Monochrome Images: Dean Barwell's Blog

I use a rather lovely Canon EOS1n with an even more lovely 24-105 red ring lens. The lens is a delight and for the sort of work I do it has made all others I own redundant. I remember only too well lugging a 70-210 around India for weeks and not bloody using it as the smaller never left the camera ; well I won’t be doing that again. The EOS1n is a serious tool and although 20 years old utterly reliable and tough as old boots.

Here’s the thing though. The 1n has so much that I never use. It is awash with exposure modes, focus modes and handling modes. It has a fist full of custom functions. I have set one custom function as I felt guilty not using any, but in truth I still don’t use it. That isn’t to say that it is a pointless camera or that it is a bad camera, it is one of photography’s great cameras but do I (we) really need so much bobbins on board? Of course compared to it’s modern digital counterpart it is a miracle of  understated engineering.

Henry Ford when alerted to a part problem by a member of staff is reputed to have said “Simplify it and make it cheaper”

So that got me thinking. I started out in photography with the mighty Pentax K1000 with a 50mm f2 lens that was, and is, a true great. I recall adding a 135mm lens for portraits but pretty much the 50mm was all I had or wanted. I am now many years later settled into a specific style that I love and I am seriously considering buying a classic manual camera and returning to the simple joy of joyous simplicity. The other wonder of old skool is the feel of a beautifully made solid metal bit of kit that is engineered to within an inch of its life and yet still a quarter of the weight of my EOS1n. Oh modern digital cameras are pretty much faultless and produce gorgeous images but there ain’t a lot of metal in there. Like the custom car boys say, steel is real. They also say glass is class so horses for courses.

Now then these days I’m a Canon man, a man with a Canon if you will. Going classic and sticking with Canon means only one camera really the AE1 program. Canon’s masterpiece. You can set an AE1P to A on the lens and P on the body, load and shoot. It will expose 36 negs perfectly, and I do mean perfectly, while most modern cameras are pissing you off because they don’t like the focus point. Other canons from this era (late 70s-early 80s) were if I’m being honest a bit awkward, but the AE1P had just the right amount of usable features and utter ease of use to make it a classic. They sold a kazillion. I had one but only much later as I couldn’t afford it when it came out.

The Pentax K1000 is still a superstar (obviously I think the early metal ones are the best) but I confess I do want just a couple of user features these days. This baby you load a film, centre the light meter needle and shoot, er that’s pretty much the instruction manual covered. Camera manuals today makes a print edition of The Oxford Dictionary look like light reading.

And so that leaves the king of 70′s-80s cameras, Nikon. Pro’s didn’t touch Canon’s until the EOS system was introduced at which point they came across in their droves.

I really fancy a Nikon FE with a a truly exceptional 50mm f1.2, f1.4 or f1.8 lens. Even better if I can source one for a nice price the sweet little f2.5 35mm.

The thing is if you’re a Canon man then hankering after a Nikon is the photography equivalent of checking out your wifes sister.

So will my EOS1n who I have no intention of dumping find out I have been ogling a cheeky little Nikon. Well she can take solace in the fact that the Nikon is at least an older model.

“The illiterate of the future will be the man who does not understand photography” Laszlo Moholy Nagy.

Laszlo was a painter and photographer and very influential in the Bauhaus.

I posted the statement  above on Twitter and said I would follow up with a blog. So here it is.

Looking at those words now, 85 years after Laszlo said them they come across like a prophecy. Is there anyone who isn’t snapping away with a smartphone and adding pics left right and center to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter not to mention how many must be sent one to one in texts, emails etc. Photography is almost a sign language medium for the masses in the modern world.

Add to that the cameras that constantly capture us as we shop, drive and fly and it really is quite reasonable to say Laszlo hit that nail squarely on the head with a steam hammer.

This fuels the continuing debate is photography an art form? Laszlo himself was a firm believer in mixing technology and industry into the arts and there is no denying that photography is part science/technology and part creative process. So if anyone can make a photograph are we not all artists? Well in a word, no.

