Week Six [Reading/Presentation Notes]

Lutz, C. and Collins, J. (1991) The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes


The National Geographic magazine is of tremendous potential cultural importance.  Its photographs have voraciously focused on the third world scenes. It's an idealogical practice that powerfully relates to the history and structure of the society in which it has developed.

Some of the issues raised are particular to this specific genre of photography while many others illuminate photographic interpretation more generally.

National Geographic photographs of the non-westerner can be seen not simply as captured view of the other but a dynamic site at which gazes or view points intersect. This intersection creates a complex and multi-dimensional object. It allows viewers to negotiate a number of different identities both for themselves and those pictured.

The article explores the significance of the gaze, and the 7 kinds of gaze that can be found in the photograph. The 7 are...

1. The Photographers Gaze
2. The Institutional Gaze, magazine gaze.
3. The Readers Gaze.
4. The Non-Westerners Gaze.
5. The Explicit looking done by westerners.
6. The Gaze returned or refracted.
7. Our own academic gaze.


The Gaze and its significance

The photograph and the non-Western person share two attributes in the culturally tutored experience of most Americans, they are objects at which we look. The photograph has this quality because its usually intended as thing of either beautiful attraction or documentary interest (surveillance). 

Some see the gaze as an "act of mastery" (Williams 1987) or control. 

Laura Mulvey discusses feminist film theory in relation to the gaze in her essay "Visual pleasure and narrative cinema". She focuses on way in which looking in patriarchal society is "split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly." Therefore, the spectators position belongs to the male and allows for the construction of femininity. 

The unique vision of the female spectator is explored, and seen as multiple because it can move between identification with the object and with the spectator in comparison to the male gaze. For example, there is no single masculine spectator position for viewing the ethnic representations in the National Geographic. While the image makers at National Geographic are overwhelmingly white and male, the magazine's readers come from a wide range of social positions within American society.

The gaze can also be seen by some as masculine.  John Berger points out in his book Ways of Seeing (1972), contemporary gender ideologies and envisages men as active doers and women as passive presence, men by what they do to others and women by their attitudes towards themselves. (men act and women appear). 

Both Mulvey and Berger alert us in the ways in which the position of the spectator has the potential to enhance or articulate the power of the observer over the observed.

Lacan's view of the Gaze can also be helpful as a model for the potential effects of looking. Lacan speaks of gaze as something distinct from the eye of the beholder. For him, the gaze is "something [which] slips...and is always to some degree eluded in its vision." (Lacan 1981)

What can be done in the photograph is to (unconsciously) manipulate the gaze of the other - via such a process as photo selection - so that it allows us to see ourselves reflected in their eyes in ways in which are comfortable, familiar and pleasurable. This taming of the gaze occurs when we move and realise that the picture does not change as our gaze changes.

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Foucault's analysis of the rise of surveillance in modern society is also relevant to the understanding of the gaze in photography. When we look at the National Geographic magazine's gaze at the Third World, we notice it operates to represent the Third World to an American audience in ways which can shore up a western cultural identity.  The gaze is not, however, a singular or monolithic - we might say the gaze is meaningless, but it does open up certain possibilities for the reader interpretation of a photograph with these centring around issues of intimacy, pleasure, scrutiny, confrontation, and power.

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AN EXPLICIT WESTERN GAZE

Through the years National Geographic has been publishing articles on the non-Western world. Their photographs show the westerners engaged in a variety of activities: they view the local landscape from atop a hill, hold and closely study an artifact, show a local tribal person some wonder of Western technology, such as a photograph, mirror or the camera itself, or interact with a native, in conversation, work or play.
These pictures form a fascinating set as they represent more explicitly and directly than do the others the kinds of inter-cultural relations it is thought or hoped obtain between the West and its global neighbours. 

The effects of this type of photograph on readers are potentially important and complex, both in representing and teaching the National Geographic audience about that relationship and in perhaps allowing for a kind of identification with the Westerner in the photo and through that allowing for more intensive interaction with, or imaginary participation in the photo.

