Tim Hetherington

I only discovered Tim Hetherington in the last year, after having a drink at the journalist and photographers club, where they were promoting his directorial debut documentary film 'Restrepo'. The documentary which covers the war in Afghanistan was produced by his girlfriends production company and was nominated for an oscar and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

After seeing the film I researched all of his past projects and came across one, Healing Sport, which for me embodies the very purpose of photography. To make people look and see the real side of any issue not matter how it may be mis-represented by Television or Film. A photograph will always stay with you longer as it demands your full attention, which is why I feel photography can change peoples awareness of anything and hopefully stir them to make a difference.

Here is a great link to an interview with Tim saying better than I can how he feels.
http://www.photographychannel.tv/video/healingsport.html

Very tragicaly Tim and another photojournalist, Chris Hondros were killed by a mortar attack in Libya in April 2011. Another lose of a decent, talent guy due to war!

                                           THE DEEPER REALITY IS IN OUR PHOTOS

Formula One Photography

Imagine travelling the globe to some of the world’s most dynamic, spectacular and glamorous locations, with some of the world’s highest paid sportsmen, photographing some of the most adrenalin packed, testosterone charged events in the sporting calendar. This is exactly what James Moy does as an official Formula One photographer.

Now I know this is a very acquired taste and some would say boring sport but having had a passion for racing and huge respect for guys that can do over 150mph whilst changing a multitude of settings on their steering wheels to affect how their car handles during a race, along with my passion for photography, what better way to enjoy a day’s work than capturing a part of this modern day gladiatorial battle in beautiful stylized shots.

After watching the Chinese Grand Prix this morning, I took a look at some of F1’s best shooters. James Moy has been in the business for 15 years and worked his way through all the ranks of racing, F3, Rallying and onto F1. The ability to capture, in utter clarity the speeding cars, tension of the build-up and triumphant winning of the race must be a hell of way to spend a weekend and one I’ll be looking into.

Research
http://www.jamesmoy.com/
http://www.formula1.com/default.html

Kevin Carter

I’ve always had an interest in photography. I still remember going to the Isle of White with school when I was around 8. When we got back and had to write about our trip my written work was shite but my pictures won me a prize, a Toblerone I seem to recall and so started my addiction to sweet chocolatey, nougat, loveliness but we’ll leave that. After that I was always stopped by photography in magazines and books, of anything really, landscapes, portraits ect.

Images really started to have a strong resonance on me when I saw Kevin Carter’s image of the tiny Sudanese girl resting as she walked to a feeding station, emaciated, a vulture lands and follows close behind, waiting in anticipation for her to die. In 1994 Kevin Carter, who was part of the Bang-Bang Club, four best mate photographers who were in South Africa during the Apartheid and black on black violence, won the Pulitzer Prize for his picture. After the award Carter came under huge criticism for not helping the girl and in effect being as bad as the vulture. By this time two of his mates in the Bang-Bang Club had been killed photographing the trouble in South Africa, and Cater was a drug addict, the only escape from the suffering he’d seen and losing his friends.

In July of 1994 Kevin Carter committed suicide. 

                                               Kevin Carter doing what he did best

                                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLDr0QNCUd4

 

REFERENCES

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981431,00.html
http://www.pulitzer.org/
http://www.thisisyesterday.com/ints/KCarter.html

Film or Digital

Being a bit film-phobic it’s interesting to hear different people’s point of view. Personally I have to admit whilst I was looking through a friend’s portfolio recently and doing all the usual oooh that’s nice! I came to an image that jumped off the page with colour and life, when I asked my friend ‘Jesus what did you shoot that on?’ film came the response. I guess the only think stopping me from really getting into the darkroom, other than that terrible memory of fumbling in a cupboard under the stairs with a girl trying to get her bra off for half an hour, is the price of it all. I mean until you get to grips with the right settings on the camera you’ve wasted half your film and your bank accounts half empty. Then you’ve got all the paper you go through whilst trying to get the right exposure time and it’s time to see the bank manager for a loan.

Having said all that you have to start somewhere with everything and if you want the amazing looks that film bring then you have to invest the time and money or just wait till they invent a digital that can capture that vibrancy and charm.

William Fox Talbot

                                                                  Henry Fox Talbot

I was watching a programme last night on BBC1 called The Boat That Guy Built. Guy Martin is an ex-champion TT superbike racer and engineer who, along with his best mate Mave, are rebuilding an old canal boat. In the episode the wanted an old fashioned shot of them both next to their old boat and the choice of camera was a fox Talbot camera. Fox Talbot or William Fox Talbot as he preferred to be called was the first person to develop the three primary elements of photography, developing, fixing and printing. Talbot discovered, by accident, that you could develop an image with a much shorter exposure than was being used at the time. Although Talbot couldn’t make out the image, he mixed chemicals to turn the image into a negative. Louis Daguerre first displayed his pictures on silver plates but with Talbot fixing his images he removed the light sensitive silver which allowed the picture to be viewed in bright light. From here Talbot patented his idea, realising he could make any number of positive prints, which he called ‘Calotype’ 

                                         A print of Lacock Abbey from the oldest negative in existence

Talbot was rewarded with a medal from the Royal Society for his creation and we are rewarded with the darkroom.

Sam Taylor Wood

Sam Taylor Wood is an accomplished fine art photographer and director. During her fine art period she produced a series of suspended self-portraits using a harness. One entitled ‘Bram Stockers Chair’ shows Taylor Wood floating, vampiric like into the air casting her shadow on the wall whilst her falling chair does not. A great twisting idea and one I’m gonna copy!

From this Taylor Wood moved on to working with multi-screen video with a piece titled ‘Killing Time’ showing people miming to an opera song. After working with this medium Wood worked more and more with visuals producing one of my favourite videos in a long time ‘Crying Men’ which stars some of the best Hollywood leading men, have a look at the video, I’ve remixed it, better than the youtube one!

Another favourite picture of mine comes from Sam Taylor Wood, (I must meet this woman, I hear she likes the younger man) it’s entitled Self-portrait in a single breasted suit with hare. At the age of 30 she was diagnosed with colon cancer, which she beat. Then 3 years later with breast cancer, this time needing a mastectomy. It’s a fantastically strong image of defiance and in her words, ‘The hare symbolises lust and passion, so here I am with a head of hair, in a single-breasted suit, holding on to lust and passion’

Research
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1241087/Film-maker-Sam-Taylor-Wood-42-pregnant-19-year-old-film-star-fianc.html
http://www.artnet.com/artists/sam-taylor-wood/
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article7135057.ece

August Sanders

German photographer August Sanders loved to document his fellow countrymen and gave up working in his studio to literally get on his bike and work in the field capturing the people he came upon. Not long after being published his book Face of our Time, which contained 60 portraits from his travels, was seized by the Nazi and the photographic plates destroyed. During the Second World War however, he managed to make it out of Cologne saving many of his negatives.

One picture that fascinates me is of a young German solider dressed in an impeccable uniform, staring straight into the lens. You can’t help but look at this young man and wonder, does his youthful, clean look mean he has not yet seen war or had to kill the enemy or is he on leave resting and proud of the English he has fought and killed. There is a slight tenseness to his eyes that suggest to me he is very anxious of what may be to come.

In Sanders own words ‘We can tell from appearance the work someone does or does not do; we can read in his face if he is happy or troubled’  

Research

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1786&page=1
http://www.cosmopolis.ch/english/cosmo50/august_sander.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/cruelandtender/sander.htm