http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk en-gb Symphony (build ) http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/fire/ Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:28 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/fire/ http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-dave-lynch/ Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:48 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-dave-lynch/ I found this today while looking for something unrelated - Muybridge’s horse running over and over again on top of the city canvas. Mesmerising. It’s a little bit old, posted two years ago, but I love it nonetheless. Also, I’m going to be at Howduino Leeds on the 26th and 27th of March with the aim of making something cool. It’s a free workshop at the Temple Works in Holbeck for “artists, programmers, designers, hobbyists and anyone else interested in robotics, technology, communication and interaction.” Take a look if this sounds like it floats your boat. Dave Lynch, by the way, is part of Jam Jar Collective, who are hosting Howduino. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-sherif-elhage/ Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:53 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-sherif-elhage/ I love Sherif Elhage’s From the ground up series even more than I love Lisa Rienermann’s Type the Sky simply because it is relaxed, natural, and the dominant white really helps the images to breath. Lots of little details to see. Definately go and take a look, and check out the tidy website presentation. Via It’s Nice That http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/remaking-the-promo-video/ Sun, 20 Feb 2011 11:33 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/remaking-the-promo-video/ Alongside Ben Brown I’m making a new promo video for the Photography course we are currently studying on. Everything about the course is changing for the new intake, and the old one isn’t particularly good, so we decided to get going and use it as the project for our Video elective. After shooting a test run on Monday we realised how much effort getting the sound right was going to be - in the cove the whirring fans built into the studio lights were echoing and bouncing around all over the place. In the end we faked the lights with a redhead lighting the umbrella and another lighting the background. A Kino Flo as main to light the face as a big, soft light source. Issues with noise have been all but removed - now there is just a small hiss that will be easy to take out in post production. Coming up, we’ll be shooting the darkroom at the Vernon Street campus and doing more interviews. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/settle-hydro/ Sun, 16 Jan 2011 22:06 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/settle-hydro/ http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/varsity-2010/ Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:25 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/varsity-2010/ http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/spreepark-berlin/ Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:17 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/spreepark-berlin/ I’ve been meaning to write about Spreepark for quite a while now, but every time I would be sidetracked by something more immediate. Closed around 2002 due to massive debt issues the theme park occupies a considerable amount of ground in the Plänterwald district of Berlin ten or fifteen minutes or so walk straight over the road from the metro train station, past what I think was a school on the left. The last day of the Berlin trip was free, and in the bar the night before we decided we would use the time to explore a theme park that James mentioned in passing the night before. A quick search on Google brought up Spreepark, so off we went early the next morning in the frigid air and the snow to see what it had in store for us. Getting in was only complicated by the snow - wet and cold if you went through the hole under the fence, hard and slippery if you went over the gate. We did a combination of the both, and were immediately amazed by what we saw. Inches and inches of untouched snow covered dozens of almost pristine rides all sitting there waiting to be photographed. First we headed for a log flume surrounded by a frozen pond, afterwards heading off to a brilliant roller-coaster ride just a little closer to the ferris wheel. Snow covered roller-coaster cars sat on the rails and we had only just begun photographing on the raised metal walkway (where passengers would be loaded and unloaded from the cars) when a family of Germans rounded the corner below us. We got as low as we could and froze, hoping they wouldn’t see us. They didn’t, or more likely they chose to ignore us, and after watching them disappear into the distance we got back to the job at hand. Inside the control booth was a multitude of switches and dials, some of them broken, a lot of it covered in graffiti which was a dream to photograph. The rest of the park was just as impressive - creepy old animatronic mannequins lurking in the darkest corners of tumble-down shacks were a surprise to run across. The dinosaur park behind the ferris wheel was superb, old fibreglass triceratops heads littered the ground