Faces - Extra

Me again.

I thought I'd throw a few extra faces at you, for those who haven't had a look around my website yet. These portraits are something of a contrast to those shown in the previous post; that's because they are not commissioned and are purely for my own, large scale ongoing art project.

When I add to this project I tend to sleep on an idea and not try too hard to meticulously plan the shoot. This is often significantly different to the way I may approach a project that has been given to me as a commission. After letting the image of whoever I am photographing sort of marinate in the back of my mind for a while, a particular idea sticks, one that just feels better than the others, and I can see the image in my head.

Not to say that this happens every time. Sometimes you can start a portrait with an idea that you are certain will work and then end up feeling underwhelmed with it, opting for something totally different.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, be prepared but be prepared to change.

 

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

Faces.

 I have a couple of excuses for you to pick from to explain why I haven't updated my blog for a while.

The first is that I was waiting for some images to be published before I used them in this blog update, as a matter of common courtesy to GamesTM Magazine. I figured that  it wouldn't be too professional to publish some content of their magazine before they did.

Another fine excuse is that every time I sat down to write about it, I realised that it's basically impossible to say anything about portraiture that hasn't already been said. What can I tell you that hasn't been said before? I could go with the "capturing someone forever in a moment in time" angle, as if I were some kind of voodoo photographer (you see this line a lot on wedding photographer sites). I could bore you with the basics of proper posing of your subject, how to relax your subject, etc. etc.

The list goes on. Not that I'll necessarily have anything drastically new to tell you about portraiture myself. When I write these entries, I always try my hardest to make them a little different and avoid clichéd writing techniques. Again, I'm not saying I'm always successful, but I'm always trying (there's a cliché right there).

 I hold similar anxieties about the process of portraiture photography itself. You can guarantee from a purely mathematical point of view that the great idea you've just come up with has been thought of and created before; most likely it has been executed more effectively, too.

Of course, this goes for all photography. You could drive yourself insane trying to think of a way of creating something totally unique. By the same token, it can end up being counter-productive when you get to a point of creating an image that is totally obscure and different just for the sake of it. You lose a truth about your own work if the idea is so gratuitously alternative, obscure or surreal that it's no longer connected to you in any way as an artist. 

The love behind the image disappears, and a tangible quality to the piece is lost. I feel uncomfortably disingenuous if I'm creating something purely because I think the style of that image will appeal to others. To quote Mo Sizlak from the Simpsons "It's post modern! Y'know, weird for the sake of weird".

The trade off, then, is the trickiest part of creating engaging portraiture. I'm usually averse to proverbs, and it seems especially inappropriate to use one in a blog update concerned with striving to create something unique, but the old adage "always put a little bit of yourself into your work" is one I agree with.

Personally, the trade off between creative freedom and creative focus is one I am acutely aware of whilst undertaking my current ongoing large scale portraiture project. It's great to be in charge but, as a result, I'm constantly battling with both creative freedom VS creative focus and the desire to create something unique VS the desire to create something that you actually like once it's finished.

Another common trade off comes from the motivation of creating the image and who it is being made for. I won’t get into this right now however, because we’re going off on a bit of a tangent already, and I intend to examine this in more depth in a later entry.

I guess you’ll be after some pictures now, right? Fair enough. I’ve worked with GamesTM magazine recently. Both of these commissions were published in this month’s issue, issue 95. Go and check it out in print if you haven’t seen it. If you’re a videogames fan at all, I would recommend buying the mag, too. It’s been an honour and a privilege to work with these guys; being able to photograph people I respect whilst working for people I respect is a wonderful thing.

The following images are a small selection from the two shoots I undertook recently. The first subject is Goichi Suda, or Suda51 as he is known. A games developer with an admirably fresh and, yes, very unique approach to videogame design. As a result, his games don’t feel like they are designed by committee and they celebrate the role of the auteur in what is becoming a progressively homogenised industry. His punk approach to design is admirable in my opinion, and is reflected in Grasshopper Manufacture’s slogan - “Punk’s Not Dead”.

