the 1930's boom in large estates found on the outskirts of town centres; the Tower blocks that dominate the City skyline of the 60's and the building of the recent estates where the houses are built ever smaller and where social engineering is attempted by such things as not providing garages or places for people to park their cars close to the housing such as in parts of Milton Keynes.

Abstract

Here I am less certain as to how I will proceed. There is a very real need for me to study the subject looking at the work of photographers who have used photography in this way. I will need to do the studying before I begin to make any decisions about where I want to aim in this type of work.

Landscapes and Seascapes 

I live in East Anglia that has its own unique combination of land and seascapes. The problem here is one of too many choices rather than one of scarcity. Most of East Anglia is essentially flat although there are areas of gentle hills and wooded summits and the dominant feature is the huge expansion of sky that is part of any vista and virtually in any direction you look. There are the fens, particularly those where there has been a drive to preserve them as they were originally and of course the Broads which are the product of man's work but now seem to be a natural element. At the micro level there are windmills and wind pumps that provide a point of interest in the landscape and give structure to an otherwise flat apparently featureless land. The East Anglian coast offers a variety of images although cliffs are rarely more than 50 feet high. Erosion is a major problem and opportunities abound to photograph man's, usually futile, attempts to keep the sea at bay. Happily, photographing East Anglia and Suffolk in particular is one of my favourite pastimes so the discipline will be one of restricting myself to the needs of the Assignment and not getting lost in the plethora of opportunities.

General planning

There is a suggestion that I should plan for each individual assignment rather than make a general plan. I am not sure how practical this given that opportunities for relevant images occur when you are not necessarily pursuing that particular assignment. Let us suppose for the purpose of discussion that I have decided to become a professional photographer and that I have been extraordinarily lucky to have secured 4 commissions to be completed over the next 10 months. In discussion with my Accountant I have discovered that one of the major running costs I experience, and which have a large impact upon the bottom line, is 'Travelling'. There is a need to control these costs if the business is to remain viable. To this end I have to look at the commissions I have been offered to see if there is a way in combining them without losing the priority that each subject matter should be given in order to meet the agreed deadlines.

The four commissions are:

1.       Portraiture - target date early January 2014

2.       Architecture - target date early March 2014

3.       Abstract - target date early May 2014

4.       East Anglian Land and Seascapes - target date early July 2014

Although formal portraiture can be dealt with in-house and initial thinking, pending discussion, indicates that this may well also be the case for 'Abstract'; the informal portraiture may well require travel and it is certain that the other two will require considerable travel. Without compromising the integrity of either commission it should be possible to include some elements of the 4th assignment whilst working on the 2nd assignment. For example if I was to use religious buildings through the Centuries in the 2nd assignment there are many opportunities within East Anglia to find the right material. Whilst travelling to these sites there would be no insurmountable difficulties in photographing landscapes or seascapes.

There is also the reality that any photographer should be alert to opportunities that present themselves for capturing the photograph even when it does not directly relate to the subject matter being pursued that day. There is no point in thinking that you will come back another day and catch that magic light as a shower passes across the landscape through which you are passing. It is a trite but true saying that "some of the best photographs are the ones we never took."

I assume that there is no requirement to list all the pre-trip preparation such as checking batteries are fully charged and all necessary equipment is available. What I need to do is have a plan, albeit flexible,  for  each assignment to decide how I can meet the requirements of the overall aim so that I can plan, through the many types of sources such as the Internet, my work. I propose to deal with these separately recording them in this blog as I move forward. I will also use the blog to review the work that I have done and reflect upon how the actuality differed from the original plan and whether the result was what I thought would be the outcome.

Why another blog

I felt it would be useful to create this blog to record my initial thoughts and planning as I work through the assignments for Advanced Photography. How it will develop in the future is uncertain at this stage. As part of the final assignment there is a requirement to submit a reflective account where I am advised that " This should be written up from the Learning Journal (I assume this means my blog for this Course) and should reflect on the processes through which the study has been developed and should document the way extended reading, gallery visits and contact with other photographers have influenced the final form" Apparently there is a target of 5000 words which seems an awful lot of words but at least by keeping this blog up to date I will have material at the end of the Course to put a coherent picture together.