The pictures of westerners can serve a validating function by proving that the author was there. The reader can be convinced that the account is a first hand one, brought from the field rather then from the archives. 

In her analysis of the role of the gaze in the cinema, Mulvey (1985) argues that it takes three forms - the camera, the audience and the characters, the first two forms have to be obscured or invisible.
If the viewer becomes aware of his or her own eye or that of the camera they will develop a distancing awareness rather than an unconscious involvement.

As more and more people travelled to exotic locales of the NG articles, staff saw that the picture of the intrepid traveller no longer look intrepid and so had less interest. 

Whether or not Westerners appear in the picture, we 'are' there, but in pictures that include a Westerner, we may see ourselves being viewed by the other, and we become conscious of ourselves and relationships. The act of seeing the self being seen is antithetical to the voyeurism which many art critics have identified as intrinsic to most photography and film

THE REFRACTED GAZE OF THE OTHER
(To see themselves as others see them )

In a small number of NG issues, a native is shown with a camera or mirror.  These are both tools of self-reflection. Each creates a double of the self, a second figure who can be examined more closely than the original — a double that can also be alienated from the self, taken away, as a photograph can be, to another place. For many Americans, self knowledge is a central life goal. There is a childish naivety when a native gets to see his reflection.

There have been changes, where the Indians may have stood unwillingly for photographs they are now charging 80 cents a person as they pose. It depicts the act of looking at unwilling subjects, suggesting two things. The first, voyeurism of the photograph of the exotic.  The camera gaze is doubled in this picture, not the native subject as in the photos above where the camera enters the frame in some explicit sense, and this doubling underlines that western gaze.

Success in avoiding boredom is key to retaining readers interest and memberships for National Geographic. The photographer is always trying to colonise new experiences or find new ways to look at familiar subjects–to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. Thus, images are constructed rather than found in some cases.

"The photographer is supertourist, an extension of the anthro- pologist, visiting natives and bringing back news of their exotic doings and strange gear. The photographer is always trying to colonize new experiences, to find new ways to look at familiar
subjects—to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other" (Sontag 1977:42) 

THE ACADEMIC SPECTATOR 

This gaze is simply a sub-type of the readers gaze.  We read a National Geographic magazine with a sense of astonishment and wonder, both as children and, in a way that is different only some of the time as adults.

We aim to make pictures tell a different story than they were originally meant to tell, one about their makers and readers, rather than their subjects.

This seventh kind of looking is guided by the idea that an alternative gaze is possible, one which is less dominating, more orientating toward seeing how a scene and its viewer might be changed than toward its imagined essential, unchanging and unsatisfactory form.
As we are invited to dream in the photograph, we are also invited to forget and be lost in it.
Our reading theory has also tutored our gaze at the photographs in distinctive ways, told us how to understand the techniques by which they work. We are captured by the temptation to view the photographs as more real than the world or at least a comfy substitute for it.

Through attention to the dynamic nature of these intersecting gazes, the photograph becomes less vulnerable to the change or illusion that it masks or stuffs and mounts the world, freezes the life out of a scene. While the gaze of the subject of the photograph might be fairly lost in the heavy criss crossing traffic of the often more privileged producers and consumers gazes, very contemporary stories of contestable power are told there nonetheless.

Project Proposal [2,000 words]

Photography: Creative Proposal

• Paragraph 1 -Your choice of brief and style of photography (and why).
• Paragraph 2 - Your idea and the inspiration/context for your idea (eg. you may have been inspired by a particular photographerʼs work).
• Paragraph 3 - A summary of your research to date on your chosen theme, both into the work of other photographers, and theoretical research. Include a bibliography at the end of your proposal.
• Paragraph 4 - Demonstration of the awareness of the ethics of representation.
• Paragraph 5 - Evidence of technical experimentation. 

