The Photography Pages » Guest Wednesday

When was this photo taken?

TPP — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:28:03 +0000

Today, last week, last year? Twenty years ago, thirty?Similar Posts:

Shopping in Bond Street

TPP — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:51:01 +0000

Make sure you also have a look at the Graveyard install. And with that glorious gem, I’ll say farewell: back in 2008.Similar Posts:

Angelfish Photographic aka Emma Oglesby

TPP — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:06:50 +0000

Replies are trickling in to the Questions to Women Photographers, which is how we like it. Emma Oglesby is one of the stars of Newcastle College FD Photography grads of 2007, and makes a very mean line in character/fashion portraits and faux documentary.

photo credit © Emma Oglesby

Here are her answers.

1. What got you started in the photography world?

I always loved art, I was taught how to paint/draw as a child, by my nana who was a painter when she was younger. I knew I wanted my career to be something in the arts. I couldn’t stand to work in an office, so despite people saying I was wasting my intelligience I ended up at art college where I was introduced to photography and fell in love with it.

2. What gets you started in the mornings?

My mind never really switches off. I am always thinking of new ideas for images that I want to create so just the excitement of making it all happen gets me motivated.

3. Who is/are your favourite woman photographer, and why?

Just the one??

Ellen Von Unwerth – although some criticise her for her technical ability I think she displays one of the most impressive imaginations I have ever seen. Her eye for detail staggers me. I just love all of her concepts, her style is so fun and she manages to make all the women she photographs look unbelievably sexy.

Cindy Sherman – this woman is just a chameleon. She manages to work in several different roles from creative director to photographer AND model. And the styles of work she creates varies so much from her Untitled Film Stills series to her more recent clown work. She is a typical girl in that she loves to dress up and take on different identities through the use of different outfits, hairstyles etc.

4. What are your specialisms, the types of photos you’re best known for, and what do you photograph just for fun?

I am probably best known for my character portaits – I do not know a better term to describe them. Basically I love my images to be a bit eccentric but to have some kind of theme or narrative behind them.

For fun I like to photograph classic cars (my main hobby) and also creepy dolls (I have a vast collection).

5. The exhibition or gallery showing that’s moved you the most.

Julian Germain’s exhibition ‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness‘ – a series of large scale photographs documenting an old man whose beloved wife had sadly passed away. He was lonely but continued to see the best in life and made the most of his time. The exhibition had a great emotional impact on me having recently lost a grandparent but I have no doubt that it would have moved me regardless of that relevant situation.

6. What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

Its not what you know its who you know. Obviously it is important to be skilled and talented but you can be more skilled and talented than I don’t know, David Lachapelle, and you will get NOWHERE if you don’t make yourself known. Network, network, NETWORK! Get yourself out there, shove your work in peoples faces and get them to pay attention to you. It is hard work but it will pay off in the end when someone gives you a break!

7. Is there a women’s aesthetic in photography?

Personally yes, my work is VERY kitsch and girly but thats just my style. Generally no, I don’t think you can typify an image on gender. Work is so varied and equally as impressive whether male or female.

8. Apologies in advance for this:

film/digital – FILM! I just wish that it wasn’t so damn expensive! Due to the market now, working in film isn’t particularly viable as customers want their image like, yesterday. You can have as many pixels as you like but it will never compare to a 5×4.

Nikon/Canon – Canon, but just because thats my camera and its what I’m used too.

Apple/PC – PC, I am quite opposed to change and find Apples a bit scary!

digital darkroom/wet darkroom – Again, you cannot beat a day in the wet-room coming out smelling of fixer. But, again, it is not cost-effective and the whole process is a bit slow. It is great for personal work but there is not much room for it in the commercial world now.

9. Where do you think the industry is going, given the rise of cheap or free ’stock’ and a camera in everyone’s hand?

Cheap cameras and the whole ‘next top model’ culture has had a bad effect on the industry in that is difficult to get anybody to pay a photographer for their services, because ‘my uncle’s got a camera, he can do it’ etc. I dare say professional models are also finding it hard to find paid work due to in the rise of young women wanting to give it a go for free.

Hopefully the professionals in the industry will continue to improve on their abilities and the gap between pro and amature will become wider, and thus our skills will once again be appreciated.

10. What would delight you the most, if it happened this week?

If the 5×4 fairies left a nice surprise on my doorstep!

–

Thanks Emma! If you want to do one of these Women in Photography questions, just email me your replies, with a couple of photos. I’ll post approx one per week, maybe a bit more.Similar Posts:

Wish You Were Here

TPP — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:54:54 +0000

Click through for some (unedited) photos of the preview evening of Adrian Laurie’s Wish You Were Here photographs of Blackpool promenade. The photographs are magnificent, and show how well Adrian knows the place. He’s got viewpoints you don’t see as a casual visitor. They’re the result of his Ormerod Travel Award win of 2007.

The photographs are on show until 30th November in the School of Art and Design, along with a collection of black-and-white prints from second year students. That includes me, folks! Please do come along and see it if you can.

There’s also a collection of work from student photographers at colleges all over the region opening at the Biscuit Factory on Thursday evening. I will be busy doing something else: an elaborate photoshoot referencing David Lachapelle. Lucky old me.Similar Posts:

Colin McPherson’s salmon net fishermen

TPP — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:55:09 +0000

Colin Mcpherson’s commentary with a slide show of his beautifully composed black and whites of Scotland’s last salmon net fishermen. via EPUKSimilar Posts:

Daniel Aziz

TPP — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 08:52:04 +0000

©Dan Aziz

Someone has been Googling Dan’s name and landing here, which isn’t unreasonable, since there’s a link in the blogroll here to his website. Daniel is currently awaiting the outcome of the Nikon Discovery Awards next month, and we’re all sure he’s in with a good chance of winning.