Photography can and should be viewed in the same way as drawing. In times past artists would work in war zones capturing battle scenes for the papers of the day in the way that photographers do now. There are artists now who work making drawings of court proceedings where cameras are not allowed. I doubt many see these as art as they are matter of fact working images purely there to serve a purpose. Yet we can look at the work of painters and artists who create works of art such as classic oils and watercolours and immediately see them within that context, and as most of us can’t draw or paint ourselves we accept them as art. It is important to remember that virtually all will be interpretations and not accurate renditions of the scenes. In The Times Atlas of London there is a lovely drawing of the river Fleet joining the Thames from around the 18th century; all people out boating and gorgeous riverfront houses. In reality the river was more like an open sewer back then.

It is very easy to think well it’s just a photo, I could take that couldn’t I. It really isn’t that easy to come up with a great image!

I work purely within the art arena. I create images with the specific intent to frame them, hang them on a wall and view them as art. The photos I sell are not sold to newly weds, newspapers or advertising companies, they are sold to people who want art on their walls, Images they like to look at, images that provoke an emotion, conversation or thought process. They are art.

I have a lot of art in my own home. Landscapes in oil, pencil drawings, spraycan street art and my own black and white photos which sit very well among these other mediums.

Yes we can all take a photo, but it is the ability to create an image that transcends the real, asks questions of the viewer, distorts reality or is so starkly honest almost brutal that makes it art, and we cannot all do that.

Of course we all understand photography and we can all snap away in the same way that we can all knock out a stick man drawing, neither makes us artists.

I think the illiterate of the future will be the man who cannot distinguish between the art photography and the millions of Flickr pics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Moholy-Nagy

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/the+times+atlas+of+london/8936723/

Been a while since I have had time to sit and write a blog but the miserable sea of paperwork that has tied me up over the last 5 months is no more. So I’m now looking forward to much more regular input on here discussing something I actually do have a passion for. Film photography.

Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian scholar and philosopher who is attributed with having said “The medium is the message”

I like this idea a lot. It suggests to me that perhaps in a modern digital, quick fix, one hit wonder, instant gratification world we are so obsessed with the content of media we miss entirely the process. The talent, the knowledge and learning and the pure skill and imagination of the writer, the artist, the musician and of course the photographer.

The digital camera has essentially taken the medium of photography, the need to learn and think about your work and turned it into a rapid-fire shoot until you get your image, get out of jail free card.

The digital camera has done for photography what the machine gun did for target shooting. Quite frankly if you can’t get your shot with so much ammo in your memory card and an instant display of the target, well, there’s a reason that constantly checking the screen on a camera is called chimping!

Am I being harsh? Well think about this. How many images do you delete directly from your camera? Does the ability to make limitless images with virtually no cost to yourself make you a more considered and careful photographer? Does the fact that you and countless others have the ability to make an infinite amount of perfect digital copies of your images devalue your work?

I hold every roll of film up to the light and consider every shot, good and bad, and then keep them all. It doesn’t happen often but I have returned to an image I thought unworthy and pulled a rabbit out of the hat when reconsidering print worthiness.

It makes me laugh that only eighteen months after going live Instagram sold for billions. This app basically took digital images and gave them the attributes of film images.

I am glad that I have kept the skill of photography alive in my house and still fully connect at every level with the medium. The medium is the message and it is the medium and the learning behind it that give value to what I do. Extend that into the tactile and wonderful darkroom with its warm light and unmistakeable scent and I can only look at digital cameras and photoshop as Auto-Tune for photographers.