Appendix including:

• Production time scale (this should be broken down week-by-week).
• Camera equipment you propose to use.
• A brief budget (itemise individual items, and include total; do not forget items such as complimentary prints). 

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- What I'm going to do.
- How I'm going to do it.
- My method/approach and why
- Don't forget prints (three of them)
- Styles and inspirations (use photos)
- Discuss aspects of photography in relation to your prints. Ethics, Denotation, Connotation, Representation

Photography Project Proposal

My creative project will be a following a portrait/documentary approach to photography, where I aim to tell a personal 'picture story' (Bate, D. 2010, p.46) of my father. I want to capture his identity that I have interpreted as his son; I shall follow his everyday and leisure activities as an eyewitness. I shall also be incorporating aspects of lifestyle and personal photography to my autobiographical array of images in order to enhance its visual narrative in order to create trust between photographer and observer since "storytelling photography relies on a blend lifestyle and documentary approaches to shooting in order to capture authentic moments." (Roa, E. 2015) I want to have some editorial control over the construction of the images in order to produce my own personal interpretation about my father's character to my audience through visual elements and codes within the images, being wary of their authenticity. I chose these combined styles to approach the project because I have a strong passion for filmmaking and documentary storytelling and I want to further explore "the creative treatment of actuality." (Grierson, J. 1966) coined by the founder of documentary film, John Grierson. As a photographer, we can choose to manipulate reality in order to express certain meanings and ideologies about a subject through the semiotics and construction of the misé-en-scène. The aspects that I will creatively alter for the project are the components that define portraiture photography, an approach to photography that I have never attempted before, so I thought it would be good to challenge for myself in this field.

The main purpose of my photography project is to trigger a vast array of thought and discussion for the viewer about their own father and their interpretation of how capturing someone’s everyday activities can shape an understanding of their identity, with regards to the class and culture of the human subject. I've chosen the focus for my project to be on my own father, as I believe when other people observe this, it can be perceived as voyeuristic. I will take up the role of being the 'eyewitness' to the events that occur in my father's life during this project as this will reinforce the concept of voyeurism and create a contract of visual trust between photographer and audience since the aim of documentary photography is "to make the spectator into an eyewitness." (Bate, D. 2010, p.59) The images that I shall capture will be personal to my family and me by taking something from the private sphere into the public gaze. Therefore, these images will serve a ‘visual pleasure’ to its audience because photographs “which depict a normally private or taboo activity and a subject apparently unaware that they are being photographed, are more explicitly voyeuristic.” (Sontag, S. 1979 p.11-14)

"Portraiture is more than just a picture, it's a place of work: a semiotic event for social identity." (Bate, D. 2010 p. 67) The essence of symbols and signifiers in my project will be vital in connoting characteristics and creating assumptions towards my father’s character. The elements of portraiture that I shall control as the photographer is the selection clothing and locations that will also play a crucial to the representation of my father’s character since “clothes signify something about a person’s identity, though the context in which they wear them – that can also be influenced by the setting – also infers a message about the depicted person. (Bate, D. 2010, p.78). With regards to the location presented in the image, settings provides context for the viewer. For example, I will be using locations such as my home, my father’s workplace, pubs, parks, leisure centres and so on to contextualise my father’s identity because “the location and foreground figure form a relationship, a juxtaposition that is crucial in framing how we see them.” (Bate, D. 2010, p.79) Therefore, I shall have to carefully select locations and possibly gain permission to shoot in certain locations as well as being wary of the garments my subject chooses to wear. The connotations and denotations formed from the elements within my images is an essential part of creating my desired narrative of my father’s identity. I will aim to selected fundamental signs and symbols within the settings and construction of my photographs which will make simpler to decipher when observed by my audience. Composition will be important in forming a relationship between observer and the observed on my project. I have attempted a range of long and medium shots which are visible in my test prints, however I want to attempt a more close-up angle in the shoots to make a more personal connection between myself and my subject that will in turn, create a closer and friendlier relationship between subject and observer by being positioned. On the other hand, I realised that by doing this, it takes away from the visual narrative construction I want to manufacture as the focus of the images become more about the face and expressional elements of portraiture photography – I want a cohesive balance between all these elements

