Coloured text is from other sources

Plain black is my writing

What is a Documentary Photography?

Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. The term documentary applied to photography antedates the mode or genre itself.

Here is our groups quick interpretation in What is a Documentary Photography

Stanley: What qualifies any photgraph as a documentary photograph is the simply the intention of the photographer. To this extent, documetary photography can be both true and not untrue at the same time. This goes to say that a documentary photograph doesnt have to depict the truth as it actually is but can depict the truth as the photographer sees fit as long as the intended message is passed along and accepted as the truth by the audience. i.e, Raising the flag on Iwo Jima.

Most photographs could fall under the category of documentary photography; this is because photographs are a visual document of the subject. In my opinion a true documentary photograph is one that captures and represents reality in an un-produced, un-manipulated way. If the original image, weather it was staged or edited in postproduction, accurately represents a person or event at the time of capture, is a photographic document of the event in question. For example, the photograph of the flag at iwo jima was staged but still represents a historical event. If the same photograph was set up in exactly the same way in the same location and at the same time but with the solders dressed as clowns (for example) it would not be an accurate representation of the event and therefore would not fall under the category of ‘Documentary Photography’.

In my opinion Documentary photography is a popular form of photography which main intent is to capture historical events, people actions, movements in the true form. The photographs are used as a historical documents through which we are learning and understanding the truth about cultural, political and environmental processes around us.

Documentary photography as a truth re-presenting form sometimes arises a controversial or misleading if we manipulate with the subject. If We do so, does is it remains as a documentary?

In order to explore this argument we had to prepare group presentations regards this issue to discuss it with real life examples. As an example we took Pedro Meyer's and Arthur Rothstein's photographs which are in nature documentary but manipulated in order to strengthen the argument.  

That the camera cannot lie is true only in the sense that the images it captures must have existed in one form or another at some particular time. But it is not always clear if those images have been manipulated in some way to alter or to stage an event which never happened. We are familiar with historical photos that have been retouched to include or exclude political figures. We are less familiar with the potential of new technologies for falsifying images, particularly those that appear in newspapers and magazines. 

Group Presentation Slide 1.

Group Presentation Slide 2.

Group Presentation Slide 3.

It is an composite image from two different images at the same place. The lady in the background is a butcher doing her job and the foreground arises strong controversial meaning, interpretation of the representing situation. We are reading this photograph entirely from a different view point in comparison to the original. There is money in presence and the low paid labor. How we read this image is entirely up to individual perception. In my opinion this is not a documentary photography anymore due to complex and large scale manipulations. Even though these two photographs were taken at the same place same time, by these manipulations it does create a third meaning which is subjective not objective.

Group Presentation Slide 4.

Arthur Rothstein did work for Farm Security Administration over a period of time to document the droughts in America. His one of the famous photograph of a skull on a cracked soil arises a lot of arguments. Whether it was the reality of the droughts in saturated, exaggerated  and manipulated reality. Initially the skull was moved from its original location to the cracked soil. In fact it is strengthening the sense of the droughts and the serious problems occurring regards that. However does it still stands for a real documentary representation? Does it represent the real of exaggerates the reality too much? I see this photograph more like a campaign/poster which is meant to inform about the problem and represent it from the aesthetically and ideologically stronger point. Even if the skull was moved only an inch, in my opinion it looses the title of being a documentary photography.  

Group Presentation Slide 5.
As it can be seen here the skull seems to be more in natural environment and does not arise the argument about the problem which was it the FSA center. Rothstein seemed to know how to manipulate with this skull in order to illustrate the real problem possibly from slightly abstract way rather than a true Documentary form, even though the manipulated photograph is much stronger than a original.  

Arthur Rothstein, a documentary photographer for the Farm Security Administration during the American Dust Bowl era, was accused of photographic faking because he moved a skull he found on parched South Dakota pasture land ten feet. The skull was labeled a prop by Republican politicians who used the Rothstein pictures to attack the credibility of the Democratic administration. The Democrats, it was argued, were using photographs to make environmental conditions look worse than they actually were in order to pass controversial legislation through Congress. Rothstein was accused of traveling around the country with his suitcase, his camera, and his skull. He denied the charge and regretted the controversy for the rest of his career. (Faking images in Photojournalism)

  Shelby Lee Adams (born 1950)^[1] is an American environmental portrait photographer and artist best known for his images of Appalachian family life.Adams has photographed Appalachian families since the mid-1970s.^[2] He had first encountered the poor families of the Appalachian mountains as a child, travelling around the area with his uncle, who was a doctor.^[3] His work has been published in three monographs: Appalachian Portraits (1993), Appalachian Legacy (1998), and Appalachian Lives (2003).Adams was the subject of a documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal in 2002 - The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams's Appalachia. This was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, and at the Sundance Festival in 2003.^[4][5] The film critiques and defends Adams' method in photographing holler dwellers for his previously published books. (Shelby Lee Adams)

Here is Meyerowitz in his own words:

"By the early 70's color technology had advanced to the point where one could make prints in the darkroom without the difficulties and expense experienced in the 60's. It was then that I committed myself entirely to working in color. My reasoning was; if we accept the idea that a photograph basically just describes things, then a color photograph describes more things, that there is more content in color and I wanted to see what those kinds of photographs might look like. At the same time I was beginning to feel that there was more to photography than making good “catches” of life on the streets, and that the contrapuntal tactics of Cartier-Bresson, and the well timed, and gesture centered images of my own and my peers was something I had to give up.

"Because of using color my efforts on the street moved away from the “caught” moment toward a more dispersed observation, toward a non-hierarchical image in which everything played an equal role; the people on the street, the architecture, the quality of the day, the angle of the light, the weight of the shadows, the simultaneity of minor events. This overall-ness I called, “field photographs.” I meant them to be about the “experience” of being on the street, in that specific city, on that day, in that precise season and year, so that viewers might experience for themselves what it felt like in that moment. I hoped that people might “read” the photograph rather than look for an incident as the hook to lure one into the photograph.

"Step by step I moved larger and then, suddenly, I bought an 8x10 inch view camera. This was antithetical to my whole way of thinking and working. This was the camera those “old men” on the west coast, Adams and Weston used, and I was a New Yorker, speed was my nature, the jazzy riffs of street life were my milieu.

"My rationale in this moment is that during this period I changed from the quick, reflexive 35mm shooting of the urban scene and its complex spaces, to the more meditative, spacious and luminous view camera work. And that In fact, my behavior and my sense of time underwent a transformation that deeply influenced my work from that time on.”

From an interview with Michaël Houlette, coordinator of the exhibition, June 2005.

Joel Meyerowitz (born March 6, 1938) is a street photographer, and portrait and landscape photographer. He began photographing in color in 1962 and was an early advocate of the use of color during a time when there was significant resistance to the idea of color photography as serious art. In the early 1970s he taught the first color course at the Cooper Union in New York City^{[citation needed]} where many of today's renowned color photographers studied with him.Inspired by seeing Robert Frank at work, Meyerowitz quit his job as an art director at an advertising agency and took to the streets of New York City with a 35mm camera and black-and-white film, alongside Garry Winogrand^, Tony Ray-Jones, Lee Friedlander, Tod Papageorge and Diane Arbus. He drew inspiration from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Eugène Atget — he has said "In the pantheon of greats there is Robert Frank and there is Atget." After alternating between black-and-white and color, Meyerowitz "permanently adopted color" in 1972 (Wikipedia)   


I get an inspiration everyday from Joel Meyerowitz's work in documentary field. He is an extremely talented documentary photographer. He is well known for his extensive work in 9/11 Attacks "The Aftermath''
He is located in New York City. He is also well known for his color photographs with 10x8 camera.
For nine months, Meyerowitz photographed “The Pile,” mounting a traveling exhibition that showed the country New York’s open wound. The book, “Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive,” was released in 2006.
Meyerowitz hardly considers his life’s work behind him, though he feels photography has taught him much of what he knows about life.
“Every time I press that button to take a picture, it’s an affirmation. You’re saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes’ to the moment,” he says.
“With a camera, you’re licensed to see.” (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/life-snap-bronx-photographer-article-1.1193970?localLinksEnabled=false)

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/life-snap-bronx-photographer-article-1.1193970#ixzz2BSGzCn5j

Meyerowitz first drew acclaim for his remarkable ability to capture subtlequalities of light with the 1978 publication of Cape Light, which went on to become a color photography classic, selling more than 130,000 copies.

Joel Meyerowitz Dairyland, Provincetown 1976

Joel Meyerowitz Porch, Provincetown, 1977

 

Joel Meyerowitz Laundry, Provincetown, 1977

Joel Meyerowitz Dune Grass House, 1984

Joel Meyerowitz Porch, Provincetown, 1977

Here is some of his Documentary Work

Joel Meyerowitz NYC, West 46th Street, 1976

New York City, 1975

 Photographers learn to accept gifts that come their way, because surely life produces moments crazier than we can conceive. Just as duo in camelhair coats disappear into steam, a similar pair of coats enters All one can do is gasp, shoot, and thank the one-eyed god who watches over photographers.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/life-snap-bronx-photographer-article-1.1193970#ixzz2BSGGj6Zl

Joel Meyerowitz, Street Photography

Joel Meyerowitz, Street Photography

 He did photograph in Black and White, however later his work was entirely colour based. It was a part of his ideology about photography. His intentions were to capture the reality, the unpredictable moments as close to real they were, therefore the color is an important expression and representation's form. When he does photograph with his 10x8 large format camera he also writes down the light conditions, characteristics and color mood, therefore he has an ultimate tool to represent the Reality as it is!

Joel Meyerowitz, Street Photography

Joel Meyerowitz, Street Photography

Joel Meyerowitz inetview, in it he talks poetically, romantically even, about how each Manhattan Street has its own particular identity. 

“Fifth avenue is the king of boulevards” apparently and one on which the scale, dimensions and the four or five lanes of traffic conspire to allow light to prevail in a way it doesn’t on others. But listen to Joel tell it in his own way.

Joel Meyerowitz documented 9/11 Attacks over a 9 month period. He was the only photographer allowed to photograph the "Crime Scene".

Above: New York City, Sept. 7th, 2001 WTC.12 by Joel Meyerowitz

9/11 Aftermath Joel Meyerowitz

9/11 Aftermath Joel Meyerowitz

9/11 Aftermath Joel Meyerowitz

9/11 Aftermath Joel Meyerowitz

9/11 Aftermath Joel Meyerowitz

9/11 Aftermath Joel Meyerowitz

Lower Manhattan, 2001: Joel Meyerowitz’s lens captured the horror of aftermath of World Trade Center tragedy as rescue workers continued to find bodies.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/life-snap-bronx-photographer-article-1.1193970#ixzz2BSGhW8IG

These photographs are very emotional and true documentary with no manipulations. His intentions were to capture a historic record of an event for the people living in the New York City and all around the world. He claimed that no one can take away the History therefore he was very concerned about the work he then did. He used a large format camera in order to get the very best quality, therefore more accurate record of the historic event. Also in color because it is an important part of our lives, his work later in his career was entirely based on color photography. It took him over 9 months to capture every detail of the tragedy. Hence a long time to thing about the subject and record it in its best way. These photographs are very powerful, they are affecting a lot of people who lost something on this day. They are truth representing document of an historic event which forms a basis for documentary photography.

Here Is an Interview with Joel Meyerowitz September 11th: Ten Years, with Joel Meyerowitz

See the video also!

       

Here is an hour long documentary film about Joel Meyerowitz back in the 80's. It was shot in the streets whilst Joel Meyerowitz was photographing.

In This short video Joel Meyerowitz is sharing some important tips in Street Photography, how to be alert and ready for unpredictable moments.

Harry Morey Callahan (October 22, 1912 – March 15, 1999) was an influential twentieth century American photographer. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he worked in Chrysler when he was a young man then left the company to study engineering at Michigan State University. However he eventually dropped out, returned to Chrysler and joined its camera club. Callahan began teaching himself photography in 1938. He formed a friendship with Todd Webb who was also destined to become a photographer. A talk given by Ansel Adams in 1941 inspired him to take his work seriously. In 1941, Callahan and Webb visited Rocky Mountain State Park but didn't return with any photographs. In 1946 he was invited to teach photography at the Institute of Design in Chicago by László Moholy-Nagy. He moved to Rhode Island in 1961 to establish a photography program at the Rhode Island School of Design, teaching there until his retirement in 1977.

