Documentary Communities
Documentary Photography
"Documentary photography is a style of photography that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events, and is often used in reportage."
-Tate Modern
Documenting Communities
Dawoud Bey
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In these portraits by Dawoud Bey, you can see he has a connection to the people he takes pictures of. He builds up a community with these people so they are more comfortable with him and the photos he takes. All of these photos are carefully composed and it's clear that Bey pays attention to both background and foreground of his work.
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Experiment 1:
In this task, we needed to take 6 photos of our partner inside and 6 photos outside. These pictures had to be portrait and we had to use different compositions and lighting techniques such as natural and studio lights and think about the background, angles and background.
I found the task fun because I got to go outside and tell my partner where to go to take the photo.
I liked taking the portraits outside because there were so many places to go and different angles to use.
I think I should try to improve on being more experimental with the studio lights.
I would like to take more images of the subject in front of a large and flat backdrop (like the 3rd picture) because I like the way it makes it look small against the enclosed surrounding area and I want to take more for this project.
If I had more time I would go to different parts of the school and take longer to compose the image.
I found the task fun because I got to go outside and tell my partner where to go to take the photo.
I liked taking the portraits outside because there were so many places to go and different angles to use.
I think I should try to improve on being more experimental with the studio lights.
I would like to take more images of the subject in front of a large and flat backdrop (like the 3rd picture) because I like the way it makes it look small against the enclosed surrounding area and I want to take more for this project.
If I had more time I would go to different parts of the school and take longer to compose the image.
Homework 05/10/21
Evaluation
I went to the local bakery and asked if I could take their portraits while they work, I stayed for about 10 minutes and took pictures of the people working there and some of the regular customers (of those photos I chose 4 to use as homework). After that I walked across the road and asked the woman who works at the pet shop for her portrait, I asked her to act like she was in the middle of putting something on a shelf. The next day I went out with 3 of my mates and took several pictures of them when we were out. I chose a photo of one of each of them to use.
Negative photos
First I took a photo from the homework, of a man from the bakery I go to a lot, and then edited it in photoshop. The edits I made were making it black and white then inverting it. With the inverted print of our photos we went to the darkroom to create a negative. The second picture is of a strip of paper that I used to test the amount of time I needed the picture to be exposed. The third is the final product and the forth is my first attempt at the full page.
Niall McDiarmid
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Niall McDiarmid is a photographer who's work focuses on capturing the people of Britain. One of his series of photos, Encounters with strangers, shows how he takes pictures of people he has never met before while traveling. One of the main features he looks at when taking a picture is colour.
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Liz Johnson
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Liz Johnson Artur is a Russian-Ghanaian photographer who was raised in Germany, but is now based in London. She has a range of chapters throughout her work, one focuses on the African Diaspora, one focuses on the area where she is based, and one focuses on the LGBTQIA community. She has work based on a variety of different people, and she does work to capture the memory of the people she meets.
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SIÂN
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Siân's work interests me because she uses photography to document her community with a technique that she describes as becoming invisible. She takes photos of large groups that she knows in the moment and unplanned, no one ever poses or prepares for these pictures making her work very candid.
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Adama Jalloh
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This photographer takes pictures to share her thoughts and experience instead of keeping them to herself. She wants her memories to be recorded even if it is really simple and mundane; they all have meaning to her - "I want more people to see, rather than me just keeping it stored in my head". She takes photos outdoors, in her community, showing both places and people she is familiar with.
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Homework 12/10/21
Inside photos:
Outside photos:
For this weeks homework I went out with my mate to take 6 portraits inside and 6 portraits outside all listening to different songs. I lost one photo of Saul listening to Whiplash by Hank Levy. I found this quite difficult as I had to keep track of what songs I was listening to when each picture was taken and I had to get him in the frame and compose the picture before the song ended.
