My Media Product. The London march December 2010

This is my media product, within my final essay I will explain my experiences and explanations of what I achieved whilst taking these photographs. Also I will include other photographers and journalists, that have covered demonstrations and strikes. I will also include one of the marches I attended in in 1986, against the rises of tuition fees, whilst studying and living in York. This is when Thatcher was in power. In comparison to the march that took place in London. I will analyse if any, the difference this made or had any impact at all. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these blogs, that's not to say I think they are good. It has taught me a great deal, such as adding photographs, scanning images and how to post blogs. However I did have a little help to show me how to set up my account from one of my friends. This person will remain anonymous, thank you Lucy, data protection you see. I have been following other peoples posts and found there is a lot of fantastic work out their. My aim is to carry on blogging until I have reached one hundred, blogs that is not my age. I will continue this over the summer break. All in all a fantastic assignment!!.

Panic

London March, December 2010. This is a shot from the front line, the crowd were beginning to get agitated and panicky. The atmosphere was really tense, people were sensing some thing was about to happen, The horses are restless and the Police are beginning to communicate with each other. People know there is no were to run when the Police line breaks. there are so many people in the crowd and when the horses come running through, they know this could be a blood bath. The man with the green paint on his head, (bottom left) is looking really worried and concerned. The two Lady's, (middle left) are trying to make there way back, but it is two late. A few minutes after this photograph was taken all hell let loose, the police came charging through on there horses. It was mayhem people were thrown to the floor, hit by the Police and there was a lot of injuries, one police officer was thrown and trampled on by his own horse. His wounds were quite severe, he had multiple back injuries and admitted to the hospital. The use of horses was condemned by the M.O.D., quite rightly so.The use of horses in this situation is so dangerous not only for the public but also for the cruelty of the horses.

Walter Benjanin.

After reading the book, The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, by Walter Benjamin. I had to read the few chapters several times. He goes on to say that in the 19th century, photography replaced wood engraving, copper plate and lithography. Photographic reproduction could get images quicker than speech itself. He also says that anything that is man made can be reproducible. One of the gains for this is to make money and also for an implement for teaching. The book for me was not the easiest to read but I did grasp the morals after reading the chapters  several times.

Children hysterical.

This is one of the most repugnant disturbing images to be broadcast all around the world. The photographer is Nick Ut, Vietnam 1972. We do not want to see graphical images of this nature however they do need documenting. Ut's Image reminds us of the destruction and the stark reality's of war. The decision to cause harm death and destruction like these are made by a small minority of people, people that probably have family's of their own. Society works in mysterious ways, we cause mass destruction and death but yet in peace times we rally around to help others. The Chinese earth quake is an example of this and Iran, etc;. Images like these still fail to change the spoils of war and attitudes after looking at pictures like these. We chose to go to war in the Falkland Islands in 1982, Iraq in 2003, Iran 2011. Again a small minority of people have made these decisions for all the people of the Country. So has I mentioned earlier that images like these need documentation, they still fail to make no impact to a minority.

Valerie Berlin

At the first glance at this photograph, by Valerie berlin (untitled 2001), which first caught my attention, were the eyes of the girl. The whiteness, the purity, they look transparent almost as if they were part of the background of the image. She looks frightened and venerable, her face tells a story. It could be that of her ancestors being manipulated and beaten in barbaric ways, through slavery. You can almost sense a lack of believe within her self due to what took place some generations earlier. Her ancestors who wre treated in the most inhuman circumstances. This appears to give the girl a look of worthlessness. There could appear to be a look of disgust that all of this, was for wealth, greed, power and this is what would lead them to their demise.

Extreme

This is Lee Friedlander, from his book, Self Portrait. When I first started to read Friedlanders book, I noticed the first half of his book there are no images of his face. There are just shadows on walls, fruit machines, shadows on the back of other people etc;. When I saw this shot I could not believe it was the same photographer. It is a total opposite to the rest of the first part of his book. He has opened himself up like a fish in a bowl. The position of the shot is right in the corner, this is a very prominent spot. Then the lamp stand is positioned to emphasize the bits he wants to show the most. The image is in black and white, this gives it more of a starkness to suit the setting. He is exposing himself to the public, literally. This could be seen has pornographic and offend some viewers.

