AS Exam

MUSIC AND MUSICIANS

I wasn't totally sure what to choose for my exam to start with as I find it very hard to come up with a starting point and to think about expanding my ideas further. I thought of a variety of things to do with issues but I just wasn't sure. My final decision however, came down to music and musicians as I think I can do really well within this overall subject as I am very keen on music. I also wanted a challenge. I have never photographed anything within this category before and so I wanted something that will test my imagination and photography skills; hopefully I will look back at this exam and say it was the right thing to do. My general idea for this exam is going to be based on and around the true feelings of the musicians behind the madness and what really goes on behind the scences. I may tweek this along the  way if I come across new ideas etc but this is what I'm going to start on. I have quite a few concerts coming up during my exam period so hopefully I will be able to capture some real emotions within the musicians themselves as well as other shoots.  I am going to start off with some basic shoots on people playing the guitar and squeeze a few techniques in such as shutter speed. I want to start on these sort of shoots as it is the basis of music and how music is made; usually with a man and his instrument(or her). Throughout the exam period I also want to challenge myself with staged lighting and also concert studio lighting; I feel this will be a real experience for me. Putting aside the fact that I have quite a lot of things I can photograph to do with music and musicians, I was thinking about all the other experimental techniques that I could use such as sellotape transfers, emultions etc and see if I want to link these at all to my final piece. Throughout the exam period, I could use a particular song that links in really well; creating responses to it and experiment on top of that; using photoshop etc. I thought this could work out really well and will show the extra techniques and skills that I have.

Kate T. Parker Photography

I have researched Kate T. Parker because I really love her photography and it’s all to do with the interests of the person they’re photographing, their personality, feelings or appearance. In most of her photography there is something included to do with them. As my first couple of shoots are going to be based on portrait photography of someone on the guitar, this lady has really inspired me. Within my shoots, the guitar he is going to be holding is his hobby and what he is interested in. In just one photo it will tell you something about that person and what they enjoy doing in their spare time, or it could be a full time job, I leave the viewer to make their own mind up about that. However, Parker has also really inspired me with the atmosphere and mood she presents within her photography. It’s quite dark and lonely. They have quite a gloomy atmosphere and as my main idea is “issues within music” this works really well. After I have experimented with my shoots I will go on to Photoshop and hopefully make them similar to how Parker has her photographs and how she photographs her 

work.

The main reason I really love this photograph is because apart from the girl on the far left’s face, you can’t see any emotion except through the body posture and the outfits. This is what I absolutely love about Parker as she usually creates the atmosphere and mood of the picture through other things other than the facial expressions. This photo has a secret contrast within it. The lighting and the atmosphere looks quite gloomy, as well as the little girl on the left’s face. However, the outfits that the girls have on have a completely different side to this. Just through the outfits you can see the personalities and maybe hobbies of the little girls. This is a really strong point of Parker’s photography in my opinion, and links to what I want to get across within my first couple of shoots.

I absolutely love this photograph purely from the face she is making. Straight away when you look at the image you can see straight through this little girl and what her emotions/feelings are. Within my first couple of shoots I really want to capture some emotion and facial expressions such as this, but natural and make sure they’re not staged. When my model is playing the guitar I am going to make sure I capture real expressions within the face so my photographs look real, I don’t want to ask him to do anything just for the photography, it has to be real. This photograph has really inspired me as you can tell those feelings are real and the angle and the background of the photograph makes your eyes go nowhere else but the little girl who is the main subject.

I really love this photograph mainly for the mood and atmosphere she portrays within her work. The colours she has captured portray really great contrast and I love this. I probably won’t use this contrast technique within my first couple of shoots as I’m just trying to get across the hobby/what he’s interested in and his mood. However, in future shoots I will probably try out capturing really lovely contrast like this as it really adds hugely to the gloomy atmosphere and I love it.

Shoot 1

Shoot 2

Opinion on the shoots?