whilst the remaining models stood guard. Alas, it was a shame we couldn’t get to the actual ferris wheel as it was surrounded by a pond, and the bridge had collapsed. The ice was probably strong enough to walk on, and indeed there were footprints in the snow indicating someone had done it recently but the photos wouldn’t have been worth the risk of falling through. On the way out we ran into the family again, coming through the hole in the fence some 80 meters ahead of where they were walking outside of the fence. Not too bad for a morning’s work. The snow really made this explore special, although it’s pretty hard to beat an abandoned theme park when it comes to epicness, except of course if you are a missile silo… See what James has to say about the place. If you’ve been or are going, leave a link to your photos in the comments! http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/day-at-the-beach/ Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:39 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/day-at-the-beach/ Sometime near the end of April I went to the beach with Sarah, Alex and Hannah. Didn’t see the sea though, it was too far out. Over a mile, must have been. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-sean-stiegemeier/ Fri, 21 May 2010 12:50 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-sean-stiegemeier/ Sean Stiegemeier has shot a video in Iceland of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and it looks amazing. Super use of time lapse in this case with some beautiful locations. Here’s what he has to say about it - “So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better.” http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/x-ray-vision-certainly/ Mon, 10 May 2010 21:55 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/x-ray-vision-certainly/ The slides for the Pack Your Bags project arrived from Peak Imaging on Friday, and all bar two images not coming out at all - not really sure what happened there - I am happy with the results. Everything you see in the first image above (bar a bit of tweaking to tidy up the edges and give a bit more colour) is captured on one 5x4 sheet of film. It was quite a bit of work getting to this point - making the x-rays first, getting them printed to roughly the right size on acetate, and then finally taking the picture. The final part took most of a day to complete - 9:30 until 4:30 when the Studio Photography students came (along with a small army of assistants, make up artists and models) and kicked me out of the far studio. A huge amount of equipment was used including three lightstands, two Sinar 5x4 cameras, two massive tripods, an A2 lightbox, a few PhotonBeard continuous flourescent light sources, an Elinchrom 400 flash head with a strip softbox and two small plastic yellow chairs of the sort usually found in primary schools. Was it overkill? Probably, but it did the job nicely. The two cameras allowed the movement of a loaded film back, ground glass and all, from one setup to the next allowing the registration to be almost perfect on the final image. Lining the two separate images up took the most time - making sure the bottom of the bag was in the same place on the x-ray camera and on the real-bag camera, the lie of the strap was equally curved, the metallic strip across the front fell in the same orientation. I thought I had it nailed, but apparently not. Ever so close, but not quite. Removing the tell-tale signs of alignment mishap was easy enough, cutting and pasting, then adjusting the tone of the pasted area to match the destination and blending the edges. But whether it is convincing enough is another matter. The curving and editing of the transition between the real bag and the x-ray was necessary I feel to break up the clinical, sterile, staged feel of the original slide. The final image has come visually quite a way from the original idea (shown in the sketchbook pages), while the original concept has stayed pretty much the same - something vague about things not being quite as they seem at first glance. Will it instantly be dismissed as Photoshop fakery? Probably. Is it as awesome as I first saw it in my head? Probably not. Does that matter? Again, probably not, in the end. Feedback would be very much appreciated if you can spare a second or two. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-5-election-day/ Thu, 06 May 2010 23:15 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-5-election-day/ You have a brief to complete tomorrow before midnight. You are required to submit 3 images on the theme of “Election Day”. Think creatively to come up with interesting images. We will be editing a book together from the images you produce. Please bring in your jpeg images in on Monday on a memory stick and labelled with your name. Download them in the base room at 9:30. An email came in on Wednesday afternoon informing us that there was a one day brief we needed to complete, and this is it. I stopped by the Co-op to pick up some newspapers after I voted, but as it was a little late in the day there weren’t many left to choose from. Needless to say, I don’t think The Times and The Independent would have had such straightforward, in your face headlines as these which was exactly what I was looking for. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/minolta-hi-matic-f/ Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:46 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/minolta-hi-matic-f/ A couple of weeks ago I picked up a Minolta Hi-Matic F for a reasonable price on eBay and after using it for a little while I think it is fair to say that I love it. It’s small, it’s lightweight and it looks cool as well. Not to mention of course the wider-than-average 38mm lens, which is pretty damned sharp as well. This is the first rangefinder camera I’ve used, and I’m surprised at how easy it is to focus - simply look through the viewfinder at the focusing spot and turn the focus ring until the split image merges into one, giving an extra clarity to the image. Brilliant. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/skipton/ Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:24 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/skipton/ http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-imogen-cunliffe-and-jessica-nebel/ Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:41 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-imogen-cunliffe-and-jessica-nebel/ Imogen Cunliffe’s current photography class project revolves around colour, with some of the more striking images involving brightly coloured paint. Obvious Health & Safety issues aside, the contrast between the heavy, gloopy paint and the delicate colours of the iris make for interesting photographs that will definitely stand out at her End of Year show. Take a look over her Photostream for things a little bit less extreme and real-life toy soldiers and porcelain dolls. Absolutely superb. It’s a few years old now, but I love it anyway. Jessica Nebel brings us this wonderfully creative poster, customizable by the person who receives it. A precut white layer is attached to a red page underneath, and tabs can be bent over to create your own message. Check out the rest of her site for more clever design such as the take-away sink and the hand towel designed for persons paralysed down one side of their body. via Loud Smile http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-steve-dalton-and-spencer-murphy/ Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:39 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/by-others-steve-dalton-and-spencer-murphy/ Steve Dalton has just uploaded some tasty mail pieces to his Behance portfolio my favourite being Credit Crunch. Providing edible treats is probably a good way to make your way into potential client’s hearts, the only potential problem I can see is the only contact information being a phone number. While Spencer Murphy has some interesting portrait and editorial work on his site, I’m particularly interested in his commissioned Parkour work for This Is The Order, magazine of the Relentless energy drink. Really top notch stuff, a bit more experimental than the other work and it pays off nicely. via Dirty Mouse http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/bradford-mill-one-of-many/ Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:43 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/bradford-mill-one-of-many/ I went to Bradford today to take a peek at an abandoned Fire Station. As it turns out, it’s nailed up tighter than a tight thing and is rather inconveniently located right next door to a rather large police station. Fortunately, the ever knowledgeable Mr. Lester came up with the goods once again, leading us instead to an semi-demolished mill complete with an attached office block. Fire had ravaged a large part of the mill near the back of the building, which was a shame because it destroyed what could have been some interesting offices and a staircase as well as charring the support joists for the floor above. Finding a different way up via the original stone stair-case revealed a myriad of bird carcasses and incessant dripping of water from the leaky roof, not to mention the veritable woodland scene growing from the floor in a very post-apocalyptic manner. The attached office block was pretty standard - destroyed light fittings littering the floor, and the ground floor void of everything but a large amount of rubble strewn about the place. It did however have a cool basement, accessible from near the front entrance, filled with old files and empty crates amongst other things. Good fun to explore, but the floors were starting cave in some places, so close attention is necessary to avoid falling through. This will only be exacerbated over the coming weeks and months as rain water seeps in. If this forecast snow appears it might be interesting to drop by and see what it is like then - my guess is that it will only look better, especially in the roof/attic space. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-4-alphabet/ Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:52 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-4-alphabet/ Working individually, produce a series of images that represent letters with the eventual aim of creating a photographic alphabet. You don’t need to have all the letters, but obviously if you can do it then that’s great. Photoshop is allowed to rotate and crop etc. to enhance the meaning of your images but keep it minimal. Try to steer clear of found letters, all image must be on the computer and read to present to the group at 2PM. Take a look at these artists for inspiration - Lisa Reinnermann, Dave Gorman w/ Eine and Abba Richman. You may wish to use these letters as part of further projects in the future, so keep that in mind while photographing. There were more examples shown, but I can’t remember which they were. In any case, check out David Airey’s blog about similar alphabets. I shot this alphabet in a relatively short period of time (along with a few more less complete themes such as road lettering, which may be completed soon) with the aim of creating a visually entertaining piece that was interesting to look at. Graffiti is the perfect medium for this because of the bright colours that are often used, and the great variety in styles used to make a mark on the urban landscape. It’s a bit of a shame that all these letters were within a five minute walk of the Art College, plastered across the backs of fast food restaurants and on bridges and postboxes, but that’s what you get in a city I suppose. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/now-with-x-ray-vision/ Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:06 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/now-with-x-ray-vision/ I have a new direction for the Pack Your Bags brief, and if all goes correctly (which it is so far) it will be a slightly different approach from the norm. And it involves x-rays, which have a remarkable ability to turn ordinary stuff beautiful. I had the opportunity to play with an X-Ray machine this evening, so after I had made the images required for the project project James and I decided to zap our cameras (film not loaded) to see what they looked like inside, in true Nick Veasey style. If I was a radiographer I could probably nail a better exposure and capture a bit more detail, but alas none of the people present possessed such a qualification, so I’m quite impressed with what we managed to come out with (Thanks, Dad!) The Bronica is great to x-ray because of its primarily plastic body, thus allowing the majority of the x-rays through unscathed to be blocked later on by the much more interesting cogs and gears inside. The lens is what impresses me the most - I was expecting the metal bodied 40mm f/4 to be simply a white blocky mass, but instead the individual elements are easily distinguished. Unfortunately James’ metal bodied Rolleiflex didn’t fare quite as well under the harsh, penetrating gaze of the emitter but it’s still great to see what makes these things tick. A bit more sometime soon. The whole point of this x-ray exercise is now available for your consumption. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/book-project-eleven/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:01 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/book-project-eleven/ One of the two long term, final projects for the year at University is the ‘Book Publishing’ brief which involves coming up with a concept, shooting a comprehensible series of images and then presenting it - with text if applicable - in a printed and bound book. Coming up with a concept for a series is something I have never done before, and to be honest I’m having a little struggle. Usually it would be a set of images responding to what is happening around me, or a few one-off images to illustrate a point or achieve an end goal. Basically, the photography-as-art part flummoxes me. Thankfully after weeks of procrastination and frankly shocking ideas, I have devised a plan. They don’t know it yet, but everyone in my (thankfully rather small) halls is going to be photographed in their room to illustrate the personal stamp they have put on the cold, uniformly off-white, prison-cell-esque place that we call home. Actually, it’s not that bad - the kitchen has a vibrant splashes of colour in the form of green cabinet doors, complementing the purple halo around the lights nicely. The various states of disarray and vast variation in wall adornments say as much about the owner of the room as they do about the room itself. Does it feel light and airy or is the mood a bit more heavy? Over the course of the 40-odd images a diverse cross section of the building’s population will be captured - we are quite an odd collection of people after all. Sure, the meaning isn’t hard hitting and world changing, but that doesn’t worry me at this point. We don’t have a few years to realise the end product so logistically this project is manageable. I see these people every day, so a little bit of graft on my part and the images can be done in no time. The government are offering incentives to students who stay at home when they go to University, which makes this project relevant to now. Stay-at-home students don’t have the same experience that people travelling across the country to live on their own, therefore this project meets the “Modern Times” theme required by the brief by illustrating what the stay-at-home students are missing out on, and the lengths the moving-out students will go to make their room feel like home. And the name? It’s the number of our block, of course. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/chilli-red/ Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:00 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/chilli-red/ For the last university project, I envisaged a series of images like this, to illustrate the brief title of “Fruit and Veg.” Later imposed restrictions on cropping, and a realisation that extensive post production work would be required scrapped that concept and I went with something a bit more glassware oriented. Not before I had bought a fish tank and shot a few images with it trying to capture the perfect orientation; the perfect bubbles; the perfect splash. It’s a matter of luck as to whether the object will fall correctly and the elements will slot into place. Removing the glare from the flash reflecting from the hundreds of fruit particles (tank previously had lemon and orange halves dropped into it) took a bit of time, and there was a contrast reducing haze all over the images from juice that was forcibly expelled when the orange hit the water. It can safely be said that the image above would not have met the ‘no photoshop’ restriction. The fish tank is currently being utilised by Adam, acting as a water vessel for his slow motion ball-dropping videos. Check them out in all their 2,000 frame-per second goodness on his website. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/berlin/ Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:51 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/berlin/ So I’m back from Berlin - have been for about a week now - and I have a few photos to show you. I decided to take a risk and shoot solely medium format film on the Bronica, with 40mm and 80mm lenses. I’ve been using this camera more and more of late and only recently have I felt comfortable using it as a primary camera. Previous occasions I have taken to shooting film have led to heartbreak, but I’m getting the hang of it and I’m happy with the outcome of the developed films that have been developed so far. Two slide films are winging their way to Peak at the moment, and should be back any day now. Berlin itself, what a great city. For starters it is tall - the majority of buildings in the city and central suburbs are at least three or four storeys high - and that is a positive for me. It makes it feel like a ‘real’ city, and very different to nearly everywhere in the UK I have visited. It is also incredibly easy to get around, with the combination of extremely efficient trams, buses and both underground and overground trains. It was cold all week, with temperatures dropping to -15°c at some points (taking into account windchill) and there was snow cover and thick ice absolutely everywhere. Had there not been so much snow back home in Leeds only a month before everyone might have been excited; instead after the second or third time falling over on the ice it started to get a bit tiresome. Highlights probably include Victoria Bar on Potsdamer Straße - home of suave décor and generous measures in cocktails - and of course a sneaky trip to Spreepark, the abandoned theme park in the south east of the city just next to the river. A little more on that in a little while. The C/O Gallery on Oranienburger Straße was also a worthwhile - until the end of this month they are showing a retrospective of Don McCullin’s work which is an interesting viewing. Included are contact sheets and press clippings. Also showing is an exciting exhibition by Jonas Bendiksen illustrating the life in slums around the world with a unique claustrophobic method of presentation. Images are projected onto four walls of a small space while one of the photographed characters tells you about the area and the circumstances they find themselves in. It is hard not to gloss over the fact that these are real people though, and this probably wasn’t helped by the overenthusiastic voice actors, but definitely worth a look. Fuji’s Acros B&W negative film shone, as always, with its smooth grainless texture and dreamy metallic tones as did Kodak’s Ektar 100. I’m still glad James got me hooked on this one as it was a little touch and go in places. We’ll have to wait and see what the slides (Astia 100) come out like. A little bit of an issue with the Acros however, as it seems there are chunks of emulsion missing from certain negatives. It’s likely to be operator error at some point while developing the negatives rather than the film itself but it is still a bit disappointing that this was the only film it happened on. Printing these images in the darkroom will be interesting as the missing emulsion shows up as black rather than white, making spotting rather an impossible task. Great fun overall, gutted for James who broke his foot slipping on the ice, and I think I might be going back sooner rather than later (and with a tripod.) See Flickr for contact sheets as part of the 100% initiative. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/pancake-day/ Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:59 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/pancake-day/ http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/pack-your-bags-finding-a-suitcase/ Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:05 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/pack-your-bags-finding-a-suitcase/ I went to the Poverty Aid charity shop this morning with James with the aim of finding a suitable suitcase for the new “pack your bags” project. I’ve walked past this building many times now since moving to Leeds, and never had a desire to go in, but I think it is worth just taking a little look around to see if there is anything that catches your eye. I was looking for something a little bit old school, preferably with the cool corner protector bits for added aesthetic value. Funky interior fabric could be useful as well, just to spice things up a bit. James found the perfect one while I was searching through a pile of cases in a corner. Nice size; not too big and not too small either. The catches are what I was looking for and it even has the corner thingys. A little bit of Back-2-Black (the car bumper restorer) and it will be back to almost original condition - although it is surprising what a simple wipe down with a damp sponge has done. I’ll get a photo once I get into the studio after Berlin next week. The brief itself involves photographing a ‘bag’ in the studio with a 5x4 large format camera, on a sheet of Fuji’s Velvia 100 film. Like previous assignments, no Photoshop adjustment is allowed - everything must be created ‘in camera’ - but to be honest with film this saturated and contrasty there shouldn’t be a need for any post production at all, providing everything is lit correctly and exposed properly. The idea I’m running with at the moment is to represent the chaos that occurs when you get home from holiday or when you move into a new house with clothes and other objects ‘flying’ out of the case, shaped with stiff wire and hung from the rig with lightweight fishing line. Provided no direct light falls on these wires (achieved through careful placement of lighting and black cardboard flags) they should in theory be invisible. That’s the idea anyway. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/star-campaign-for-better-housing/ Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:21 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/star-campaign-for-better-housing/ Recently I have been working with the Leeds University Student Action for Refugees (STAR) committee, helping to organise a photographic display to be shown at a conference on forced migration at the end of last week at Bodington Hall, Leeds. STAR is liaising with a group called Citizens for Sanctuary in getting influential people to sign a pledge, and I was tasked with producing a 6x4 postcard that could be handed out to delegates. The idea of this card along with the photo display is to make people aware of the incredibly poor housing conditions some Asylum Seekers in Leeds are living in while awaiting news of whether they will be deported back to the country they originally came from. The end result of the campaign is to hopefully have some influence over the contracts the private contractors will be signing this year with the city council. It’s very tempting to ask “Why don’t they fix it themselves?” but due to regulating laws Asylum Seekers are no longer allowed to work (the law allowing work after 6 months was rescinded in 2002) the only money is in the form of £35 per week via a voucher/payment card scheme redeemable at certain shops. But this is beside the point, the buildings shouldn’t really be in such a state in the first place. Anyway, political message aside I’m really happy with the way the postcards turned out. Printed on Matt Laminated card stock by Print100, with a Spot UV varnish over the text on the front they looked - and felt - high quality and for a low cost as well. Adam pointed out when that a slightly heavier card stock would have been nice, but the 230gsm certainly did the job well enough for this purpose. The only downside is the airmiles they travelled in order to get here and the local FedEx depot messing us about before their Customer Service kicked them into shape. Something to take away from this first design for print? Writing on matt-laminated paper works great with a generic ballpoint pen. Not so great with fibre-nib pens (ink takes a long time to dry, a little bit smudgy.) As it happens the majority of the audience were writing with such ballpoints, so it wasn’t as much a problem as I thought it might be when I saw the prints on the morning of the conference. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-3-flash-story/ Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:56 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-3-flash-story/ A flash story is a narrative told in usually 75 or less words. Produce three JPEGs by 12:30PM to be shown before you receive your next brief. Genders may be changed, interpret the the story and present it in your own way. Post production is allowed. “His breath came up short despite the deeper, longer he inhaled. An enormous effort for each pull of oxygen through his mouth gulp to fill his lungs. Throat sore with cold air - inhaled pollen, dust and all. That stomach punch like the doctor’s first slap forced something previously so simple.” - Breath - Matthew Hintz, 2001 We had in all about two and a half hours to complete this brief, and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Out of the door at college by 10, shot in about 15-20 minutes and back to college, edited and done by 11:45. Minty. I was going for the gritty look, could have done better, but I think close enough considering the time frame. I think the second frame could do with more shutter drag blur. I like the quick turn-around these short projects require, as it forces you to pick up an idea and just run with it rather than spending weeks and weeks deliberating whether or not it is quite the right direction to go in. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/wheres-wally/ Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:22 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/wheres-wally/ What do you get when you mix strong geometric lines, a wide angle lens, off-axis-off-camera flash and black and white film? This. A girl in my halls had a Where’s Wally themed birthday party and I decided to burn through a few rolls of Neopan 400 with a wide angle lens on the Bronica - partly inspired by Bruce Gilden’s work (with any luck I’m not as much of a dick…) Wireless trigger, flash at 1/4 power with a wide angle diffuser and the lens at f/16. The depth of field at this aperture was enough to allow for guestimation of distances using the scale on the lens, allowing me to look through the WLF less and get the pictures quicker. Stand developed in Rodinal for an hour for smooth tones and maximum shadow detail while preventing the highlights from blowing out too much if I messed up the flash-subject distance. This is the first time I’ve developed four 120 films on two reels, and I’m happy I only messed up one frame - the emulsion touched and stopped it being developed in a large chunk across the subject’s face. Unfortunately this was the only picture of Zowie, but I’m sure there will be other chances to photograph her. Next time absolutely make sure the reels are bone dry. Contact sheets are on Flickr - they definitely get better as the night went on as everyone drank more. Scanning workshop coming up during the Digital Production sessions in a few weeks as well, so I will get better quality scans then - these ones are showing more than a bit of banding. http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-2-footwear/ Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:28 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-2-footwear/ Working in groups of three, present three JPEG images of shoes at 3PM. Consider a theme and at least one image must have a body part in it. Perhaps think how you will appeal to a specific shopper or audience. After a brief flirtation with full length black & white portraits, complete with dramatic shadows, the group settled on doing something a little less Photoshop reliant (the original concept was to have a set of images very much like Estelle’s American Boy video her shadow is doing something different on the pure white background) and more shoe oriented. I mentioned an old photo I took back on my previous course so we tried a similar lighting setup. While it looked interesting the effect just wasn’t working quite as well as it could do with the high heeled monster we borrowed from another group using the studio at the time. Other group members suggested glass reflections and silhouettes which resulted in the fish tank being brought down from the mezzanine for use as a base. Eventually, we ended up with this series of images with a red gelled 580EX II flash lighting a black paper roll on the background and a long thin softbox in the horizontal position in front to light the shoes and give large specular highlights. Spill could have been controlled a little better on the right hand side of the tank and locking the camera down on a tripod would have been beneficial in consistent composition. While there is no doubt that these are visually rich images I’m not sure that they meet the theme criteria effectively. Yes, they look the same, and that is exactly the point. There is no variation between them, and therefore in my opinion we could have done better. (We had a latecomer join our group, so we had to turn in four images instead of three, just in case you were wondering.) http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-1-leeds-portrait/ Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:22 +0000 http://www.aidandunbar.co.uk/articles/one-day-project-1-leeds-portrait/ Working alone create four JPEG images, Portraits, anywhere in Leeds apart from the College and present them at 3PM. These four images were inspired partly by Avedon’s mobile white backdrop but mostly by the genius “Candy Cane for your Portrait” series where a yellow sheet of paper was used to create a “theme” for a series of photographs. The thumbnails, filled with these bright splashes of colour look great when viewed together and hold together the set well. After a few hours wandering around the city and the LGI campus I settled on making this idea a reality because it was the only workable option I had available, and the 3PM deadline was looming ever closer. Paperchase in the Train Station supplied the paper background, which is a rather nice semi-flocked pattern. This was subsequently taped secured to the outside of a couple of buildings throughout Leeds, including the Princes Exchange and a rather concrete looking building opposite The Met Hotel. Thank you to the 6 people who stopped to let me take their picture - I think I need to work on my asking technique, and definitely find a better location. Near the train station was too busy with people rushing too and from trains and buses, and near The Metropole was too quiet, with very few people coming down the road. Perhaps handing out sweets would have helped my chances.