The Pinnacle Project

These are the work of Kate Mellor, After the lecture in March by Kate I was really in ore of these photographs. Kate is well travelled and has a fantastic display on her web sight.
These are just six from the pinnacle project that she did. What amazes me most of all is that they are taken through pin hole photography. They really do have the 'WOW' factor. If you were to click on the images once and then again  they will enlarge. You will see the stunning photographs a little more closer but a view of Kate's web sight is really recommended. I love the way in which the  images are leading the eye in to picture right the way through to vanishing points. I am going to try pin hole photography very shortly.

Humber bridge

This is one of my favourite spots, the river Humber in Hull, East Yorkshire. I took this shot in February, 2010. It was between 4-5 PM. It was really misty and just turning dark. The shot was hand held as I forgot to take my tripod with me. I am really happy with the end result, However it is far from perfect, so I am planning another trip shortly. I want to take more shots from other angles and have an object in the foreground to show the scale of the bridge.

Identity

This too is from semester 1 about self portraits and I D. I took this a while after the project had finished. After looking through various books, I particularly like the work of Lee Friedlander. One of his books I find interesting is 'self portraits' . It depicts Lot's of shadows of the head and torso. In this shot I was trying to represent the shape of the human eye. However the collar from my cardigan and my ears sticking out, kind of ruin the shot. I can not do anything about my ears, apart from taping them back, but I can take my cardigan off. All in all I am satisfied from the first result. therefore I will  attempt this once more, hopefully with better results.

Self portrait

This was part of my first semester, 'identedy'. After finishing the project I carried on with the theme, this is one of around forty. I came up with the idea of shadows, with strong studio lights behind me and a screen in the foreground. One of the problems I experienced was not having enough hands, so my wife pressed the shutter button. I set the whole seen up, exposure and shutter speeds etc; even with self timer I found it difficult to get right and a remote for the shutter would have been of no use either.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

This is a photograph taken from semester one project two. This was taken on the training tower at sheffield fire station. I was attempting to take some realistic and dynamic shots. I quite like the mood of this shot, it shows movement and action. It was taken at 1/60th of a second. This allows blur and movement. The rope shows a lot of movement which really makes the photograph for me.

pilgrimage

Something I disagree with Berger  is that he said  “Pilgrimage is a thing of the past” After recently watching a documentary about the shroud of Turin; people were out raged when scientist deemed the cloth as a fake. People from all around the world still flock to see the shroud. Then it was later discovered that the cloth that had been tested, was a piece of cloth that had been added to the shroud after being damaged by a fire. 

"The shroud allegedly was in a fire during the early part of the 16th century and, according to believers in the shroud's authenticity, that is what accounts for the carbon dating of the shroud as being no more than 650 years old. To non-believers, this sounds like an ad hoc hypothesis."

" The shroud, however, has many defenders who believe they have demonstrated that the cloth is not a forgery, dates from the time of Jesus, is of miraculous origin, etc. It is claimed that there is type AB blood on the shroud."

In 1925 Bishop Dudley Carey-Elwes led the first Northampton Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. Since then it has become an annual multi-Diocese event run under the auspices of the Catholic Association. 

 

Lourdes is a town in the French region of Bigorre, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where in 1858 the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, appeared 18 times to a simple teenage girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in order to draw people into a deeper relationship with her son Jesus. 150 years later, the Lourdes shrine attracts over six million visitors every year, which , of course, includes our own pilgrimage.

Just a boy

I have scanned this photograph from one of my books ‘The Great Photographer’.

Photo by John Florea 1945.  A 15-year-old German prisoner of war, Giessen, Germany.  This is one of the most heart wrenching images I have ever seen. When I first saw this photograph I felt deeply disturbed. Even the hardest of people could not help but feel some kind of compassion towards this boy. He looks totally heart broken, terrified and bewildered; his clothes look to be the only thing that he owns. He is just a boy that has been ordered to be a man and nobody knows what he has just witnessed or what could happen to him. The terror on his face really shows the stark reality of war. He looks hungry, cold and tired, a feeling of no hope and despair. many  poems are said every year on Remembrance Sunday, and yet after the two minutes silence this is easily forgotten. Society today has all the essentials and nessessitys we want but this word want soon turns easily to need. It seems we have not learned any lessons from the spoils of war, even as I write these words people are dying and suffering from conflicts all over the world.