In the April 2012 edition of the mighty National Geographic Magazine there is a small article titled Image Obsessed. According to consumer research digital photos taken by Americans have risen from 177 per person in 2006 to 255 in 2011; by 2015 it will have reached 322. I suspect a similar rising pattern can be attributed to British snappers. Ed Lee, photo services director at the market research firm says “not having to consider the cost of developing and printing has allowed people to be more creative” He also says “culling and keeping track of all those digital files takes time “Er, I don’t think so Ed.
The article also points out that 37% of photos were taken on smart phones and this could rise to near 50% by 2015.
I have a smart phone and occasionally snap something on it but to call these images creative would be stretching it a bit to say the least.
I ride to work along the seafront and most days there are two or three people snapping the sunrise over the pier. These people are dog walking or have popped out of a hotel for a smoke and by default have seen the sunrise and thought, ooh I’ll take a snap on my phone.
My colleague at work does this and then sticks the image up as a screen saver on the computer we share. The image changes every other week and the old one is just lost.

I took a snap with my phone of a lovely little street bike while out and about the other day. I posted it on Twitter as some of my mates like motorbikes too and that’s the end of it. It is now deleted and forgotten, and I can assure you completely uncreative and unremarkable. If I was being creative I would have hunted down the owner and asked him to bring the bike round the corner to the huge wall of graffiti, used that as a backdrop and set up my Canon and tripod for a series of great images.

You see Ed, it is highly unlikely that more than a couple of percent of those 80 billion total images are culled filed or creative.
The truth is there is just an obsession with sharing every nano second of our existences on social networking sites or completely removing the need for conversation from life. We are not being creative, we are addicted to crappy little devices that have completely stifled our creativity and willingness to learn or improve. Why get better when you can just wait until iphone 28 comes along.

How many gigs have you been to since the smart phone became obligatory where you can barely see the band for the sea of arms holding iphones aloft. The results will be grainy crap shots where the only way to identify the band will be to read the accompanying text under the picture when it appears on Facebook. creativity doesn’t come into it and I doubt that Tod Owyoung, Charli Homo and Paige Parsons are too worried about the threat from these i-talents.                                                                                                                                           I will happily talk all day on the great gigs I have attended, effervescing on the sound, the crowd, the way Dave Grohl threatened to play drums again and of course telling stories and bigging it up a bit, but I have no accompanying images to sell my point. Now it’s just “here look. me at The Maccabees last night” “Oh yeah, nice” Conversation ends.

I have a friend who once posted 87 shots of Sunday on Facebook.

A friend told me a great story of a get together with mates for a good old fashioned beer and catch up. One mentioned a picture or app he had on his Facebook page and the others all immediately got there phones out, logged on and cooed over what ever it was and then they all liked it. I mean they hit the like button on FB!?!? They were all there, in the same room and rather than chat they social networked.

All those phone photos will be deleted for the next great shot or just die with the phone when it is upgraded and recycled to the African market. Why? because they are not creative or special, they are just throw away snaps from a file containing 87 shots of Sunday.

http://www.toddowyoung.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paigekparsons/3595950524/sizes/o/in/photostream/

http://charliehomo.com/gallery.php?gallery=live&start=1

I recently gave a talk on photography and as part of the presentation I used some images from album covers.

I was intrigued by the idea that a photograph can start out with a specific intended purpose and then cross over into other arenas.

A vast amount of photography has been taken for the purpose of news reportage and used specifically for that purpose….until those nasty rock and rollers got their paws on them. Here’s an image that most will recognise.

This image was circulated around the world and brought about the eventual downfall of the then Vietnamese government. Plenty of info on that on the net so I’ll stick with the photo theme. The image was of course a news image and the photographer, Malcolm Browne was working for Associated Press at the time. The image has been used again and again for many purposes but for millions of rock fans it is synonymous with the the first album by Rage Against The Machine. The bands name and this shot were all that the album cover consisted of and together made a pretty firm statement. This was when the image moved in to popular culture. It was now part of the music scene, albeit promoting a band with a firm political agenda, and as such I would hazard a guess that it alerted  whole new audience to how that image came about.

Another Image that alerted the world to news that needed no words was Hands by Michael Wells.