Very Interesting fact is that Callahan left almost no written records—no diaries, letters, scrapbooks or teaching notes. His technical photographic method was to go out almost every morning, walk the city he lived in and take numerous pictures. He then spent almost every afternoon making proof prints of that day's best negatives. Yet, for all his photographic activity, Callahan, at his own estimation, produced no more than half a dozen final images a year.
He photographed his wife and daughter and the streets, scenes and buildings of cities where he lived, showing a strong sense of line and form, and light and darkness. Even prior to the birth his daughter showed up in photographs of Eleanor's pregnancy. From 1948 to 1953 Eleanor, and sometimes Barbara, were shown out in the landscape as a tiny counterpoint to large expanses of park, skyline or water.
He also worked with multiple exposures. Callahan's work was a deeply personal response to his own life. He encouraged his students to turn their cameras on their own lives, leading by example. Callahan photographed his wife over a period of fifteen years, as his prime subject. Eleanor was essential to his art from 1947 to 1960. He photographed her everywhere - at home, in the city streets, in the landscape; alone, with their daughter, in black and white and in color, nude and clothed, distant and close. He tried several technical experiments - double and triple exposure, blurs, large and small format film.
Callahan was one of the few innovators of modern American photography noted as much for his work in color as for his work in black and white.

Harry Callahan. American, 1912–1999. Chicago, 1950

Harry Callahan
‘Eleanor, Chicago’
1949

Harry Calllahan
‘Eleanor and Barbara, Lake Michigan’
1953

This particular photograph remind me of Joel Meyerowitz's colour photogprah style, vast amount of negative space, almost square crop and horizon line is around in the middle. And yet, it is a very powerful photograph with only fey interaction points which makes us to read them closely.  His photographic work is between fine art and documentary. His work of his wife is an important and large part of his photographers career. Some of these photographs seems to be entirely documentary in the sense, although they might have been staged, and yet this is arising the question about documentary photography as an truth representing medium. 

Harry Callahan
‘Eleanor and Barbara’
c.1954

Harry Callahan
‘Chicago’
1950

Harry Callahan
Chicago
1961

And Yet again, this photograph is very close to Joel Meyerowitz street photography, he tends to photograph on crossroads where interactions happens all the time, all he has to do is to wait for the unpredictable to happen. Harry Callahan's style is very broad, he combines documentary street photography with landscape elements, fine art approach. Some of his portraits and nudes reminds me of Man Ray and Bill Brandt work. High Contrast, extensively used body form and shape.

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor
about 1947

 This is an example of the above mentioned, similar style than Man Ray or Bill Brandt.

He was a very broad photographer photographing almost everything. Here is a Landscape photogprah

Harry Callahan
Cape Cod
1972

Again The Horizon Line is placed in the middle as above example with his wife in the sea. His style has a very dramatic look, it has a moody atmosphere, very grey toned and a little bit depressing.


“Harry Callahan was one of the most innovative photographers working in America in the mid 20th-century,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “His elegantly spare, introspective photographs demonstrate his lyricism and the originality of his sense of design.”
“Harry Callahan’s approach helped shape American photography in the second half of the 20th-century,” said Anne Havinga, Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs, who organized the exhibition. “His way of seeing inspired countless followers and continues to feel fresh today.”Callahan was repeatedly drawn to architectural and urban subjects. Prior to moving to Chicago, he explored the spaces of Detroit, photographing the formal patterns he discovered there. In “Detroit” (1943 – see photograph above), Callahan depicts a street scene, with the people in transit appearing as a pattern. He experimented with color in these pictures as early as the 1940s, but he worked more extensively in color later in his career, from the 1970s onward.”
Text from the Art Tatler website. 

Assignment One - Journey to the Atrium

A You are required to complete a

short piece of work that will introduce to you ways of documenting a

simple

journey that is taken everyday.

You will document the journey you take from your home to the Atrium; the route must be photographed in no less

than 15 and no more than 25 images.

This project was more or less very creative in our own interpretation. I tried to represent that part of the journey which I was not really noticing in my life, the details of everyday journey I make to the University from a different perspective. As I live in Cardiff, Wales it is raining here a lot, so the theme which runs through my project was water and reflections from it. It is all laid out in a constructed and progressive narrative as I do tend to make my daily journey. It is funny when I wake up and see a very moody and rainy day, but within hours the weather completely changes, it is reflected in my work as well. I wanted to go in streets and start on the project, but unluckily It was just about to start raining, however within 20 minutes I was able to go out again, at this point the theme around water and reflections from it was born.

It took me couple of attempts to build this narrative and selection of photographs. I really enjoyed it. It made me open my eyes from different perspective of a very repetitive progression in my life, which is this journey. I did look much more closer to things and places I really did not pay attention before.

Here are the contact sheets of the first brief.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

I decided to go in colour as it was an Autumn and at that time colour is very rich and beautiful. This project somehow was not entirely documentary, it documents our journey, but the representation of it is abstract, creative, unusual, vivid and at the same time It is the true world around us, but from entirely different perspective. That was what I was going for, and I think I succeeded.

Shelby Lee Adams

Shelby Lee Adams (born 1950) is an American environmental portrait photographer and artist best known for his images of Appalachian family life.Adams has photographed Appalachian families since the mid-1970s. He had first encountered the poor families of the Appalachian mountains as a child, travelling around the area with his uncle, who was a doctor. His work has been published in three monographs: Appalachian Portraits (1993), Appalachian Legacy (1998), and Appalachian Lives (2003).Adams was the subject of a documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal in 2002 - The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams's Appalachia. This was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, and at the Sundance Festival in 2003. The film critiques and defends Adams' method in photographing holler dwellers for his previously published books.

His work is a collaborative process. As he describes 'We study the images together and mutually work toward the final photograph. Today, I still work with a 4x5 Linhoff view camera, 3 different types of Polaroid backs and materials with my usual films'.

George's Branch Porch, '91

Lloyd Deane with Family & Coal Truck, '02

Lloyd Deane Noble interview: Lloyd is the father of 10 children, over 45 grandchildren and 10 or 12 great grandchildren. He is my personal friend who knew my uncle “Doc Adams." His entire family have been my photo subjects since ’89.  

Shelby: Lloyd, we know each other so well, would you care to speak on exploitation around my work?

Lloyd: “Well you not exploitin’ nobody, we just like one big family. That’s the way I look at it. We have been that way since you have been coming down here. I don’t like for nobody to expose on you, to run you down. You’ve got to put money in this camera stuff. You work hard, it costs.(Extract from the Interview - Here is the link to it http://shelby-lee-adams-essay.blogspot.co.uk/

His work might create some contradictions in terms of human exploitation, however he is working in a truly honestly and personal way. To him it is a part of his life, not only the work. To him it is like photographing his family. Within years passed they have became very close friends, he does care about them. He documents them in a very personal way, often sharing his polaroids with the people photographed. I am truly amazed by his close connection to them, every single person photographed looks very natural with no faked/unreal grimaces. They are comfortable with being photogprahed, it almost feels like there is no camera. And yet it is a pure documentary photography. 

Frankie on Porch Oct.'07 ©Shelby Lee Adams

Shelby Lee Adams’ portraits are incredibly heart felt. His images are calculated, the way his subjects are positioned and his lighting but his subjects expressions and relation to Shelby is not calculated at all. They look completely honest and seem entirely comfortable with the photographer and the camera -  it is amazing.

Eagle's Nest, '03
[View from Hobert's front porch]

Hardburly Porch,'04

Appalachia does not have any larger percentage of social and psychological problems than other rural cultures. The shared stories, the building friendships, relationships, traveling and events have helped him to enrich his life. Shelby on his work - I hope the viewers of this work will find a dedicated study of our shared humanity, its complexity, integrity in exploring our problems, life, defeats, celebrations, pride and redemption's. Get the big picture. In my opinion, this mountain culture should be applauded. Many people there express tolerance of others, resiliency and acceptance with dignity of conditions others would abhor. My pictures could not exist without the timeless patient collaboration of my subjects. The mountain people are an independent lot, shamed and yet unashamed, who risk more to communicate. It's our way of life, a refusal to wear the mask that pervades so much of our greater society. They lead the way in showing us, "All of Us." Click Here for the whole interview which is looking in depth of his work in Appalachia.


Here is some of his recent work

Oma and Lerion with Stove, '12 Shelby Lee Adams

Lee "Boy" Sexton, '12 Well known country musician, lives in Letcher Co. same county Shelby is from. Shelby Lee Adams

Here is his blog http://shelby-lee-adams.blogspot.co.uk/

 Magnum Agency

Abbas Attar is an Iranian photographer known for his photojournalism in Biafra, Vietnam and South Africa in the 1970s, and for his extensive essays on religions in later years. He was a member of Sipa from 1971 to 1973, a member of Gamma (agency) from 1974 to 1980, and joined Magnum Photos in 1981.

ISRAEL. Kippur October War. 1973.

ISRAEL/SYRIA. Kippur October War. On the occupied Golan Heights, Israeli troops run for shelter under Syrian artillery fire. 1973.

ISRAEL/SYRIA. Kippur war from 6 to 10 October 1973. Press photographers around the body of a dead Palestinian of the Saika Corps of the Syrian Army Brigade; during Israeli Army offensive into the Golan Heights.

With modern technology development we are able to capture fast moving actions, including war fields and scenes, unlike a century age where they were either staged of photographed after the battle. Abbas Attar captured these war scenes in action and from very close. It it the modern way of war photography. He did not have to stage anything, he just happened to be in the real place at the real moment.

Steve McCurry

KUWAIT. Al Ahmadi Oil Fields. 1991. Environmentalists examine a field, Steve McCurry

KUWAIT. 1991. The Persian Gulf. Steve McCurry

KUWAIT. March 1991. Environmentalists examine a field where the ground has been encrusted with oil.
Steve McCurry

KUWAIT. 1991. A truck from the Paris City Health Department tests air quality.
Steve McCurry

USA. New York City. 2001. The collapse of WTC seen from a roof at Washington Square Park and Fifth Avenue,
Steve McCurry

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War.

In 1947, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos with David "Chim" Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and William Vandivert . The organization was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. 

July, 1943. A member of the American Medical Corps treats a German prisoner of war.

SPAIN. Cordoba front. September, 1936. Death of a loyalist militiaman.

FRANCE. Normandy. June 6th, 1944. Landing of the American troops on Omaha Beach.

Exhibition - Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties

Magnum Group

J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
June 29–November 14, 2010

In the decades following World War II, an independently minded and critically engaged form of photography began to gather momentum. Since then a host of photographers have combined their skills as reporters and artists, developing extended photographic essays that delve deeply into humanistic topics and present distinct personal visions of the world. Embracing the gray areas between objectivity and subjectivity, information and interpretation, journalism and art, they have created powerful visual reports that transcend the realm of traditional photojournalism. Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties looks in-depth at projects by photographers who have contributed to the development of this approach, including Leonard Freed, Lauren Greenfield, Philip Jones Griffiths, Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, James Nachtwey, Sebastião Salgado, W. Eugene and Aileen M. Smith, and Larry Towell. (From Magnum Photos)

VIETNAM. South Vietnam. 1970,
Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum Photos

CAMBODIA. Prisoners of war were afforded very different treatment by each side. Americans were treated reasonably (the ranting of the MIA movement in America aside), whereas captured Vietcong were tortured, raped, and killed. Some ended in the tiger-cages of the U.S. administered Con Son prison, where conditions would have staggered a Spanish Inquisitor. 1970. Philip Jones. 

When I look at this photograph it reminds me of a Eddie Adams's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken on 1 February 1968 of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém, a guerrilla officer, caught killing policemen and civilians whilst clad in civilian clothes. It is an iconic photograph and yet very contradictory.

Around noon of February 1, 1968, in the opening days of the communist Tet Offensive, South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executed a Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon — and photographer Eddie Adams captured perhaps the war’s most unforgettable image.

VIETNAM. The battle for Saigon. Refugee from US Bombing. 1968,
Philip Jones.

I do tend to research a lot of War Photography due to its true form and power of our dark side. War photography reflects inhumanity and at the same time so much more. Every photograph contains pain, sorrow, destruction which we as humans created.  The war was real, so did the photographs represented it in its purest form.


Here are few Street portraits I found on Magnum Photos, by various photographers. 

Jerusalem. 1961. Orthodox boy in street near Mea Shearim, Erich Hartmann

USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang, Bruce Davidson

USA. New York City. 1966. East 100th Street, Bruce Davidson

USA. Birmingham, Alabama. 1963. Arrest of a demonstrator, Bruce Davidson

USA. New York City. 1966. East 100th Street, Bruce Davidson

USA. New York City. 2001. Kevin BACON relaxing in Central Park, Bruce Davidson

USA. New York. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
©BRUCE DAVIDSON/MAGNUM. This specific photograph reminds me of Walker Evans series of Subway portraits. It seems to be so similar. Subject is unaware of being photographed.

