RUSSEL BOYCE - MIDDLE EAST, AFRICAN EDITOR

Russel Boyce originally got a degree in fine art studying at Hull University. He started his career doing printing work, PR, commercial work and news photography. Russell stuck with tabloid photography as that where the money is apparently. He told us how he has travelled round the world shooting news events, sports events and current affairs. Russell is currently working for Thomson Reuters, which is 160 years old and built on a trust principle written in 1941. It consists of six different photographers globally. They move 2000 images a day in two different offices on either side of the world. As he was explaining his job he was also discussing the down fall of it. This is how he is supposed to make money from this however no one pays to watch the news meaning theres less money for him to make. 

Thomson Reuters is currently in major competition with Twitter and Instagram. The reason for this is because these social media websites are able to release news within minutes of it happening in real life. They are able to wirelessly transmit images from a camera onto their system in order for the picture to be broadcasted quickly. 

Russel then went on to discuss how he goes about photographing images for the news and the different features he would look at in order for it to be a successfully sold image. 

Wider image story telling 

• general view - setting the scene where it happens 
• portrait - what does the person look like
• action - what does the person do 
• why/impact - what does that person do it 
• detail - reveal a detail of something interesting 
• wow factor - hero image 

We were informed about how Russel uses news planners in order to plan what pictures he needs to take the next day or where he needs to be in order to shoot a story or event. This is helped along side their ‘Tracer’ software development at Reuters. A software which allows you to scan the internet for other news stories about similar events or the same event. It can be used to clarify whether an event actually took place or not. 

At the end Russel was discussing his feelings towards taking images of such explicit content. He said that in some aspects he has a duty to show the public pictures proving that people are being killed but then again it is disrespectful for that family plus it is violent and disturbing imagery. 

Chloe Dewe Mathews: Guest Lecture

Chloe started her career off practising film and working with several different teams and large production groups. She says that she finds the film industry, “…like a bubble.” “Its like another world, whereas I wanted to be in a real world with real people.”

She worked on a project that was called Banger Boys. This was a project about people who would buy cheap cars and then modify and race later on in the week. Chloe explained how she appreciated the subculture and how people were putting into work to create something and then destroy it. This was their way of getting the most out of the machinery around them, a,”… surge of excellence.” 

I personally really like how Chloe isn’t a massive fan of having her work displayed in a magazine and would rather present it in person. For example with the Banger Boys project she displayed some of the prints onto aluminium. I thought this was really clever as she’s using authentic materials to present her work on. She also had them shown in a garage which tied along with the theme as well. From this she was able to sell one of her pieces for £3000. 

Another main project that Chloe has worked on was when she hitchhiked from China back to Britain with her husband which took 10 months and ended up shooting 1400 images on film. This project was about the relationships between the east and the west. She said that this project wasn’t about research of looking into the culture of that particular country it was about going out there and talking to people and hearing it first hand. Her idea was to respond to what they were seeing. 

The struggle of trying to be original with travel images when sometimes repetition isn’t a negative thing. After the trip she was looking back on her images and felt as if she had taken nothing that was really good, however after further review it was evident that there were some images that had some very powerful themes in them. She allowed the Sunday Times to publish her work provided the opportunity to ask them to publish more of her work in the future. 

The Emergence of Photography

‘Realism is an aesthetic theory based on similarity or an identity between the photograph and depicted reality.’ - Bate 2009: 36

‘…between representations and reality…’

Humankind lingers unregenerately in Plato’s cave, still reveling, its age-old habit, in mere images of the truth

‘The realism of an image corresponds to a preconception of reality.. any picture is usually tested against preexisting suppositions and knowledge about the world. The reading of any picture will already involve assessing how far that picture is credible or plausible.’ 

‘Digital technology does not subvert normal photography because normal photography never existed.’ 

Paul Graham 

Academic Language 

Academic writing will generally demonstrate the following: 

• An impersonal, rather than personal, style 
• Arguments informed by research 
• An objective viewpoint 
• Use of the passive voice 
• Uncontracted verb forms
• Formal language 

Arguments informed by research 

evidence of research 

• original writing based on the works of others 
• referenecing 
• academic - belonging to the academy

POSTER IMAGES FOR LONDON UNDERGROUND TUBE STATIONS

Research

Elephant and Castle tube station is situated in the London Borough of Southwark in south London. It is positioned on the Northern line between Kennington and Borough stations, and is also on the southern end of the Bakerloo line. 

