Category Archives: Part 3: Traces of time

Project 3 ‘What matters is to look’ – research point

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What Matters is to look

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, 1932

This image by Henri Carier-Bresson is described as ‘one of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century’. Personally I’ve never seen it before.

As part of my research into Henri Cartier-Bresson, I watched ‘L’amour tout court’ on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/106009378 (accessed 10/01/2018).

The film is an interview with HC-B made by Raphael O’Byrne entitled ‘Just Plain Love’
It is in French but has English subtitles
 
HC-B starts by saying that most people don’t look properly at their subject, they just press the shutter buttons
 
He intermates that his parents were strict and prudish, whilst he frequented bordellos 
Left-wing catholics
 
HCB went to Africa
He is a bit of crusader for people less fortunate than himself.
He been in jail and then to the commandos, he feels like an escaped prisoner
 
HCB and Klavdij Sluban hold a regular photography workshop with the inmates in the Fleury-Mergois.  Sluban is now also going to a prison in Georgia.  At first the inmates seem very cautious and suspicious, but are soon running around taking photos, mostly of themselves.  He says that the inmates either refer to themselves as before incarceration or after, but not during.  By giving them a camera, we see their view of the prison, rather than the photographers.
 
HCB reviewing his famous leaping man image, said it was just luck, but that you need to leave yourself open, you can’t just want it to happen, because it won’t
 
He has framed his images, using geometry, divine proportion. Which he instinctively knows where it is.  It’s about capturing the physical rhythm of a situation.
 
Form should come first, light is the icing on the cake. Interview with writing, says that HCB was always looking, will see things others don’t see.  He sees the form or geometry of an image and the people within it provide the interest.
 
HCB you either have it you don’t.
 
Arkivah – people need to love to look, you can’t look at something you don’t love
Art is not a visual think, is a sensual think, if you don’t taste it you won’t see it.

 

just plain love a film by Raphael O’Bryan

the gaze should pierce 

wanting won’t work

physidcal rhythm

light is like purfune to me.

giocometti?

to look means to love – painter

suite nl3 en re mineur sarabande, bach

suite no3 en ut majeur, parelude, bach

suite no 1 en sol majeur, courante, bach

suite no 9 courante, haendel eric heidsieck

Assignment 3 – The Decisive Moment – Research

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Research into the concept of ‘the decisive moment’

How to Master “The Decisive Moment”

Eric Kim says that H C-B believed that:

  • “The Decisive Moment” was that split second of genius and inspiration that a photographer had to capture a certain moment
  • You can never recreate the same circumstances in terms of location and people.
  • You must constantly be looking for moments to capture,
  • Once that moment is gone, it is gone forever

7 Tips How to Capture “The Decisive Moment” in Street Photography

  1. What is a “decisive moment” for you
  2. Follow your intuition
  3. Set it and forgetit
  4. Photograph what you’re afraid of
  5. Look for emotion and gestures
  6. What is personally-meaningful to you
  7. Work the scene

The Decisive Moment and the Brain

this is an interesting article from Petapixel, which explores the interactions between conscious (i.e., knowing) and unconscious (i.e., intuiting) awareness and how the brain works to link the two. 

 

Extract from conversation on on student forum about a3 decisive moment.

https://discuss.oca-student.com/t/eyv-a3-decisive-moment-feedback-needed/6483

Comment by Clive White – OCA tutor:

I didn’t want them to be just an extension of cliché esthetics’

The decisive moment isn’t an outdated Modernist conceit, it’s an ever present appropriate strategy concerned with when you decided to press the shutter button. It’s the second most important decision the photographer makes after framing.

Some students seem to get the idea that they’re supposed to critique it in some way as an outmoded idea by redefining it or that they’re supposed to be critiquing the work of H. C-B.; as tutors we don’t really understand why the section has been read like this but the assignment, along with the rest of EYV is being revised and I’m contributing a case study from one of my students to help explain the concept and this assignment more effectively.

You are encouraged to critique it in the sense that one can consciously produce indecisive or non-decisive moments but in order to do that one needs to understand what a decisive moment is, some people are jumping straight to the critique position with out properly understanding the concept of the decisive moment and a spurious motivation.