USA. Alabama. 1965. Black Americans.
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos. These photographs are very interesting because at that time, sadly colured people were not published in any media. So it represents a diversity which exists in the society. It represents some of issues Robert Frank photographed in his series of ''Americans''.

Every Photograph I include in my blog is relevant in some point to my development in photography and also relates to Documentary photography in various styles - portraits, street photography, war, or disaster photography. I have been looking at various freelance and professional photographers on Magnum Photo, and those photographs which grabs my attention I do upload here. 

Magnum Photo agency includes wide gamut of photographers of different generations and styles, that is why it is so interesting because it consists of contemporary and 20th century work. I can search for a specific theme in photography and it will show the results in that area. For instance I can look into war, disaster, street photography, portraiture or any other genre. Also It contains high quality photographs with annotations and short description which at some level is a short story, description of representation within these photographs.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_14

Bruno Barbey is a Moroccan-born French photographer (born 1941). Throughout his four-decade career he has traveled across five continents, photographing many wars.

Photography career

Barbey was born in Morocco and in 1959-1960 he studied photography and graphic arts at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Vevey, Switzerland. During the 1960s he was commissioned to photograph European and African countries by Editions Rencontre in Lausanne. In 1964 Barbey began a relationship with Magnum Photos, becoming an Associate member in 1966, and a full member in 1968, at which time he was photographing student riots in Paris. He eventually served as Magnum vice president for Europe in 1978 and 1979 and from 1992-1995 as President of Magnum International.
He spent 1979 to 1981 photographing Poland, resulting in his book Poland. He rejects the label of 'war photographer', although he has covered civil wars in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Kuwait.^[1] From 2005 Barbey has, among other work, been pursuing a project on Istanbul.

MOROCCO. Essaouira. 1987. Women resting along the ramparts. Bruno Barbey.

POLAND. Kalwaria Zebrzydowska village. Crowds at religious pilgrimage during the Holy Week. 1981. Bruno Barbey

ORTHERN IRELAND. Londonderry. 1971. Street fighting against British soldiers.Bruno Barbey

GABON. 1984. A worker at a manganese mine washes himself near the plant of Moada. Bruno Barbey.

MOROCCO. Meknes. Moulay Ismael Mausoleum (Muslim shrine). 1985. Bruno Barbey. Some of his photographs are similar to Henri Cartier-Bresson's work, strongly emphasizing on a shape, form, geometry and decisiveness. Like this particular example, although he is working also in color, it brings in something new and it is very aesthetically pleasing. 

MOROCCO. Fez. Alley near the sanctuary of Moulay Idriss. 1984. Bruno Barbey

Walker Evans, Subway Portraits, c. 1938-41

 

Originally Evans wanted to use text with these images of conversations or information within the book, but it was not published with any text and there has been no evidence found of how he would have recorded this information. Even though these photographs are still powerful without any text, involving text may have also pushed the message upon the audience of how society has become a group of people all the same. Where as they all differ from race, age, and class, but they all become ‘meaningless’ within society.
It was not common that photographers would photograph in the subways or the streets during this time it was not a well known state of photography. Studio portraiture was the most popular style of photography at this time. Whereas Evans would describe his photography as portraiture outside the studio in a natural environment without no staging or falseness.

 

 

 

 

Walker Evans subway portraits are true and non-staged. He photographed with a hidden camera and a shutter release cable under his sleeve, so that no one would notice him taking a photographs. This technique led him to capture these naturally looking portraits. 
  
The street portraiture brief we have to do is a little bit different. We have to approach people on the streets and ask them whether we can take a photograph of them. There is much more communication involved and most important the person will be aware of me taking a photograph.

Here are all portraits I took during this assignment. My goal was to photograph 100 people and I did succeed. It was a challenging brief, however it led me to achieve things I have not achieved before.I was interested in diversity of our society, people amongst and around us. Different styles, genders, races, religion, age groups. I did approach those people which I thought fit in my criteria and seemed to be interesting.

Here are contact sheets of all portraits I took. Mind there are exactly 100, I had to throw some away due to technical difficulties such as blur or slightly out of focus on the eyes.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

After a serious work of selecting only 20 final photographs I came up with this combination. I did choose 10 women and 10 men in order to keep it equally and consistent. Also the age groups, race, style and more are very diverse as part of my intentions.

Here is the final contact sheet of my favorite portraits.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

This brief was my favorite so far! It was quite challenging and at the beginning took some nerve to stop strangers on the street. After a short while I started to enjoy the project. Some people were quite curious so then I explained what I am doing and for what purpose. Once they were informed most of the times they were happy to participate in this project. Almost every time I asked them to be very serious and not to smile they started to laugh, which was funny, but anyways I managed almost all of them to become serious. Perhaps I could do a series of a laughing and happy street portraits in the future. Every time I went out to photograph I had this little bit lack of confidence, however once I took my first portrait it seemed to disappear. It was funny to observe the society I live in, and I was very selective in people I wanted to photograph, so that I would create as diverse body of work as possible. Once there was this man who actually approached me and asked whether I will take his portrait, but I was actually looking at possible target which would fit much better in my criteria, so I lost that man which I was after. Anyways I took his portrait and moved on.



Here is a very interesting approach to a street portraiture photography by Philippe Echaroux.

He is carrying around a portable studio setup. Technically he could have done this alone, but as a team he can be much more flexible and faster. It is a very interesting approach because he is studio using strobes and background on location. The results are fantastic and very interesting. He is also using professional stylist with little props which then makes these images even more interesting. 

Philippe Echaroux is a Young French Celebrity and Advertising Photographer.

He had the idea to try to make a portrait like he does with famous people but with unknown people met in the street, with a little bit surprise for the subject . . .and he got it.

 His work reminds me of Joey Lawrence work, alhough it is in completely environment and culture, they both are using studio strobes on location and photogprahing people. Joey Lawrence is one of my favorite contemporary photographer/artist. His series of tribes around the world has inspired me a lot. And in the essence they still classifes as a documentary photography but with fine art aproach and quality. his goal is to record people, places and cultres from that side we never knew or understood. It is that part of world which does not know how is to be Westernised, and that is the most beutiful think captured within his work amongst with other qualities.
Here is some of his work.

 

 

His personal work is closely related to travel photography in portraiture. His subjects are very interesting and somehow unknown to us as a Western civilization. And yet it is documental, he does not really stage his scene, he tries to capture the moment in the setting it is presented to him. I think that is a very important part in documentary photography. We have to capture things in front of us without manipulations, otherwise it endangers the 'documentary' genre.

 

Joey Lawrence - photograph of a holly men, Vijay Nund on Ganges River

Critical Evaluation for this brief: See Below

Critical Evaluation Street Portraiture

Part 1

The hardest part in the project was to keep a strict consistency thorough the project regards key elements – framing light quality and social diversity. All photographs were taken in landscape format in order to include the surroundings and environment where they were taken. I would have liked to photograph in this format very close headshots rather than framing head and shoulders. Also there is a slight inconsistency in some photographs which seem to appear little smaller in scale than other ones.  I took over than a 100 portraits in total, but only 20 are included in the project.  I could have improved the framing regards the scale and proportions. This project initially was targeted to represent diverse Cardiff society, specifically range of nationalities, gender, age, style and culture. Sometimes I did not pay attention to the subject pose, some of them stood sideways with one shoulder closer to the camera which then did not fit the criteria of the project as a consistent series. Therefore If I had a potential photograph I could not have used it for this reason. Image quality is most important after the subject matter, I did pay close attention to the focusing on the eyes however even though I had some shots out of focus. Most of the silly mistakes I have made were technical nature such focusing, consistent framing or camera shake.

Part 2

            I have gained a power and confidence to approach people at any situation any place if I wanted to. I have pushed my photography understanding to a whole new level. I have started to notice diversity within society and distinguish the beauty of it. The brief helped me in understanding people and build/strengthen vital communication skills in order to capture natural looking portraits.

Richard Avedon

I love Richard Avedon's work. His amazing portfolio of portraits is already starting to change my own perception of portraiture. His work is fine art, the specific look and the gaze of the people captured makes his style unique and very interesting.

See his work and biography on his website Richard Avedon Foundation

His famous photographs

Marella Agnelli, Italian socialite, 1953

Carmen Mayrink Veiga, Brazilian socialite (Vogue's 10 best dressed), 1970

Dovima with Elephants, 1955.
In 2010, a record price of £719,000 was achieved at Christie's for a unique seven foot high print of model Dovima, posing in a Christian Dior evening dress with elephants from the Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, in 1955. This particular print, the largest of this image, was made in 1978 for Avedon’s fashion retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and was bought by Maison Christian Dior. (Wikipedia)

Dovima with Elephants, 1955.

Marilyn Monroe, actress, 1957
Richard Avedon describes as ‘Marilyn Monroe’ was a made up person that she created, she would come to his studio and dance for hours and then at the end when her energy was gone she just sat there with this air of sadness in her appearance and soul and she let him capture her on camera.

Homage to Munkacsi, Carmen, coat by Cardin, Paris 1957

 

                                                              Christina Bellin, model, 1962

Dwight David Eisenhower, President of the United States, 1964

The Beatles, 1967

Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory, New York 1969

Sly Stone (cover of Fresh Album), 1973

Asha Puthli (She Loves to Hear the Music Album back cover), 1974

Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent, 1981

I do inspire a lot from Avedon's work. It has an excellent quality imprinted within his photographs. Especially the look in the eyes, that makes his photographs alive and unique. Most of the times models are looking right into the camera lens with a very interesting facial expressions. Although in some cases people are looking just behind or away from the camera. I can feel the connection between a photographer and a model, that is where Richard Avedon was a true master. It is not all about taking this photograph, but it is also about the communication and psychology which makes photography much better and more than a just a portrait. This communication is a tool in order to record the real essence and the beauty of any subject. A a photographer we must craft this skill amongst other vital skills to be different, unique, successful and consistent professionals.  

Barack Obama (2004)

Richard Avedon. Pile of beautiful people, Versace campaign 1982.

Richard Avedon: My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.

He photographed his father whom he had a turbulent relationship where he never felt loved and happy around him. He captured him whilst weak and frail, his father was a proud man and a strong man who later died. For Richard Avedon it was like him feeling close to him through his work as he has never done, maybe his own goodbye in a sense, over the years he photographed dads and sons together in a way this showed envy of a relationship he never had. These photos are almost like him watching him die with his camera.

Richard Avedon. Jacob Israel Avedon

Richard Avedon. Jacob Israel Avedon

Richard Avedon. Jacob Israel Avedon December 19, 1972.

Here is an excellent documentary film abut Richard Avedon and his life. He is also talking about his distant relationship between him and his father. He did photograph his father just before his death.

RICHARD AVEDON "In The American West''

Focusing on the rural West, Avedon visited ranches and rodeos, but he also went to truck stops, oil fields, and slaughterhouses. Rather than playing to the western myths of grandeur and space, he sought out people whose appearance and life circumstances were the antithesis of mythical images of the ruggedly handsome cowboy, dashing outdoor adventurer, or beautiful pioneer wife. The subjects he chose for the portraits were ordinary people, coping daily with personal cycles of boom and bust.
Instead of glamorizing these figures, he brought their various human frailties to the forefront. All his subjects are pictured against a seamless white backdrop that removes any reference to place, and many of the portraits are dramatically oversized, shocking in their stark detail. Visitors to the exhibition come face-to-face with images that shattered stereotypes of a glorified region. (http://museum.stanford.edu/news_room/Avedon.html)

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, 1981

His Signature is the white background and the black border. He depicts the essence of the western lifestyle and farming. He isolates the environment making us to read the image only from the subject photographed. There is nothing else than just a white backdrop and the subject photographed and yet, it is very strong approach which makes us to closely study the people photographed which was Avedons intentions. Although he claimed that he is in the charge of everything and that photography is more about himself rather than a subject photographed.

Probably the most influential work to me is the series of the ''American West'', it represents people from a various backgrounds, professions, age and gender. They are representing a working culture on American West. All subjects are taken out of their environment by isolating them from a background with a white board which then becomes like a studio backdrop - his signature setup on a high key lighting. These photographs are a fine art and documentary at the same time, they are documenting people as they were in the American West, the visual output is an Art.

Most of his personal work was black and white based, although there are some color photographs.

Here is link to his Website (http://www.richardavedon.com/index.php#mi=1&pt=0&pi=1&s=0&p=-1&a=-1&at=-1)


After a thorough research of his style and lighting I tried to imitate his style in 24/7 brief. Below are few shots. They are photographed in the studio on a white background and a beauty dish as a main light. 

