Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton was THE fashion photographer of the 1930's, 40's and 50's, and sill working with famous clientele during the 1960's. His carrier stated during the mid 1920's after finishing at Cambridge University, albeit without a degree, as a society photographer. His style and creativity lead him to photograph the British royal family, Marylin Monroe, and for Vogue - as well as designing the sets and costumes for My Fair Lady - both the original play and the 1965 film starring Audrey Hepburn.

 In this photograph the dress has been made the greatest feature - the woman wearing it comes second fiddle; she's hidden completely by the hat and the light, she's in shadow. The dress had been carefully picked out buy the lights and movement. As the model has picked up her skirt, it has caught the light and every single pleat is visible.

The background seems to be a print on fabric or thin paper, it makes the photo seem more feminine and serene than without. The daffodils, although fake, are the same. Making the young woman come across as calm.

 These photographs almost certainly use back projection. There are very few - and not as easy - ways to create this effect. I like the almost jokey postures of the men on the left-hand photo. They take away the dull, serious feel that would be there if it was just the woman in the picture. The second picture, with a woman striking an almost identical pose, looks more elegant, due to the ribbon and lace surrounding her, and making her, not just the feature, but also a little angelic.

http://loveisspeed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/life-with-high-society-photographs.html
http://kritinaknief.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/cecil-beaton.html

Documentary Evaluation

The project was confusing, I have never been very good at planned documentary photography, like this project. However I did enjoy the process of taking the pictures, walking around town. I also enjoyed editing them - I learnt new techniques and finally found out what 'dodge' and 'burn' tools do.
Sadly I had a very bad cold half way through which affected how many photos I took.

I think it comminicated '1 square mile' quite well - although I don't think I managed to cover a whole mile, unless you live in Leeds you would not be able to tell this - the statues are all in different places, all look different and have a slightly different reason behind them.

If I did this again, I would make sure I got more pictures, going around different parts of the city - such as the arcades - so that there could be more variety in the pictures. I would also try to take photos against different backgrounds - all of the statues are either in or against sandstone.

I have learnt more editing techniques, tool uses (dodge and burn) and styles during this project; as well as I find it imossible to come up with documentary ideas on my own (I spent the first week with no direction for my project).
Conceptually, once I finally found some direction, I found the project fairly easy. There is much in the way of art in Leeds, and the most noticable, yet most ignored, are the carvings and castings on and around the older buildings. Think I have improved my ability to communication with my pictures for this project

Docomentary Proposal

For this project we have been looking at different types and styles of documentary photography, including architectural photography - which was the style I most liked using: no talking to strangers and no stalking. Because I enjoyed this style much more, it is the style I will be using to take my final images.

I would like to photograph art works around Leeds. Art is often ignored is it’s not bright or in your face. The city center is full of hidden, unnoticed works - especially on and around Victorian buildings, which will be something I focus heavily on. There are quite a few figures on buildings, and I plan to use them to form the bulk of my work. I would like to show that the figures/art are constantly ignored by the busy inner city workers, and hopefully find some things I didn’t know about before.

Looking at Eugene Atget, I quite like the idea of documenting for future reference and for the sake of documenting, to help protect the buildings/art for the future. His photographs give a profound sense of what was there, this is something I'd like to try to copy by showing both the building/s and the area.

Given that Atgets’ images were all black-and-white, although not through choice, I would like to edit the photos I take to a similar intensity of grey; that look like a reasonably realistic black-and-white edit. I will do this in Photoshop using the black-and-white layer, and then the burn and dodge tools to create a more 3D looking picture, emphasising the light and shadow of the pictures.

I shall try to involve some sort of context by including people, cars, buses etc. in the images, to make it discernible that they have been taken in a busy city. However, while keeping the parts of the environment in the pictures, I would like to be sensitive to towards the age of and effort involved in much of the work.

The skills for these sculptures have, not so much been lost, but neglected, so almost all the sculptures are old. These sculptures and facades are often all that’s left of many a Victorian building where much, if not all, the inner moulding have been ripped out and modernised and the floors ripped out and doubled.

I already have a rough idea of how I might layout my photo's, I will have a pillars or similar at the bottom, drawing the eye to any landscape images I use. This will be similar to the layout I used for Dervyn's studio assignment last year, albeit without the jokey twist.

Street Photography

We looked at street photography - taking images of people in the street without their permission - walking around the courts and hospital area of the centre to get 5 interesting photos.

We've done street photography before, at the start of last year, so we had some idea of what we were supposed to do - which made it a little easier. This style of photography is easier to get a photo

"Policed by men and women armed with their camera and their conscience photojournalism remained a bastion of 20th century photographic values. Humanistic, politically engaged, liberal and serious. In 1994, British photographer Martin Parr breached this final frontier when he applied to join photojournalism's super-agency Magnum.
"I wanted to join Magnum because at heart I'm a populist and I wanted to have this method of getting my work out. I thought if I joined an agency I may as well join the most prestigious agency." (Martin Parr)
Founded as a cooperative in 1947 by legendary photographers like Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, Magnum had built its reputation on searing images of conflict and suffering in far flung places.
"Magnum photographers were meant to go out as a crusade ... to places like famine and war and ... I went out and went round the corner to the local supermarket because this to me is the front line." (Martin Parr)
Parr's territory was very different from the Magnum veterans. The scruffy beaches of New Brighton, for instance, packed with working class holiday makers. Not surprisingly Parr's application brought Magnum's old guard to the barricades, as the following exchange between Parr and Magnum veteran Philip Jones Griffiths reveals:
Jones Griffiths: "Anyone who was described as Margaret Thatcher's favourite photographer certainly didn't belong in Magnum. His photographs titillate in some way, but the fact is that they are meaningless." (Phillip Jones Griffiths, Photographer)
Parr: "The principle objection would be that I would appear to be cynical, voyeuristic, exploitative. All these were the words that I heard." (Martin Parr)
When the members came to the final ballot Parr scraped in by one vote.
Jones Griffiths: "I think he certainly heralded a major change in Magnum and it's possible to get on the Magnum website and have to reach for one's anti-nausea pill." (Phillip Jones Griffiths, Photographer)
Parr: "Like anything, I think that Magnum has to change, Magnum has to expand and since I became a member and the other people who have joined, in a sense, have been essential to its creative ongoing survival ..."(Martin Parr)"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/parr.shtml

Review

Test Shots

There are some good photo's here, but for the most part they are rather dull. During Tom's lesson, general opinion seems to be look at ignored/hidden works more

Proper Shoot

Mostly awful, some good ones. Need editing. Been looking at Eugene Atget for Mike's lesson; quite like his style, tried to coppy it a little, don't think it really worked. Will probably choose images with people in for the most part



Edits/Final Images

before edit!

Pretty happy with these, although would liked to have taken some more on the other side of town for more variety, sadly had nasty cold.