The Dead Kennedys put this image on the cover of their second album Plastic Surgery Disasters. Another political band who used this image, and the obvious satire of the title, to make their own point about American society. Again a news image moves into the world of popular culture and as such opens new minds as to it’s original purpose. Interestingly for me as a monochrome photographer and a huge fan of this band they changed the image to B&W for their album cover.

I have no doubt that some noisy little upstarts, or even jingly jangly folk musicians (see the Michelle Shocked cover shot for Short Sharp Shocked below) will pull that now famous shot of the woman being beaten by Police in Egypt on an album over. A news image that many artists (surely the hardcore rappers will love this one) will make part of popular culture.

Of course what works one way works the other too. Images shot for popular culture, usually music or music journalism, have become known to millions when they move into the national/international news. The Freewheelin Bob Dylan cover showing him huddled against the cold in NYC has been reproduced almost every time his name appears in any newspaper as has Marvin Gaye’s picture from the cover of What’s Going On. and these images have pretty much become news themselves because of this.

As an aside if there was one portrait I could have taken then that shot of Marvin in the rain on the cover of What’s Going On is it.

The cover shots for London Calling by the clash and Born To Run by Springsteen were taken purely to promote those acts. They both went on to become award winners and as a consequence appeared in the mainstream press and magazines with a readership who may never have seen them. I wonder how many bought music by these artists after seeing these images away from the album cover. In particular the recent death of Clarence Clemons a long time member of Springsteens band and the only other person to appear on the cover of Born To Run saw that image reproduced world wide in the news press. I can’t believe that a few copies of Born To Run didn’t shift on the back of that.

Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to get invited to give a talk on photography to my local Women’s Institute group. 30 years ago I would have given my viewfinder eye to have a room full of women actually interested in anything I had to say, but enough of my schoolboy fantasy world and more about the talk.
I am much more used to taking and printing photos than talking about them so I naturally prepared carefully to ensure a smooth 45minute presentation. Oh OK I just grabbed a load of my work, a few great photo books and some of my favourite album covers and worked out a beginning and an end and ad libbed the middle bit. A few mates were taking bets I wouldn’t be able to talk that long without swearing. I must confess I do like a little bit of profanity but wound my neck in for the ladies.
Started out with a quick how I got in to photography and then with the help of my beautiful assistants (my very lovely supportive partner Kim and my very lovely fellow photographer and friend Tony Greco) Talked through a few of my own fave shots. I sort of grouped them into my idea of portraits, abstracts and the lonely desolate shots that I really like taking. I am very motivated by the picture telling a story or asking questions of the viewer and worked this into the presentation. Finished up with my stuff with a little about presentation which is also vital as far as I’m concerned.
I then used album cover shots from Dead kennedys, The Clash, Bruce Springsteen and rage Against The Machine. I had an idea of how the still image can move from Reportage into the world of popular culture and vice versa and used the covers to try to sell my point. I don’t think the ladies had heard of the Dead Kennedys or RATM and as I was talking about the cover shots a folk band in the next room were jangling their mandolins which was somewhat ironic. I pointed out that if you put a picture of a burning monk on your album cover you probably don’t have that sort of music on your record.
Wound up by tying these images into the books I’d brought along which were reportage and art based. I rather daringly included a book of erotic/glamour work in which all the girls had photographed themselves, an interesting take on a genre usually shot by and aimed at men.

Rather pleasingly the ladies liked my work with the old mans feet and the dead fish  proving popular. Just as pleasing was the interest in the books I’d brought and a clear indication of the enduring popularity of the still image. All in all a great experience and one I’d love to repeat. Maybe a little more prep next time, but then again the ad lib adds a little fun to what could otherwise be quite clinical. 30 years to have the ladies take notice of me but well worth the wait.