The minimum requirement of this assignment is that the images should visually demonstrate the understanding of the concept without requiring any explanation or captioning when viewed by those familiar with the concept. It is not enough to say this is a decisive moment because I say it is. The image at the moment of capture should have a significance which is not extant at the moment before or the moment after.

Once that’s achieved the aspiration should be to make images which are not only decisive moments but to make them part of the natural progressive flow of one’s work.

Review the images you’ve made and decide if they meet the base criteria, was the moment you’ve chosen different in its resonance in any significant way from a moment before or after.

I think this really helps clarify what is needed from this assignment.

  • it it NOT a critique of HC-B, but needs to demonstrate and understanding of the concept
  • it should capture a moment in time that is different from the moment before and the moment after.
  • the images should have aesthetic balance

I also had a look at a couple of blogs suggested by the tutors which were held up as demonstrating the required response to the brief

Kate Aston  and David Fletcher 

two very different responses and very interesting.

 

3.3.2 What matters is to look

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3.3.2.  Find a good viewpoint, perhaps fairly high up (an upstairs window might do)
where you can see a wide view or panorama. Start by looking at the things
closest to you in the foreground. Then pay attention to the details in the middle
distance and, finally, the things towards the horizon. Now try and see the whole
landscape together, from the foreground to horizon (you can move your eyes).
Include the sky in your observation and try to see the whole visual field together,
all in movement (there is always some movement). When you’ve got it, raise your
camera and take a picture. Add the picture and a description of the process to
your learning log.

To complete this exercise, I needed a to take jolly jaunt during my lunch hour, up to High down Hill, which is the highest point locally and has a 360 degree views.

As I stood at top the Highdown Hill, looking down over North Worthing.  I followed the instructions and started by looking close to me and moving my eyes further away into the distance and then up to the sky.  i was surprised just how much the human eye can see and perceive in one go.

At first the scene looked fairly static but the more I looked, the more I started to see, and even the slightest movement was apparent.  In this exercise I took the image when I saw the movement, but in actual fact it was so far away that the camera  didn’t really capture it.  in the image below I have shown where the movement was, a double decker bus.  I was able to watch the bus approaching the gap, and took the image as it reached the gap.  So I feel that I did capture the decisive moment, even though it’s very small 🙂

this view captures a train passing the level crossing.  I first spotted the flashing red lights and then saw the train approaching from the right. I waited until the train reached the lights before taking the shot.

I have marked the movement and the train in this second image

3.3.1 What matters is to look

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3.3.1 – What do the timeframes of the camera actually look like? If you have a manual
film camera, open the camera back (make sure there’s no film in the camera
first!) and look through the shutter as you press the shutter release. What is the
shortest duration in which your eyes can perceive a recognisable image in bright
daylight? Describe the experiment in your learning log

holding place in order to complete this exercise when I can use a film camera

3.2 – A durational space

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Exercise 3.2
Start by doing your own research into some of the artists discussed above.  Then, using slow shutter speeds, the multiple exposure function, or another technique inspired by the examples above, try to record the trace of movement within the frame. You can be as experimental as you like. Add a selection of shots together with relevant shooting data and a description of your process (how you captured the shots) to your learning log.

Research into photographers / artists using movement in their work:  http://debraflynnphotography.co.uk/EYV-blog/course-work/part-3-project-2-a-durational-space/

This first exercise to answer this brief wasn’t really inspired by any of the research, more it came out of what can I do on a wet friday afternoon! Hence I went with some coin spinning.  Using shutter priority and a remote, I was able to set the camera on the table and spin the coin.  My first attempts were using 1/40 second, but I only managed to capture a blur, so I increased the speed to 1/80 and then was happier with the results.  I wanted to able to still that it was a coin even though it was moving.  Using the marble slab underneath also gave a nice reflection. 

I started using just ambient light, but decided to try side light the coin with my phone torch.  I was actually quite pleased with the results.  Whilst editing the images I have tried to crop them all differently, to see if that changes the feel and impact of the image.

see contacts for these images here

This was an attempt at camera movement rather than subject

Part 3 – Project 2 – A durational space

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Long Exposures:

Photographer Michael Wesely has taken some really long  exposure images, 

See: http://itchyi.squarespace.com/thelatest/2010/7/20/the-longest-photographic-
exposures-in-history.html [accessed 25/09/14])
www.wesely.org

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001–2004. Michael Wesely

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001–2004. Michael Wesely

I really enjoy these images and they obviously take a lot of patience. There is a ghostly quality to them, which gives a glimpse of how the space has changed over time, really like this.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

watched video about this artist: but to be honest was left a little underwhelmed by his results, I don’t really get why you’d want to take an image of a white screen and with the lack of motion in the rest of image, it could just have been a photo taken of a white screen in an empty theater.

