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As last year just flew by, I find myself reflecting on the whirlwind that was and how I plan to up my game. As I look back I think how little I knew, how much I have grown and I also realise still how little I know. It’s been a year of firsts in many ways: First year of blogging ( albeit not that regularly but I plan to change that ), first year of having an iphone ( an amazing creative tool and it is a great camera to have on you ), joined twitter and got my first office/studio. Although a lot of my work is location based, it has been great to have a base to work from and in a great location, which in the warmer months was a pleasure to cycle to ( A new experience for me ). I’ve met & worked with some great & talented people, which in turn has inspired me to keep going and keep meeting new people, which is a great part of my job.
So what now?
Firstly, I’ve decided I would like to photograph Michael Caine. I have no idea how but I know why. He is a british icon, one of my favourite actors and also has an amazingly interesting face. Also the idea of following in the footsteps of some of the photographic greats who have photographed him makes me nervous and excited at the same time. How will I do it? I have no idea but it never ceases to amaze me the small degree’s of separation and the random connections between people. That’s how I’d like to do it. Rather then go down the formal channels, I’d love to meet someone who knows him or is friends with someone who does. That tenuous connectivity is what I love about this country. It is such a small world.
Second, I am going to shoot on film. A lot. Dust off the 5×4.. Get the RZ67 out again and I’m thinking of getting the Voigtlander Bessa III rangefinder as my travel/street camera. Rich Black & White and sweet, saturated Transparencies. Why? Last year I was fortunate enough to shoot with the amazing nikon D3 and the hasselblad H3D camera’s, which I feel have brought digital photography to new levels. I’ve been shooting solely digital for a few years now but these are the first camera’s that I feel have made a real breakthrough and you don’t feel the need to upgrade as soon as the next new digital camera comes out. But even though I love those camera’s and they are great commercially, they still leave me a bit creatively cold. Why? After all they are so flexible, versatile and can shoot in extreme conditions? I had this conversation with a photographer I know who feels the same way and we narrowed it down to this:
Feel & Style
These new dslr’s are amazing and produce great pictures of very high quality but the downside is they don’t creatively challenge you. Too dark? No problem. Tricky mix of lighting? No problem either. It can make you lazy. Zoom lenses are brilliant now but my favourite lense is my 50mm 1.4. Why? It just has an amazing feel to it and because it is fixed you move about more and interact with the subject more instead of standing their and zooming in.
As he put it “limitations in a camera actively help you cement your own style”.
Photography is still very much a craft and the increase in consumer dslr’s that produce great images i think only cements that. People can now easily produce a quality image perfectly exposed and print themselves at home, previously only the domain of serious amateur/semi-pro.. but i think that only goes to cement the need as a pro to be a craftsman, an artisan.. perfection is no longer the target but rather style and feel.. the intangible things that only you bring to a shoot because only you possess them. Combine this with a lighting style that is yours and bingo you have a style, a brand.. then i think once you have taken that journey you can then translate it to any application/technology because you know what you want to see.. more photographers are now shooting video because video requires to get it right ‘in camera’. Real technique that shooting film teaches you.
I agree that limitations increase creativity.. a fixed lens making you move more giving you a different angle… manual focus slows you down and film makes you less wasteful with your frames.. i used to love shooting 5×4 because you damn well made sure what you were going to shoot was worth the effort to set up the camera and the cost of the film.. heck even a polaroid cost a fortune…
Funny how life revolves…. I’ve even been toying with the idea of turning my office into a office/darkroom. And polaroid is set to make a comeback via The Impossible Project.
I was reading an article recently from Magnum and Martin Parr commented on how all photographers are essentially nostalgic and in the business of nostalgia, either shooting nostalgic things or creating nostalgia for the future and I thought how true that is.. nostalgia isn’t technically perfect imagery but rather feelings and emotion and that is what is remembered…
Some pro’s are threatened by the rise and accessibility of consumer dslr’s and the quality it can produce and how now basically everyone is or wants to be a photographer but i think it is a good thing. You either have to raise your game or bow out because just being able to take a well exposed picture and getting by on that is no longer enough. Photography is getting back to it’s roots as an art not just a commercial commodity and that will be the bedrock of the next movement… stock libraries have saturated the market with cheap/free high quality images so that market is dead.. artistic vision is all that is left because that can’t be packaged up and sold for a $1.
Some of my favourite images I took this year were on my iphone. Why? Because they had a bit of feel and style about them albeit in a limited format. Also my phone is always with me so I capture moments and visually notate ideas & locations. My new website is currently in production ,which rather then being focussed on getting work via web searches, will be a mixture of personal and commercial work. More Feel & Style. Personal projects. Representative of where I am currently, creatively. I am going to shoot more portfolio work. I’ve got some great people lined up to photograph. Talented people to work with on the shoots…
And ( hopefully ) Michael Caine to photograph….
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