(click images for large)

  This shoot ended up being something of a high pressure affair. I don’t want to go too “behind the scenes” with the details (again, out of respect to the client) but, for reasons out of everyone’s control (with the exception of certain airlines), I was left with less than 20 minutes to set up, explain the theme of the shoot to Suda-san through his translator, and take the photos themselves. Thanks to extensive preparation (the importance of which I discuss in an earlier blog post, “Prepare.”), it took me 2 or 3 minutes to set up and get the test shots spot on with the desired exposure as opposed to spending 5 to 10 minutes fiddling with my settings and leaving me with less time to get the images. Suda-san himself was a brilliant subject, stunningly easy to direct and full of charisma. Once the nerves had settled down, I had a really great time in the company of someone I respect hugely.

The second subject is someone you’re more likely to have heard of. Shigeru Miyamoto is and has been a lead creative at Nintendo for many, many years. He is responsible for the Mario Brothers and Zelda games and has been an important figure at Nintendo for a very long time. He isn’t over in the UK very often, so we of course didn't want to miss the opportunity to photograph this great man.                                                    

 

( For the rest of the images, visit www.garethdutton.com/recent.html )

This shoot was also greatly exciting, but the nature of it was significantly different to the Suda51 shoot. We had been instructed to take any photos during the interview. There would be no opportunity for posed shots, so I would have to capture his character during the interview itself. The lighting was somewhat difficult to deal with at first; the room was dimly lit and hotel room lamps give off an unnatural orange glow that is awful for your colour balance settings. I felt that firing off a flashgun 80 times into the face of a deeply respected  man of mature years might not be the most tactful way to photograph him during interview, especially seeing as putting him off his stride in an interview you might only secure twice a decade could have possibly rendered the journalist a little disgruntled. As a result, ISO had to be bumped up considerably.

On this front, when undertaking commissioned, commercial portraiture, it’s important to note that your client isn’t necessarily going to care as much about ISO settings as you do. The one thing they’re most worried about is having images to put in their magazine / on their website that capture the character of the subject and back up the tone of the article. It’s easy to get bogged down in image quality, and I for one am a stickler for it, but you must remember that, before anything else, portraiture is about getting across the character of the subject.

A good example of this rule being ignored is the recent conservative party image of David Cameron gazing earnestly into the lens with the slogan "We can't go on like this", which was met with unanimous ridicule. As a piece of photography, this interested me at to why it failed to have the desired effect.

There are number of factors. First, the expression is wrong. It's far too aggressive; there's no need for Cameron to be maintaining that intense a stare into the lens; it's uncomfortable for the viewer. Second, there has been far too much post processing of the image. His skin is unnaturally smooth. This is the kind of pp you would see in a model shoot, not for a political campaign. The feeling we get from such pp is that if this man is hiding his face from us, then how can we trust him? this "fashion-y" tone is further reinforced by the high key, white background, which is typical of fashion shoots.

To clarify, I'm not intending to make these comments politically charged - I'm looking at it purely from a photography point of view. I'm also not attacking the photographer for the final image, as I have no idea how much creative freedom he or she was given, so that would be unfair and churlish.

Presuming I'd have been given enough creative freedom, here's how I would have shot that image; a high quality studio photo with a low key, black background and little to no post processing. I would also tone down the intensity of the stare considerably. There are ways to look honest without battering the viewer into submission. The low key background, apart from personal preference, would eliminate the fashion shoot comparisons. Seeing every unedited nook and cranny of the face would say to the viewer "I'm not hiding anything, here I am as I am, telling you this".

With portraiture that intends to evoke a feeling or communicate a message, especially at that level, it's extremely important to consider all elements. Expression, background, lighting and post processing must all be given careful thought.

I was going to leave that whole section out because the blog post is getting rather long (again) but I thought it would be an interesting contemporary case study. Now I'm going to throw to the closing paragraph by saying "I'm throwing to the closing paragraph now".

I'm throwing to the closing paragraph now.

I'm quite sure that everything I've written above has been written before in a variety of styles, many of them exhibiting a greater ability to write and a sounder grasp of grammar, but hopefully I've added enough of myself to make it worth writing, even if I’m the only one to get something out of it. Remember, there are no new ideas and, as if to prove it, “there are no new ideas” is another proverb that was said by someone else first a long time ago and has been said by many others since.

In short, shoot first, ask questions later.

N.B - As an added note of interest - I went back through and edited this entry and ended up removing six common phrases I wasn't even fully conscious of including (for example "chock-full" and "to name but a few", to name but a few). There are still two left in the closing paragraph, but I didn't want to change them just for the sake of being different.