The photograph is one of a series of prints sold to raise money for the students’ final year show. I bought several, and will scan them in from time to time. This one is part of a larger series of works done in the 2nd year referencing David Lachapelle. Our year group is just starting to think about how we approach the project: research and collaboration, sourcing props and styling a decoration of the studio’s room set. Exciting.Similar Posts:

Christi Nielsen

TPP — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:57:59 +0000

Found Christi Nielsen’s Beauty in a Box some months back, was transfixed. Camera as mirror: painted portrait. Do click through and see. This one below is edgier though: I like her expressions and the way she moves into and away from the lens. Seeing this has brought to mind one of my oldest friends the other day, responding to a side-slung attempted insult: “Are you one of those ‘uckin’ feminists, then?” She peered at the lad, and paused before replying: “Isn’t everyone?”

Size XL or S and 8 to 16, 32-24-36 to 36-32-44 and 6/36. Dry Clean Only. Do Not Tumble.

Just click through the photo to see the film. Thanks, Christi!

Will be going through the photographers’ links in the sidebar for the regular Guest Wednesday post. Ha, might be you next! If you’re not here and you think you really should be, please go ahead and get narky about it here.Similar Posts:

Florence Owen Thompson and the Birds

TPP — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:22:26 +0000

Writing a book review (to come) of Eamon McCabe’s ‘The Making of Great Photographs’, I came across this:

“Photographers today still work in the same way, many spending weeks getting to know the people they hope to photograph.”

Dorothea Lange notoriously spent scant minutes at the pea pickers’ camp, taking only 6 pictures, including the iconic Migrant Mother photograph. She definitely didn’t hang around to chat. Many weeks?

Florence Owen Thompson’s identity was made known in the early 1970s, after a letter she had written was published in a local newspaper. She was quoted as saying “I wish she hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it. She didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did.”

Click and scroll down for a sound file recording of Mrs Thompson being interviewed back in 1979 by Bill Ganzell. Looking for Ganzell on the internet turned up this second recording. A woman of fortitude and wonderful cheekbones. Ten children, two of the three in Lange’s photographs speaking in the video at the top of the post.

So, to McCabe. Since his book is liberally sprinkled with witticisms and ironies, I can’t tell whether or not he knows the story, but it’s hard to imagine that he doesn’t. As Guardian pictures editor throughout the latter decade of the c20th, he was responsible for the look and feel of the one of the great quality newspapers in design terms, typographocal errors notwithstanding. But he can hardly be held responsible for continuing to make errors or assumptions made by picture desks back in the 1930s. Can he?

You’ll no doubt be pleased to know I’ve written to his publisher to ask him.

In a completely unrelated and rather elegant synchronicity, an email today from an American academic seeking schwag revealed a whole new world of discourse. His blog’s banner is this very photograph. Every picture tells a story. But is the story the same for Dorothea, for Florence, for you?

My somewhat frail and elderly mother and I were followed around our local market town several weeks ago by a young man with a camera eager enough to take our photograph to find himself hopping backwards. It is to add to a collection of ’street’ photography, many of which include tags like ‘fat’ or ‘chav’. He seems comfortable taking photographs of very young women giggling, and much older women grimacing at him. Very few men. I assume that’s because he regularly runs the risk of being punched. Similar Posts:

Murdoch’s Minibook

TPP — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:31:29 +0000

One of the oft-quoted pleasures of Web2 is being able to make connections with people all over the world. Setting recent cynicisms about the quality and integrity of these connections aside, there are always gems to be discovered out there. Mr Murdoch’s work is one of those, and I do call him Mr Murdoch since he is a proper classroom teacher of the dreaded photoshop and a big admirer of Lewis Baltz. Stuart aka St2 to his mates, is also a proponent of the low-fi in photography and in particular, cameraphones.

To connect with much of my thinking about the proactive sharing impulses of the photography-obsessed, and as a prod-poke-spur to that new page I’ve been planning to showcase some of the best of these free-swop-sharing-giveaway schemes, I hereby spread news of St2’s free Low Fi ebook. You can download and maybe even print his book, on the promise that you’ll send him a postcard. I sent him a copy of my Local Colour minibook. I’ll be needing to order some more of those today, none left.Similar Posts:

high grain evangelism

TPP — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:00:40 +0000

© Sam Smith

That afternoon on the very edge of the Tees’ sandbar down at South Gare, the fret was deep and rolling, a diffuser of the gods, soft and thick, almost cuddly. People at ease with each other, and like a comfortable silence, that delicious fog made all the wild theatre of Corus, the usual whoosh and clangour of the steel mill, feel like the soft murmer of friends in a cosy pub. Of course it was very hard to see anything much, but everything that seeped out of the mist, especially the line fishermen and the lone watchful policeman, seem like character actors auditioning for Jabberwocky at a Redcar playhouse.

Putting an occasional photograph by someone else on this site, always feels good to me, so with less than a minute to go, here’s one for a resurrected Guest Wednesday. The first guest photograph in this edition of the site, is fittingly also the first photograph of this camera in some semblance of action. The negatives from that roll await attention in the growing pile for the colour darkroom, and perhaps even for The Artworks in May. Thank you to Sam, the photographer!Similar Posts: