Project 66: juxtaposition

For this project, choose either the still-life approach described above, or a larger scale shot, which involves choosing viewpoint and lens focal length.

The first thing I had to go, of course perhaps, was to find out what the word ‘juxtaposition’ actually means. The simple definition is ‘put side by side’ (this from ‘The Oxford Dictionary of Current English’ which I bought for £2.50 more than 20 years ago). I don’t know why I used the word simple: perhaps because I thought there was something more to ‘juxtapose’ than that. So off I went to the internet, to dictionary.com, or thefreedictionary.com, or whatever. And here I found the addition of the phrase ‘often for comparison’. Which seemed to make it a much bigger word somehow.

And this is what I came up with…

Project 66: juxtaposition

Hmmmm, I hear you saying. It took ages! Ages? you ask. That took ages?! Well the objects are juxtaposed; they’re side-by-side for comparison (a natural product and a man-made one). And the piece of resistance – check out the number on the calculator…

Project 65: symbols

The idea of this project is to find symbols for a number of concepts. Complete it by listing more than one symbol for each of the following subjects… The subjects are growth, excess, crime, silence and poverty.

Apparently I should try to avoid cliché. But cliché is to some extent a matter of opinion. And also, I could treat it in an original or interesting way. And then perhaps it would still be cliché, but it would at least be an interesting cliché. All of the ideas – below – are clichés, but I will treat them in an interesting way: lighting, composition, some abstraction. And in that way I might be able to go beyond cliché.

Symbols for growth: a sprouting seedling (oh dear: already desperate! Perhaps done very close up (macro) to bring out the texture of the new shoot contrasted with the soil the seedling is sprouting from, and lit in some incredibly original, interesting way (how? no idea!)) A buddha. Spiritual growth and development. Is that a bit more interesting than a sprouting seedling?

Symbols for excess: a shot of an interior Specsavers wall. There are hundreds and hundreds of different frames, but still I can’t find what I’m looking for! Perhaps it would be better if there were just half a dozen to choose from. Is it this excess of choice that causes the problem? Let’s go for the cliché jugular: calorie consumption. Calorie consumption in the (so-called) western world. Or just consumption generally. Which I guess could be regarded as being less ‘political’. Or the spectre of in-built obsolescence: a bit of the next project here as I juxtapose an image of an xth generation iPod with a yth generation. What’s the difference? Nothing! Except maybe a functionally meaningless revamp of the navigation system, or an increase in the amount of disk space so you’ll have even more space you’re not going to use!

Symbols for crime: another bit of juxtaposition here with an image of a John Lewis home/kitchen department filled with gadgets side-by-side with an image of some inner-city estate kitchen that might have too little crockery and cutlery. Neither of these images singly illustrate crime, of course, but it is a crime that such a contrast exists. Or, night-time, a speeding police car, beacons flashing, slow shutter and trails of light but still recognisable.

Symbols for silence: an empty church, light streaming through stained glass windows; very silent and celestial. A young child shushing someone, an index finger or perhaps some other finger, pressed against her/his lips.

Symbols for poverty: something clichéd? Something abstract? A group of poor people. A begging child. A starving child. A slum. Or the abstract: how to illustrate a paucity of ideas?

Project 64: evidence of action

You might like to try something similar for yourself. Produce one photograph in which it can be seen that something has happened. As a suggestion, include in the photograph something that has been either broken, or emptied.

Project 64: evidence of action

Obvious evidence of action, I guess. With a bit of colour stuff thrown in there, as well. Bit of primary colour stuff – red, yellow, blue. How to make the obvious a little less obvious? A little less conservative? With a lower case c, or an UPPER CASE C? (I’ve been attending a local camera club since I joined last September and one of the most disappointing things about it is the utter conservative-ness of 95% of the images show, whether they be print or projected. I enter images into various competitions – both print and projected – almost purely in an attempt to make these people go ‘Oooooh!’ My image of pavement dog shit didn’t go down too well. Or it went down very well. It depends how you look at things, I guess. And I guess there’s more than one way of looking at dog shit…)

