This weeks portrait work

Graham, South Manchester

Steven, Rusholme, Manchester

Terry, Levenshulme, Manchester

Weekly Update #1

Work

If you haven’t made a serious list with a good plan of action on the Sunday expect to have a slow start to the week, which is what I had on Monday. 

I had a brief list formed in my head, firstly I was to get some prints window mounted, and back with mount card to give them a more solid feel for portfolio purposes, secondly, decide which three images from Nick’s shoot to print on 20”x24” paper, and thirdly, prepare things for the fundraising events such as the Thursday night film screenings  and the portrait head shots for the ‘Manchester to London’ project.

None of this actually went to plan, marking Monday the start of the week a fail, fortunately Tuesday was the day I was able to get on to the main tasks. I managed to complete the prints of Nick, with them looking like this sat along side the ones of Monika.

I was given the go ahead create duplicates of the same large print once I had the right colour balance sorted out. I always create three prints there and then of one image just for future opportunities, saving me the time of having to get into the darkroom again, and waste paper getting it right all over again.

Just as the darkroom printing of the Monika prints was difficult so was Nick’s. Partly reason to why Monday failed for me, I underestimated the concentration required in printing something of this scale and tricky. 

Looking at these lined up together, they work quite well. Though they appear as a series of photographs here there is a real level of intimacy being revealed in each image. Chances are I will only be able to have a selected couple of prints up for an exhibition, however, looking at these if I had the opportunity to exhibit the whole project I would  grid them as the picture above, very Eija-Liisa Ahtila like. 

Daniel Meadows 

Wednesday, perhaps one of the most hectic days I have had to experience this year so far. It saw the arrival of a guest speaker, great documentary/portrait photographer Daniel Meadows, who's work now veers toward multimedia elements such as short digital stories.

Inspirational talker, and someone we can relate to as a former student of the Manchester School of Arts, which back in 1970 was called Manchester Polytechnic, ha.

The photographs here are all taken from Daniel Meadows: Edited Photographs from the 70s and 80s 

Untitled
June Street, Salford, February-April 1973

Brighton, Sussex. May 1974

Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria 1974

All pictures are copyright © Daniel Meadows except for the June Street, Salford which is copyright © Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr.

That day also saw me take the lead in photographing a keen student from the Royal Northern College of Music, who needed his portrait taken for an upcoming performance in the college. Due to the incredible (almost ridiculous) amount of people in and about the studio this week I had no choice but to do the shoot in the daylight studio. Which was a very odd set up for me as all the other shoots had taken place in the regular studio, not to mention, I had never used the daylight studio before! Getting the right white balance was the hardest part, however, in the end with the help of Luke and Martyn we managed to get this student what he wanted! In 30minutes!

Currently trying to make sense of my ideas with the reality, dealing with not so long ago scanned negatives of a supposedly completed set.

The editing process is by far the most tedious. Tedious and you over think your work in general, not the best of times. Contact sheets of the shoots to follow.

Thomas Struth

I have recently been directed toward the work of German photographer Thomas Struth. Just because my recent ideas found themselves lurking in to the psychological path of Struth’s work. I found this particularly interesting, during an interview given in 1988, Struth is asked to reply to a statement that describes his work “as political and social” : “Certainly, even if not, of course, in a direct manner. As far as my work on urban space is concerned, it is political and social in the sense I described before, of an analysis and a synthesis of our way of living in this society. But, I also think that my interest in portraiture, which I started to make 5 years ago, works in that direction, as a sort of testimony to people living in our age.”

Thomas Struth’s work is a testimony that ‘us’ photographers are researchers. This next extract is from James Lingwood’s Composure [or on being Still] text on Thomas Struth.

Thomas Struth’s photographs over the past 20 years constitute a sustained and concentrated inquiry into the ethics and aesthetics of seeing. Struth’s research is not motivated solely by an interest in what we can see - the surfaces of places, people and paintings - important though the subjects of his photographs are to him. He is equally preoccupied with the question of the way that we see. Because the way that we see, the manners and the models of seeing, are a powerful signifier or our social being, of the way that we are, with ourselves and with others; of the way that we negotiate our relations with people around us, with ‘Strangers and Friends’, to return to the title of an earlier book of Struth’s.

Taken from STILL by Thomas Struth

Thomas Struth has been that artist that I have always admired (from a distance), however it is only now that I feel it has become more relevant to me. With the work I am doing now and the project I am lining up to run straight off of it, I find my own mentality comparing to Struth’s.

Here are a few photographs from his portraits that analyse families. 

Monika Sur

This week I had a great chance to photograph my good friend Monika for my current work. We sat and discussed life, work and importantly relationships, her relationship with her partner Mikal and her family. 

Monika Sur, October, 2011

Photographer, Me

Shaun Hughes

D

Sean Maloney

Ideally I wanted to travel outside of Manchester, possible up to the peak to photograph Sean. What I wanted was a dense woodland, not bothered by mans nurturing. A location that was busily overwhelming, being able to engulf the sitter. 
The fact I don't have a vehicle to help me travel to this places stopped that idea in its tracks, the plan for it would have to be perfect, being able to find the right day with the right weather conditions.

I just happened to know a great area in the south of Manchester that hosted such landscapes I wanted. A place called Houldsworth, just shy of Reddish, Manchester.

Here are some other images from the film.