One of the inspirations for my project to focus on my own father came from Richard Billingham's book Ray's A Laugh (Billingham, R. 2000) This photographic chronicle is about Billingham's family that have been torn apart through poverty and alcoholism. His camera closely follows his father Raymond, a chronic alcoholic living with his wife in a tower block estate in Birmingham. The photos capture reality with no pretence, however, they possess a formal awareness using symbols and metaphors to construct meaning from the misé-en-scène within the location, through what the family own, how they dress, the objects they hang on their walls or pile up on tables, their furniture and ornaments and so on. Occasionally, the image construction can be seen to tell a picture story about Raymond. Take a look at Appendix 1, it's a photo of Ray sitting on the edge of a bed, his head downcast, the ever-present bottle beneath him with a door key and some unwrapped slices of bread laid just out of reach: "this is his life sentence." (Haughey, A. 1997) This technique is something I wish to infuse in the construction of my own images to tell a story about my father and his lifestyle through the misé-en-scène.

Appendix 1 - Raymond in Ray's a laugh [Billingham, R. (2000)]

Another one of my inspirations for the project was the work of photographer Tina Barney and her book Theatre of Manors where she also, like Billingham, photographs family and friends in their homes. However, Barney's subjects are rarely ever smiling and tend to have sombre expressions in comparison to the subjects in Billingham's work, subjects also tend to have a direct gaze with a strong awareness of the camera, thus the images appear to be part-artifice and part-spontaneity to the viewer. What inspired me about Barney's photos is not whom she photographs, but how she constructs the image around the subject. She creates a navigational space in her images where as a viewer, we are invited to enter the space with our eyes and navigate the room around the subject, looking at objects on the shelves, furniture and ornaments and relate those to the subject(s) she is photographing. I want to emulate this portrait photographic technique used by Barney into my portrait-documentary project and create a navigational space in the various settings that I shall be photographing my father during his everyday activities to connote certain ideologies about his character. I will force the viewer to make assumptions about my father’s character via the four elements of portraiture stated by David Bate "each element affects another in the overall potential of the meaning." (Bate, D. 2010, p.73) For example, look at Appendix 2, it of a photo from called "Mom's Dinner Party (Barney, T. 1997, p. 43). Here, the subject is placed in a dominant central position in the frame, yet are eyes are drawn to look around the room and we begin detect tentative clues and construct stories about the central character. Similarly in Test Print 1, I used a similar style of approach with the composition, with my father placed central in the photo, yet we are more attracted to look at his clothes and surrounding rather than his expression. Creating meaning through misé-en-scène and semiotics will be a key style of approach to my photographs.

Appendix 2 - Mom's Dinner Party in Tina Barney: Photographs : Theater of Manners [Barney, T. 1997]

As my project focuses purely on my own father, I have to be aware of how I represent him to my audience, and the ethics behind it. I want to creatively inform my audience about my father’s character, being a part of the middle-class British population, whose life may be unfamiliar to them. My project could be interpreted as a criticism, celebration, reform or support in terms of how I visual exhibit my father’s identity; however, this is also dependent on the viewer’s background in how they engage and understand the meaning of this project. In some of my photographs, the subject will express an awareness of the camera since these are personal images and they have been “specifically made to portray the individual as they wish to be seen” (Wells, L. 2015 p. 138) In fact, the images will portray the individual from my own understanding of his identity, showing my father from a son’s point-of-view. The semiotics within the images will connote meanings that could be perceived differently amongst viewers. For example in Test Print 2, you can see my father in a science lab/classroom setting wearing a lab-coat, engaged in teaching a lesson. However, other viewers may observe and deconstruct a totally different meaning from the photograph – he could be seen as a doctor or a technician or something totally different altogether. I will have to be wary of the connotations that could be composed from the misé-en-scène and what and the different perceptions they could produce.