Gordon Parks
When I first started researching Gordon Parks I found many images that I liked. He is a very influential photographer who is known for his work documenting different communities in the South of the states (as seen in his collection called Segregation in the South 1956) and his powerful and volumetric use of texture and light. In research discovered how that his influence has inspired rapper Kendrick Lamar's music video for his song ELEMENT. directed by Jonas Lindstroem. Like a majority of Lamar's music videos, this is filled with stunning shots and beautifully composed frames - a large amount of them pay direct homage to Gordon Parks and his influence. The images on the left are stills from the Lindstroem's video and on the right are Parks' original pictures.
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Portraits task
During this task we were paired with a partner in the class and sent to take 12 pictures of the subject. This was hard to complete because we had to think about where photos were being taken and we waited for lighting to be right. I only got 7 because my camera died close to the end.
This is my favourite image because it is very candid - the sun had come out so Nancy was blocking the light from her eyes. I tried to zoom in as to not get any people or additional subjects that could take attention was from the foreground. Nancy doesn't like this picture but that doesn't matter. I think other people like this picture because it's very simple.
Creating a digital negative
I barely cropped the image because I thought the original was quite condensed and close together. When I converted it to black and white, I was told that it looks "grey" and "bad". So I used levels to create more contrast between the shadows and the highlights.
Tyler Mitchell
In this photograph, I see a man with his head in a plastic bag with water leaking out. I like this because it's strange and creates a feeling of anxiety until you see he has a scuba mask.
Though the background is dark, the main subject is lit well and the whole foreground is very vibrant. Space is scarce in this photo, as the main subject would not take up most of the picture but the bag consumes the space above the mans head. The water that's falling out of the bag is most interesting to me as it implies that the photo had to be taken quickly to capture the specific moment of the man's eye level being submerged - this goes back to the anxiety inducing setting of this picture. I think when people first see his work they will notice the colours; even with a darker backdrop like this - it is still very vibrant. |
In general I tried to keep colour and framing in mine. All but one, had a large space in the background, making the subject appear smaller than he is in. The fifth photo was supposed have the same affect with the yellow in the foreground and background that the sixth picture had with the green - but the sunlight was causing the foreground to be dark and under-exposed.
I like this image the most because the foreground and background match in colour. I saw then ping pong table was matching with the leaves on the tree so I got my subject to sit on the table and face towards me. I also liked the lighting in this photo, the far background was dimmed so all the light focused on the subjects. I went into lightroom to make the green more noticeable and make it.
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Tyler Mitchell Response (16/11/21)
We took 12 photos of out subject wear bright clothes and props to make the photos look more natural and like it wasn't taken in school.
Extended project so far (21/11/21)
My favourite photo from the Tyler Mitchell response
This is my favourite response photo because I like the composition and the lighting. This was very easy to take as I hung a piece of colourful and vibrant cloth over the door and rapped a silver cloth around Jed's torso. I like how it's framed very symmetrically and fits only his head and torso in the image. The colour in the background is busy and vibrant, so is Jed's jumper combined with the reflective cloth. The subject's eyes are directed at the light source, which projects the light from left to right - this makes it look like Jed is focusing on something else other than the camera. Jed's school uniform isn't visible to make it look more professional and closer to Tyler Mitchell's work.
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Tyler Mitchell Response (30/11/21)
We used this lesson to do take more photos in the style of Tyler Mitchell (props and vibrant clothes). This week I decided to do things differently than I did last time - I took the majority of these pictures inside instead of outside as the natural lighting was very bland and grey; I used more cloth as I didn't have access to the horse-face mask again; and I used more layers and bolder coloured materials.
Extended project so far (04/12/21)
Extended project so far (05/12/21)
Nick Meyer
I think these images reflect the area very well, they are very forward and honest as these people aren't posing and nothing has been changed for the photo. These images go together in a sense of theme as they all document the local community around Meyer's but when you actually look at them side by side there is no common person or setting in all the pictures. They represent the people and regular events or places around Nick Meyers.
Final piece
For this final project we printed off our favourite pictures from past projects.