 My main focus was the facial expression and the gaze. I did ask my subject to look in specific spots I thought would work similar than in Richard Avedon's portraits. Time to time I did talk about something which would make my subject very relaxed and natural, only then I was able to capture his real personality. It was a lot of fun. I am always very picky, so I did my session until I got results I was happy with in that particular time frame.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the "street photography" or "life reportage" style that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.

Forms Magnum Photos

In spring 1947, Cartier-Bresson, with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger founded Magnum Photos. Capa's brainchild, Magnum was a cooperative picture agency owned by its members.

Later career

Cartier-Bresson's photography took him to many places, including China, Mexico, Canada, the United States, India, Japan, and the Soviet Union. He became the first Western photographer to photograph "freely" in the post-war Soviet Union.
He believed in composing his photographs in the viewfinder, not in the darkroom. He showcased this belief by having nearly all his photographs printed only at full-frame and completely free of any cropping or other darkroom manipulation.

SPAIN. Madrid. 1933.

SPAIN. Andalucia. Seville. 1933.

FRANCE. Sunday on the banks of the River Marne. 1938.

FRANCE. Marseille. 1932. He was emphasizing the shape, form - geometry and decisive moment when all of these things come together for a fraction of a second. That fraction is the target time when to press the shutter and take the photograph. In this example two men are creating a triangular shape, this makes this composition very strong and interesting.

USA. New York City. Manhattan. Downtown. 1947. The cat could be gone within seconds and also the background could have changed. This moment is a decisive, all of these elements are coming together and shaping this photograph. It has a very strong constructed base.

ITALY. Salerno. 1933.

FRANCE. The Var department. Hyères. 1932. This perhaps is one of my favorite photograph by Bresson. It is nothing more but a perfect representation of a decisive moment! It is very dynamic and strongly constructed. It consists of many strong geometrical objects and also movement by the bicycle which then represents this decisive moment. without the bicycle this photograph still would be very strong as a constructed photograph, however the decisiveness would have been gone. It is this bicycle which makes his ideology of decisiveness real.

FRANCE. Paris. The Quai St Bernard, near the Gare d'Austerlitz train station. 1932.

FRANCE. Paris. Place de l'Europe. Gare Saint Lazare. 1932. Another photograph which I consider to be one of his most famous work. It depicts the decisive moment right at its core. The man is frozen in time, just before landing with his feet in the puddle. This tiny space between his foot and the puddle is just right, it is this decisive moment. Also the reflection and geometrical shapes within photograph is clearly an crucial part of his style. His prints are highly detailed, as it can be seen from the background posters, I am able to read them.

SPAIN. Madrid. 1933.

CHINA. Beijing. December 1948. Final days of the Kuomintang. A peasant, whose market has closed down and came to Beijing to sell his vegetables, sits to eat his provisions. A shopkeeper resigns to have nothing more to sell in his store.

CHINA. Beijing. December 1948. As the morning mists clear over Beijing, a city surrounded by Communist troops, the Kuomintang calls some 10 000 recruits, mostly shopkeepers and small businessmen, to arms. Here they receive their orders in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace.

ITALY. Rome. 1951. It is fascinating scene, two boys in the foreground playing with the pistols whilst in the background there are boys smoking a cigarette and also playing with a fire arm. Everything seems to be happening for a reason, and it is again beautifully representing the decisive moment.

FRANCE. The Alpes de Haute-Provence 'department'. Town of Simiane-la-Rotonde. 1969. This is my personal third most famous photograph by Henri. Everything blends so naturally, no one is aware of being photographed. It is so magical, and again decisive, strongly constructed. 

Alec Soth (born 1969, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American photographer notable for "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States.  New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a "photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers" and photographs "loners and dreamers". His work tends to focus on the "off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America" according to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth. His work has been compared to photographers such as Walker Evans and Stephen Shore.
Soth liked the work of Diane Arbus. He traveled around the Mississippi River and made a self-printed book entitled Sleeping by the Mississippi which included both landscapes and portraits. Curators for the 2004 Whitney Biennial put him in their show, and one of his photographs entitled "Charles", of a man in a flight suit on his roof holding two model airplanes, was used in their poster.
When he photographs people, Soth feels nervous at times. He said: "My own awkwardness comforts people, I think. It’s part of the exchange." When he was on the road, he'd have notes describing types of pictures he wanted taped to the steering wheel of his car. One list was: "beards, birdwatchers, mushroom hunters, men’s retreats, after the rain, figures from behind, suitcases, tall people (especially skinny), targets, tents, treehouses and tree lines. With people, he'll ask their permission to photograph them, and often wait for them to get comfortable; he sometimes uses an 8x10 camera.


His photography has a cinematic feel with elements of folklore that hint at a story behind the image. He tries to find a "narrative arc and true storytelling" and pictures in which each picture will lead to the next one.     

Alec Soth's photographs are rooted in the tradition of Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. His representation of everyday life conveys the American ideals of independence, freedom, spirituality and individualism.

Alec Soth, Sleeping by the Mississipp, USA. Vasa, Minnesota. 2002. Charles.

USA. Dyess, Arkansas. 2002. Johnny Cash's boyhood home. Sleeping by the Mississippi.
Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

These images are from his first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi published in 2004 as a result of multiple road trips along the Mississippi River. That top farm house is the boyhood home of Johnny Cash.

USA. Wickliffe, Kentucky. 2002. Fort Jefferson Memorial

Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

USA. Fountain City, Wisconsin. 2002. Cemetery. Sleeping by the Mississippi,
Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

Here is an short interview with Alec Soth

He is using an 8x10 view camera. His style is sometimes typographical and constructed. He often seeks for a subject to be photographed whilst he is on a walk.

USA. Saint Paul, Minnesota. 1999. Mother & daughter with shopping cart full of plants.
Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

USA. Little Falls, Minnesota. 1999. Charles Lindbergh's boyhood bed. Sleeping by the Mississippi,
Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

USA. Venice, Louisiana. 2002. Sleeping by the Mississippi.
Alec Soth/Magnum Photos

August Sander August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer. Sander's first book Face of our Time (German: Antlitz der Zeit) was published in 1929. Sander has been described as "the most important German portrait photographer of the early twentieth century."

Life

He spent his military service (1897–99) as a photographer's assistant and the next years wandering across Germany. In 1901, he started working for a photo studio in Linz, Austria, eventually becoming a partner (1902), and then its sole proprietor (1904). He left Linz at the end of 1909 and set up a new studio in Cologne.
In 1911, Sander began with the first series of portraits for his work People of the 20th Century. In the early 1920s, he came in contact with the Group of Progressive Artists (Kölner Progressive) in Cologne, a group as Wieland Schmied put it, "sought to combine constructivism and objectivity, geometry and object, the general and the particular, avant-garde conviction and political engagement, and which perhaps approximated most to the forward looking of New Objectivity
Sander's Face of our Time was published in 1929. It contains a selection of 60 portraits from his series People of the 20th Century. Under the Nazi regime, his work and personal life were greatly constrained.

Legacy

His work includes landscape, nature, architecture, and street photography, but he is best known for his portraits, as exemplified by his series People of the 20th Century. In this series, he aims to show a cross-section of society during the Weimar Republic. The series is divided into seven sections: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and The Last People (homeless persons, veterans, etc.). By 1945, Sander's archive included over 40,000 images.

In 2002, the August Sander Archive and scholar Susanne Lange published a seven-volume collection comprising some 650 of Sander's photographs, August Sander: People of the 20th Century. In 2008, the Mercury crater Sander was named after him.

August Sander, Pastrycook, 1928

"Pastry Cook," 1928, was taken in a commercial kitchen. The cook, wearing a long white coat, stirs something in a large metal pot. The photograph is a study in rounded forms, from the shape of the rotund cook's bald head and heavy, expressionless face, to his massive fist holding the ladle, to his well padded figure, to the bowl itself.

Sander believed in a "functional individual existence and an integral collective order." Yet he lived through the complete breakdown of his world under Hitler's regime. The city of Cologne where he and his family had lived and which he had photographed extensively was destroyed, his home was burned down, and his children were in constant danger for their lives. The anti-Nazi activities of his son Erich in 1934 brought Sander himself under government scrutiny. Although his photographs were never intentionally political the sheer diversity of his subjects threatened the Nazi's idealized doctrine of a pure, heroic German race. They ordered that all the publisher's printing blocks of his volume of photographs entitled, Antlitz der Zeit (Face of Our Time) be destroyed and copies of the book be seized. Sander turned his camera to landscape, nature studies, and industrial architecture. He and his wife survived the Third Reich, but their home was ransacked and their son, Erich, died in 1944 in a Nazi prison.

August Sander. Artistas de Circo, 1926

August Sander. Carregador de tijolos, 1927


"Bricklayer," 1928, is one of Sander's most powerful portraits, taken at close range of a young man wearing a workman's cap, scarf and vest, who carries a platform of bricks on his shoulders. The light is more dramatic in this image than in most, falling on the youth's face and the platform . His expression is intense and confident and he holds the bricks as if they weigh next to nothing.

Sander photographed German citizens from all classes and walks of life. Rich, poor, men, women, revolutionaries, artists, tramps, professionals, children, laborers, Communists, Social Democrats, Anglo Saxons, Gypsies, and Negroes stood or sat squarely in front of his camera, fully conscious of the photographer's intention and of their own role in society. Sander photographed his subjects in flat light, making no attempt to flatter them, and then printed the unretouched photographs on glossy paper in order to reveal every detail. "It is not my intention either to criticize or to describe these people, but to create a piece of history with my pictures," he wrote.

August Sander. Jovens agricultores, 1914

Sander’s highest talent was his ability to grasp this nexus of emotions, and it is always present when he is at his best.

August Sander. Pintor (Anton Raderscheidt), 1926

August Sander, Varnisher, Lackarbeiter. 1930

August Sander, Peddler Hausierer, 1930

August Sander. Washerwomanc. 1930

August Sander. Girl with Carriage1927-30, printed 1990

August Sander. The Notary1924, printed 1990

August Sander. Cretinc. 1924

August Sander. Street Musicians1922-8, printed 1990

August Sander. Brothers1920, printed 1990

August Sander

Village Schoolteacher 1921

August Sander

The Man of the Soil 1910

August Sander

Blacksmiths 1926

August Sander

Police Officer 1925

August Sander

Blacksmith c. 1930

August Sander

Art Scholar [Karl With] 1932

Country Girls, 1925, August Sander

In the photograph, "Country Girls," 1925, two sturdy blond girls stand stiffly before the camera holding hands and wearing identical dark dresses and watches. It seems safe to assume they are sisters, so closely do they resemble each other in appearance, expression and manner. Indeed, their similarity and closeness is as disquieting as a Diane Arbus photograph, for their dark dresses visually give the impression of one large shape with two heads emerging from it.

In "Hamburg Carpenters," ca. 1929, Sander photographed two young laborers of that era. Both wear top hats, jackets and bell bottomed pants. Their vests sparkle with large silver buttons and one of the youths even wears an earring in one ear.

Sander conceived his idea for "Citizens of the Twentieth Century" as early as 1910, but it wasn't until the end of World War I that the forty-two year old photographer was ready to begin his project. The scope of Sander's photographic vision was immense and unlike anything ever attempted in the history of photography. He intended to produce a body of portrait photographs documenting the entire social strata of Germany, for he believed (along with other like minded artists of his era) that art should reveal the structure of a society.




Here are few photographs which I took in his style for my 24/7 project.

Although it is not in portraiture form, it still reflects the influence from August Sander and his style. The Person is straight in front of the camera within his working environment which is the most important part in this kind of topographic approach.

Here are contact sheets of all final photographs for 24/7 project. It took me four session in total to photograph this person whilst working and off from work. I started with a studio session in style of Richard Avedon. Before the sesion I did thorough research of his work and style, it is a high key setup so technically it was quite simple setup, however the main point was to capture the person, its character and obviously an interesting look through eyes. So I asked the person to give me different looks at different spots, in order to make them interesting I was constantly talking about many things which helped to break the ice and make my model feel comfortable, only then I was able to really capture him. Most of these photographs are direct influence from his work with Marylin Monroe, series of Democracy and his father's portraits. They are either straight on camera, or looking away - gazing. That was my goal to capture diversity within the session so I would have more material with slightly different look. I think I succeeded. The Boarder Is extracted from portrait of Marylin Monroe, and it is a crucial part of the series. Richard Avedon most of times left his boarders on the image which then became his signature, therefore I even did not think otherwise than replicating this signature in my work.



