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.

An interesting find

On our way to Manchester centre, we walked past a massive cathedral so me and a couple of other students ventured inside while the rest of the class made their way along further along the journey to the centre. I wasn't looking for anything special so accidently came across a necklace lying on a table amongst leaflets. Even though the necklace had a religious symbol pendant on it, it still looked out of place. It made me think ''has this been left by accident?'', ''whos is this?'' and ''why is it here?''. I was genuinely interested in what it was doing there.

I didn't adjust the positionning of the necklace at all, it was already in this perfect position which made it even more interesting for me to find!

Psychogeography - My approach

I started off taking photos of little things that would usually go a miss and suddenly found repetition in what I was capturing. My plan wasn't to follow any sort of plan or structure, I set out to just photograph anything. The same shape kept appearing in my work. Once I realised that I had been following a subconscious pattern I then began to deliberately pin point similar shapes.

As we got deeper into the city centre I lost intrest in following the shape pattern which I didn't intend on creating in the first place. I found some strange objects which you wouldn't expect to see on the floor in the city, they reminded me slightly of the work of Richard Wentworth. 

Someones pants in the middle of an almost empty car park.





I don't even know what this used to be a tin of.

Once again when getting more to the centre, objects and shapes became more of a rarity. I started to spot scnenes of intrest but still did find some unusual things.

I really enjoyed wondering around taking photots of anything, not having a plan to begin with but some how seemed to find one, stick with it for a little while but then move on and see what other things I could explore. I found that psychogeography gives you a very spontaneous approach to photography and it allows you to explore places which you wouldn't normally some across.