This is the composition for my display. I wanted to keep to a theme of taking pictures of people I know and having them all the same size, and also having two big ones for them to overlap on top of (the picture of the red door and Jed in the horse mask).
I like this one because they are all from different weeks and different people.
I like this one because they are all from different weeks and different people.
I printed them out the sizes they needed to be for the final display, and lined them up in the composition I had decided. I liked this picture because the ones surrounding the centre picture (the red door) were at the same height as another photo with the same colour being very prominent. I did this because I wanted a symmetrical effect in the middle and a more messy composition with different scaled pictures on either side.
I chose these pictures either because of the use of colour or the sense of community, all the bright vibrant ones were preplanned and carefully thought out where as the less saturated, more candid pictures were of my friends and family without them thinking too much about what they are doing in the picture or knowing they are being photographed at all.
To create my final piece I've looked at many different artists and photographers and taken a lot of differently styled pictures to both emulate and imitate their styles and processes; and experiment with my own thought process while taking pictures. I feel like I have effectively developed and explored ideas through considered investigation by researching all the artists I've looked at so far, and taking small elements from each one to apply to my own work - for example: I took images of bright colour and obscure clothing and props to represent Tyler Mitchell work and the effect it had on my photo-making progress (The horse-face mask).
After I was ready to glue them down I had started to think it was too much and a bit bland. I decided to get rid of a large majority of my images and revaluate my method of presenting the final piece.I went over all my photos and choose some new ones, leaving me with 9 of my best photos from over the past months. After I had these images I had to rethink how I would display these pictures - this is when I found a stick that was big enough to fit all of them on.
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I tied string onto each end of the stick, and used some more to run through each picture which I had punched holes into the top of.
After taking my work to the gallery, I had trouble trying to attach it to the ceiling so I decided to glue each end of the stick to the wall, that proved to be too heavy so we put some nails into the wall and sat the stick on top of it.
My final piece was made to document what me and the people around me do in are spare time and how we interact with each other. A lot of my photos that I started the piece with and eventually left out were inspired by the works of Dawoud Bay, a photographer who pays attention to both background and foreground composition as well as how he portrays the subjects; and two photographers who we looked at for a shorter time, Nick Meyer and Gordon Parks, who I definitely used their techniques of taking pictures of people as they are in a more candid way. Most of the final nine photos are very obviously inspired by Tyler Mitchell's work as seen with the colourful and expressive props and costumes, and dynamic composition. I like my work because it shows a lot of my influence on how I go about taking photographs, as well as the influence of other artists we have studied. I can see a lot of me and my community in the pictures and I really think this documents my life and the people around me really well.
Documenting Places
- What types of photographs are these? (You might consider genres such as Photojournalism, Street Photography, Still-Life, Snapshot, Candid, Abstract)
landscape images of what looks like it comes straight out a movie, like the top left and right.
- Which (if any) seem obviously staged? And if so, why? What are the clues that suggest these might be 'constructed' images?
backdrop with clothes and fabrics hanging down and hundreds of lightbulbs covering up the ceiling.
- Why might the artist want to mislead the viewer (but perhaps not fully)?
candid image will create the idea that there is a story about how the picture was taken.
- Do any/all of the images leave you with questions or wanting further information?
take to make? What is it again?
- What role do the titles of the photographs play in shaping your understanding?
Destroyed Room is obviously a destroyed room)
- Do some/all of the images have a similar style?
of a room that has been heavily altered for the photograph.
Zoe Leonard's Shopfronts
- Are there similarities within the images?
- What are the differences with the images?
- What can you say about the colour within the shopfronts?
shop doors and windows.
- Can photographing a series of shops document what may be happening within a community? Give reasons for your answers?
- What was the photographer trying to document with these images?
- How do these images make you feel?
- What would you like to ask the photographer about these images?
Homework for 8/3/22 based on Zoe Leonard
Take a series of at least 12 images of various shopfronts near where you live. You can chose which shopfronts they are and they can be all different. Think about how you take the images and how they will look as a series of images.