Hysterical

This is one of Diane Arbus’s photographs from her book published in 1972. After becoming a student in New York, she worked mainly as a freelance magazine photographer, in the 1960’s. After first seeing this photograph I was somewhat bemused. I could not make up my mind whether or not it was staged, or if it was just a stroke of luck  for Arbus. The boy looks hysterical and militarized; His left hand looks like it is in some kind of spasm. I personally think the photograph works well, the scene is split. The boy looks so threatening but behind him it looks so ‘normal’ and idyllic. People are just going about there daily business; the sun is shining casting shadows from the trees. There is a sense of calm, peacefulness; serial has if it is an idealized world. The violence promised by the boy is disturbing and you could begin to wonder what kind of future there is for him.

Bradford map

After we were given our brief for the Bradford map I began to visit the area. I looked down ally ways back streets etc; after one hour in I had not got much to show. what would be very welcoming after two hours would be inspiration. After about three hours of treading the streets I was feeling tired and weary with not much to show for it all. After a rest and a mug of tea, I loaded my shots and was pleasantly surprised, this gave me encouragement to have a second visit. I started to look more closely at things with different vantage points. My camera was placed on the floor on cobbled streets, I was using a lot more depth of field and looking for more colourful shots besides black and white. Whilst visiting other areas other than the map my confidence grew. I was more relaxed and using different techniques with the camera. These council workers seem bewildered and confused, uncertain of what to do next, so I thought the sign was really apt, showing three different directions of which way to go. Unfortunately for them they are on the wrong side. All in all the brief  was a good all round exercise, not only did it make me aware of things around me but also to Annalise every day objects and the urban landscape. Fantastic brief!!!.

Ways of Seeing:

After watching the documentary serious “Ways of seeing”  episode1 by John Berger. One of the things he mentioned was how images travel all around the world. We see images every day on our television screens, in magazines and the internet etc: of people from  different parts of the world. The only way we may see these people is by satellite, photographic images etc: What interests me is the way in which we perceive someone. Without ever meeting them, we begin to judge people and see what we want to see. One example of this is Lady Diana; these are quotes of different people all over the world, from the BBC web site.

An estimated 2.5 billion people watched her funeral six days after the crash - a testament to the popularity of this princess, celebrity and mother of a future king. 

“The Royal family are better off without her”. Alison Bevin, UK.

“We were stunned. People started crying. My first reaction, my immediate thought was: She’s been murdered. She’s pregnant. I still believe that and so do my friends”. Katherine Alyn, USA.

In my opinion you do not necessarily have to meet a person to like or dislike.  Berger  went on to say, “The invention of photography has not only changed the way we see, but the way in which we see it.” We have images in our living rooms that are painted by the great masters. This one image has been reproduced by modern techniques, that it is affordable in lots of households. What surrounds us in our demains can tell a lot about ourselves. 

Student March; London December 2010

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... 

This is a photograph I took has part of semester 1, project 2. I chose (Andy. Right) has my main subject. He is a cheif officer at Barnsley South Yorkshire Fire Station. The aim of the project was to finish with six A3 photograph's, portraying a synopsis of a person in every day life including home, there hobbies, there family life etc:. In my proposal I said one of the six images I would like to capture, would be Andy and his colleagues returning from a shout where there had been a fatality. What I wanted to capture was facial expressions, disappointment, fatigue and frustration. I was really delighted when I captured this image on a training exercise together. The distance of this shot was about 200 yards away, they were oblivious to my camera. The two are really close friends and these training exercisers only take place once a year. They are all Senior managers from all different stations. To see this gesture unfold before my very eyes was unbelievable for me. I had to be really quick to capture this shot, all the text book rules went out of the window. The day started at 7am for me and ended at 7pm. I was really looked after that day they shared there sandwhiches they was supplied with and we swaped banter. They even allowed me in the one hours first aid session with them. This was taken with a great degree of seriousness, the guys discuss all rescuing techniqes and I felt really honoured when they included me in parts of the session. I was doned with a fire man's suit, helmet, gloves etc:. They bent a few rules for me that day, even to the exception of being allowed up the training towers where they were performing rescue attempts. To my surprize I was asked if I was ok with heights?, (I suffer from vertigo) and I replied "who me no  I am fine", street cred and all that.