After doing my first shoot and it turning out really well, however the lighting I used was very harsh on his face and created dark shadows. I wasn't too happy with this but it is an improvement step and I can work on this throughout my upcoming shoots. I thought I should add a little bit extra into my photography to make the photographs look a more interesting. I thought playing around with the shutter speed would do this and add that little bit more excitement into my photographs. I gave this a try and it did work really well. I used a longer shutter speed so that you could see the movement in the guitar players’ hands and it just brought a little more atmosphere to the photograph so that it was more interesting for the person viewing the photos. I wanted to try it out so that I have different techniques within my photography and I could look back on both of the shoots and decide which I like better. If I’m honest though, I like both shoots the same. However in the second shoot my lighting did improve as I used natural lighting and not the flash from my camera. However I wanted the photographs to be natural and there wasn’t very much natural light coming through the window to the side of him so this didn’t work out as well as I was hoping for; I have time to correct this in upcoming shoots, however. The only real problem with the second shoot is that I didn’t really think about the background and you could get distracted away from the photos quite easily. If I re-take this photo shoot in the future, however, I will make sure this is sorted and work on my faults.

Research into Orchestra Photography

One of my friends in school is part of the orchestra. As I’m doing “music and musicians” I thought this would be a really good opportunity to involve a lot of different instruments into my project. The younger generation don’t tend to listen to the orchestra or know anything about the instruments so I wanted to take the opportunity to photograph the younger generation within the orchestra. I’ve been looking into Wellis Photography because they photograph really good orchestra shots. They also photograph a lot of other people in different ways and at different occasions, however I am looking specifically at their orchestra shots. They use a lot of depth of field within their photography and I really want to try this...they also capture a lot of close ups of the musicians with their instruments. Here are a couple of Wellis Photography’s photos that I have been inspired by:

I really love this photograph mainly because of the depth of field and also the angle the photograph has been taken at. I really want to try and get some photographs taken at this angle and really try and involve some of that beautiful shallow depth of field. The one thing I don’t like about this photograph, however, is the lighting. In my opinion I don’t really like the music stands being completely over-exposed as it takes your eye off of the instruments and the musicians. I want to make sure my audience are looking right at the two subjects within my photograph as soon as they look at the picture. The mood in this photograph is quite tense as there is a lot of concentration going on, however the atmosphere seems quite relaxed as all the colours are quite warm and soothing. I really like this and want to achieve this in my shoot, however it will all depend on the natural lighting that I have access to on the day.

Another subject I want to capture within my next shoot is the orchestra conductor. I really want to capture the emotion and enthusiasm in his actions and expressions. I might also try and catch some movement in his actions. This photograph is brilliant and shows exactly what I want to achieve. The lighting is great...once again however, I’m not really too keen on the music stand being completely over-exposed. The better thing in this photo, however, is that it does not take away your attention from the main subject straight away as it only takes up a small amount of the photograph. The atmosphere in this photograph is really exciting as you can see there is movement going on...I really love the warm effect on his skin, however, and want to try and achieve something similar to this in my shoot.

Shoot 3

Shoot 4

Opinion on the Shoots

I did really like these two shoots as I captured some really lovely shots just as I was hoping too. However, I was really hoping that I would capture some really effective shallow depth of field shots which I didn't quite manage within these two previous shoots. When I next have the chance within the next week or so, I will make sure I take another shoot, most probably based on bass instruments. I really want to capture that blurry background with a really low f-stop. I may borrow my teachers camera so I can go really low and get some fantastic images. However, I really did love these two previous shoots and on the second one feel the black and white effect worked really well compared to the coloured versions as it makes them look a lot more dramatic and interesting to look at. The angles I captured the photographs at were really good and exactly what I wanted from them. I experimented with a lot of angles across the two shoots and these were my favourites. I wanted to improve my lighting from the first two shoots and so I based these on natural lighting and I think they improved a lot so I'm really happy with that.

Shoot 5

Opinion on Shoot

This is my favourite shoot so far. I really love how the lighting worked out as I staged it myself and positioned it in the exact angles I wanted. I changed the way my model was standing and holding the cornet so that the lighting was angled in the perfect positions to capture the detail in his face and the instrument. I was really pleased with how they turned out and would love to use the staged lighting again in a future shoot. 

