Heaven and God Can Be Found in Soho and Guildford Respectively.

I'm writing you a fun little piece about two portraiture shoots I've undertaken this year. Both were for Issue 100 of GamesTM, which I am absolutely ecstatic to be a part of. Apart from seeing my work in the issue, I also got to shoot two very different but very wonderful members of the games industry – creator of Street Fighter IV, Mr Yoshinori Ono and creator of, well, several video games that I know, love and grew up with; head of Lionhead Studios and ex-Bullfrog (as in ex head of Bullfrog Productions – he didn't used to be a Bullfrog) Mr Peter Molyneux OBE.

In case you haven't clocked already, this is likely to be an obscenely nerdy blog update. I will do my level best to tone it down but I'm afraid the subject matter simply can't be dressed up. I will, of course, ensure it is an entertaining piece and won't forget to offer some photographic analysis, too. Besides, you're probably all nerdier than me anyway.

Maybe.

Let's kick off with Ono-san, shall we? I was tasked with producing photographs of Ono-San that would accompany his interview in Issue 100. We were to photograph him in a specially set-up arcade (consisting of dozens of consoles and large flatscreen TVs) in Soho, in the middle of London.

After meeting with the journalist outside our location, we excitedly nipped down the stairs into the venue. Inside lay a cavalcade of flashing screens, the sound of a hundred virtual fists crunching into a hundred virtual chins, a thousand buttons being tippity-tapped and thumbsticks being wiggly-wagged. And a bar. As an atheist, I don't personally believe in a Heaven, but to me, this is what it would look like.

In the corner sat Ono-san himself, mid-interview with another journalist. I just about managed to remember to prepare my equipment and take some test shots instead of hopelessly gawking at the neon wonderland that lay before me and then it was time for us to proceed to the interview area.

Ono-san himself was a great guy and an absolute joy to photograph. He was as much a wonderful caricature as his videogame characters are – rocking back and forth, laughing uproariously, gesticulating wildly as if he were performing the necessary motions for some kind of super move. At the same time he made some fantastically interesting and insightful comments about the upcoming (now released) Super SFIV and about the fighting game genre in general (I will spare the non gaming savvy of you the details).

The guy is absolutely full of energy - this is just him talking! (As always, click the images for large)

Although there was no trouble with the subject himself, the lighting was somewhat, well, horrendous. If we were sat in Heaven, the lighting, from a photographer's point of view, had been constructed in, flown in from and set up by Hell. I am aware that is a tenuous metaphor at best - I don't care.

Basically, I had a fast moving subject in a very dimly lit corner of the arcade to deal with. What's more, he was strongly backlit by green and orange lights. I discovered that there was one "sweet spot" I had to wait for, which was when Ono-san leaned forward a little into the path of a single, small overhead spotlight. Which was impossibly orange. That sounds like one of those colours on a wall paint colour chart – Impossibly Orange.

In the end, making use of the available light was by far the best option, better than using flash, as it gave a more accurate representation of how the venue really looked – keeping that underground, slightly dingy yet glorious, unnatural glow an arcade has, which would of course resonate with the readers of the magazine; Ono-san in his natural habitat. Firing off the flash would also, understandably, significantly disrupt the interview, so I never fire the flash during interview.

Following the interview, both the journalist and myself got to have a game of Street Fighter against him. You won't believe me, or maybe even care in the slightest, but we both beat him too! Greatest day of my life. Oh, there was my wedding too. Let's say....joint greatest day of my life.

We then had a very, very small window of time in which to take some posed shots. Hardly the shy and retiring type, Ono did whatever I asked him. If I'd have asked him to do a handstand and shout the alphabet backwards, I think he would've done. It's so refreshing to have such a fun, unreserved subject to photograph. He absolutely loved performing. What a guy.

I used a flash for these pics for two important reasons. First, these images were to be the posed shots, one of which would end up as what magazines call the "lead image" – an image or piece of art that accompanies the title, with the intention of drawing the reader in. I wanted a different feel to these pictures, to show the reader that it was intended as an accompaniment to the title. Second, using the flash allowed me to lower my ISO settings. The lower the ISO, the less grainy the image. Seeing as lead images tend to be printed at a larger size, it is a good idea to drop the ISO as low as is feasible in order to ensure a crisp, noiseless lead image.