Anyway, that’s another digression out of the way…

So how to make the obvious less obvious… How to abstract… the image above is something of an attempt…

Nah… On second thoughts, it’s not really abstract at all, it is? How could I even think I could get away with describing it as abstract when it’s the whole thing! I need a macro lens, that’s what I need. My next purchase sorted. Now all I need to do is save up…

Maybe I should have switched the pencils/shavings around so that yellow shavings were next to red, blue was next to yellow and red was next to blue. I’d then end up with secondary colours from the mix-up, wouldn’t I?! Bit late now though.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

This project requires some actual photography. Based on what I have been discussing so far, aim to tell a story of any kind, in a set of pictures numbering between, say, 5 and 15.

I like that phrase ‘some actual photography’!

Now there’s a somewhat condescending phrase – “something as simple as the preparation of food”! Tell that to those guys who just took part in the final of Masterchef! Simple?! Simple?! You must be joking! Works of art, that’s what those ‘simply-prepared’ meals were.

Check out these pictures —>>>

Here’s the starter…

Masterchef 2010 Winner Starter

Here’s the main course…

Masterchef 2010 Winner Main Course

Here’s the dessert…

Masterchef 2010 Winner Dessert

Now don’t try to tell me these dishes were simple to prepare.

So what about my own narrative picture essay consisting of between 5 and 15 photographs?

I was going to do something as simple as cooking, but I’m thinking I’ll leave that until the final assignment of the course and use it for that, but make it a real challenge to finish off with: it certainly won’t be simple, that’s really not something I want. So, what to do instead…

I could do the football thing researched and planned in the previous project, or think of something completely different… Something like totally abstract, something like really off the wall…

Ummm…

What about this…

The 1st image: a view of the challenge.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 2nd image: the first tentative steps.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 3rd image: into the darkness; fear.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 4th image: it’s certainly not getting any easier.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 6th image: hold on tight; time for a breather.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 6th image: still no easier; totally disorientated.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 7th image: a grab for a post.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 8th image: more than halfway now; suddenly feeling more confident.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 9th image: but still holding on tight.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 10th image: bright light helping; a contrast to the earlier darkness.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 11th image: not long to go now, but still holding firmly on.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 12th image: getting more and more confident as the project comes to an end.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 13th image: fairly sure I’m not going to get unlucky now.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

The 14th image: success, with one foot back on solid ground. And perhaps that’s all you can expect in life…

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

Does that meet the project ‘criteria’? It tells a story, happening over time, in a series of images. Therefore, I guess, it is a narrative picture essay, isn’t it?

The phrase ‘trying too hard’ comes to mind. But it’s somehow a difficult phrase to justify: I might get laughed at for using that phrase in the context of this project: how on earth can the above possibly be described as ‘trying too hard’?!

Other notes about this project…

I have certainly chosen what might be regarded as ‘a homely subject’ (of course you don’t just walk down the stairs at home… Work, department store, football ground…) Have I made walking down the stairs ‘interesting, attractive and varied’? Interesting? Although it is a homely suject, it is, I think, an interesting choice: as I said earlier, I wanted to do something that was a bit different somehow. So combining homely with, I hope, a choice of topic that’s never been covered before in the history of Project 63 for the OCA’s TAoP course, has made it interesting. Attractive? The shots were taken at about 5pm on a sunny spring day, which you might just be able to see from the 5th image. The light was coming directly through a frosted window above and just out of sight of the 1st image and softened further by the wooden banister, the carpet and the yellow/brown/orange walls. Soft, pastel-y (?!), desaturated light has made for an attractive setting. Varied? Some wide-angle shots, some close-ups, half-half feet/leg and hand/arm, some high contrast images, some low and different perspectives. That’s varied, isn’t it?

(This is another one of those projects where the suggested time is such an underestimate: it’s becoming assignment-length!)

So now I’m trying to decide how to put the images together. I’ve done all the photography stuff – the lighting, composition, etc (all the interesting/attractive/varied stuff mentioned above) – and now I’ve got to get involved in the page layout!