Shoot 6

Opinion on Live Concert Shoot
 

I absolutely love the way these photographs have turned out and I feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to take these amazing images. I have a very long camera lens that was able to capture the musicians really close up which worked out really well. As part of my final piece I want to add in some portraiture photography that is staged but making it look as real as possible, so this is why I wanted to grab the opportunity of photographing musicians live in action. I thought it was a really great chance for me to capture some fantastic photographs and I'm really pleased with what I have come out with. As there was lights on the stage already I found this really nice to work with, however sometimes I found it a bit tricky as they change quite often. Overall I really love this shoot and will be looking forward to taking another shoot of the next concert I have coming up in a week or so. My next shoot, however; is going to be based on really capturing some shallow depth of field within photographs of musicians. I have set up a date for students to meet me with their instruments so that I can photograph them and really try and focus on the background and the subject itself. In all of my choir shoots so far, there has been a lot of distractions around the main subjects and this is what I want to get rid of. I think I am going to use my teacher's camera so that I can take the f-stop right down as far as possible. This will help take the background more and more out of focus. Within my next shoot I really want to make the musicians the main focus and make sure the viewer does not get distracted away in any way whatsoever.
Within this shoot it shows the atmosphere and the moment that the band were in at that particular moment. This was my intention so you could compare it to Shoot 5 and I could show the difference in atmosphere and mood. The lighting captured and the composition produced really links to the sort of music they compose which is very upbeat and gets you on your feet. This atmosphere is portrayed by this shoot as the lighting and the positions he's making makes the photographs look very exciting. Comparing this to shoot 5, the music they are playing is very different and the composition in both shoots reflect this. My main intentions were to portray the different situations and atmospheres through the photography and I think I did this quite well; accessing both sides of music; relaxing and exciting, and showing this through my photography. The shoot shows the true emotions within the artists while they're performing and this was what I was really after.

Within my exam workbook I had to be selective as to which photographs from the shoot I chose to add to my contact sheet. I based this on the lighting, angle and composition of the photographs and chose my best ones. If I printed out the whole shoot in contact sheets this would have resulted in 22 pages.


 

 

 

Shoot 7



Opinion on the Shoot

I am really pleased with this shoot as I achieved everything that I was aiming for. Within my best prints above, you can see I was able to capture my subjects in crisp focus which was exactly what I wanted to achieve, and to also have the background out of focus so that there is nothing huge distracting the audience who look at my photographs. I think this is a really lovely development shoot from my orchestra images as capturing that shallow depth of field was exactly what I've always wanted to capture. I really feel it makes the images powerful as all of the focus goes onto that one musician and captures the audience's attention. The lighting also turned out really good as I had the lights on that were above them. Overall I am really pleased with the photography I'm doing at the moment and my next shoot will be another live concert one.

Shoot 8

Opinion on Shoot

I had a really big problem with this shoot as the concert was in a small club called the O2 Academy. This meant they wouldn't let members of the audience take SLR cameras in that they may have thought were going to be used professionally. Prior to the concert I took it upon myself to email the press themselves at the O2 academy and also Jake Bugg's manager. However, neither of them got back to me in time and so I had to settle for using my phone as my camera for this particular night. This resulted in the photographs I took being quite out of focus... However; once I had edited my best ones and turned them into black and white, I really loved the grainy affect they provided. I really love the old fashioned look the black and white along with the graininess gives the photographs and this resulted in me being very happy with the overall shoot. Even though it wasn't exactly what I wanted, it has now let me experiment and made me realise that I like the graininess within the photographs, maybe meaning I will try this again in the future.