Eventually, we had to leave the Kingdom of Heaven, wave goodbye to its cries of "KO!", its lovely multicoloured lights and its bar, but it's a day I won't forget in a hurry, that's for sure.

Onto Operation "Meet Mr Molyneux". I took the train to Lionhead Studios over in Guildford to provide photography that would also accompany the 100^th Issue of GamesTM Magazine. Popping on the train to meet and photograph an extremely influential and famous videogame developer, one whose games you remember from when you were about 9 years old (I'm having to use every ounce of my will to not list them all right now) and throughout your years as a younger man. Easy, right?

To be honest, any nervousness about this shoot melted away thanks to a combination of the sheer excitement of the opportunity, getting my mind "into the zone" (sounds intense, dunnit?) and the disarmingly friendly and humble nature of Peter himself, who was just great. Peter is funny, a blue-sky thinker (stop "humph!"ing fellow nerds) and incredibly self-aware.

That last sentence sounds a bit like a school report.

We ran through a few ideas and Peter was very responsive and welcoming to the ideas I came to him with. It was great to see the extreme attention to detail he exhibited concerning the below image of him pretending to play some kind of strategic game (still sounding like a school report).

He ran through a few possible combinations of the tokens I had brought along before settling on a setup he felt made logical sense. Truly this is a man who thinks carefully about every design decision he makes. It made sense to me – all of my favourite games he is responsible for still hold up today as playable and immensely fun and deep, and I was getting a glimpse into the mentality of the man who created these games that meant so much to me as a child – the god of the god games.

The main idea behind this shot was to give Peter something I knew he'd find interesting – it's creative, gives him something to do for the shot and is relevant to who he is and what he does. The background shows us a tantalising glimpse into some of the design processes without giving away what he's actually working on, and of course relates back to what is at the heart of everything he does – strategy and design. I added something of a dramatic vignette in order to focus on Peter and his actions rather than allowing you to get lost in the detail of the background. It also takes a bit of the boardroom stuffiness away from the image, which was bothering me a little.

We finished with a headshot and a bit of a videogame in-joke, which i can assure you went down well with the staff at GamesTM. You'd be guffhawing, too, if you knew. Honest. I am Scott Pilgrim...

All in all, it was very easy to work with Peter. He was responsive and had plenty of his own input to offer me without being controlling or overbearing. The overall pace, tone and nature of the shoot was dramatically different to the Ono shoot, which was of course equally as enjoyable. The vastly different experiences I had on these two shoots shows once again why portraiture is a joy, constantly suprising and a totally fresh adventure every single time.

Thanks for reading through friends, hope you've enjoyed it. Don't forget I also write for the wonderful Small Aperture blog now. Go and check it out – even the posts that aren't mine are entertaining!

I'll be popping up another post much sooner next time – expect a plethora of new wrestling photos. Plenty of character and charisma and there'll most likely be a chat about lighting and techniques. It won't all be wrestling though – I have another shoot coming up. If pulled off properly, the "big shot" I have in mind will use a couple of different techniques and will require a number of factors working together harmoniously. Sounds intriging, dunnit?!

Thanks for continuing to read the blog and I'll see you soon. Except I won't actually see you at all. Unless you know me. Then I probably will see you at some point. Just sayin'...

For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com

Just A Quickie

Now don't cry - I do have an update for you, it's just not here.

How could this possibly be, you ask? Well that's because I now also write for Small Aperture, a fantastic photography blog who consider me good enough to publish on their blog. How very kind!

I do intend to write for both my own blog and Small Aperture, so expect an update here, too. Is this too ambitious? Yeah, probably. 

Anyway, go to Small Aperture now and read my first entry - "You Don't Have to Shoot Weddings"

For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com

'Funny' Strange or 'Funny' Ha-Ha?

A couple more portraiture sessions to show you lovely people – one of brilliant stand up comedian William Andrews and one of a good friend as an addition to my ongoing personal portraiture project. I'll warn you now, there are two occasions in the closing paragraph where I attempt to be funny. You might not spot them, I just thought it'd be only fair to warn you in advance. Technically, this little chucklesome disclaimer makes it three attempts. I'll stop now - let's talk about a real comedian instead.