I have chosen to photograph various shopfronts in and around Blackheath, all but one are in a row of buildings. I tried to replicate the composition that Leonard had in all of her shopfront photos (very symmetrical and square).
I tried to exclusively photography places that serve coffee (e.g., bakeries, cafes) and also a butchers because I thought the look of it fitted with a lot of the other shops. In a majority of the original pictures, they had lots of space above and under the shop, which I cropped out to avoid distractions from the subject.
Unfortunately, to fit the whole shop in the frame I had to go across the road to take the picture and a car would be in the way of the bottom of the store. People often started walking past from across the road so I had to take quite a few.
I took the pictures all at once, but some stores were facing the sun and some weren't, so they have varied lighting and shadows depending on where I and the shopfront were facing.
I have chosen to photograph various shopfronts in and around Blackheath, all but one are in a row of buildings. I tried to replicate the composition that Leonard had in all of her shopfront photos (very symmetrical and square).
I tried to exclusively photography places that serve coffee (e.g., bakeries, cafes) and also a butchers because I thought the look of it fitted with a lot of the other shops. In a majority of the original pictures, they had lots of space above and under the shop, which I cropped out to avoid distractions from the subject.
Unfortunately, to fit the whole shop in the frame I had to go across the road to take the picture and a car would be in the way of the bottom of the store. People often started walking past from across the road so I had to take quite a few.
I took the pictures all at once, but some stores were facing the sun and some weren't, so they have varied lighting and shadows depending on where I and the shopfront were facing.
Nick Meyer
I feel like these images reflect the area well as it shows the unconventional buildings and structures as well as people around this place. These images don't necessarily go in a curtain sequence but I feel that no matter of the order, they act as a journey into this community and area. These images represent both a location and Meyer himself, they show a part of him and his community that can only be expressed in candid photography like this.
3D collage
We took some of the pictures we had taken for our homework inspired by Zoe Leonard's shopfront work. After gluing down the pictures I chose to some card, I cut them out and cut out triangular stands to attach to the back using masking tape. I tried a few different compositions with the red background but ultimately decided to go with the ones seen underneath.
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2D collage
After the 3D collage had been photographed, I took the triangle stands off and started cutting windows and doors out of some of the cutouts. I played around with different ways of layering the pictures and seeing how they overlap.
Peter Mitchell
Peter Mitchell takes most of his photos in Leeds, where he lives. In his work, he depicts what is own life is like through the shops, streets and stores around his home. His photographers are quite somber and dull; they do all have colour in them but they seem drained of it and desaturated. But they are also well composed and symmetrical, I think this is intentional as it creates a very honest depiction of where he lives. I think for these pictures he uses a film camera. This is one of the differences between Mitchell and other photographers we have looked at. Another difference is the use of colour; for example, Tyler Mitchell's work uses colour as a something to stand out and draw the eyes into the subject using bold and bright colours whereas Peter Mitchell uses it as part of the image and uses composition to grab the attention of the viewer instead.
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Documenting Communities Evaluation
During this project, I have observed, evaluated and responded to many different themes and ideas surrounding the subject of communities as well as looked towards artists and photographers for inspiration. I first researched the work of Dawoud Bey, a photographer who works in the Harlem area, taking portraits of those around him in the local communities and neighborhoods, his photographing of people he knows and has a connection with helps his portraits to look more intimate as the subjects and people in the photography look more comfortable. I used the idea of taking pictures of people I'm close and this influenced me with my final piece in that most of my pictures were of my friends when we're out.
I have studied three main themes: portraiture, community and simplicity. In my pictures of people in my community (people I see in school and people I see on the weekend) I have wanted to create very candid simple photographs that are taken in the moment and don't require much preparation - this was mainly effective with picture I took for homework, while I was out with friends and they were naturally comfortable and relaxed around each other whereas in school when I'm taking pictures of my classmates, the pictures needed more direction and we're a lot more formal than the ones I did for homework. As for portraiture and community; all of my pictures were of people I see often and have are moderately comfortable with taking pictures around; and most of the pictures I used in my final piece were medium close ups of people (the only exception being picture taken in portrait of a doorway).