The History of Elephant and Castle

During the air raids in the 1940’s maths lessons were taught in Elephant and Castle tube station as this was considered the safest place for the members of the public to be situated. 

In the late 1950’s Elephant and Castle was redeveloped following the devastation of the second world war. They constructed offices, academic buildings, housing estates and the Elephant and Castle shopping centre. At the time it was the heart of the Elephant however now it has become rather dismal with the dated plastic cladding. When redesigning the layout they prioritised the roads meaning that pedestrians were forced into a network of subways. The shopping centre was built on the bomb damaged site of the former Elephant and Castle estate, which had been originally been built in 1989. This estate stood next door to the former Elephant and Castle theatre which is now known as The Coronet Theatre. 

The New Infrastructure of Elephant and Castle 

The Strata skyscraper stands tall in the heart of Elephant and Castle notable for its three wind turbines on the top. It was completed in 2010 and is one of the tallest out of several residential towers that have appeared over the past decade. The nearby town Walworth has a £1.5 billion regeneration programme which has progressed at a rapid rate recently. 

My Plans and Intentions

I plan to capture the old and the new of Elephant and Castle and promote in a way that links to public transport for London. For example I want to advertise both the old and the modern in order to have a slogan saying, “Moving forward with London’s Public Transport!” You will then be able to see the fast improvement of infrastructure and the progress that Elephant and Castle has made over the past few decades. 

BRIEF 2: INTERACTION & COLLABORATION

Who I want to Photograph
- Skateboarders
- Urban Exploring
- Graffiti Artists

What are my intentions
- To capture the beauty of their nature
- What are they about
- There style, the activity they are taking part in and the final process

What I want to capture
- Their success
- Their failures
- Their intentions
- Their style
- Their habits
It's all about what they are doing and how they do it

First sketched idea

Mood board Full of similar Idea's 

First Photoshoot

Above is my first photoshoot that I carried out. This was a test shoot which I did in order to see how my final outcome would look like and to see if anything needs changing. I am personally really happy with the outcome and the idea's which are being presented in this photoshoot. However I feel the colour correction is to powerful and could be toned down a bit. I feel the placement of the subject in each of the images has been positioned in the best possible place. Moving onto my final photoshoot I need to remember two factors, the key themes that I want to express in each of the images and to shoot all images in RAW. After taking this shoot I felt like I didn't take anything away from it or learn anything from it. For my final shoot I want to talk to the skateboarders and learn about their culture and way of life. 

Final Shoot

Location: London Southbank Skatepark

(Photograph of Chris Leyton) - Shot in RAW

Above is a picture of Chris Leyton. He is 22 years old and has been skateboarding for 6 years now. He recently moved to London a few months ago. Chris often comes to Southbank skatepark whenever he has time to ride. Whilst photographing him I noticed the generic dress sense that all the skateboarders were wearing, this tended to be chino's and shirts or skinny jeans and baggy jumpers. I questioned why all the clothing was so similar and he addressed how most people were wearing skateboard branded clothing which is made specifically for the sport or due to it being the style of the sport. We then discussed more in depth into the sports clothing industry and we found out that we had similar fashion interests. For example PALACE is a skateboarding clothing brand which is also high end street wear which holds a very high value. This was a brand that Chris was also aware of which enabled us to have an engaged conversation about a topic we were both interested in even though we have completely different hobbies. 

(Photograph of Charlie Russel) - Shot in RAW

This is a picture of Charlie who is 13 years old and is from Richmond, Surrey. Today he was up in London with his family and was allowed to ride his skateboard at the Skatepark while his parents and little sister walked around Southbank. Charlie has been skateboarding for 3 months now and says he loves meeting up with his friends to go to the skatepark. After learning a little bit about the culture previously when speaking to Chris I proceeded to ask Charlie about what he thought of the fashion side of the sport. He said that he just wears clothes that he's comfortable riding in and isn't really bothered about his appearance as long as he's having fun. I also asked Charlie what his favourite aspect of skateboarding was in which he replied saying meeting new people and learning new tricks from the older guys. 

