Appraisal
Appraisal
‘Its Grim Up North’
Initially in my research I started to look into alternative ways of living, often people find themselves house sharing and living in different ways to the conventional house, this is usually down to financial problems and a lack of support from the government. Whilst researching on the Guardian - the client for the brief - I was looking into the housing crisis and austerity measures and came across an alternative way of living which is far more affordable than the normal housing, but much more secure than renting a property. I started to research housing co-ops and got in touch with a woman who has lived in one for quite some time, I managed to build up some trust with her after meeting up and then sent of a proposal of my idea, unfortunately communications seemed to fizzle out - this meant I needed to come up with a new brief for myself.
Whilst out for a friends birth i found myself on ‘The Yorkshire Flyboat’; an events boat that cater for parties, i took some photos on my iPhone as i found it was an interesting was of using the canals, a business I would've never thought existed. After reviewing my images I started to collate some information on the canals and found that they were struggling with the upkeep and government funding had drastically been cut to the point in which the British waterways had to be rebranded as a charity to pull in more funding. Once I had some information I proceeded to contact the owner of the Flyboat; prior to me calling (this was the only way of contact on the website) I wrote down some prep notes so I covered all grounds. A successful phone-call, we arranged to meet so i could interview him and find out more information so i could come up with a solid concept. The brattish Canals are a heritage site and were one of the reasons we were such an industrial powerhouse, particularly in the north and I wanted to show the Flyboat’s appropriation of the canals in modern times. I met up with Hugh at the boat and discussed my idea and his way of life in an informal interview, at this point we look through our schedules and can up with some appropriate dates in which I could come and explore the boat whilst photographing. I felt it was appropriate to come up with dates for the 2 weeks the boat was running, this way I could get prepped for each shoot, sourcing the equipment I needed and being at the boat in time to set off up the canal. I was reading up on the guardian and came across a quote form John Gossage, he says, “I always hated the colours when you shoot on film stock, as they are decided by the manufacturers. When I shoot colour nowadays, I use digital equipment so I can adjust the colours to the way I see them.” prior to seeing this quote I was planing on using film but I really understood what he was saying in this quote and believe that using digital would be completely appropriate for this brief, i wanted the images to have a fully contemporary and clean look in order to reflect the genre I would be working in, but also to show this new way of using the Canals. For the three dates I had chosen to photograph on a I made shoot plans. However only after each shoot did I create the next plan because it is a documentary piece its naturally explorative and for each shoot I did I became more informed and new what I was looking for. Due to me research into the issues of the canals and lack of money, I new to be looking signs of disrepair but my images were also about the boat and crew so I needed to be exploring how they interacted with the canals. Like i said previously, my choice was to work in digital. I chose a canon 5d and l series lenses in order to get the best image quality I possibly could. Due to my planning I was also aware that I would be photographing at night, this meant I had to use artificial lighting. The Metz flash seemed the most appropriate due to its size to power ratio; its powerful enough but not too bulky as I would need to be free to move around a lot. During this time I was researching the sort of imagery found in he Guardian weekend magazine, to find out if my images were appropriate for the client and viewers. The weekend magazine is factual and using images of the documentary genre, and I feel my images were also of that genre, therefore appropriate for my client. Once I had a range of images to work from I first shortlisted down to 18 which I felt worked well individually but also as as series, using Camera Raw and photoshop for post production I made small changes to the image, often things like minor colour balance but due to my choice of equipment the images were already very high quality. These images then were Printed on to a satin paper produced at the same size for continuity in the series, I wanted the boarder to be simple and nondescript in order to avoid taking visual quality away from the image, again this was something I learnt in my research on Gossage’s series ‘Pomodori a Grapolo’. Finally my layout, I cut out physical contacts of my images and put them in pairs groups or singles in order to see how they would work together, I then cut out a few of my images in order to make the brief requirement of 12-15 images. I proceeded to do experiments by hand to then apply to InDesign later on. Finally placing my images into their chosen sizes and layout. My layout was influence from the guardian weekend magazine layout thats I had primarily researched; often formal and images reproduced to the same sizing for series continuity. I have presented my final magazine layout on Issue to give see professionally what the final layouts would look like.