OK. So this is the way I’m going to lay the images out: vertically (going DOWN the stairs), in one column (which I think won’t go down well as the arrangement will take up lots of space), matching the width of the ‘landscape’ images to the width of the ‘portrait’ ones. I’m going to create a vertical panaroma, with no space between the images, and put it in here. I think I can do that in Irfan View. I’ll get back to you on that…

And here it is. I ended up doing it in PowerPoint. Bit time-consuming, to say the least. It’s difficult to get the full effect (full effect!) having to scroll a lot vertically. It might be quite effective as a tall poster print.

Project 63: a narrative picture essay

I’ve just read through the course notes for this project again and noticed it states, towards the end, ‘write a short caption under each picture, describing what it shows’. As the (paraphrased) saying goes, a picture tells more than a short caption, but I’m going to pop back and caption my images…

Project 62: researching an event

Now that you have seen how preparation for a picture story can work, try doing a similar project for yourself. You do not need to take any photographs for this…

Next weekend my 11-year old son is playing in a football cup final for the second year running. I took some photos of the occasion last year; they were OK, but after doing this course and researching the event, they are going to be so much better this year!

I’ve looked through the photographs I took last year and this gives me a good idea of the extra reserach that needs to be done to create a set of images that will improve of last year’s effort.

The ground is local so not much travel involved: I can walk to the ground so very easy to re-visit if I need to. The match starts at 10am so I don’t need to get up at the crack of dawn! I’ve spoken to the groundsman (he says he remembers me from last year, which I’m a bit dubious about); he’ll give me a luminous green vest with ‘official photographer’ or something like that on the back. Very professional! I’ll be allowed to wander around the ground and I can go pitch-side to take photographs. The only place I can’t take photos is in the changing rooms, which makes sense. I’ve asked if I can take pictures in an empty changing room and that’s OK: would really like a few shots of an empty ground – an empty changing room and an empty stand, for example. Good for contrast. Unfortunately I won’t be able to contrast empty/busy chaging rooms, but never mind.

Last year I did no research on the layout of the ground, for example, but now I’ve been around checking out the layout of the place, particuarly in relation to the position of the sun – where’s best for light, of course. Checked out car parks, entrance to ground, turnstiles, the stand, the pitch itself. What else? When the ground opens for spectators; refreshments area; the length of the match; how long for half-time; where the players come out onto the pitch; where trophies get awarded.

The kind of equipment I’ll take… I’ll be shooting RAW, of course. I’ll be talking 2 4GB cards and 1 2GB card (fast film is mentioned in the courseware: yet another example of it’s dated-ness!); tripod/monopod (I found my monopod (however cheap and nasty – fiver from 7dayshop!) very useful for pitch-side shots last year. And I remember looking at the official match photographer’s equipment – for example, several bodies, a 300mm Canon L-series prime lens – with envy! What? Perhaps 2 grand just for the lens?! And there’s me with my…); my 17-85 and my 70-300.

A list of the photos I’ll take… (to be updated spontaneously on the day):

Emptiness – empty car park, empty ground, empty stand, empty dressing rooms, spectator-free turnstiles.
Starting to get busy – cars, buses arriving, spectators milling around, going through turnstiles.
Our boys – nervous, excited, chatting (can we do better than last year? They were runners-up)
Things starting to happen – stand filling up, people getting teas/coffees from a refreshments van, people drinking teas/coffees.
Almost time for kick-off – the 2 teams running out on to the pitch, team photos, tossing a coin, captains shaking hands, the whistle blows!
And then it’s going to be rather spontaneous! The pictures I would expect to take? Unplannable! Good ones? My son scoring a goal?! Spectators cheering.
Half-time – coach talking to boys, encouragement, drinking water.
Second half – same as for 1st half!
Final whistle – perhaps end of normal time, so extra time, and then perhaps penalties (that’s what happened last year).
Presentation ceremony – last year Peter Shilton gave out the trophies/medals.
More photos – team, individual, happy faces, sad faces.

Types of photo – wide, tele, close-up, long, portrait, landscape.

Wish us luck!