For majority of the pictures I took, I was using the school cameras and was photographing my classmates as response to different concepts within the theme of community. Towards the start, I had the impression that documenting communities would be mundane and uninteresting as I didn't know what would be so exciting or creative about taking pictures of people you see on the street walking past you. But as I further developed my work by exploring new artists techniques and processes, I started to appreciate this theme more that I initially had and become more interested in the different ways in which artists document and record the world around them. A large turning point of how I saw this project was looking at the work of Tyler Mitchell, because on paper his work might seem quite simple and unglamorous, the process of how he dresses, frames and photographs his subjects really interested me and I enjoyed testing different ways to respond to his work in my own way with my own props. From studying Mitchell's work I learnt that I can use colourful backdrops and clothing to completely change the tone and impression of an image as well as the use of props could give the picture a lot more context. During the project overall, I used the first threshold concept; 'Photography has many genres, some old, some borrowed, some new" - I used this by exploring different types and methods of photography such as portraiture, architectural, abstraction and some more in order to create interesting and appealing images around the theme of community.
During this project I have used many different methods, techniques and processes to explore different theories and decisions all in order to refine my work. An example of this is my 3D and 2D responses to Zoe Leonards work as well as my first response to Tyler Mitchell. When responding to Leonard, I had to frame my pictures in a way that replicated her work but also worked with the terrain of where I was photographing - Leonard's pictures of shopfront were all taken in quite a flat city area where all the buildings were about the same size and shape whereas I was tasked with going around my local area and taking pictures of bakery/coffee shops, mimicking the general composure of Leonards pictures the best I could on the uneven landscape of Blackheath. Responding to Mitchell was different in the sense that my subject was person that I could change the shape, posture and clothing and tone of them instead of taking pictures of buildings which are literally set in stone. My first response to Tyler Mitchell's work had me taking props either from home or from the art department and walking around the school trying to make my pictures look like they were not taken where they were. Both of these responses taught me a lot about framing, and how it can change the narrative of a photo.
I'm quite proud of how this project turned out when I finished - I used a range of mediums and methods to create a vast portfolio of responses and research of other photographers that I later used to compose a final piece that appropriately documents my community as well as a developed assessment. There are other experiments that I didn't use to often that I learnt and thought about later (such as creating negative variants of my photos and exploring different forms of photography in the camera obscura) - For example, after having to re edit a black and white picture to make it less grey in preparation for using the dark room; I now think about the contrast in my photos and how they will look in monotone. All thought-out this project, I was hoping to create an accurate representation of my community and by extension; and accurate representation of myself through images and documents of the people and places around me. I would say through the different experiments I've conducted and work I've researched and responded to, that I have done that successfully. I have also successfully explored this theme by recording the people and thing I interact with on a near weekly if not daily bases through the medium of digital portrait photography. If I had more time for this project I would have liked to try different types of cameras: maybe different models of digital camera that the school has, definitely try the camera obscura again in a different room or in different weather, create or learn to use a pinhole camera, and I've always wanted to try film cameras which I think, if I had longer to explore this; would definitely work with this theme. This work is personal to me as I remember taking each photo, where I took it, how long it took, who I was with, if I liked it when I took it - so I see a piece of myself and my own style in every image, especially the homework where I was with my close friends going out on the weekend. Some of these images might not be the most well composed or stunning pictures but they are all somewhat personal or mean something to me and I hope when a viewer scrolls through my website they can see me in my work or at least think about the context behind each image and how it was made.