 

Student March, London December 2010

              Confusion

I captured this image by chance my camera failed a couple of moments prior to taking this shot. Only on analyzing the photograph did it reveal some interesting points. The man was hit on the head with a police batten. His jacket and hand are stained with blood and his head is still bleeding. He is shaken and dazed but what shocks me is the lack of attention the man is receiving. What appears to be a woman's arm (bottom right) is holding the man upright. The man wearing the woolen hat and the woman directly behind him have two entirely different expressions. It is visibly clear the man has real concerns, however the woman takes a lighter view of the situation almost smiling and not concerned at all for the injured man. The girl wearing the fingerless gloves deploys her mobile phone ready for snap shots. The very well dressed man in the black woolen coat, looks to a have real sense of fear that his battery may let him down. Last but not least there is me, capturing the incident  unfolding. The moral of this story I guess is the sadness and irony of it all, showing only two people out of six are attending the injured man. This shows me just how fixated and selfish other people can be. Sadly on this occasion this includes me.

Student march, London December 2010

CHAOS

                                                                 

This is another captured image of the protest in December 2010. This is where most of the action was, I made my way to the police line through hundreds of people. My feet was not on the ground at this point, I managed to raise my arm to get this shot. The police line must have been four to five deep. An arm is raised in anger and hits the policeman with the flat of his hand. This could possibly be that he did not want to hurt his fist on the police mans helmet. It clearly shows the police are not in control at this moment. Just a few moments after this photograph was taken they split the lines and through came the horses. It was absolute chaos at this stage, the crowds split in all directions. I was grabbed and just to be hit by a police batten but managed to struggle free. This was utter madness and stupidity for the use of horses with this volume of people. Not only for the safety of the crowds but also for the horses. After witnessing this unfold I do not know how some one was not killed.

Student march, London December 2010

This is just one of nine hundred photographs I took in London on the day of the march, in December 2010 against the rise of tuition fees. The photograph documents a group of mixed gender and age groups. the people have traveled from all different areas of the country. This is to make a stand against the governments proposals. This will determine the future as to who can and cannot afford the chance of higher education

The people are cold, hungry and tired from there long travel here. There are lots of different facial expressions, the two girls (bottom right) appear to be enjoying them self's. Whilst at the opposite side of the photograph (top left) the two girls appear somber, frightened and weary. The young man in the expensive looking jacket as other ideas, raising his arms in jubilation and deviance.

There are lots of people with cameras stroon in the crowds. The photographer that is crouched down (bottom left) is pointing his camera towards my direction oblivious to what is transpiring around him. The whole image appears to have  a degree of solidarity, Hanger, frustration and an uprising. The people are responding with violence and destruction, fed up almost of all the lies and deceit from the politicians.

I chose an entirely different view point than lots of other photographers for various reasons. 1 the background documents the event is taking place in London. 2 It shows the front of the banner and finally the young man throwing his arms in the air. The fire is fierce and roaring in the breeze. with fire comes destruction, it did not take very long for these four benches to turn in to ashes. 

The image draws my attention to the center of the image, there is a real ambiance and warmth, then my eyes leads  me to the outer picture. The black ghostly shadow of the statue witnessing the violence unfolding, the greys and the blacks are bleak and cold. Lots of people reacting in lots of various actions. I was not only there to document the march I too was feeling the same emotions hanger and bitterness on a very cold Decembers day.

One thing that was positive on this day for me personally was the experience, the buzz. I was going around alone, I did not have any one to look out for. This gave me the freedom to cover allot of ground. It fought me to be prepare, I was without food and water for nine to ten hours. Also the lack of time to Set the camera settings are thrown from the window. You do not want to miss the moment.