Final city images

What I did was merge my cousins photos with my photos and changed the opacity unitl I felt both photos shined through enough, I then turned the images black and white because I thought in colour they were a little too busy and confusing, this way it's more obvious that my main theme is 'the city'. The photos show a change between a childs viewpoint and my viewpoint, I find it interesting how the photos show more than one persons view of the city in one photo. I chose to merge the photos rather do something like place them side by side because like I said before, It's interesting to see more than one persons view of the city in one photo rather than two seperate ones. It shows that we all see the same things but just in different ways. I am happy with these photos, I think they are definately stronger when they're all together. I'm not particularly keen on the big wheel image, I think its too left side heavy, it's different to the other photos in the way that they're very busy and are full of detail.

Development

I gave my 1 year old cousin my digital camera whilst it was on video because I wanted to see what the video would turn out like and it gave me the idea to ask another young cousin of mine to take photos around the city, I wanted to see what he would photograph without any influence. I thought the photos he took would show me the view he has of the city, it ties in nicely with previous series of works ive done for this brief of seeing things through other peoples eyes. Me, my 4 year old cousin and his mum went to Manchester, I gave him my camera and said whenever you want to, take a photo of something, after looking at his photos I then stood where he stood and captured what he tryed to capture using another camera, I wanted to show the difference in what we see and how we see it. The photos shown below are the final images I selected from the many that I chose to re-create in his style. So the photos were taken by me but look almost identical to the photos he took on that day, I re-took them only so the work would be classed as my own.

He didn't intend on cutting the view off the image and didn't intend on some being blurry, these things happened because of the eagerness to move on, he didn't stay in the same spot to take a photo for more than about 2 seconds at a time. I re-created his images in my own way to show the contrast in skill, patience and creativity but still I wanted the photos to be recognisable as re-creations of his photos. My photos taking in my own style are shown below.

 

An idea

By following a stranger around Manchester and taking photos of their journey plus things they stop to look at has inspired me to follow the path of taking photos of the city from different peoples views. I found it really interesting to experience Manchester through the eyes of somebody else.

City walk - My Sophie Calle approach

I know Sophie Calle seems like a bit of a crazy stalker but I find what she does really interesting, it allows her and us what other people see and live like so I had a go at following a stranger in Manchester to see where I would end up, to see what journey they took and to see what they looked at and did on the way. I was on the train on the way to Manchester with my friend Janine, I told her to take photos of me taking photos of this stranger, I didn't yet know who I would follow but I knew we both had to be ready as soon as we got off the train because the perfect subject might be heading out the door at that very moment! I wanted someone who stood out a bit so I wouldn't lose them too easily, I was picturing someone wearing something really bright, I thought not only would it be harder to lose them but the photos would look better too and the focal point would be made clear. I genuinely did follow a real stranger and took photos of them, I sound like a massive stalker right now but it's just for photography purposes! Before I started I was really excited to go on 'somebody elses' journey. Me and Janine stood in the train station looking for the perfect person, a couple of people with bright coats caught my eye but they always seemed to be heading to a train rather than out the door of the train station into the city so we then decided to stand outside then we saw an old man who we then chose to be the subject because of how slow he was walking, we knew he would be very hard to lose as he was walking very, very slow. Janine video'd me taking photos of him at the start because we thought it would be good for getting screen shots from rather than her taking lots and lots of photos of my taking photos of him.

The photos which don't have the man in them are the sites he stopped and looked at. It sounds strange but I got quite attatched to this guy, it felt like I knew him even after a few minutes of following. It became really amusing when he did simply everyday things like turn around or look towards a loud noise. I found myself getting excited to where he would lead us to. He walked really slowly so sometimes we would have to stop and wait for him to get a fair distance away before continuing. Dispite his slow walking, we still lost him when he went into Marks and Spencers. I suggested we waited outside because I know shops don't like it when you take photos inside sometimes, so we waited for a couple of minutes before Janine pointed out that they had a second exit, we quickly rushed into the shop to find the guy but he was know where to be seen! It was a very short journey of following, it started outside Victoria train station and ended up in M&S. I found this adventure quite fun, exciting and humourous so after this guy we decided to latch onto someone else, this didn't last long as we lost them in a little news agents some how. We kept on loosing the people whenever they entered a shop so decided to give up and stop being stalkers.