Alisdair Gill

 

http://alasdairgill.blogspot.co.uk/

3.1 – The Frozen Moment

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Exercise 3.1
Using fast shutter speeds, try to isolate a frozen moment of time in a moving subject.  Depending on the available light you may have to select a high ISO to avoid visible blur in the photograph. Try to find the beauty in a fragment of  time that fascinated John Szarkowski. Add a selection of shots, together with relevant shooting data and a description of your process (how you captured the images), to your learning log.

Well what better to do on New’ Year’s Day than go and try to stop time 🙂 !

Our idea was to go and watch some silly nutters running into the sea in the morning, but when we got there the beach was bare!!  Presumably the rain, wind and rough high tide combined to discourage anyone.  Either that or it was cancelled .

Anyway, we finally found ourselves on the beach at Littlehampton where the combination of rolling waves, shoreline birds and mad people running, gave me the opportunity to capture some motion and stop the action.

As instructed I set the camera onto shutter priority, and because it was wet and raining, but still relatively bright, I put the ISO on 640, so that I could keep the speed as high as possible.  I was also using a Tamron 70-200 2.8 lens, which is fairly heavy especially in conjunction with the camera so wanted to ensure I could combat any camera shake as well. 

I am pleased with the outcome of this exercise.  Using shutter priority did make things easier, as I wasn’t worrying about the settings once set up, which meant I could concentrate on watching the scene for movement. 

For most of the shots I tried to stand as still as possible, but with some of the bird shots, I did try panning along with the flight and as I was able to keep the shutter speed up, that was quite successful.

I think that in order to stop motion, you also need to actually see that movement is happening, i.e. if you took a photo of a car, stopping all motion, then it could just be parked!, where as a person running or a bird in flight is still moving in the image even though the motion is stopped.  That’s why I chose to take photos of things that look different when they’re are moving to how they look when they are still.

I agree with Flusser’s view that ‘framing a photograph is not just space, but also time. The human eye certainly doesn’t see all of the different movement of a birds wings, by just watching.

Contact Sheets for this shoot can be seen here: contact sheets

Water Drops

Also tried to emulate Harold Edgerton’s mild drop coronet, 1957 by having a go a milk drops in water.  It took thousands of shots to get a few good ones, but was really enjoyable and a little bit addictive.  In this instance shutter speed is coupled with flash lighting and coloured gels to stop the action.

Technical Notes:

  • 35 mm camera with 105 mm macro lens
  • f/14 & f/20 with ISO100, 105 mm, 1/200 (to sync with flashes)
  • 2 flash guns with various coloured gels, fired with triggers, set at between 1/8 & 1/4
  • remote shutter

for water:

  • tray of water with black plastic on bottom to give reflections
  • black back ground
  • used clear water with xanthium gum added (makes it thicker)
  • and a mixture of skimmed milk and cream

set up for water drop images

contacts for this shoot can be seen here 

Part 3 – Traces of Time – Coursework

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Shutter Speed

‘Freezing Time’

I was surprised to discover that today’s fast shutter speeds were developed so recently, and that the first photographs took hours to develop.  I started my photographic journey with film, many years ago, but even then, it seemed quick to take a photo.

Names to remember in shutter speed development:

In being able to stop motion, in the fraction of a second it takes to push the shutter button, we are able to see things that our eyes couldn’t actually see. Szarkowski, 2007, p.5 argues that we can derive much pleasure in the fragmenting of time because of the aesthetic quality of shapes we can capture

Bullet Through Flame (Schlieren Method) © Kim Vandiver and Harold Edgerton, 1973

This image by Harold Edgerton is an example of how there can be beauty in capturing something we wouldn’t normally be able to see.

I believe that images like this, capture both a fragment of time, but also movement, because as humans we do have the ability to discern movement, even if we can’t actually see it happening.

I like the idea of being able to capture both.

 

 

 

 

http://alasdairgill.blogspot.co.uk/