ASSIGNMENT 1

Photography 1

Identity And Place

Assignment 1

The non-familiar

Assignment Approach

I am fond of street-photography.

I always did it “my way”: I never engage expressly and directly with people I don’t know. I looked then for a camera and objective that could permit me to be nearly “invisible”.

This is the reason why my current photographic equipment for street-photography is composed of a small mirrorless and an 18-150 zoom (28,8-240 equivalent). With the aid of a tilting viewfinder, I feel comfortable and believe that I will not interact and therefore annoy anybody.

Unfortunately, this is not how I am supposed to act for this assignment.

I am supposed to engage with sitters, to talk with them, openly involve them in what I intend to do.

I remember the previous research about Doris Ulmann and how, as stated by McEuen, she ".....even engaged her sitters in conversations that required them to articulate and defend their opinions. Brief responses were unacceptable to her, ... After isolating certain peculiarities in each individual, Ulmann built on these in her portraits. .....". (McEuen,MA 1999, Seeing America : Women Photographers Between the Wars, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. Accessed from: ProQuest Ebook Central. Page 21 [4 November 2018]. Created from ucreative-ebooks on 2018-11-04 07:12:30).

I am definitely out of my comfort zone.

I decide then to face my troubles and include in my equipment another mirrorless camera with a 10.9-34 (21.8-68 equivalent), in order to be closer to the sitter.

It’s sure that I will be obliged to manifest myself.

It’s time to go out and walk around.

Day 1

While walking, I hear a strange sound coming from down the street. I meet the street-musician and I am informed that the instrument is a so-called “Handpan”. The musician’s name is Oles Deyneka, Ukrainian. He’s young. He says that his musical life is in the street.

I ask if I can shoot a couple of pictures.

I get close to him (37.2 eq) and shoot with a 2.5 aperture, in order to blur the background. Oles’ hands lean on his Handpan, he looks toward the camera. Camera’s focus is on his eyes. The street behind him is in perspective, confirming his desire to have the street as his main stage.

His expression suggests that he is a bit surprised/doubtful, but even pleased of my attention as a photographer.

When we have finished and I thank him, he smiles and goes back to play his Handpan.

In the evening I meet Vasile, a Rumanian 55 years old. His story is fascinating: while he was attending high school, he fell in love with one of his schoolmates. Then they left each other, and he married another woman. Two years ago, after the divorce with his first wife, he came from Rumania to Italy and eventually found back the love of his life, the schoolmate.

Now they are moving back to Rumania together and they will marry soon.

For this shoot, I have the possibility to use a tripod and my reflex. I prefer to use ambient light (a swinging lamp) in order to light up Vasile’s left side of the face.

I decide to switch to black and white, in order to focus only on expression and composition.

I find a similarity in both Vasile’s and Oles’ inscrutable expression: is it a typical reaction of somebody who did not expect to become a sitter or because they are both from Eastern Europe? Now that I shot some unknown people, I believe it could be the second reason.

I remember Sander’s “Face of our time” and imagine that the title under this couple of portraits could be “Face of eastern lands”.

Day 2

Close to my house, there is a shelter for handicapped.

Periodically I shoot handi-people: each year I spend a couple of weeks with them in a holiday camp. So usually I shoot people I am familiar with, and I do it for them so that they and their families have a souvenir of the two weeks at the camp.

However, this time I do it for me, with people I never met before, so it is a different situation.

Some families prefer that I do not mention their real names, then I will use fantasy names for the next two portraits.

Gianni looks younger than he really his, but this is typical of handi-people. It’s not difficult to communicate with him, he is happy to get attention and he shows it.

I have no time to define composition and portrait, so I decide to profit of the fresh and happy moment and just shoot.

Paolo, on the contrary, looks definitely old and always sad.

He doesn’t communicate, he just eyes with an expression that suggests he is tired and hopeless, may be willing not to engage with anybody, to engage with me. Nevertheless, he does not react badly when I shoot the portrait.

I decide to switch to black and white, in order to eliminate color intrusion and emphasize expression and posture.

Day 3

The city where I live is not far from hills and mountains: about 15 minutes by car and I can have a walk by fields and trees.

This is the part of Italy where, recently, wind and water smashed hundred of thousands of trees and destroyed roads.

While walking I meet Fabio, 58 years old, entrepreneur, father of 4, based near the river Po, the biggest river in Italy.

For this portrait I take inspiration from August Sander: this portrait remembers me, for instance, Sander’s “The Publisher” or “Farm Girl”:

August Sander
Farm Girl
1910

Just as an experiment, I developed the portrait both in color and b&w.

Should I follow Sander’s path, I could give the title “Entrepreneur”.

