Evaluation

For this street module I chose to photograph on the streets of Oxford. While there I noticed that the city had a lot of focus around the tourism industry. There was guided tours of sights, open top buses and everything else that comes as part of the tourism industry.

It was this aspect that I decided to create a concept around. I wanted to point the camera back at the tourist as they admired the sights in Oxford. The reason for this is because I noticed that they are all going to return with all very similar photographs as they are all pointing their cameras towards the building or whatever it may be. I noticed that what was interesting was looking back at the people, observing how they behave in the environment and also the idea that none of them were photographing that part of the visit. It was as if there was a gap in the photographic documentation of Oxford.

An issue though was trying to avoid all the photographs looking the same. This came apparent when choosing the edit of 20. It was relatively clear to achieve a final 10 that worked together but then to select 10 more it became difficult to make them completely connected as I didnt have 20 strong photographs of the tourism concept. Instead the others images in the series are related to people waiting, usually at bus stops. The reason I liked photographing that aspect of human life is because it could be seen as very mundane and boring, therefor there isn't any real documentation of that. I actually thought it was fascinating to see people waiting and see there gestures as they wait. Part of it being interesting to photograph is because people are often so inattentive when waiting that they often don't notice you take a photo, this means you often capture then as they're completely unaware.

If I was to do this project again I think I would perhaps choose another city to get a different sense for local people rather than tourists. I would also use flash for some photographs as the light was not always vibrant so this create very low contrast and un saturated photos, a flash would add contrast and bring vibrancy to the colour. It would also be nice to create formal portraits of people on the street, in a sense set up a mini studio with a white back and some portable lighting. It would be great to see so many different people all under the same light and background, the emphasis would just be on their face.

Robert Frank

Robert Frank is a Swiss born photographer that is best known for the body of work titled "The Americans". The work is a photographic journey across the USA. When the book was published in 1956 it received criticism from mostly Americans. The reason being was that the photographs shown examples of segregation, Americans following orders and conforming. The reason why this may have caused controversy even though it is all part of American society is because of the notion that the work was created through the eyes of a visitor to the USA. Frank saw America with fresh eyes, eyes that were not accustom to the culture of America.

The photographs alone are not always the strongest images from a formal photographic perspective but what is important is the way they work as the series presented in the book and how they comment on American society.


Below are examples from this work, credit to Robert Frank:

Thomas Hoepker

Hoepker is a Munich born photographer and member of Magnum Photos, he now lives in NYC. He is most known for his photographs of boxer Muhammad Ali. He also produced a number of iconic images of the terror attacks on New York City on 11/9/2001. Hoepker is also a very talented street photographer, his images of street life have been taken all over the world, they have an element of humour to them and formalism with their relationship with shapes and form. He shoots them in black and white and colour, both are beautiful in appearance as he ensures that when he shoots colour, they are vibrant and the he shoots black and white the photos have contrast and a balance of form.

images Thomas Hoepker:

Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand was a New York City street photographer. He dedicated much of his life to shooting street photographs near enough everyday. He is famed for saying "I take photographs to see how the world looks as a photograph" having said that when he died he left behind 6,500 rolls of undeveloped film. This is a sign that he got so invested in shooting photographs that just the process of photographing was enough for his fulfilment.

The photographs Winogrand took of the streets captures life as it unfolds in all its glory. His photographs are just taken from the spontaneity of life. Winogrand was also a self confessed misogynist, this is evident in his photographs with implications of iconography when photographing women. He also is known for something called the "winogrand tilt" this is the unmistaken un-straight horizon on his photographs. This tilt related to the idea that Winogrand believed and that was that he wanted to create a separation between reality and a photograph.

Image credit Garry Winogrand:

Lewis Baltz

Lewis Baltz create work about the change in the urban landscape in the USA in 1970's. This work is called newmtopographics. Baltz's photos are often said to include no people. Instead what they include in the evidence for people and the way people use the urban spaces around the USA.