After speaking to Chris and Charlie I wanted to photograph the skateboarders in a way which would represent how the younger youth look up the older generations and learn from them. I wanted to develop several images showing this and here are some of the outcomes. 

The image on the left shows the different individual relationships that are with the different generations. Here you can also see that the two elder generations are socialising rather than concentrating however the two young boys on the far left are watching and analysing what the older guys are doing and how they are riding. This also reflects with the image on the right where you can see the younger bye literally mirroring the elder generations movements. 

Final Edited Pictures (Shot in RAW) 

BRIEF 1: JOHN HILLIARD

John Hilliard was born in 1945 and always believed that although a camera cannot lie, you can always use it to depict the truth. A key example of this is his piece called, “Cause of death.” This project consisted of four images taken of the same human carrying out the same action however taken at four different angles. Each of the four images were called: 

• Crushed 
• Drowned
• Burned 
• Fell 

John Hilliard - "Cause of Death"

The individual composition of each of these four images are crucial to the overall meaning. In this particular image the subject is a curled up defeated body, due to this body position as a viewer we assume that the subject is dead. With the four different angles it leaves us with several different causes of death, for example, the rocks in the foreground may have crushed the body, the subject may have drowned in the sea or alternatively fell from the building in the background. 

From analysing this image of John Hilliard you can see how the reading of a photograph can be completely changed by repositioning the subject either towards the left or the right or the top and the bottom of the frame. 

John Hilliard also plays with the ideas of identity and culture, for example his project called “east/west.” This was created in a way that the stylised profile could be manipulated to represent different cultures. 

After researching into the works of John Hilliard I was able to take certain themes and idea's from his photographs and integrate them into my own creations. Firstly I took the idea of changing the scenario for each different shot, the reason for this is because I wanted to create a scene which could be completely flipped once it was seen from a different angle. 

MY PLANS & SKETCHES

The picture to the left was my first original plan which I had drawn out. The idea behind it was that the camera frame moves backwards each shot in order to create a completely different set. By doing this you are seeing the process of the original image being developed. This essentially takes the viewer on a journey of development. Although I liked this idea I wanted to bring in more themes of John Hilliard's work into it so I went back to the drawing board.

 The picture to the right is of the plan which I carried through to be my final idea for this brief. The idea behind it was about a girl who is in a relationship with one out of the two boys that she is with, however she is having an affair with the other boy in the scene as well. The boyfriend will be presenting a bouquet of flowers. The girl grabs them with her left hand while her right hand is linked with the other boy behind her boyfriends back. 

RESEARCH INTO POSSIBLE LOCATIONS

The possible locations that I looked into doing where the following places: 

• Oxford Street 
• South Bank 
• Hyde Park 
• Primrose Hill 
• Waterloo Station 
• Tibetan Peace Garden

When researching into different locations I had to consider several factors in order to have a  successful photoshoot. Firstly I had to consider whether there was going to be too many people in the surrounding area's. Due to this it ruled out Oxford Street and Waterloo Station. We attempted to shoot on South Bank however the images looked to busy and clustered. This meant that there was less attention on the main subjects meaning it was harder to read the image. From this I learnt that the location has to be in an open space in order to draw the viewers attention onto the subjects actions. Due to this I ended up taking the shoot at the Tibetan Peace Garden. The reason for this is because it isn't a largely populated area meaning that I was successfully able to carry out my photoshoot without the images looking clustered and busy. By doing this it meant that my key themes were able to be clearly presented in each of the four images. 

MY FINAL IMAGES 

Above you can see my final four images and how my idea looks in person. As you can see each of the four images is working their way around the subjects showing the viewer different perspectives from the scenario which is positioned in front of them. I personally think the idea has worked well although there are improvements that could be made. For example if I was to do this again I would have integrated more facial expressions into the images to give more realism and purpose to each character. I would have also had the characters walking instead of standing still so that the shoot looks less staged and more natural. In my personal opinion it is clear how I have included some of John Hilliard's key theme's into my own work.