Formative feedback by Tutor

Overall Comments

This is a positive start to the course, and I can see you’ve carried forward the journaling approach to your learning log as a way of thinking through your process. It’s clear from your comments that you very much had to push yourself outside of your comfort zone in order to photograph strangers for the first time, and you’ve done so with some good results – well done! I hope that with this experience under your belt, you’ll feel more excited by the possibilities that open up once you’ve gained the confidence to approach and photograph people who, for whatever reasons, pique your (natural photographer’s) curiosity.

I’m very pleased to see that you’ve created an entirely new learning log for this module. Please do use the learning log (or an accompanying notebook) for your thoughts and ideas as you go along, and bear in mind that the LL has the potential to be so much more than a receptacle for coursework and assignments.

Assessment potential

You may want to get credit for your hard work and achievements with the OCA by formally submitting your work for assessment at the end of the module. More and more people are taking the idea of lifelong learning seriously by submitting their work for assessment but it is entirely up to you. We are just as keen to support you whether you study for pleasure or to gain qualifications. Please consider whether you want to put your work forward for assessment and let me know your decision when you submit Assignment 2. I can then give you feedback on how well your work meets the assessment requirements.

Feedback on assignment

 Well-controlled shooting, overall – not easy when you’re doing this kind of work for the first time and have your subject rapport to think about as well as your equipment.

 It’s clear from the pictures that you were able to develop a quick rapport with your subjects, establishing dialogue and trust. This bodes very well for the rest of the course…

 The picture of Vasile is fascinating – almost like a studio portrait. It makes me wonder how many you took and how long you spent talking to him. (Note: It would be VERY helpful to see some contact sheets next time please, Giorgio.)

The portrait of Gianni is also very effective, but for completely different reasons. The full figure is very descriptive of his personality, as the body language tell us a lot, don’t you think?

 In all cases, I (as the viewer) get a strong sense of an ‘encounter’ with the subject – the portraits are all direct, with subjects engaged, just as directed by the brief.

 The portrait of Fabio was taken under quite difficult lighting conditions, by the looks of things, which is a shame because this would have a Sander-esque feel in more flat light.

(Always try to keep in mind the light & shadow effect so that you can avoid having the subject’s face in shadow.)

Again, I think the full-length shot tells us more about the subject…

 Overall you’ve taken a very broad approach to get started, mixing styles trying things out. Later on, in the course you will need to decide on an approach (working things out in advance) and aiming for something that looks more like a series – but this will become clearer as you progress through the course.

Some general tips for I&P students:
Bear in mind that in fact, most people (just not most photographers!) will actually be pleasantly surprised to have a photographer show an interest in them and will be flattered
to have their picture taken. You can make the whole process easier for yourself with some of these approaches:-

o Try to shoot only people you’re genuinely interested in.
o Have a contact card ready with your contact details, so they can get in touch with you for a copy of the picture (- most won’t).
o Decide first on a strategy for shooting: formal or informal? Candid or posed? Direct gaze, or off-camera (notice the significant difference in effect)
o If you’d like to capture someone ‘candidly’, you could explain why you’d like to take their picture and ask, would they mind if you discreetly stuck around for a while?
o Or invite your subjects to be photographed at another time & place, where you might have a particular backdrop in mind, or more control over the lighting, for example.
o Flatter them!
o Remember that being a student of photography is a very good reason to give for wanting to take their photographs…

Coursework

 No evidence

Research

 No evidence

Learning Log

 Your learning log is currently looking quite sparse! Maybe this is to do with permissions..? I would expect to see coursework; research sections for reading & viewing; a journal section indicating thoughts, inspirations, tests.

Suggested reading/viewing

 Street & Studio, Ute Eskildsen (ed.), Tate Publishing, 2008
 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1956 – important sociological twentieth-century text on everyday ‘performance’ of ‘identity’

Summary

Strengths

 Good rapport with subjects
 Confident approach
 Range of shooting styles

For Development

 More evidence of the creative process – contact sheets etc
 Contact sheets may hold the key to transforming this into more of a series
 Coursework is an important part of the learning package

Reflection on formative feedback and rework

I was pleased by my Tutor feedback, especially because she understood my effort to engage with non familiar people and get to shoot some coherent (technical and by content) pictures.

I still prefer to shoot unaware people, but I admit that I was pleased by this voyage out of my comfort zone and that I could be able to repeat this experience.

About Vasile's portrait: my wife and I invited Vasile to our house and spent an evening together.

Then I asked him if I could shoot some portraits and he agreed. I did not have a lot of time to prepare the shooting, but my aim was to "confirm" in my photographs the same lighting that I had observed in Vasile's face.

Therefore I decided to use a tripod and shoot by ambient light. After a few tries, I could find the right camera's position in order to avoid a busy background and still save a medium-large aperture (f 3.5).

REWORK