I contacted Will to offer him my services with the intention of providing interesting, fresh promotional material. Apart from being a big fan of his act (having seen him twice at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London), I was looking at the standard of promo material for stand up comedians and have noticed just how...samey it all is. Even the biggest names mostly have fairly uninspiring images of them looking suprised with a white background, often taken from a higher angle (not sure why this means "comedy").

My personal opinion is that, if you are a stand up comedian, you want to show everyone why you are different from other stand ups, and why you stand out. Having a distinctive character, personality and style of comedy is what the most successful comics spend time building up; they become a brand. To pick a handful; Jack Dee – curmudgeonly wit, Lee Evans – visual, physical comedy used as a vehicle to deliver observational comedy, Tim Key - pretend poet with clever, intentionally bad poetry, Stewart Lee – being Stewart Lee (i.e. uncategorisable postmodern genius).

A Google image search of a dozen or so stand up comedians gave me pretty much the same images throughout; you could swap the heads around on the pictures and nobody would be able to tell you which ones had been altered. A nice exception to the rule was Bill Hicks – although that might have something to do with the ridiculous amount of charisma he had. I don't pretend to be an authority on stand up comedy but from my point of view as a photographer, eye catching, relevant photography is a useful tool for your customer to promote themselves.

Which brings me to my shoot with Will. I won't spoil what happens in his act but one of the elements of Will's act centres around him playing a character who is massively nervous. He frantically ploughs through a selection of cue cards, throwing them away as he scrambles for the next joke, hoping he can make the crowd laugh. The cards are a great visual addition and tie that part of the act together wonderfully; they make his panic all the more palpable as yet another cue card goes fluttering across the stage. As a result, and in the spirit of keeping the images simple yet strong, I also tied the theme of the shoot around these cards.

My approach for the shoot was to keep this central theme in mind and have only a handful of pre-planned ideas. This would give us several starting points which would then evolve naturally as the shoot progressed. I encourage whoever I'm shooting to build on the ideas with me. In a shoot like this, the input of your subject is very important - combining what you know about photography and what they know about their craft allows you to produce more relevant and interesting images.

Here are a handful of the final images (click for larger)

 Will is a brilliant stand up and I feel he deserves shots that do justice to the quality and originality of his act. I'm on a bit of a mission now to provide more interesting promo material to comedians with real talent like Will, to help them further stand out from the crowd. I want to grab the attention of the casual customer because, in a leaflet full of identikit comedians, it pays to stand out.


My second shoot was an addition to an ongoing personal project of mine, to be completed in the year of 201X. With this project, there is no planning involved in relation to pose or expression. I only plan the colours and (literal, not thematic) tone of the images. I don't want to give too much away, but everyone I shoot for this project is either a friend who means something to me, a family member, or other such person who holds some kind of influence in my life. As a result, I tend not to pose these people. My intention is to make taking their photo as unobtrusive and natural an element of the day as possible. It's not a case of "right, let's take your photo, stand like this, look over there, give me wistful", it's a case of "wanna hang out tomorrow? Cool, I'll be doing your portrait so I'll bring the camera".

It's a great way of undertaking portraiture, because the process takes on a life of its own. The camera takes on the role of mere observer – whatever happens is recorded. This is one reason why the best candid street photography is so powerful and exciting. I'm not saying this is what I've achieved here, because the subject is obviously aware of being photographed. However, my aim is to bring the portraiture in this project as close to this aesthetic as possible.

How did I do?

I've no idea whether you're now throwing flowers or rotten veg at your monitor, but as long as you're throwing something, I'm happy. Quick note -  probably best to not throw things at your computer, regardless of how much you love or hate the photos. Not sure what you'd throw at the screen if you were indifferent to them – perhaps some lint? If so, I reckon it's safe to throw a bit of lint.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope to keep the posts a little more frequent from now on (promises, promises). I'll be popping one up once Issue 100 of GamesTM comes out, where I'll bring you two portraiture sessions from two names that will hugely excite the videogame nerds amongst us. For now, get off the Internet and go do something useful.
 

For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com

More Portraiture, or, Moretraiture... a Look at Two Ludicrously Different Portrait Shoots

Now don't worry if the title sounds a little dry – I'll avoid boring technical detail in my study of these two very different portraiture sessions and speak in more general terms about the elements of a portraiture session that are not pictured. Discussing lighting setups and other such preparation has not only been covered in previous posts, it's also not very interesting. Even to me. Basically, I'm using this idea to tie together some recent work I've undertaken and look at portraits at a more interesting level, instead of just making it a post about what I've done recently. If I did that, I might as well tell you what I had for breakfast today. For those who care, I had two slices of toast with cheese, tomato and rocket (aka middle-class lettuce) and a cup of coffee.



Yes, I need to go food shopping.



The majority of my work has been portraiture based recently. Some of it I am not able to show you as of yet (two sessions to be published in Issue 100 of GamesTM in September) but I will look at two other sessions and compare them. I've picked these two because they're about as polarised as they could be in every way possible. I'm essentially looking to celebrate the wonderful, fascinatingly diverse experiences you can have when photographing people.

First, let's look at a recent portraiture session I undertook for Web Designer Magazine. Every month, the magazine interviews a design studio, going "behind the scenes" to show the reader how the top studios operate on a day to day basis, and who is behind the final output consumed by the public. This shoot was of a London-based high flying design company called Unit9. If you're into that sort of thing, the stuff they do is very varied and interesting, as well as super slick. Take a look here – www.unit9.com

In terms of timescale and approach, this proved to be quite different to other shoots I have previously undertaken. There were 11 people to shoot in a fairly short space of time. I was shooting on location, so arriving an hour ahead of time allowed me to identify useable locations and lighting setups, as well as get a few interior and exterior shots of the office itself.

So the order of the day would be quickfire yet characterful portraits. Many of the people I would be shooting were classed as "Interactive Directors", people who direct other people to be creative, basically. To keep things moving along nicely, we picked one, plain, high-key background for the majority of the shots and used the metaphor of an ID being like a football manager and got everyone gesturing off camera to an imaginary team of players.

Seeing as I was working with creative types who weren't all necessarily comfortable in front of the lens, this gave them something to go off and act with. Interestingly, this approach helped bring out the character of each person in just a couple of minutes – some people were more excited by the idea, others needed more persuasion. Some people were fine with doing a spot of acting, others were less comfortable and dealt with that in different ways. As a result, you can see individual character in the end result and immediately get a sense of what that person is like.

A little tip for you when on location – it's always good to grab yourself an impromptu assistant where possible. This gives your portraiture subjects a familiar face to relate to, as well as help you get images that are as relevant as possible to the individual and their work. I don't claim to be an expert on what the good people at Unit9 do on a daily basis, so having someone from Unit9 help out on this occasion was invaluable. On this note, I'd like to say thank you very, very much to Alex. You helped me out a metric ton - good man.

Tip number two – if you're also planning on doing straighter headshots, it can be beneficial to do these after the initial themed portrait. This helps whoever you're shooting to relax after having a bit of a chuckle about the posed shots and giving them time to relax in your company (as best as they can in a 5 minute slot, anyway). With each person, after having some fun with their themed shot, I immediately asked for a more standard portrait, with no direction as to how to pose. Again, this is intended to ensure the character of the individual shines through.

Right, here's where it gets picture-heavy...(click for large, as usual)

Anrick

Fredrick

 

 

 

 

Martin

Robert

Simone

Kishi

Tom

Tony

Valentina

Yates

MD of Unit9, Piero Frescobaldi

I had a great time on this shoot. It was exciting to plough through 11 different portraits in roughly an hour, as I was treated to 11 very different personalities and challenged with the task of finding out very quickly what made them tick. I also shot everything in high key, for the first time in a very long time. I felt it would evoke the feeling of clean, elegant, crisp design, which is what the company is all about.



Righto, it's time to set your sails for opposite land as I delve into a more personal project – wrestling promotional images. These shoots differed in almost every way conceivable to the Unit9 shoot. They were taken at my home studio as opposed to on location, used studio lighting as opposed to a flashgun, reflector and window light; I spent a good, long time with each individual as opposed to a quickfire 5-10 minutes, I've built up friendships with these people as opposed to shooting people I've never met before, the subjects were putting on a personality that wasn't theirs, as opposed to trying to show the true personality of the person being photographed (to an extent) and finally, the lighting was dramatic and low-key.


