Mittwoch, 26. Dezember 2012
Minigolf
'tis the season. Family, food, more family, more food. To get some distraction today I used some rare hours without rain and took some images of an abandoned minigolf course in the woods I have discovered the other day. Lighting conditions were a bit tricky but the hardest part was to keep two mad as hatter boxer dogs off the lens and motive. I quite like the outcome.
Donnerstag, 13. Dezember 2012
Brief #2 - Interior - Trafford Centre
Moments To Give
Pre x-mas craze
After successfully completing my exterior brief of bridges I struggled with ideas for my interior brief. For whatever reason the thought of catching all the busy shoppers and atmosphere in Trafford Centre (TC) seemed to be a very interesting and rewarding topic. Had I but known...
The minute I got the idea and talked it through with my tutor Richard I called the press office of TC and got instantly the permission of taking photographs there. I guess, the point that the pictures won't be used commercially did the trick. I chose the Trafford Centre since it is a true temple of consumption, worshipping the gods of shopping and spending, optically vast and opulent. I don't want to be negative about the centre, it serves its purpose perfectly and actually it could have been any mall or busy city centre in the western world for similar scenes, I'm sure.
The first Saturday in December was my day for hunting. I started to take photographs in TC at about 11.00 and stayed 5 hours to catch the pictures I wanted. I must stress the point I only had two pictures in my head I tried to achieve, one actually worked out. In my head is an image I have once seen (any hint of the name of image and more importantly the photographer is highly appreciated): it was taken straight from above, picturing half of a round coffee table, two people sitting at it with coffee cups. I wanted to catch something similar but unfortunately I wasn't lucky with this one. The other idea was not inspired by any image just in my head: I wanted moving feet and got quite a few good shots of them connected with my images. I have intentionally not researched on photographers (obvious candidates would have been Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Garry Winogrand or other street photographers) since I wanted to be free in viewing 'my' scenes.
The shoot in TC was the hardest I ever did. I really am not a shopping girl and actually loath shopping centres - especially around christmas when adverts, shops, signs, and everyone tells us to buy, buy, buy. When I saw the slogan Moments To Give it appeared to me as a joke since we're giving everything at christmas but moments and time are the last and least things on most of the gift lists. Showing my final images to John, the tutor who is assessing them, his first reaction to the pictures was that they are in fact quite depressing. He is right though. It was so hard to spend hours amongst the crowd. Mothers struggling with children, shopping lists and nerves; children crying being totally overwhelmed by the sheer mass of people, noise, toys, and their stressed out mothers; men desperately in search for the perfect christmas gift for the loved ones (remember, moments to give blah, blah, blah) or waiting bored outside stores for their wifes or girlfriends to return from the depths of any random store. When finished with shooting I was so exhausted as if had just finished a 12 hr shift in a steel factory. Due to pretty tricky light condition I had to use longer exposure times wich naturally leads to 'blurry' moving people. I do like this effect because it does reflect perfectly the hasty, busy crowd moving around. I didn't use a tripod on purpuse because I wanted to blend in as much as possible and not attract peoples attention. Catching them in their natural habitat might describe it best. It sometimes seemed as if I was the only person moving slowly, observing, eyeing for scenes and motives and not be in a hurry.
The results are definitely worth the effort!
Pre x-mas craze
After successfully completing my exterior brief of bridges I struggled with ideas for my interior brief. For whatever reason the thought of catching all the busy shoppers and atmosphere in Trafford Centre (TC) seemed to be a very interesting and rewarding topic. Had I but known...
The minute I got the idea and talked it through with my tutor Richard I called the press office of TC and got instantly the permission of taking photographs there. I guess, the point that the pictures won't be used commercially did the trick. I chose the Trafford Centre since it is a true temple of consumption, worshipping the gods of shopping and spending, optically vast and opulent. I don't want to be negative about the centre, it serves its purpose perfectly and actually it could have been any mall or busy city centre in the western world for similar scenes, I'm sure.
The first Saturday in December was my day for hunting. I started to take photographs in TC at about 11.00 and stayed 5 hours to catch the pictures I wanted. I must stress the point I only had two pictures in my head I tried to achieve, one actually worked out. In my head is an image I have once seen (any hint of the name of image and more importantly the photographer is highly appreciated): it was taken straight from above, picturing half of a round coffee table, two people sitting at it with coffee cups. I wanted to catch something similar but unfortunately I wasn't lucky with this one. The other idea was not inspired by any image just in my head: I wanted moving feet and got quite a few good shots of them connected with my images. I have intentionally not researched on photographers (obvious candidates would have been Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Garry Winogrand or other street photographers) since I wanted to be free in viewing 'my' scenes.
The shoot in TC was the hardest I ever did. I really am not a shopping girl and actually loath shopping centres - especially around christmas when adverts, shops, signs, and everyone tells us to buy, buy, buy. When I saw the slogan Moments To Give it appeared to me as a joke since we're giving everything at christmas but moments and time are the last and least things on most of the gift lists. Showing my final images to John, the tutor who is assessing them, his first reaction to the pictures was that they are in fact quite depressing. He is right though. It was so hard to spend hours amongst the crowd. Mothers struggling with children, shopping lists and nerves; children crying being totally overwhelmed by the sheer mass of people, noise, toys, and their stressed out mothers; men desperately in search for the perfect christmas gift for the loved ones (remember, moments to give blah, blah, blah) or waiting bored outside stores for their wifes or girlfriends to return from the depths of any random store. When finished with shooting I was so exhausted as if had just finished a 12 hr shift in a steel factory. Due to pretty tricky light condition I had to use longer exposure times wich naturally leads to 'blurry' moving people. I do like this effect because it does reflect perfectly the hasty, busy crowd moving around. I didn't use a tripod on purpuse because I wanted to blend in as much as possible and not attract peoples attention. Catching them in their natural habitat might describe it best. It sometimes seemed as if I was the only person moving slowly, observing, eyeing for scenes and motives and not be in a hurry.
The results are definitely worth the effort!
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