I intend to yield to a deep and meaningful insight into my subject’s life, revealing his identity through his everyday activities, positioning myself as an eyewitness to the events. Everyone has at some point had a father or father figure in his or her lives and these photographs may generate different feelings for different people as well as different ideologies regarding my father’s character and personality. Viewers may be able to identify with his lifestyle, others may question it, but this is all depends on the cultural context. My audience will be forced to gaze into my subject’s personal life and construct a story about his character. Overall, I hope to construct a personal, positive narrative of my father by documenting his lifestyle in portraits. They will serve as memories for me and the rest of my family by capturing my father in his day-to-day and leisure activities, which according to Jessica Thomason “will not only depict what his life looked like, but what it felt like.” (Thomason, J. 2016)

Bibliography

Barney, T. (1997) Tina Barney: Photographs : Theater of Manners, Zurich: Scalo

Bate, D. (2010) Photography: The Key Concepts, Berg: Oxford, New York.

Billingham, R. (2000) Ray's A Laugh, Zurich: Scalo.

Grierson, J. (1966) The First Principles of Documentary, in Forsythe Hardy, ed., Grierson on Documentary (London: Faber & Faber)

Haughey, A. (Winter 1997) Ray's A Laugh: Review in Source Magazine: Issue 10 [Vol. 3 Number 4] 

Roa, E. (2015) Storytelling, Available at: http://www.littlefishphoto.com/storytelling/  (Accessed: 10th March 2016).

Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography, Harmondsworth: Penguin

Thomason, J. (2016) What is "lifestyle photography"?, Available at: http://jessicathomason.com/what-is-lifestyle-photography/  (Accessed: 14th March 2016).

Wells, L. (2015) Photography: A Critical Introduction (5^th Edition), : Taylor & Francis

Appendix

Production Time-Scale
Easter Break:

My father will be going away to the Isle of Wight with my mother for a few the first week of the Easter break before he heads off to the Lake District to do the Annual Hills and Ales week trek with a few of his friends during the second week of the Easter break.
During term-time, the only days I can commute to and from London to carry out photo-shoots is on Wednesdays and weekend. This is due to academic and employment commitments for both my father and myself. Therefore, I aim to go back to London once a week a carry out a photo shoot with him. Frustratingly, my father isn’t available for a majority of the weekends from the Easter break until the end of term. Thus I will have to travel and carry out a majority of the shoots on Wednesdays.
Week 8: 4^th – 10^th April

Wednesday Shooting Only – Location: Home

Week 9: 11^th – 17^th April

Wednesday Shooting Only – Location: Pub

Week 10: 18^th – 24^th April

Weekend Shoot – Location: Outdoor Activities

Week 11: 25^th – 1^st May

Wednesday Shooting Only – Location: Family Outing

Week 12: 2^nd – 8^th May

Wednesday and weekend – Any reshooting can be done this week

Budget
My project will force me to commute to my home in South-West London for every photo-shoot; therefore I'll need to book trains in advance to save money. If I do travel to and from London once a week, it will cost me just around £10 per return journey.
In regards to possible props needing to be purchased, my father said he would cover the costs to an extent. For example, one of my shoots will take place in one of my father's favourite local pubs in which he shall be drinking ale, another may take place at my local leisure centre which admittance will need to be paid. My father will cover these expenses.
With the prints for the final assessment, each A4 print will cost around £1.50-2 and when the time comes, I will have to decide whether to print it via the university's resources or to use an external printing provider where I will have to also pay for the post and packaging for the prints.
Overall, I assume to have a budget of £50 for the expenses of the entire project.