Credit to Lewis Baltz:

Diane Arbus

Arbus was a New York City born photographer. She became recognised for her work on marginalising people in the community. She pointed her camera towards "Freaks" and people that may be considered outcasts to society and made portraits of them. This aspect of her work  caused some controversy as she was seen to be exploiting the mentally ill. The reality of it is that Diane Arbus later went on to commit suicide in 1969. There is reason to believe that what she was doing was not so much exploiting people but capturing elements of her own mental health and personality through her subjects. She perhaps saw herself in these people.

Image credit to Diane Arbus:

Alex Webb

Alex Webb is a photographer and a member of Magnum photos. He has created his most well known work in the Caribbean, Mexico and Turkey. Drawn to those places for their unique culture and light. Photographing on Kodachrome film, his images are vibrant in colour, contrast and quality of light.

Image credit to Alex Webb:

Istanbul, Turkey

Mexico

Mexico

Grenada 

Mexico

Henry Wessel Jr

Henry Wessel is photographer that documented the change in the urban landscape across California in the 1970's. This movement in documentary photography was known as "New Topographic's" which means the change in urban landscape and the may man has altered the landscape and the way humans use the "New" landscape. This is shown in photography through images of parking lots, shopping malls and new houses.

Wessel is known for his quality of light in his photographs and prints. This is to do with his obsession with the soft Californian light. He achieves this by being generous with exposure and creating low contrast photographs that highlight the quality of soft light in that part of the world.

Below are some of Wessel's work from a series called Incidents, Credit to Henry Wessel:

William Eggleston

William Eggleston is a photographer from Memphis Tennessee. His family are wealthy cotton planation owners so he was born into wealth. This aspect is important in Egglestons style. Eggleston is a photographer that played a very important part in getting colour photographs recognised as Art. This happened when John Szarkowski Recognised Egglestons work of having potential for an exhibition in New York MOMA. This exhibition took place in 1976 and was titled Eggleston's Guide.   Critics slammed the work at first but now critics hang off his every word and anything Eggleston puts his name to would sell.

As he was born into a wealthy family and business that could of had a influence on the way he created photographs as he didnt have to worry about creating work from it, he was able to experiment with style and show the world his world through his unique style of photography. Egglestons colour photography was so highly recognised because of his unique style of printing. He create his colour prints with a process that was predominantly reserved for advertisement. This was called Dye Transfer and creating prints where colours were highly saturated and balanced.

Eggleston is also known for only taking one photograph of each thing, this can sometimes mean that compositionally they can be slightly imperfect with un-straight horizons and small obstructions to the frame, but to me they all add to the photograph. 

Below are examples of his work, Credit to William Eggleston:

Daniel Arnold

Arnold is a New York City based street photographer, he shoots on film and also iPhone. From looking at his street photographs is is clear that the angle he takes on street photography and documenting America is one that is tilted towards photographing the slightly strange or eccentric people of America. Documentation of this nature could be considered unethical and the photographer would have to consider that aspect. But ultimately taking photographs in public places is legal so it is just left to personal ethics and confidence to what you shoot. Personally I don't see an issue with what Arnold does, however if he was to pose the subject is slightly provocative ways that hints at segregation and perhaps snobbishness then I would see it as an issue but he points his camera in there direction and tries to create candid moments that reflect that person in the environment of the street, they are not portraits of people or judgmental propositions to what illness, if any they have.

All image credit to Daniel Arnold:

Harrison Boyce

Harrison Boyce isn't a photographer that you're likely to come across. The reason I know his work is because he used to ride BMX and as did I so I heard of him through that. However he has since stopped riding BMX as has taken a more direct approach to image making. He has directed music videos and made short films about New York City, one of which was inspired by William Klein's film, Broadway by light.

It is his photography that interests me the most. He has a very formalistic approach to image making, particularly when shooting street photography. He creates documents that more homogenise the architecture and light in places rather than trying to comment on any particular social groups.

Below are some of his images, from looking at them you can see that there is a conscious decision being made to make a formally aesthetically pleasing image where shapes compliment each other and light compliments form.

All image credit to Harrison Boyce.