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

Prepare.

You've booked a photographer for an event you are holding. He turns up half an hour late. Gingerly, he makes his way through the crowd towards, well, he's not sure where. Finds a spot, fiddles with his camera for 20 minutes, in which time the main activity of the night that he's there to cover is going on. In a totally different room. He spends the next hour taking photos of people, walls, the bar, everything. Except none of it is particularly relevant. Unfortunately, he never did make it to that back room with one of your main exhibits in it, although he did walk by it several times. He didn't even know it was there.

Now you have to consider how to approach writing him a tactfully worded thank you email. Dear photographer, many thanks for all the pictures of people talking to each other. It really put across the sense that there were people at the event. And that they were talking to each other. I enjoyed your interesting take on the colours you saw in our building, too. I never knew everything was so orange. Not to worry about turning up late, missing the main point of the evening and then leaving early because you hadn't charged your camera battery - it could happen to anyone.

Anyone who isn't fully prepared.

OK, so that's what could be classed as an extreme example. That said, I do not doubt for a second that there are photographers out there that follow this exact practice, time after time.

Although true of any photography, preparation is vital when covering events. A well prepared photographer will get the shots that truly document the night. Here's a little list of things I do or keep in mind with regards to event photography:

•  Figure out the lighting levels in each room / area, making a note of how to achieve the best exposure in each room. You won't always be looking to achieve a "perfect" exposure, depending on the room and the event itself. If you're in a room with a particular atmosphere and that is the intention of the room, you will want to match that atmosphere in order to correctly communicate the feel of the event.
  

•  To help achieve this, ensure you get a chance to speak to the organiser for at least 10 minutes before the event begins, ideally also by email prior to the day of the event. You will set yourself in good stead if you find out what is happening when and where, what the desired efffect of the photographs is to be (e.g. get a sense of the place being busy to document the success of the evening) and any shots in particular the organiser has in mind.
  

•  It seems like a small point, but making sure your white balance is as accurate as possible is also important for most reportage and coverage. Event coverage is, essentially, a photographic document. You want to reproduce the event as accurately as possible. Of course, there is much more to this than getting the colours correct in your image, but every little helps.
  

•  Reportage doesn't just require you to take a photo of what's there, therefore proving it was there that night. Anyone could do that. Good reportage and event coverage should focus on trying to get a sense of the evening across.
  

•  Make sure you know your way around the event area physically. Where you can and can't go, how best to traverse the space whilst remaining unobtrusive. I find that I get the best images when I remain inconspicuous. You do, of course, sometimes need to get directly involved and ask people to do certain things for you for a shot you have in mind, but try to make it fun for the participants, if at all possible. This is, in a way, another form of preparation; preparing your subjects prior to a staged shot.
  

•  Remember to bring your own personal style to the images, whatever that may be, whilst respecting and fulfilling the requests of the event organiser.

• Oh, and remember to enjoy yourself!
  

If you do all this, you are totally prepared. You know your light, you know what the organiser wants from the shoot, you know what is happening where and when, you know your way around. As a result, you know you will take better photographs and end up with a happier client.

I suppose you want to see some examples, do you? Here are examples of two contrasting event types.

LDN Wrestling is a fantastic professional wrestling company I have the pleasure of working with on a regular basis. Although we undertake a variety of projects together, the most demanding are, without a doubt, coverage of matches themselves. The best moments last for less than a second.

The trick is getting the shot without the ropes in the picture; dealing with a shaking canvas alongside the low light conditions; getting as close as possible to the action whilst avoiding flying limbs. It's exhausting over a 3 hour period but just about the most fun you can have covering an event. As before, click on the images for large versions.

John Jones are an excellent art framing company who are keen to support emerging artists. They hold regular nights of art installations and music. Being surrounded by art and music while you work can be incredbly inspiring; you feel part of a bigger creative atmosphere.

That's all for this update. I'm not sure how it got so enormous. Sorry about that. Go and have a cup of tea and a choccy bar, you've earned it.

Next time, I'll be easing off the business side of things and tackling one of my favourite kinds of photography - portraits. Faces. People.



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

Not Pictured; When is a Landscape not a Landscape?