My next shoot is going to be focusing more on the drugs side of my project...this is where I'm going to hopefully start going deeper into my photography and really pull out the problem of drugs within music and musicians, going behind the scenes. I am going to start off with a simple  musician smoking a cigarette as I was influenced to do this by a few of Jake Bugg's pictures that I've seen. I'm also going to start making some responses to music that I listen to. I thought from choosing Jake Bugg, this would link nicely to my previous shoot and the lyrics are perfect for what I'm going to go onto. The lyrics from a song called "Two Fingers" is "I drink to remember, I smoke to forget". This is the specific part of the song I am going to be focusing on...and the pictures that have inspired me for this photo shoot are below:

Shoot 9

Opinion on the Shoot

I was over the moon with this shoot, not only because I was able to capture the smoke which was what I really wanted to do, but in my opinion it doesn't look staged at all and very natural. One thing I am always scared of with portrait photography is that it will look very staged and fake, so that's why I made my subject look very relaxed and calm through this shoot so it doesn't look staged. The one thing I'm really happy about was that I captured a couple of really good ones that caught the smoke coming out of his mouth and around his body. I really wanted to show off my camera skills with this as it wasn't very easy to do, it being a bright day also. 

FINAL PIECE PLAN

I have finally decided what I want to do for my final piece. As I am focusing my project on the drugs behind the scenes with music and musicians, I have decided to focus my final piece on a friend of mine called George. He does music technology and music at A Level and composes his own music. I thought this was a great opportunity for me as I had access to a real life musician and I could play around with his skills within my photography. For my final piece I'm going to do a sequence of three photographs. The first one of these will be my response to a piece of his music and how he wants his music to be portrayed, the second photograph will be himself singing some of his music and looking just how he wants his audeience to see him as. Then finally, the third picture will be portraying what goes on behind the scenes; this will relate to drugs and the things musicians get into behind the scenes. I think this is a really nice idea for my final piece as it basically shows the musicians life in a sequence of three images. I start off with the music he produces and how he wants his audience to think about his music, etc. and then I carry on with his appearance and the reality of the music world in most cases. Along with my final piece I will include a cd with the music on it so the examiners can listen to the piece of music I responded to within my first photograph.

Tony Whittle Photography

For my first response to George's music I want to go to the severn near my house and hopefully capture a gorgeous sunset over the water. The reason for this is that when I listen to this piece of music it makes me feel really relaxed and want to be on a beach somewhere. I really love the sound of it and a sunset just reminds me of a relaxing movement/moment. However, I also want to be able to capture a mysterious and gloomy side to the photographs as this is another feeling I receive while listening to George's music. I may have to attempt several times to capture this, however we have been getting some gorgeous sunsets lately and so I hope I can be lucky enough to capture one of these. I am really lucky to live very close to the severn bridge and so capturing the smooth, twinkling water along with the sunset would be absolutely beautiful and create a really lovely response to his piece of music. For this shoot I have been looking at a man called Tony Whittle for inspiration. He is a landscape photographer who is based in the Peak District and so has a great opportunity to capture the photographs that he does. I have really enjoyed looking through his site as he has taken some beautiful images. Some of his work captures exactly what I'm after; the sunset/rise and the water and that's what I've been focused mainly on to inspire me. He has a philosophy that "capturing great landscape photos is to make the most of every interesting weather opportunity in our great countryside". Tony usually captures dramatic, breathtaking and thought provoking landscape images which are truly wonderful and that I've really enjoyed looking at. Here are a couple of the images that have really inspired me for my next shoot:

This is one of the photographs of Tony Whittle's that has really inspired me as it's that gorgeous sun that I'm really aiming to capture. When I look at this photograph I feel so relaxed and this is what I want the viewers of my images to feel like which will portray the feelings of when I listen to George's music. He has also captured the water within the photograph which is another part I want in my shoot. This will be easier as I will be on the side of the severn anyway. I don't think I'm going to get as close as he is to the sand but in every other way Tony has really inspired me with his photographs and I now feel really confident to go out and attempt this shoot.

  

This is once again another great photograph that Tony Whittle has inspired me by. Within this photo it's more the atmosphere around the sun rather than the sun itself. Within my shoot I really want to be able to capture a dark mood and atmosphere as well as making it look and feel really relaxing; just like this photograph. I really want to aim to capture the orange and yellow colours within the sky, as well as making the water and land around it quite dark to show the mysterious side of the music that I've listened to. I think this photograph shows a really gorgeous contrast and I want to be able to capture this within my photography.