Now, I won't go into the subject of wrestling in too much detail because, again, if you're not into it, you won't find the finer details particularly interesting, so I'll keep it short. Basically, in a promotional picture, a wrestler has to look like a wrestler. They have to look like superheroes (or indeed supervillains), especially if you're selling this character to an audience. Problems like incorrect exposure and poorly positioned lighting where you can see the background curtain don't make your wrestler look like a superhero; they end up looking like, well, someone in their underpants stood next to a curtain. Kids aren't stupid and there's a reason you can't see the studio floor and curtains in an action film poster.


First up, we have Wolf Alexander. Now I won't tell you whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. If you can't tell, please let me know and, after giving you a brief psychological examination, I will never take another photograph ever again.

Tag team shot with Chris Lehr

This guy is all about intensity and, essentially, frightening the children. I don't know about you, but some of these images scare the hell out of me and I created them. This is the advantage of spending large amounts of time with one person – you start with some preliminary shots, get the feeling and lighting right, allow the subject to relax into the shoot and, most importantly, connect with that person. My ideal shoot is one where we spend a good half an hour or more chatting over a coffee first, followed by taking time over the shoot itself, chatting to your subject while you adjust lighting setups, add props, etc, generally making it feel as informal as possible. That way, when you want something less literal and less poseable out of that person, they are able to respond more effectively and give you what you are after.


In order to expand on what I mean by that, let me throw you another little portraiture tip – portraiture is as much about your subject knowing you as it is about you knowing your subject. If your subject knows who you are and likes you, they will know what you want and will be happy to comply.


This brings me to my second wrestling promo shoot. Interestingly, despite this shoot still falling under the somewhat ridiculously niche category of "pro wrestling promo portrait", the desired outcome was very different to Wolf's photoshoot. Essentially, if you're taking shots of a bad guy, you have a much easier time and a lot more to work with, especially when it comes to bringing character out of the subject. When it comes to good guys, the danger is making them look bland; "good guy" (or girl in this case) doesn't have to mean nice and boring.


Rhia usually wrestles under the moniker of Rhia O' Reilly, with a sort of Irish good-time girl feel to her character. My intention with Rhia's shoot, however, was to give her a bit more range in her portfolio, so she could wrestle as more than one character.


With her O'Reilly image, I wanted to get across that sense of fun and celebration, which led us to this:

(I can't actually look at this picture without getting "Fiesta" by The Pogues in my head).



This was a good starting, "icebreaker" image to work with to lead us into the more challenging images I was looking to produce of Rhia. A lot of female wrestling photography goes down the line of good girl = "assets" on display, generally over-sexualised. Bad girl = "assets" hidden, angry / sour face. It's a fairly sexist, male oriented approach that doesn't sit well with me, because there are female wrestlers out there, Rhia being a fine example, who have bags of personality, can wrestle and are interesting, entertaining and attractive without having to, for want of a better phrase, put everything on show, or pose like they're auditioning for a lad's mag.


So the watch phrase for this part of the shoot was "strong and beautiful", without resorting to too much flesh or over-sexualising the image. I came up with a variety of shots in the end but let me share my two favourites with you.

What I like about these images is that I've worked with a common attitude / theme of 'determination'. I feel this is a good theme to work with for a fan favourite character without having to make them smile or look silly or goofy. Again, this was a closed set of sorts, with just Rhia and myself, and this gave me time to chat with her, take things slowly, and really get across to her what I wanted from the pictures and what image I wanted to give her (and of course to make sure she was on board with the idea).


To her credit, she performed fantastically, and the reason these images came out so well is because she has the character, charisma and intelligence to pull them off, and I can't wait to work with her again in the future.


Apologies again for the ludicrous length of this blog. I'm a bit of a binge blogger – I do nothing for a month or so then have one massive blogging session, leaving me feeling somewhat dazed and confused. I think it's time to close up with as succinct a paragraph as my writing style will allow.


The most exciting thing I've learnt here is that both of these sessions, at the heart of it, are classed as portraiture sessions, despite differing in almost every way. This shows how broad in scope the subject of portraiture is, and how you only have to change, at most, two elements of how a session is approached and the outcome can be astonishingly different. I mention this with the intention of helping you see what I see when it comes to portraiture. It makes me very, very happy indeed to say with confidence that I will never experience every possible permutation of portraiture because, at the heart of it, portraiture is as different from image to image as people are different from person to person.



That's your lot for now. On a side note, I was elated to hear that BBC 6music has been saved from being cut by the BBC. It's a triumph for the celebration of creativity and diversity. From the perspective of a music fan and a photographer - may those principles live on.


For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com

In The Name Of Originality, Enthusiasm and Pretentious, Self-contained Deconstruction

I am Gareth Dutton. My interests include photography, videogames, contemporary fiction (a snootier way of saying "reading") and original, exciting, good music.

Which is why I'm a fan of BBC 6 Music. Which is why I attended the recent Save 6 Music protest, 

held outside Broadcasting House on the 22^nd May 2010. This is one of those (many) occasions where photography brings me a real sense of purpose. Of course, just attending in the first place is a great way to show solidarity and support but when I am able to work in a medium I love in order to support something I love, it gives what I'm doing a real sense of validation.

As I mention on my website, my philosophy when it comes to photography is to always strive to photograph people, things and ideas that I truly have an interest in; if you have that personal connection with the subject of your photography, it comes across in the images you create. In relation to this point, the Save 6 Music Protest was followed by a gig in a secret location, available only to those who attended the protest. Amongst the bands were The Magic Numbers, a band who I've always had a passing interest in but totally fell in love with during the gig itself. Their live performance was incredible; full of charisma and brimming with emotion and a love of music.

I respect the fact that they're cool without feeling the need to wear ridiculously fashionable clothing and have stupid, attention-seeking haircuts. I've always hated those "cool" bands who, when interviewed, sit quietly, their heads dropped or looking away from the interviewer, saying almost nothing, like a 14 year old boy sat next to a girl he likes. Hiding the fact that you dont have a personality by being deliberately unenthusiastic about everything and anything does not constitute a sense of cool to me. Maybe I feel that way because I see enthusiasm as an important part of anyone's life. Surely a terrible life would be one without enthusiasm for anything.

I have noticed that in previous blog posts, I've been putting all the images right at the end, like some massive image dustbin. I'm going to sprinkle them around a little more this time, like jerk seasoning on a prime steak (I'm vegetarian, so I have no idea why I came up with that metaphor, or is it a simile?) and show you some Magic Numbers pictures at this point. I hope you can see how my newfound enthusiasm for these guys is reflected in the images. Oh, and yes I'm aware that I'm deconstructing what I do as I do it; it's what all the cool kids are doing these days.

(click for large)

 

They really do have a great stage presence. Michele Stodart, the bassist, totally captivates me with her performance, she's brilliant. Not to be creepy or anything...

...anyway, let's go back in time 3 hours or so to the protest itself. It was a baking hot day and, being whiter than a bleach-drenched snowman illuminated in the headlights of an SUV, I was suffering a little. Seriously, you could point a wind-up torch at me and I'd start sweating, although that might be to do with my fear of wind-up torches.

I digress. It was wonderful to see so many people turn up in support of this station – a humming throng of enthusiasm, people who care about something, all together in one space. Several of the DJs themselves appeared to say a few words, as well as musicians who had their break on 6 Music. Comedian Ed Byrne turned up to add his thoughts, giving birth to the phrase "Yes, we should be allowed to!" as an alternative to Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" speech.

(photographer's note - save Boggins)

 

 In addition, BBC Asian Network also attended, as this station is being similarly threatened, and provided us with some great soundbites and a bit of bhangra to dance to. This is where taking photos comes in handy, because you have a valid excuse to not dance. I'm far too long and floppy to be dancing to bhangra – everyone involved (and those not involved in close proximity) would end up terribly embarrassed.

To finish up, I'll confusingly swoosh us forwards in time again, to the start of the secret gig, where we were treated to performances by Eliza Carthy and Mirrorkicks, two very different acts that show just how diverse and wonderful BBC 6 Music really is. Those of you who have read the blog before (or indeed just by reading through this one) will know that I'm not a fan of concision, so for a change I'm going to stop talking now. Yes, right now. Thanks for reading (I use brackets a lot, don't I?).

For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com