I have studied three main themes: portraiture, community and simplicity. In my pictures of people in my community (people I see in school and people I see on the weekend) I have wanted to create very candid simple photographs that are taken in the moment and don't require much preparation - this was mainly effective with picture I took for homework, while I was out with friends and they were naturally comfortable and relaxed around each other whereas in school when I'm taking pictures of my classmates, the pictures needed more direction and we're a lot more formal than the ones I did for homework. As for portraiture and community; all of my pictures were of people I see often and have are moderately comfortable with taking pictures around; and most of the pictures I used in my final piece were medium close ups of people (the only exception being picture taken in portrait of a doorway).
For majority of the pictures I took, I was using the school cameras and was photographing my classmates as response to different concepts within the theme of community. Towards the start, I had the impression that documenting communities would be mundane and uninteresting as I didn't know what would be so exciting or creative about taking pictures of people you see on the street walking past you. But as I further developed my work by exploring new artists techniques and processes, I started to appreciate this theme more that I initially had and become more interested in the different ways in which artists document and record the world around them. A large turning point of how I saw this project was looking at the work of Tyler Mitchell, because on paper his work might seem quite simple and unglamorous, the process of how he dresses, frames and photographs his subjects really interested me and I enjoyed testing different ways to respond to his work in my own way with my own props. From studying Mitchell's work I learnt that I can use colourful backdrops and clothing to completely change the tone and impression of an image as well as the use of props could give the picture a lot more context. During the project overall, I used the first threshold concept; 'Photography has many genres, some old, some borrowed, some new" - I used this by exploring different types and methods of photography such as portraiture, architectural, abstraction and some more in order to create interesting and appealing images around the theme of community.
During this project I have used many different methods, techniques and processes to explore different theories and decisions all in order to refine my work. An example of this is my 3D and 2D responses to Zoe Leonards work as well as my first response to Tyler Mitchell. When responding to Leonard, I had to frame my pictures in a way that replicated her work but also worked with the terrain of where I was photographing - Leonard's pictures of shopfront were all taken in quite a flat city area where all the buildings were about the same size and shape whereas I was tasked with going around my local area and taking pictures of bakery/coffee shops, mimicking the general composure of Leonards pictures the best I could on the uneven landscape of Blackheath. Responding to Mitchell was different in the sense that my subject was person that I could change the shape, posture and clothing and tone of them instead of taking pictures of buildings which are literally set in stone. My first response to Tyler Mitchell's work had me taking props either from home or from the art department and walking around the school trying to make my pictures look like they were not taken where they were. Both of these responses taught me a lot about framing, and how it can change the narrative of a photo.
I'm quite proud of how this project turned out when I finished - I used a range of mediums and methods to create a vast portfolio of responses and research of other photographers that I later used to compose a final piece that appropriately documents my community as well as a developed assessment. There are other experiments that I didn't use to often that I learnt and thought about later (such as creating negative variants of my photos and exploring different forms of photography in the camera obscura) - For example, after having to re edit a black and white picture to make it less grey in preparation for using the dark room; I now think about the contrast in my photos and how they will look in monotone. All thought-out this project, I was hoping to create an accurate representation of my community and by extension; and accurate representation of myself through images and documents of the people and places around me. I would say through the different experiments I've conducted and work I've researched and responded to, that I have done that successfully. I have also successfully explored this theme by recording the people and thing I interact with on a near weekly if not daily bases through the medium of digital portrait photography. If I had more time for this project I would have liked to try different types of cameras: maybe different models of digital camera that the school has, definitely try the camera obscura again in a different room or in different weather, create or learn to use a pinhole camera, and I've always wanted to try film cameras which I think, if I had longer to explore this; would definitely work with this theme. This work is personal to me as I remember taking each photo, where I took it, how long it took, who I was with, if I liked it when I took it - so I see a piece of myself and my own style in every image, especially the homework where I was with my close friends going out on the weekend. Some of these images might not be the most well composed or stunning pictures but they are all somewhat personal or mean something to me and I hope when a viewer scrolls through my website they can see me in my work or at least think about the context behind each image and how it was made.