Wellington Winter

With all the chilly weather we have been having lately I thought this image connects quite well with it. The cold desolate beach which claims another victim (the tyre) with a permanent reminder of the damage it can bring.

Once again this is a scan of a hand printed image and on my 35mm Nikon.

Photos from the Edge - Part Two

Earlier I posted Part One of a story titled Photos from the Edge, published in the NZ Plumbers Journal.

Here's Part Two...

PHOTOS FROM ‘THE EDGE’ – Part Two

Master Plumbers’ Marketing Manager Peter Livingstone enjoys the creative and technical challenges of producing black and white photo images that reflect emotion and mood – images with an ‘edge’.

In Part One Peter explained why he prefers to work with black and white film. He often uses Ilford Delta 3200 which, he says, is a good technical tool for exploring the qualities of ‘light’ and ‘texture’. It also helps him achieve the ‘look’ and ‘feel’ that he’s trying to convey. He experiments with different techniques, and hand prints the images in his own dark-room.
“Another useful tool is to keep a ‘visual diary’,” says Peter. “I use it for all my projects, and it contains notes on various technical aspects; such as focal length, camera angles, moods, and lighting details. I use my visual diary as a workbook to break down and define the project I am working on and to monitor progress. Also, I include pictures of my own and from other sources which may ‘capture’ an effect that I find interesting, inspiring or exciting.”

The process
Peter explains that there’s a creative process which he applies to every project he works on, and that there are some projects that are ongoing – they’re a ‘work in progress’, he says. At the beginning he takes his idea (or alternatively a ‘Creative Cluster’ topic – see below) and breaks it into small pieces by looking for answers to various questions.
“The Drinking-Reality TV project, for example, was a topic given to me to work on,” he says. “At the outset I asked myself the following questions: What does the topic mean? What are the key words? What do I feel about it? What do I want to convey? What are the images you associate with this subject? and so on.
“My interpretation of the topic was that of darkness, intrigue, mood, and intrusion that slid into voyeurism. Drinking with friends is a pleasurable activity,” he says, “but looking into people’s lives at unguarded moments is an intrusion. The difficulty was in marrying those concepts together.”
To achieve the mood he wanted he needed a ‘dark and grainy’ look. From a technical perspective he had to decide on which grade of film to use; what kind of and how much lighting to employ – or should he simply use available light only; how the image should be composed or arranged – for example should an image from a television screen be included; and so on.

Experimentation
Says Peter: “You shoot a lot of film when working on a project, and you get hits, misses, and near-misses. Some of the shots that ‘nearly’ work are useful because they may contain the seed of an idea. The picture may not be what I wanted to achieve, but something in it is worth experimenting with further.

“That’s one of the things I have learnt,” he adds, “that it isn’t a case of having an idea, taking the pictures, and that’s that. You have to go back and re-work it, and you’ll probably explore various tangents along the way, and there’s always a difference between your initial pictures and those you take at the end of the process. It’s like being a painter, who may begin with a light pencil sketch, but the finished project may be in oil paints or perhaps water colours.”

Creative Cluster
Peter is part of a group called ‘Creative I’ in which members give each other support and criticism at monthly meetings. “This helps to keep you motivated,” says Peter, “as you must work on a project (and also the group project) between-time and present the results to the group. We share advice, help each other to develop an ‘eye’ for composition, and swap technical information.” Technical details must become ‘second-nature’ to a photographer, he says, as you need to fully understand them and yet, at the same time, not to consciously think about them. Easier said than done!
He has a number of projects that he’s working on at any given time. One such project is Driving forward, looking back: Seeing ahead, shooting blind which involves taking shots of the view reflected in the driver’s side wing-mirror, while the driver (Peter) concentrates on the road ahead and makes no attempt to compose the images.

Seeing the light
Yet another project, Landscape of the body, is chiefly concerned with light and texture. It’s a very personal topic that explores skin texture and body parts and the play of light and shade on the skin’s surface. And Show me the way to go home is the result of Peter’s wish to create a series where the light is ‘painted on’. His subjects are local street signs and the light was ‘painted’ on by a hand held torch with the camera set to a long exposure.
“Photography is a series of exciting challenges to me, as I strive to create the series of images I want – images that reflect emotion and mood – images with an ‘edge’.”

To see how Peter is progressing with his projects jump on the net and visit lightandtexture.blogspot.com