24/7 Brief. 
I chose to document a life of an employed person who work in a Hotel as a concierge member. His job role is very busy and diverse, such as parking cars, journey ambassador, receptionist. First of all I did go through the details of the purpose of this project so that both of understand the requirements and possible solutions as we collaborate. I Started with studio session in style of Richard Avedon, it was a lot of fun and I had a great opportunity to practice my skills in making the model comfortable and also bring out the most I can and capture it on a photograph. He is very eccentric person, so it was very easy to communicate with him. We did not have any problems in understanding each other. Especially the look I was going for. So it was a fantastic session with a lot of fun. 

As This brief must be in Black and White, I still created some colour portraits, mainly influence from Avedon's portfolio of 'Democracy'. Some photographs work better than others, but my mission was to create a series of a wider scale with a diversity. Once I took a photograph which was looking good I started to narrow the looks until we were on the right path.

Every time he did go out of the Hotel I was there with my camera and ready for the action. These photographs above are representing his job, the tasks he carries out. It includes various jobs, such car parking, deliveries, journey ambassador, work behind the reception desk and more. He is very a eccentric person, always laughing and communicating to people. And even when I photographed him he was joking time to time. So it was very funny and I really enjoyed it. I had to ask him to freeze for a second If I saw the shot, sometimes I was trying to catch the decisive moment, perhaps that can be seen below where he is unloading guest's car. This specific photograph is focused on the car rather than my subject, which upsets me, but still on a small print it is barely noticeable. These were kind of issues I came across time to time. 

It was very hard to catch him in the work, due to his busy role.Some photographs were photographed by the Hilton car park which is across the street, there is this short journey from hotel to the car park, my goal was to catch him every time he when he parked cars over there. Others are photographed outside the hotel or inside, jut to show more diversity and the are he is working in. When I was photographing in style of August Sander I tried to find a neutral background, and yet something which was part of his working environment. In this case it is a brick wall which is right next to the car park. Somehow I could not get a perfect focus on his eyes, even though I tried few times. On a small print like this it will not be as noticeable therefore It is good enough for my final piece.

This session was done on a Sunday early morning and afternoon. As it was very quiet on the morning I had a chance to document his work by his desk. It repeats thorough the day so it is a good insight of how his job might look. Important part to me was to include the concierge sing above his head, this is a crucial part of a story, which then suggest of what he is doing for living. 

I tried to create a narrative which would work as a group and also be progressive as his life within a week goes on. It includes his working hours and day's off. Starting with an early morning at work leading to his lunch break, and conclusion similar to a morning with final cheks. After that is a short representation of what he does in his own time whilst off work. And obviously there is a theme which runs through - motorcycles. His passion is to ride and be around his motorcylce, therefore I tried to get as much material as I could which would reflect this. As a full time person you really do not have as much time off as you would like, almost half of the time we are spending in the work, leaving other half for home tasks and finally our hobbies.




Here are my final contact sheets which are working in a progressive sequence.

Scene from an early Sunday morning.The sign 'Concierge' is the most critical element. It is suggesting his job role and working environment. When combined with the photograph below with him standing right in front of the hotel and preparing to park a car with a sign at the background it puts everything in its places. Stating where he is working and what type of job he is doing.

I live the fact that the man on the left is staring right into the camera. It makes this photograph more interesting. This scene reflects a little bit of his job roles, such helping with a luggage. My goal was to work in a journalistic approach where I would be an active observer, trying to be as less noticeable as possible.

Above a scene at the luggage room, which I think is one of best photographs within this project. It shows the backstage of his daily working day. Below is a representation of his lunch break, it also could have been a moment before his late shift where he often reads a book. I chose an neutral background isolated from other distraction in order to make a photograph only of him and the environment I see him.

Here is a photograph with his friend in front of his garage. I think that this photograph is quite decisive because they are not aware of my presence and also I caught the moment where they are trying to start up his bike after three weeks. All of these photographs were edited in Lightroom and finished up in Silver Effex.

This is one of my favorite photographs from this project. It represents and reflects the personality in a single photograph. When I look at this photograph it is directly stating of who is this person. He is a life loving, active, eccentric and dynamic person.

Major Project

• What sort of photography do you enjoy looking at?

Fine art portraiture, Studio based photography, travel documentary/landscape photography (National Geographic)

• How do you view photography, as a social tool, as an illustrative tool, as a personal creative tool for self expression, as a money making profession, as a science, as an art?

Mainly I view photography as an illustrative and a personal creativity expressional tool which tells a story on how I perceive the world and informs others abut it. It will be a money making profession and obviously I think and strongly believe that a good photography is an Art!

• Which of your own photographs gives you the greatest satisfaction, and why?

My studio portraits, because I think I can control the environment much better than outside, I can capture that person in the way I see him. Also It has never-ending possibilities of creative self expression. Besides my studio work I really enjoy some of my landscapes and travel photographs. 

• Do you enjoy working with other people or on your own?

I do love working in a team and also on my own

• Why is photography important to you?

I feel fulfilled and happy when I am photographing, I have always been fascinated by a visual art but never really had the ability to paint or draw myself, but photography offers me something much more stronger for me. I have also been exposed to creative fields like photography, theatre, film from an early childhood. I have quite a rich bloodline history within a film and photography industries. My grandfather was one of most greatest film producers in Latvia, my Mum used to be an actress and my Uncle is one of most acknowledged photographers in Latvia. At some point I feel this bond and responsibility to continue this journey and It came to me just like that. I have always been interested in cameras but never had one in my early ages. Whenever I had a chance to play with one I was always very curious and happy.

• What sort of environment would you like to work within?

I would love to work in a very dynamic environment with a lot of on location assignments. Focusing on a studio environment and concept.

• Which assignments have you got most out of in your first year?

All of my Studio Practice work (Pastiche, book Cover). My b&w film based photography work. 

• Is multi skilling important to your future? 

At some point yes, because Latvia is not as big, therefore I have to be able to execute a wider range of work. Such studio work and perhaps some weddings as well as photojournalism. 

• What do you hate about photography? 

Other people's perception on what photography is and that everyone can be a photographer if they have a good camera, which is absolutely false. It takes dedication and hard work to craft an individual style and stand out with a quality work. I guess I am a little bit concerned about this journey till I find my own voice in photography. 

• If you had taken one image that you have come across recently, which would it be - to wish it could say "I wish I'd taken that"?

• What are your interests outside of photography - are they transferable to your professional studies?

I love travelling and active lifestyle. I do adore music, especially guitar playing. I would love to do some documentary travel photography as a part of my profession. I could see myself photographing musicians as a part of my personal work or even commissioned.

·     Introduction

I do love looking at landscape and fashion/studio photography. For me Photography is a medium for self-expression and also a way of representation of what I have seen around me, it is also a profession of money making for living. As a hobby I do love landscape and travel photography, it enables me to be closer to the nature and explore it. However as a career prospect I see myself practicing in commercial based photography, which also gives me the most satisfaction and enables me to work with people rather being on my own. I have been living in Cardiff for past five years, but never really explored historic places and areas nearby with a significant history. Therefore my major project would be based on it. There are numerous locations, which would be interesting to photograph in a specific way I really enjoy - panoramas. I am inspired from various photographers like Eugene Atget, Walker Evans, Joel Meyerowitz, Bill Brandt and mainly form photographs of Will Pearson and Andreas Gursky who are using a gigapan technology in order to create the ultimate detailed photographs of different environments. If I had a gigapan I would definitely go for it, however I may try to create panorama or a wide-angle photographs, which would contain some of these elements, which would suggest this presence of a history. 

           

·     Proposal

I intend to document Cardiff and areas nearby, focusing on historic locations, which would suggest the presence of the past. It is a documentary and historical project, which explores various fields such architecture, industrialism, modernism and perhaps a social life. I will carry out in depth research about these places and history in order to document them correctly and more interesting. From there I will create a list of objects, places I must photograph. As a final presentation all of these photographs will include a short description about the place and key subject/object represented within.

           

·     Rationale

Documentary photography is a very wide genre. I will try to approach it from a way, which would be more interesting to me. I like the freedom of this project and the option of travelling it may include. I would love to work on future assignments, which would let me to travel and explore things I do not know yet. I do love to work with people, but for this specific project I would like to step away a little bit. I want to create a visual document of a place where I lived. Perhaps in future I might work on assignments like these to make my career more dynamic and get away from studio environment when it is too much. 

            In this project I will aim to:

·      Explore Cardiff and relevant areas nearby

·      Create an historic document

·      Learn to see history around us          

·      Become more confident photographer

·      Learn how to get access to possible locations

·      Be more active as a photographer.

At the end of this project I will be able to:

·      Be more confident and organized

·      Present my work on a professional level

·      Improve my photographic quality (compositionally and technically)

·      Repeat it in any other city anywhere in the world

·     Requirements

For this project I will need an access to the Cardiff castle tower, possibly various other places which are higher above the city so that I could document the city from a birds view If I chose so. I will definitely need a tripod and perhaps some protection to my camera when photographing in hard conditions – early morning, evening or rain. This specific project does not require a lot of equipment, it costs are relatively low. I am more concerned about permission and accessibility to possible locations around Cardiff. As I do not need to travel far I will have plenty of time to research and photograph more frequently.

·     Action Plan

In order to manage my time successfully I will have to set personal deadlines.

These deadlines will be set towards research, photographing and final presentation. As final submission is in April I must be ready at least two weeks before so I can work on my presentation and finishing touches. These dates will be around third week in February, March and second week in April. On first deadline I will try to put together some of the most important locations I might photograph with a possible reference shots. On a second deadline I will aim to present my work with some final prints and work in progress. And finally on third deadline I will aim to present my final prints and finished research.

·     References

In terms of research I will look at Eugene Atget, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Robert Frank, Joel Meyerowitz, Eggleston, Shelby Lee Adams, August Sander, Bill Brandt and many more which are mostly 20^th century based photographers in documentary photography. I will also try to find specific photographers who had documented Cardiff in 19^th and 20^th Centuries. The work by Andreas Gursky and Will Pearson is one of my key influences towards this specific project because they are exploring a city and areas around it. I am also very interested in Jan Staller’s work “New York Frontiers” and Stephen Shore “Uncommon Places”.



Here is some material from www.cardiffbay.co.uk which is setting a base for my major project. I find it very informative and interesting. It is a research which will help me to determine and find best spots around these areas. There is still presence of history. I want to capture it in my work and refer to specific things and events which occurred in past and still are noticeable. 

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Docks Past - Now Called Cardiff Bay

 

The last air raid on Cardiff on May 18, 1943, was a revenge raid for the Dam Busters raid on Germany the night before. Why Cardiff? Guy Gibson, who led the 617 Dam Busters squadron was married to Eve Moore of Penarth and spent most of his leave in the area. More than 40 people died in the raid, the only one in which the Germans used the screaming Stukka bombers at night, during the blitz on Britain.

Bute Park is said to be the richest urban park for trees, probably in the world, according to The Royal Horticultural Society tree register

Marconi sent the first ever wireless communication over open sea. It transversed the Bristol Channel from Lavernock Point near Cardiff Bay to Flat Holm Island, a distance of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The message read "Are you ready" The receiving equipment was almost immediately relocated to Brean Down Fort on the Somerset coast, stretching the range to 16 kilometres (9.9 mi

Do you know any fascinating facts about Cardiff? Let us know and we'll add them to our list.

Cardiff has been named as one of the top 10 cities in Europe. Over 319,700 friendly people live here and call it home. We have 149 pubs, bars and nightclubs (18 of them on the waterfront), 73 restaurants and 125 hotels.

Cardiff seems to be very interesting city to document, It has a very rich history and objects to document. 

Newport History in Photographs 

The floor of the trench that was to cave in and fill with water resulting in over 30 deaths. 

W C Cooper an engineer gave this account to the newspapers: 

'We were going to start concreting tonight. Both sides of the trench were piled with solid timber from 13 to 14 inches thick and the cross timbering was all 11 to 12 inches in thickness. It looked as if nothing could move it. It was a perfect network of timber. As we sank the trench there was no sign of movement at all. It was examined daily by an engineer of the company. I was down at the bottom myself two days ago, when everything seemed to be quite safe.'

Here we can see the strong timbers shoring up the sides of the deep trench during construction of the new lock entrance to the South Quay of the Alexandra Docks Newport. This was to be the second largest lock in the world at that time. It was during the construction of the South Lock that one of the most tragic events in the history of Newport occurred resulting in over 30 deaths.

Alexandra South Dock
Iron and Steel Works on the River Usk
Aluminium Works on the River Usk
Machine Works on the River Usk

Bird's eye view, taken from the Transporter Bridge, of a portion of the Alexandra Docks showing, in front, the company's Ferro-Concrete River Wharf.

(Photo from "Who's Who In Newport" 1920.) This is perhaps one of most interesting view points I would like to get access to. 

(Photo from Johns's Newport Directory 1903.)

The buildings across the river are the Orb Works.

Photo VR Young.

(CAM - catapult aircraft merchantman)

Photo from a private collection.

The plane is probably a Hawker Hurricane.

From "The Newport Harbour Commission Centenary June 21st 1936" published by RH Johns.

Photo Ron Sutcliffe.

Cardiff in Development

I have been working on this project now for a couple of weeks and it has changed quite a bit, because of many factors. I no longer focus on other places, but Cardiff has became the key city where I am basing my project. It is also about the Development of Cardiff, of what has been, still is, what will remain and what will change. It was very hard to make my first idea strong, therefore I had to interpret it in slightly different way. I am still focusing on Industrial past, but now I am introducing another element, the modernity and development in contrast to these old industrial elements which still are remaining. I see my project as a timeline which is reflecting the development of city Cardiff. Perhaps the final presentation will be a short book in a chronological order presenting how Cardiff has changed and how will it change in future also reflecting those elements which reminds of what Cardiff has been and will remain in the core.



Here are couple visual photographs of how my project might look.

The initial idea was to make these historic elements appear vert subtle, however I did go all the way around it and they indeed appear very obvious. I think it was because I was too interested in these elements more than I thought. But what is funny the background becomes very important too, and it is very subtle but tells a story about the development of the city. There is a dramatic contrast between these industrial structures left from 19th century and the modern city in the background which is still developing. 

I really like this photograph because it is direct opposition, the modern and old. In the background St. David's hotel & Spa, which was opened in 2000,  and yet the foreground seems to be so ancient but remains the same and reminds of what this place used to be. The idea of this history makes this place very interesting. It is important to remember. It is not only about the St. David's & Spa hotel and this rich industrial history, it is also about the Cardiff Bay on the right side, which represents in how such a heavy industrial site has evolved to a commercial and touristic attraction site with many restaurants and other activities targeted towards consumers. Now we know Cardiff Bay as a place to relax and enjoy, but not that long ago it was one of most busiest ports in the world. 

Cardiff Bay Barrage, 

The Cardiff Bay Barrage lies across the mouth of Cardiff Bay, Wales between Queen Alexandra Dock and Penarth Head. It was one of the largest civil engineering projects in Europe during construction in the 1990s.

The origin of the scheme dates back to a visit by the then Secretary of State for Wales Nicholas Edwards Conservative MP for Pembrokeshire to the largely-derelict Cardiff docklands in the early 1980s. An avid opera enthusiast, Edwards envisaged a scheme to revitalise the area incorporating new homes, shops, restaurants and, as a centrepiece, an opera house at the waterside. However the tidal nature of Cardiff Bay, exposing - as it did - extensive mudflats save for two hours either side of high water - was seen as aesthetically unappealing.

Edwards credited the solution to this perceived problem to a Welsh Office civil servant, Freddie Watson. Watson proposed building a barrage stretching across the mouth of Cardiff Bay from Cardiff Docks to Penarth which would impound freshwater from the rivers Ely and Taff to create a large freshwater lake - thus providing permanent high-water. By making the area more appealing it was hoped this would attract investment into the docklands. The barrage was consequently seen as central to the regeneration project. In 1987, prior to approval of the construction of the barrage, theCardiff Bay Development Corporation was established to proceed with redeveloping the docklands - an area comprising one sixth of the entire area of the city of Cardiff.

In November 1999 the barrage was completed and the sluice gates closed at high water to retain the seawater from the Bristol Channel within the 500-acre bay.

It is not only about the Cardiff Bay, my project is about Cardiff in general. I photograph those places which are relevant and interesting to me within this project. In This photograph there are two crucial parts, the background and foreground.
In the foreground - Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve is located in Cardiff Bay in the city of Cardiff. It covers an area of approximately 8 hectares (19.8 acres). The area was officially opened as a wildlife reserve on 25 July 2002 in what was previously an area of Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) up until the opening of the Cardiff Bay Barrage in April 2001. The area had previously been salt marsh, but the Barrage created 200 hectares of freshwater lake, and from this the reserve was developed.
And in the background - By the early Victorian period, a terrace had come to designate any style of housing where individual houses repeating one design are joined together into rows. The style was used for workers' housing in industrial districts during the great industrial boom following the industrial revolution, particularly in the houses built for workers of the expanding textile industry. The terrace style spread widely in the United Kingdom, and was the usual form of high density residential housing up to World War II, though the 19th century need for expressive individuality inspired variation of facade details and floor-plans reversed with those of each neighbouring pair, to offer variety within the standardised format.
I was very interested by this contrast between this relatively new Reserve and these old traditional houses in the background. It suggests that Cardiff is not inly developing in architecture but also as a beautiful City with astonishing parks and manmade landscapes/city planning. It is a fast growing city which pays a lot of attention towards healthy environment with places preserved like these parks. 

The Cardiff Bay Barrage is a 0.75 mile-long dam enclosing the harbour. It took five years to build and created a new waterfront around 8 miles in length - a freshwater lake at the mouth of the rivers Taff and Ely. It was a controversial project, as its construction involved flooding mudflats that had provided an important habitat for migrating and breeding waterfowl. The barrage includes sluice gates to control the water flow, three lock gates to allow passage for boats, and a fish pass that lets migrating salmon and sea trout enter and leave the rivers. The barrage was opened to the public in 2001.

The Church was founded by Herman Lunde of Oslo and built in 1868 between the East and West Docks on land that was donated by the Marquis of Bute. It was consecrated in the December of that year. 
The Church was very busy at this time and became world famous as a meeting place for Scandinavian sailors. Between 1867 and 1915 the Church served between 7,500 and 73,000 seamen per annum.  The wooden building originally stood between the East and West Docks, on land donated by the Marquis of Bute
Note: further information is available on http://historypoints.org 

This photograph is not only about this church, it is about the development of the waterfront of Cardiff Bay. On the right "Wales Millennium Centre" and on the left development of hospitality and catering industry with countless bars and restaurants built in last few decades. Wales Millennium Centre is an arts centre located in the Cardiff Bay area of Cardiff, Wales. The site covers a total area of 4.7 acres (1.9 ha). Phase 1 of the building was opened during the weekend of the 26–28 November 2004 and phase 2 opened on 22 January 2009 with an inaugural concert. The centre has hosted performances of opera, ballet, dance, comedy and musicals.

After the decline of the coal trade, the church was closed in 1974 and fell into decay. In 1987 it was dismantled by the Norwegian Church Preservation Trust, which also kept many of the interior fittings. The Trust raised £250,000 in Wales and Norway to re-erect the church on its present site, where Princess Martha Louise of Norway opened it to the public in 1992.The Wales Millennium Centre replaced an earlier project for the site, the Cardiff Bay Opera House

Capital Tower located in Cardiff, Wales was the tallest structure in Wales, until 12th Sept 2008 when Meridian Quay in Swansea was topped out. Standing at 80 metres (260 ft) to roof height, Capital Tower is slightly taller than Stadium House, which stands at 78 metres (256 ft) to roof height, though inclusion of the antenna gives Stadium House a pinnacle height of 120 metres (390 ft). The foundations were built on the ruins of a 12th century friary, much of which had still stood until 1955. These were completely cleared for the tower to be constructed, although it is probable that under modern planning laws this would not have been allowed. Completed in 1967 and providing 125,000 sq ft (11,600 m²) of floor space, it was originally known as Pearl House.

Originally, a job centre, bookshop and galleries were built on the lower floors, but in 1998 they were replaced by a new set of developments including cafe-bars, and the multi-storey car parks were re-clad. At this time the building received its current name, Capital Tower. The tower presently houses several key clients, including: Admiral Insurance (over half the floor space, acts as their current head office); Government offices including those of the Secretary of State for Wales; the Law Society;Hilton Hotel; Tiger Tiger.

On 25 November 2002, the tower was sold for £17.4 million by Aberdeen Property Investors to the Raven Group. In August 2012, DTZ secured the £12.35 million sale of Capital Tower and Friary House to the Topland Group. 

This photograph again is not only about this modern Capital Tower but also about the Cardiff Castle which dates back to 11th Century. In the 12th century the castle began to be rebuilt in stone, probably by Robert of Gloucester, with a shell keep and substantial defensive walls being erected. Further work was conducted by Richard de Clare in the second half of the 13th century. Cardiff Castle was repeatedly involved in the conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Welsh, being attacked several times in the 12th century, and stormed during in 1404 during the Owain Glyndŵr rebellion.

Here is an interesting short film in more depth about the Cardiff Castle.

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama new building, opened in June 2011. Built on grounds of Bute park. I was curious about this canal, here is a quick extract of what is meant to do.
The Bute Park section of the Dock Feeder Canal is located close to Cardiff Castle in the City of Cardiff, Wales. The canal follows the line of the medieval mill stream which powered the corn mills beneath the west wall of Cardiff Castle. Between 1836 and 1841, the course of the canal was upgraded to provide water for the new docks, passing beneath many of the main roads in Cardiff before re-appearing in Butetown. It now forms a tranquil corridor along the eastern edge of the park

Here is a very interesting article about Cardiff Bay from http://cardiffbay.co.uk/index.php/history

Cardiff owes much of its history to the Industrial Revolution of the 1790’s, which stimulated mining in the valleys of South Wales. It also gave rise to the building of the Glamorganshire Canal in 1794, which brought iron and coal down from the valleys. As this industry expanded it became obvious that a more efficient form of transport was required and in 1840 the Taff Vale Railway opened.

This rapidly increasing iron and coal trade was also the catalyst for the construction of a number of docks during the 1830’s. These included the Bute West Dock, which was the first dock to be opened by the 2nd Marquis of Bute in 1839 and its seaward entrance known as the Oval Basin, the Bute East Dock in 1855, Roath Basin in 1874, Roath Dock in 1887 and the Queen Alexandra Dock in 1907.
During this time, Butetown and the surrounding dockland area grew into a cosmopolitan community with seafarers from all around the world making Cardiff their home. It is estimated that people from al least 50 nationalities settled in this area, which became known as 'Tiger Bay' This kaleidoscope of settlers helped to build the docks, worked aboard the ships and helped to service this industrial and maritime city.

By the 1880’s, Cardiff had transformed from one of the smallest towns in Wales to the largest and its port was handling more coal than any other port in the world. On the eve of the First World War in 1913, coal exports reached their peak at over 13 million tonnes. At this time the international price of coal was struck in the Coal Exchange building and it was here that the worlds first £1 million pound deal was signed.

After the Second World War, however, demand for coal slumped and international markets were lost as other countries developed their own steel industries. Trade was increasingly lost to container ports and by the 1960’s coal exports had virtually ceased. In 1978 East Moors Steelworks closed with the loss of 3,200 jobs and this dealt a further blow to South Cardiff.

By the early 1980’s Cardiff Bay had become a neglected wasteland of derelict docks and mudflats. Its population suffered from social exclusion and had above average levels of unemployment.

The docklands had given the City its wealth, but had then been disinherited

Task - Must photograph coal exchange building!!! 

As one of most important figures in my project and artists as such is Eugene Atget, his work is a direct reference point towards my project. I use his imagery as an example for my work, and do inspire a lot from.

Eugène Atget (February 12, 1857 – August 4, 1927) was a French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris. An inspiration for the surrealists and other artists, his work gained wide attention only after his death.

Organ Grinder (1898)

He photographed streets of Paris documenting buildings and places which were about to be demolished due to changes in city planning and modernisation. His work is an encyclopaedia which contains these historic places we no longer know, but luckily we still can study them through these documentary photographs.

Atget picked up photography in the late 1880s, around the time that photography was experiencing unprecedented expansion in both commercial and amateur fields. Atget would go on to enter the commercial field with his photos; he sold photos of landscapes, flowers, and other pleasantries to other artists. It wasn’t until 1897 that Atget started a project he would continue for the rest of his life—his Old Paris collection.

Atget photographed Paris with a large-format wooden bellows camera with a rapid rectilinear lens. The images were exposed and developed as 18x24cm glass dry plates.

Between 1897 and 1927 Atget captured the old Paris in his pictures. His photographs show the city in its various facets: narrow lanes and courtyards in the historic city center with its old buildings, of which some were soon to be demolished, magnificent palaces from the period before the French Revolution, bridges and quays on the banks of the Seine, and shops with their window displays. He photographed stairwells and architectural details on the façades and took pictures of the interiors of apartments. His interest also extended to the environs of Paris.

Boulevard de Strasbourg

Atget’s unique documentation of the French capital captured the eye of surrealist photographer Man Ray who worked to promote Atget as one of the pre-eminent photographic modernists. Later, the efforts of Berenice Abbott, who acquired Atget’s negatives and prints after his death, finally situated Atget’s work in the history of photography where it continues to gain in stature and influence.

Cour du Dragon

It would be very interesting to compare these locations to nowadays reality and see how these places have changed or even exist. Perhaps some of these historic elements are still around us today, we only have to dig to find them.

Cour de Rouen - passage du Commerce (6e ar)

Cour de Rouen - boulevard St. Germain

Old Mill, Charenton

I see his work as a document of history. This document is representing of what has been, and also it is suggesting what will be in the future or what will disappear soon. It is something I want to incorporate in my own project as well. I am playing with this idea of what has been, still is and what will remain. But at the same time I am exploring this development of Cardiff focusing on traces from 19th and 20th Century Industrial industry. Cardiff is a very dynamic fast growing city and it is interesting to document these changes over a period of time. There are a lot of clues left from the past and a lot of new project going on, I want to capture this development at this stage and perhaps guess what will change in the future and what will remain still. 


Alec Soth 
Alec Soth (born 1969, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American photographer notable for "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States. His photography has a cinematic feel with elements of folklore that hint at a story behind the image. New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a "photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers" and photographs "loners and dreamers". His work tends to focus on the "off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America" according to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth. His work has been compared to photographers such as Walker Evans and Stephen Shore.

Series of "Broken Manual" 

His work in my opinion is very artistic and yet documentary. I do like the story behind these photographs. They are capturing the lifestyle of different people in different environments. His work is very unique and personal in the way.

Series of "The Last Days of W"           

"Sleeping by the Mississippi" 

This photograph reminds me of August Sander Topographic approach. I do admire the colours from 8x10 view camera negatives. Alec Soth documents not only various places and environments but many different people in strange and yet everyday environments and situations. 

When he photographs people, Soth feels nervous at times. He said: "My own awkwardness comforts people, I think. It’s part of the exchange." When he was on the road, he'd have notes describing types of pictures he wanted taped to the steering wheel of his car. One list was: "beards, birdwatchers, mushroom hunters, men’s retreats, after the rain, figures from behind, suitcases, tall people (especially skinny), targets, tents, treehouses and tree lines. With people, he'll ask their permission to photograph them, and often wait for them to get comfortable; he sometimes uses an 8x10 camera. He tries to find a "narrative arc and true storytelling" and pictures in which each picture will lead to the next one.


Besides the traditional known documentary photography I do consider "New Topographic" work to be very useful material to study in order to understand my subject better. 

New Topographics: photographs that find beauty in the banal

Here are few New Topographic photographers I do enjoy to study.




Stephen Shore, (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography.

ARTINFO’s Philip Gefter notes that Stephen Shore as well as William Eggleston borrowed from photorealist painters, such as Robert Cottingham, Richard Estes and Ralph Goings. Gefter notes, “[Shore and Eggleston’s] interpretation of the American vernacular—gas stations, diners, parking lots—is foretold in photorealist paintings that preceded their pictures.”

the hudson valley 

the hudson valley 

 Shore has achieved recognition as a key figure in new color photography, a loosely defined movement whose practitioners have brought serious aesthetic considerations to color photography as an art form. Shore's body of work includes banal images of everyday subject matter - the back wall of a parking lot, yellow traffic stripes, a tabletop place setting in a restaurant - in sparsely populated areas that convey his formalistic vision of balance and serenity.

We are exposed to many things on a daily basis, but most of times we don't even pay any attention to them, so I think "New Topographic's" is the way of representing these most simple, sometimes banal scenes of reality and present to us in a different way, the way it invites us and surprises at the same time.  

Here is a short interview with Stephen Shore. He talks about his photography and the way he perceives and executes it.

Lewis Baltz - Lewis Baltz, MFA, born in Newport Beach, California on September 12, 1945, is one of the most influential photographers working today. Lewis Baltz is currently based in Paris and Venice, and since 2002 he has been a professor of photography at the European Graduate School EGS

Lewis Baltz is best known as one of the icons of the 'New Topography' movement in photography of the late seventies. Presented together in the exhibition 'New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape' in 1975 (Rochester, NY), this group of young photographers brought a shift in landscape photography in showing the images of a world far removed from an heroic vision of America. This move was also illustrated by the subject matter of urban and suburban realities under change, as well as the photographers' commitment to a critical and ironic eye of contemporary American society. Thirty years after its opening, this exhibition still remains one with the strongest impact on landscape photography world-wide in its attempt to define both objectivity and the role of the artist in photographic creation. Lewis Baltz' contribution to the show consisted of photographs of an industrial warehouse complex in Southern California, in which the images of blank concrete walls and prefabricated buildings offer a critical position toward the claustrophobia of urban life. Often displayed in a grid format, it is important to Lewis Baltz that these pictures are seen collectively as a group or series, as for him one image should not be taken as more true or significant than another. Through his original approach, Lewis Baltz most clearly embodies the essence of the movement’s critical depiction of the American landscape. This, according to some authors, makes him more closely aligned with conceptual art than with traditional photography.

West Wall, Unoccupied Industrial Structure, 20 Airway Drive, Costa Mesa, 1974

 South Wall, Mazda Motors, 2121 East Main Street, Irvine, 1974

Lewis Baltz documents the changing American landscape of the 1970s in his series New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California. The project’s 51 pictures depict structural details, walls at mid-distance, offices, and parking lots of industrial parks. Contrast and geometry are important in these pictures, but what marks them as uniform is Baltz’s attention to surface texture and lifeless subject matter. Often displayed in a grid format, it is important to Baltz that his pictures be seen collectively as a group or series. The series format suits his desire that no one image be taken as more true or significant than another, encouraging the viewer to consider not just the pictures but everything outside of the frame as well, emphasizing the monotony of the man-made environment. The pictures themselves resist any single point of focus, framed as they are to present the scene as a whole without bringing attention to any particular element within. Shot with a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera (usually at eye level), and stopped down for maximum depth of field, Baltz chooses his materials for maximum clarity and precision. Indeed, he takes care to title his pieces with specific information on each site’s location, so that viewers could return to the same exact place.
The landscape has become 'landscape-as-real-estate', and Lewis Baltz has used the images of construction sites as a way to deconstruct the surrounding society.

"The Tract Houses", 1971

Southeast Corner, Semicoa, 333 McCormick, Costa Mesa 

South Wall, Semicoa, 333 McCormick, Costa Mesa
SERIES TITLE: "New Industrial Parks", 1974

West Wall, Unoccupied Industrial Structure, 20 Airway Drive, Costa Mesa
SERIES TITLE: "New Industrial Parks", 1974

New Topographic's in my opinion are closely linked with various photographers from earlier periods. As the most influential photographer I would mention Eugene Atget. Already in early 20th century his work was very topographical in the core. He was documenting these buildings and streets in a very specific way, the lines were parallel and the subject was composed straight on with an extraordinary precision. It is very interesting to see this idea developed in later photographic work's by other photographers. I like the idea of this banality and essentialism of everyday objects photographed straight on, and yet these photographs have became something very special. 

Here is some more work in progress. I do started to focus more on Cardiff Bay area and less on other parts of Cardiff. The reason for that is the interesting development which is going on at the moment and how things have changed ever since. 
Even those photographs which are not of Cardiff Bay might still represent a little detail which is linked to the bay, such the canal which supports water supply for the port (industrial site).

In the background Roath Lock - BBC television production facility in the Porth Teigr area of Cardiff Bay opened February 2011. In the foreground - upcoming residential, business, retail and leisure developments

Before the development of BBC Drama Village, Roath Basin was the largest single remaining undeveloped site in Cardiff Bay. It consists of approximately 27 acres and has an outline planning permission for 1,000 new homes and 100,000 sq. m of commercial floor space.

20 July 2012 - Doctor Who Experience officially opens in Cardiff Bay. The new attraction is in a purpose built, 4,181 square meters building in the Porth Teigr development in Cardiff Bay – just a stone’s throw away from the BBC’s Roath Lock studios where the series in filmed. 

Norwegian Sailor’s Church. The Church was founded by Herman Lunde of Oslo and built in 1868 between the East and West Docks on land that was donated by the Marquis of Bute. Between 1867 and 1915 the Church served between 7,500 and 73,000 seamen per annum. It was the oldest surviving church in Britain to be founded by the Norwegian Seamen’s Mission and was the center of Scandinavian religion, culture and tradition. 

Nowadays the iconic Norwegian Church on Cardiff Bay's water's edge is established as an Arts Centre.

April 2011, A £2.5m bridge linking the drama village to Cardiff Bay has been lifted into place. The bridge was manufactured in nearby Newport from where it was broken down into 12 pieces to allow transportation to Cardiff Bay. 

Wales Millennium Centre. The site covers a total area of 4.7 acres (1.9 ha). Phase 1 of the building was opened in November 2004 and phase 2 opened on 22 January 2009. The architect's concept of the building was to design a building that expressed "Welshness" and that was instantly recognizable. The building was designed to reflect the many different parts of Wales with local Welsh materials that dominate its history; slate, metal, wood and glass. All the materials used come from Wales and was built from 1,350 tonnes of Welsh slate, 300,000 concrete blocks, a million meters of electric cable.

Overlooking the Bay and with a chic, cosmopolitan atmosphere, Mermaid Quay is where Cardiff comes to relax.

I am always very inspired when looking at Henri Cartier-Bresson's photography. 

I absolutely adore his quote. 

“

''To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life".

He captures this "Decisive" moment which ultimately makes his photography stand out. Whenever he found an interesting scene to photograph he was anticipating until the unexpected happened and that is what he called the "decisive moment", that last and perhaps most important element was finishing the photograph and making it absolutely beautiful and interesting to a viewer.  

Born in Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne, Henri Cartier-Bresson developed a strong fascination with painting early on, and particularly with Surrealism. In 1932, after spending a year in the Ivory Coast, he discovered the Leica - his camera of choice thereafter - and began a life-long passion for photography. In 1933 he had his first exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. He later made films with Jean Renoir.

Taken prisoner of war in 1940, he escaped on his third attempt in 1943 and subsequently joined an underground organization to assist prisoners and escapees. In 1945 he photographed the liberation of Paris with a group of professional journalists and then filmed the documentary Le Retour (The Return).

In 1947, with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David 'Chim' Seymour and William Vandivert, he founded Magnum Photos. After three years spent travelling in the East, in 1952 he returned to Europe, where he published his first book, Images à la Sauvette (published in English as The Decisive Moment).

He explained his approach to photography in these terms, '"For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression."

From 1968 he began to curtail his photographic activities, preferring to concentrate on drawing and painting. In 2003, with his wife and daughter, he created the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris for the preservation of his work. Cartier-Bresson received an extraordinary number of prizes, awards and honorary doctorates. He died at his home in Provence on 3 August 2004, a few weeks short of his 96th birthday.

After a while of photographing and selecting final photographs here are few more I have done. 

Pierhead Building, built in 1897 as the headquarters for the Bute Dock Company.

The clock on the building is unofficially known as the "Baby Big Ben"

It took nearly three years to construct and cost approximately £30,000. Its Gothic Revivalist style was popular at the time, earning many accolades.

At its peak, Cardiff Port was one of the largest dock systems in the world with a total quayage of almost 11 km. Now called Cardiff Bay, is Europe's Largest Waterfront Development. 

This will be my inner cover photograph on the first page.  

Only after 1980 did redevelopment begin around the disused dock. The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was set up in the late 1980s to drive regeneration of the Docks area. Atlantic Wharf grew to include housing, new businesses, hotels and the conversion of three large derelict dock warehouses in the close vicinity of Bute East Dock. In 1988 the County Council built a new council headquarters building at Atlantic Wharf to reinforce the regeneration initiatives. 

This is my actual book cover. I really like this angle and the wide angle scene which is very descriptive and suggests this change over a period of time.  I also created a small timeline on the background with some interesting and important dates.

c. 55 The Romans build a fort on the site of Cardiff
c. 380 The Romans abandon the fort
1404 Owain Glendower burns Cardiff
c. 1600 Cardiff is a busy little port trading with France and the Channel Islands
1607 Cardiff suffers a severe flood
1645 During the Civil War parliamentary soldiers capture Cardiff
1774 The streets of Cardiff are paved, cleaned and lit with oil lamps
1794 A canal is built
1801 The population of Cardiff is less than 1,900
1821 Cardiff is lit by gas
1841 The railway reaches Cardiff
1849 Cholera kills 383 people in Cardiff
1853 A new Town Hall is built in Cardiff
1855 East Dock is built
1871 The population of Cardiff is almost 60,000
1883 An infirmary is built in Cardiff
1886 A coal and shipping exchange is built.
1887 Roath Dock is built.
1896 Pier Head Building is erected
1900 The population of Cardiff is over 160,000

1901 The first £1,000,000 cheque was written,
(equivalent to £77,837,086.09 today).

1902 Electric trams begin running in Cardiff.
1905 Cardiff is made a city
1907 Queen Alexandra Dock opens
1927 The National Museum of Wales opens

World War II Bombs kill 355 people in Cardiff
1955 Cardiff is made the capital of Wales
1981 St David’s Shopping Centre opens
1990 Capitol Shopping Centre opens
1999 Millennium Stadium opens
2004 Millennium Centre Phase 1 Opening
2005 Cardiff celebrates 100th year as a City and 50th Year as Capital of Wales.
2009 Millennium Centre Phase 2 Opening.
2012 BBC Roath Lock Studios were officially opened, located in Cardiff Bay.

The Bute East Dock (originally called the East Bute Dock) was constructed to ease pressure on the existing Bute Dock in the 1850s. It was opened by 12 year-old Third Marquess of Bute on 14 September 1859. Eventually the Bute East Dock was closed in 1970. The railway sidings were removed.  

Here is a short, but descriptive video on how Cardiff used to be. 

One of my favourite photographs are within the Archives of New York City. 

New York City Photo Gallery of the Municipal Archive

by Sven Raphael Schneider on April 28, 2012 in Savoir Vivre, Traveling

Recently, the  New York City Municipal Archives granted the public access to their ever-expanding gallery of photographs of NYC. In total, there are over 2.2 million pictures in the archive. Over the last 4 years, many of the pictures were scanned and initially, 870,000 were made available online for personal and research purposes. Unfortunately, they did not expect a huge demand for these pictures and when the opposite proved to be true, the servers crashed. Unfortunately, the city has not yet been able to restore access.

The archive includes photographs that expose the city’s wonderful physical and social evolution over time. They include photos of criminal justice evidence,  more than 800,000 color photographs of each and every building in NYC during the mid-1980s, and more than 1,300 images taken by local photographers during the Depression. The collection provides wonderful social context to early 20th century life in New York, in addition to being exceptional stand-alone images.

A great contributor to the archive was  Eugene de Salignac, who was the official photographer for the Department of Bridges, Plants & Structures from 1906 – 1934. You’ll see some of his work below.

Cited from: New York City Photo Gallery of the Municipal Archive — Gentleman's Gazette http://www.gentlemansgazette.com/nyc-historic-photo-gallery-municipal-archive/#ixzz2QR1eo4Re

I do inspire from Joel Sternfeld's work. 

Joel Sternfeld (born June 30, 1944) is a fine-art color photographer noted for his large-format documentary pictures of the United States and helping establish color photography as a respected artistic medium. He has many works in the permanent collections of the MOMA in New York City and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. He has influenced a generation of color photographers, including Andreas Gursky, who borrows many of Sternfeld's techniques and approaches.

Sternfeld earned a BA from Dartmouth College and teaches photography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. He began taking color photographs in 1970 after learning the color theory of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers. Color is an important element of his photographs.

American Prospects (1987) is Sternfeld's most known book and explores the irony of human-altered landscapes in the United States. To make the book, Sternfeld photographed ordinary things, including unsuccessful towns and barren-looking landscapes. 

Joel Sternfeld
McLean, Virginia, December 1978

Joel Sternfeld
After A Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage, California 1979
from American Prospects

Joel Sternfeld
Approximately 17 of 41 Sperm Whales That Beached and Subsequently Died, Florence, Oregon, June 1979
from American Prospects

Joel Sternfeld
Coeburn, Virginia, April 1981
from American Prospects

Joel Sternfeld
The Northwest Corner of Florence and Normandie Avenues, Los Angeles, CA, October 1993
from On this Site

oel Sternfeld
A Railroad Artifact, 30th Street, May 2000
from High Line

I have been looking for places like these for my Fictions Project, although I have applied some of these ideas to my Documentary project as well.

Joel Sternfeld
Looking East on 30th Street on a Morning in May, May, 2000
from High Line

Joel Sternfeld
A Peach Tree, October 2000
from High Line

Joel Sternfeld
Looking South towards Chelsea Markets, December 2000
from High Line

Joel Sternfeld
A View Toward the Empire State Building, November 2000
Digital c-print
This particular photograph as the others might explore the possibilities of development and growth of a city, and represent some of its history. 

His work is very interesting and yet fictional in a way. The urbanization versus inhabitant. I like the new topographic approach and style in his work. Even though it is meant more as an piece of art rather than a document I still think it can be valid as a document, but from more artistic side. It is very interesting to me see detail like this in the middle of a city. It seems weird to have places like these with nothing but a grass and emptiness. In My negotiated project I have been applying these New topographic approaches and style. I like the way of representing geometry as precise as possible (straight angle, lines and so on). 


Another important and influential artist for me is Edward Burtynsky Here is a statement written by himself. (material from his website) 

Railcuts #3
C.N. Track, Fraser River, British Columbia 1985

Exploring the Residual Landscape

Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.

These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.

Edward Burtynsky

Railcuts #1
C.N. Track, Skihist Provincial Park, British Columbia 1985

Railcuts #10
C.N. Track, Thompson River. British Columbia 1985

Homesteads #27
Coleman, Crowsnest Pass, Alberta 1985

Homesteads #32
View from Highway 8, British Columbia 1985

Homesteads #30
West of Merritt, British Columbia 1985

Perhaps The work he carried out in China is very relevant to my project, he is dealing with a heavy industry photography which leaves a very strong impact on a viewer. 

Urban Renewal

Under Mao Zedong’s government, from 1949 for nearly three decades, population growth was encouraged as it was considered an asset to long-term development. The population of China in 1950 was 550 million. Today it stands at 1.3 billion. In 1952, urban dwellers numbered 72 million. By 2003 that number rose to almost 524 million people.10 Recent estimates indicate that because of economic development and the resulting annexation of outlying rural areas, China’s urban populace will, over the next 40 years, increase dramatically to over one billion city dwellers—the equivalent of the combined population of today’s North and South American continents as well as the entire European Union.

During the 1960s and 1970s, China imposed very strict limits on migration as a way to maintain reasonable living standards in the cities. Today however, China is experiencing the largest countryto-city migration in history. Millions are leaving their farms for urban centers. Huge cities like Beijing and Shanghai attract peasants from the countryside who search for opportunities to participate in the new economy. Accommodation for these new city-folk will require a feat of urban planning and governance on a scale the world has never seen. It is estimated that from 80 to 120 million migrant laborers are working, or looking for work in China’s booming cities. Most find jobs in the construction industry and the rapidly expanding service sector. Because they work outside China’s strict Hukou urban-work-permit system, these migrant workers are dubbed ‘The Floating Population’ and are, in some regards, illegally working in their own country. Beijing and Shanghai each have floating populations of between two and four million people. Once a generally ignored problem, these cities are now attempting to assist many of the newcomers as they provide labor for a rapidly growing service industry.

In recent years Beijing has started building schools to educate the children of migrant workers. Until the 1980s, most Shanghainese lived in houses rarely higher than two storeys. Often more than one family lived in one house and a single family might have as many as four generations living together. In some cases density levels were as high as two-to-four square meters per person. Today, Shanghai is shaping itself into a modern international city. During the 1990 to 2002 period, as much as 38 million square meters of older houses and apartments were removed to make room for modern residential and commercial properties.

The government owns all land in China, but people have the right to use or occupy the land. Shanghai City’s plan to modernize has developers from around the world eager to jump into the game. Many of central Shanghai’s old houses sit on the most desirable parcels of land. Often citizens will be notified of their residential termination by the sudden appearance of the (now ubiquitous) Chinese character (Chai – demolish) painted on the outside of their building. Under Chinese law the government will provide substitute housing for residents of redevelopment areas, even if these substitutions are located hours away in the suburbs. To some, the idea of moving into a new apartment that has functional interior plumbing with hot water, something often lacking in older houses, is a welcome change.

But to many, the idea of dismantling their community, moving away from neighbors and not receiving satisfactory compensation for prime real estate is a battle worth fighting—enter the Dingzihu or ‘Hold outs.’ Scattered all over Shanghai today one can see lone houses or parts of larger buildings surrounded by rubble where a neighborhood once stood. It’s here, where maverick residents decide to make a last stand to preserve their lifestyle and dignity. Developers are now frequently accused of using heavy-handed tactics to edge the older residents out. This has become the fastest growing source of protest—the forcible eviction of millions from their city homes and farms to make way for profitable new construction projects.
Extract from http://www.edwardburtynsky.com 

Urban Renewal #4,
Old City Overview, Shanghai, 2004

Urban Renewal #1,
Factory Construction, Outside Shenzhen,
Guangdong Province, 2004

Urban Renewal #8,
Hold Out, Shanghai, 2004

Nanpu Bridge Interchange,Shanghai, 2004

Critical Evaluation

Negotiated Project

“Industrial Past and Development in Cardiff”

Part 1.

This project reflects development processes and industrial past elements in Cardiff, specifically Bay area. Initially my goal was to create panorama scenes, which would reflect this change over a period of time, heavy industry and a modern development. However some of my ideas deviated from the proposal. Instead of panoramas I decided to focus on standard landscape photography, but the elements and the idea within this project remained the same. Besides that I wanted to represent a contrast between industrial and modern in a very subtle way, where these historical elements would be hidden within the frame, so that would require more time to realize and say perhaps ‘O.K. there is something here”. I went the other way, where these elements are in balance, the past, present and sometimes even future. The final project is reflecting how Cardiff has grown from an industrial to a cultural and tourism attracting capital city. Besides that, I was also focusing a little bit on how Cardiff might change in future years with upcoming developments. Majority of photographs are reflecting how Cardiff has grown in 21^st century, focusing on recent years.

Part 2.

I am very happy with the final project although I know that it could have been much more in depth, this is just a top of an iceberg. I created a timeline of important events, which occurred in Cardiff, this helped me to set the project relevant to a specific time in our history, also it helps to introduce and inform of what this project is about. The central theme within the project is an industrial Cardiff, its development and how has it changed to a beautiful and very modern city. Presentation is in a book form consisting of twenty photographs with descriptions of the key elements within them. This book could have been consisting of more photographs; therefore much more in depth and also it was very challenging to create a good layout in a chronological order due to great contrast between the historical elements and modern. So some of photographs might appear slightly off the timeline. Print quality and technical layout is good, although I feel that some of photographs appear a little bit underexposed due to screen calibration and colour profile issues. In terms of research I was focusing on historic archives and other photographers who are documenting places, especially new topographic photographers. There is definitely more out there to research, I know I could have done more. All photographs are working well in series, the style was important to me as part of consistency. I only photographed on overcast days for a more dramatic and better quality look, which seemed to fit my project theme much better. I could have improved this project by photographing more and representing the future developments in much more clearer context, perhaps a statement or a written piece would have helped which would introduce this project. This idea certainly could have been explored on a large scale, perhaps Wales all together rather than just Cardiff. During this project I realized what I do enjoy most in photography, and I have done something I was not hundred percent in at all times. If I had to do it again I would have chosen a theme related to people photography, something where a person becomes the key element and a storyteller. I fulfilled my goals in terms of final prints and the content within them, yet there are a lot of possibilities of going wider and more in depth.

Part 3.

From this project I have gained a lot of knowledge about Cardiff and a documentary photography itself. It also opened my eyes to the world, and let me experience of what documentary photography has to offer. Without a story and context these photographs would be just a visual representations, but in order to make them truly documentary they have to be backed up with a story and details, and that is what it makes so interesting in a sense. And for me that was the hardest part. It was very challenging and hard project. It required a constant work and research in order to succeed. Efficient time management became a crucial part of my working style. I was very fascinated by walking around Cardiff and noticing things and places I have not seen/noticed before, by researching them I got a step closer to understanding how Cardiff has grown and perhaps where it is heading. My favorite print is on the book’s cover, directly informing of what this book is about, and I think that is very important to any project – a strong introduction. My main influences come from E. Burtynsky’s, S. Shore’s, and J. Sternfeld’s topographical photography.