Equipment:
None of my shoots will need the use of a studio setting, since life events do not occur in a studio I will be using natural lighting from the locations in which my shoots take place. However, I may use a flash gun and light meter for certain shoots that take place indoors and increase the amount of artificial light in the scene, but I will shall be wary of the amount of intensity I use with the flash as I want the settings to appear natural.
I have my own DSLR - Nikon D40X available to use for the shooting, but I shall be using a Nikon D7000 mainly - If I am unable to book out the D7000, at least I'll always have a back up camera. I will also need a tripod for the camera when shooting.

List of Equipment:
- Nikon D40X - Nikon D7000 - Basic camera tripod - Nikon SB-800 Flashgun

- Memory Cards/USBs - Light Meter

Project Ideas

Project Ideas/Themes

• Food Lifestyle Photography e.g. http://www.francescotonelli.com/PROJECTS/Enjoying-Food/1
  
• Street Photography - Graffiti in London = Art or Vandalism
  
• Portraits of guilty pleasures e.g. http://odetacatana.com/350-2/guilty-pleasures/
• Portraits/ of people's addictions 

Friends with Addictions

Me - Burger Brothers

Tom Ashdown/Andrew  - Poker

Tom Bright - Sex Doll

Joe Ragu - Monster Munch/KFC

Hannah Bushell - PizzaMe

Albie Morrissey- Doritos & Hummus/Ketchup

Dad - Pint and Rugby

Gabi Abadi - Sushi

Basho Anvari - Coffee/NBA

Eloise Carfrae- Werther's Original

Steffan Williams - Champagne/Rioja

Salman Dulloo - Coffee and a cigarette

Archie Roberts - Arsenal and Football

Bruno Miles - Making music

Molly Skevington- Diet Coke

• Urban Street Art/Vandalism Photography
• Documentary/Vernacular Photography of personal pleasures or focussing on one personal pleasure - My dad?
• Addictive behaviours for personal rewards = consumerism.

Street Photography - Week Five [Reading Notes]

Clarke, G. (1997) The Photograph, Chapter 5 p75- 99, The City in Photography. Oxford University Press.

Photography established itself in a period when the growth of the city and industry had already provoked a formidable literature and art in response to the increasing influence of urban areas, especially cities such as London, Paris and New York. 

Photography responded to the variety and multiplicity of urban life and experience, and to question how urban space was perceived and represented

It's significant that the depiction of the city in painting related much to the development of the panorama. The picture below is a section from Robert Barker, titled Novel View of the City and Castle of Edinburgh (1788). He was the inventor of the 360 view. The panoramas reflect an attempt to bring paintings closer to the actual nature of seeing than it had ever been before. The photograph was thus an appropriate from to succeed it.

Robert Barker's Novel View of the City and Castle of Edinburgh (1788)

A panoramic view control and possession by the eye.
We see all of a city from a single point of view. The eye imagines that it dominates a dense and disparate space whilst simultaneously  keeping the city at a distance. The view suggests the totality of the urban scene and, crucially, makes the eye of the viewer the centre of totality.

Photographers would document changes in social conditions and environments in urban areas. The camera acts as a detective, moving through streets and areas otherwise prohibited to an outsider's eye. --> e.g. Alfred Stieglitz


There are multiple layers of what constitutes the meaning of an individual urban identity. No single photographic response achieves any definitive vision of what it stalks, so where Stieglitz favoured the avenue - broad expanses of urban space where the eye is free to roam at will, either upward or indiscriminately - Jacob Riis limited himself to the alley and they court.
--> Both are extremes, but both equally underlie very different aesthetics of the city and the way in which the physical and perceptual space of the city scene is to be negotiated and interpreted by the camera. It plays into the complicated language of visualisation and what the eye privileges as part of its preconceived image of what the city might be or should be.

Lewis Hine, the official photographer of the construction of the Empire State Building. Take a look at his work of presenting smaller details of the landscape, and even primarily focusing on human figures in urban spaces with his photographs. The human figure is always central to the meaning behind his work. His work also underlines the extent to which the city has been viewed as a spectacle.

Flaneur - A man who saunters around observing society.




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Turpin, N (2002) Street Photography? iN-PUBLiC Magazine Article, Source: http://www.in-public.com/information/what_is,  Date Accessed: 2nd March 2016

Primarily street photography is not reportage, it is not a series of images displaying, together, the different facets of a subject or issue. For the street photographer there is no specific subject matter and only the issue of ‘life’ in general, they don’t leave the house in the morning with an agenda and they don’t visualise their photographs in advance of taking them. street photography is about seeing and reacting, almost by-passing thought altogether.

There is a high degree of empathy with the subject matter, street photographers often report a loss of ‘self’ when carefully watching the behaviour of others, such is their emotional involvement. 

The street photographer finds or creates the meaning in their images. They have no props or lighting, no time for selecting and changing lenses or filters, they have a split second to recognise and react to a happening. (A Decisive Moment?)

Street Photography - Week Five [Workshop Notes]

What is 'Street' Photography?

Just because you shoot in the street doesn't make it street photography

- It was a reactive response to the unpredictability of everyday life witness in public spaces
- It usually involves people as the subject, but not always
- The 'decisive moment' is an important part of street photography and should remain subjective
- To work with a composition in a constant moment, using the elements to suggest a narrative

Photography established itself in a period when the growth of the city and industry had already provoked a formidable response.... Graham Clarke

The Flâneur
- Literature of photography, particularly street photography
- Modern extension of the urban observer described by nineteenth century journalist Victor Fournel before the advent of the hand-held camera


Eugène Atget

Late 1880s photography was experiencing unprecedented expansion in both commercial and amateur fields.

1897: Old Paris
1896 - 1927: Street-Hawkers, small tradesman, rag collectors and prostitutes, as well as fairs and popular amusements in the various districts.

Characteristics of Atget: Wispy, drawn-out sense of light, a fairly wide view and limited range of scenes

"This enormous artistic and documentary collection is now finished." Atget wrote this of his life story work in 1920, thought he didn't stop working at this point.


Henri Cartier-Bresson (The Godfather of Street Photography)

Coined the term "decisive moment" and street photography. He focussed mainly on poetic composition of angles and shapes in his photos, using the photographic code of the 'golden ratio'.

Good a taking photos of children with their happy and curious nature.

Weegee (Arthur Felig)

Looked at the emergency services and police, he would take photos of crime and destruction looking at the under-belly of the city, the opposite of glamourising the city and making it look picturesque. 
- He was given a police radio, so he knew when things were reported and attended the scene to photograph.

Robert Frank

Quote: "Black and white are the colours of photography. To me, they symbolise the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. Most of my photographs are of people: they are seen simply, as through the eyes of the man in the street."

Questions to consider;
Is street photography it's own genre? Can it be objective?

It's a method of photography which essentially puts it into his own genre.

Other Street Photographers
William Klein
Joel Sternfeld
Alfred Stieglitz
Bill Owens

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Studio Notes

Set up your subject, position your camera and decide on your settings. Once you set up your camera and know it's F-Stop from the aperture, you set the lights to match the F-Stop

On the light you can adjust the Wattage and the flash number. Remember the F number on the light IS NOT to do with the F-Stop 

You can put a diffuser on the flash lights to soften then light, making shadows less dominant. 

When it comes to using the light meter, you must set the ISO to match your camera settings. The next thing you set is the shutter speed (left side number) in the studio, it's recommended to use a shutter speed of 1/125th. A flash gun can only come up to 1/250th. You then need to tell the camera it's using flash. Set the light meter to the thunderbolt and a C. The F number is on the right side, so set it to what you set your cameras aperture to. 

Make sure you face your light meter at you camera when testing it. Check the numbers after you flash test as this will tell you if you light intensity is too high or low 

When using a secondary light, it's best to set it a stop lower than your primary light. Once they've both been set, the overall light intensity would've increased by half a stop so each light will need to be reduced by 5 clicks 

You must plug the camera into the lights so they can communicate. It's the same connection as you would use for the light meter.