City walk work

I had an idea to take photos of the city from different doorways in Manchester so it I was basically looking outwards towards the city. The photos show a different view to what we're used to.

City walk plan

Tomorrow I am going to go to Manchester and take photos emmulating some of the work by the photographers I have researched as well as take some photos with my own ideas and techniques. I'm hoping after this trip I'll have a clear idea of how I want to take this project further. I'll be using a Canon 550D camera with a standard lens as well as my compact digital camera for some images I want to capture without drawing attention to myself.

Initial research - Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is a French photographer, I'm interested in a series of work she did where she followed strangers around taking photos of their journey through the city. She would follow them, capturing what they did as well as the sites they looked at.

Initial research - Walker Evans

Walker Evans was an American photographer who was famous for documenting the effects of the great depression through photography but the work that he's done which I'm interested in are the secret photos he took on the Subway in New York of the public. He concealed a small camera by hiding it in his jacket and took photos of the other passengers, capturing their fashion, facial expressions and actions. It's interesting to see the difference in how people dressed back then to what they do now yet still have the same facial expressions and still do the same things when in the same situations as the people in the images. I don't want to sound stalkerish or weird but I like the idea of capturing images of people without them knowing, it's interesting to capture a pure, sponteneous and un-posed image.

I did a project in college which developed into me secretly videoing the reactions of the public when they would walk past and notice a huge ball like figure in the middle of the path which I had cleverly placed and ever since ive always had an interest in doing this sort of thing so I would like to possibly explore this 'secret capturing' aspect of photography again within this city brief.

Initial research - Andreas Gursky

I came across this photographer by accident, I was looking at another artists work on google images and the site suggested I looked at the work of Andreas Gursky, me being so curious I did. I found it strange that the site suggested I looked at this work whilst looking at the other artists work because the two artists didn't seem to have anything in common. Andreas Gursky is a German photographer, known for his huge architectural images of which are often filt with masses of colour, pattern and structure. To achieve the large scale images he usually places his camera very far and high up from the subject, sometimes using cranes and helicopters. He once quoted:  “My preference for clear structures is the result of my desire—perhaps illusory—to keep track of things and maintain my grip on the world.”

When seeing these photos for the first time they immediately caught my full attention, I was struck by the tiny specs of vibrant colour which come together to form a massive 'painting like' effect. The photos are quite ambiguous, unique and quite special. These are points of views which we don't see, we can't see, so they are different to us and thats what people like; things we haven't seen before. I wouldn't be able to create images which are as compact, structured and as far out as these ones because of lack of resources but the colour and pattern have given me enough inspiration to feel confident about achieving some images as beautiful as these if I was to follow this route.

Initial research - Elliot Erwitt

Elliot Erwin is of a Russian origin but most of his work is based in Paris, France. He's known for his black and white images of absurd situations occuring in everyday life.
''To me, photography is an art of observation, it's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.'' - Elliot Erwin

Initial research - Sergey Larenkov

Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov photoshops old World War II photos into a photo of the same area but one of the present day. I like the idea of merging old and new because it shows us how different times are now. These photos are slightly haunting because you see smiling, happy present day people walking along side of the straight faced troops of World War II. These photos really do make you think about what life would have been like then compared to what we have now.

Initial research - Richard Wentworth

Richard Wentworth takes photos of 'out of place' objects that he sees along his journeys through the city. I have a very similar appraoch to Wentworth, I like looking for unusual happenings in ordinary places, I think they make for really interesting subject matters.