Personally speaking, I have a hard time garnering any sort of enjoyment out of looking at landscape photography, even if the image demonstrates a high level of technical ability. Don't get me wrong, I love a burning scarlet sunset over rolling hills, reflected in a shimmering, clear lake as much as the next person, it's just that when you remove the element of actually being there, you lose something. You lose a lot, in fact.

As a result, I often feel that a traditional landscape photograph, no matter how well executed it is, doesn't get across the sensation of "being there". Whilst I don't completely agree with the notion that every photograph has to say something or tell a story, I tend to feel acutely aware of a lack of focus or feeling in a photo of a mountain on a nice day, for example.

Of course this also raises the question of what a "traditional landscape" is. Is it one that perfectly follows the rule of thirds, has some nice lines to lead you through the image and has perfect exposure, perhaps using an NDGrad filter to get the sky just right? Does a landscape image have to have a minimum field of view, in both width and depth, to be classed as such? Does it have to be landscape oriented or can it be portrait oriented? Does it matter? Have you fallen asleep?

I suppose what I'm really driving at is whether we need to worry about this question at all, and whether working within the limits of a landscape framework limits what we can do creatively.

Believe it or not, I do sometimes dabble in landscape myself (or at least I think I do). The main draw of this kind of photography I find is the adventure itself; going out into the big bad world and trying to create an interesting image from your surroundings. I sometimes feel frustrated at first, as you review your images so far and they're just hills, trees, mountains, arranged slightly differently each time.

The recent snow we've had has given me an opportunity to experiment a little more. I travelled up to the lake district and snapped some wintry scenes. I've picked a little selection of shots, some that lean towards the traditional and some that lean away. (click the images for larger versions)

With wintry scenes, I like to emphasise a starkness, similar to the way you might approach a desert photo. Strong, simple lines, minimalistic and sometimes with a human interest of some sort, either for a sense of scale or for a figure to relate to within the image.

The viaduct you can see is situated at Ribblehead. You'll find a nauseating wealth of images of landmarks such a viaducts and aqueducts, so it can be a real challenge to produce something more interesting. The heavy snow was a perfect opportunity to do this and I wanted to get across a sense of the temperature.

As for composition, landmarks like these are always shot at some kind of angle, to supposedly make them different and more interesting. Unfortunately, when everyone is doing this, it then makes it the norm to take this approach. That's why I've included an alternative approach, taking the viaduct head on with nobody in sight. It does weird things to your sense of perspective and you can't really tell how large a structure you're looking at. Is that a good thing? I don't know, but I just shoot what pleases me aesthetically.

So my answer to the question, "when is a landscape not a landscape?" is "when you stop worrying whether it's a landscape or not". I know it's cold outside, but wrap up warm, grab your camera and go break some rules.


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

Not Pictured; An Introduction

The first thing that may enter your head as you read this introduction is why I've decided to call the blog "Not Pictured". I guess it's time to explain myself.

As I see it, photography isn't just about the image you see presented before you. There are countless elements that come together to form a great picture. These, of course, vary depending upon exactly what image you are trying to create.

Preparation, making a connection with the person you are photographing, foresight, predicting where and when the moment you want to capture will happen, sudden inspiration, an outside influence or suggestion, perhaps from the subjects themselves, working with unfavourable conditions and discovering a new approach as a result, sheer physical effort (for example, hefting your gear another half an hour up that mountain to see what you can find).

Then you have your own personal style and what has affected it and caused it to develop over time. This ranges far and wide also, from the photography you enjoy the most, to the films you watch, the kind of art you enjoy, the music you listen to, the books you read, everything.

These are just a few examples of the influences behind the final image you see, just a few of the things that are not pictured.

As a result, my intention is to make this blog a mixture of photography discussion and general discussion, discovering my own influences and reasons for my approach to photography. You don't have to know anything about f stops, ISO, spot metering, key shifting and other such exciting terms in order to understand what's going on, although I can't promise I won't get techy from time to time.

Which brings me nicely to a little something I'll leave you to think about. There's an age old question about photography; is it an art or a science? Everyone has their own answer, but I would say it is art with a small, yet essential, sprinkling of science. Like a big chocolate cake with a side order of spinach. If that makes sense.

My first topic (with actual photographic content!) will be all about landscapes. I'll be asking what exactly qualifies as a landscape, and how in the world do you make them at all interesting?


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