I will blog seperately on a couple of the subjects I talked about as I would be interested in comments on my ideas. Watch this space.

http://uk.phaidon.com/store/photography/decade-9780714857688/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/photography/all/45716/facts.uwe_ommer_do_it_yourself.htm

I have been a hifi buff since my teen years and to this day still get very excited about wire and boxes that make music in the home something very special. The dedicated audio press keep me informed on the latest trends even though my system is now very rarely changed. Much like photography I have found what works perfectly for me within the big world of hifi but still like to read the mags and dream of owning a mad money record spinner. Now, record players still get us audio freaks all-a-flutter and I can’t tell you how much it pleases me with my hundreds of vinyl albums that I never traded for CD’s that vinyl is a growth market both for software and hardware. Hardly surprising then, that I am still a dedicated film user and Black and White to boot. When hifi reviewers effervesce over some new wonder player they regularly talk about it’s ability to make sense of the music. Timing and the space between the notes, the inky black backgrounds and the pauses are what they bang on about; it’s the spaces and moments of silence between a piano hammer hitting a string and the next chord. If you have ever heard a system that times like this you fully understand this claim that it is the non notes, the quiet moments that make music special. What’s not there makes what is so much better. We are used to crappy digital radios and (d)i(re)pods mashing our music into a mess. We hear this every day and accept it as the norm so when confronted with a serious hifi even non audio sorts are impressed.

OK here’s the photography link.

Black and White has the same effect on the viewer as those quiet moments have on the listener. We are so used to seeing in colour both in real life and the kazillions of pics uploaded to flikr, facebook etc that when confronted with a monochrome image we are taken aback. The lack of colour makes us see things we see all the time like we haven’t before, in the same way that a great timing hifi can make us hear songs we know with new ears. The missing colours are the photography equivalent of the spaces between the notes. You still need a great musician of course, a poor photo is poor whether B&W or colour and no wonder hifi can make Celine Dion sound good. But, just like a great musician knows where the pauses need to be to make chords we all know special, a great photographer knows how to make old French letter boxes or a pile of discarded pallets look great by removing the colours.

No need to go into a political rant here concerning the recent Riots (mainly) in London and other UK cities as the tabloids and broadsheets, and of course facebook etc, have covered all bases more than adequately. What I do want to say though is my full respect goes out to every one of the photographers, film camera operators and front of lens journalists who showed more bravery than I may have had I been in the thick of it. It’s easy to forget that in a very visual society where everyone is Flickr-ing that there are still some extremely dedicated professionals leaping into the thick of it to bring us some amazing images. I know this happens all the time all over the world but this really hit home as the recent events were so close to home. I was actually staying in Highbury when it all kicked off up the road in Tottenham. Some of these guys and girls were attacked for trying to record the events, and this is a stark difference to the safety of capturing art images of French post boxes and old carparks that I consider hardcore camera work. It all matters and it is all photography but I for one am glad that these photographers prove that there is still a need for professionals be it in art, reportage, portraiture, landscape etc. Flooding Flickr and facebook with millions of images is all well and good but these people really raise the bar and show great strength of character in doing so. My gratitude goes to all those that brought us closer to these events and all those other moments we would never be a part of without them.

On Wednesday I was interviewed by Stephen Cotterell, a London based photographer for a podcast he puts out on his website and via itunes. I hadn’t met Steve before but it was obvious we would hit it off as he came into my living room and exclaimed “I’m in love with your record player”
The podcast is all about photography but we spent a long time chatting about everything from winter motorcycling gloves to The Dead Kennedys and Marilyn Manson.
It’s quite a weird experience being interviewed and recorded and at first you feel like you should check yourself or reel in your answers a bit. This feeling soon evaporates which is good because I would hate to give a false impression of myself and feel it is much more honest to tell it like it is. Still a tiny insight into how the famous and infamous must live every day though and I’m sure they always reel in their answers.
Stephen always starts each podcast with the question “who is (interviewees name)? Funnily enough this is the hardest question to answer as how often do we really look at ourselves like that, and when we do it’s generally not with a mike stuffed in our faces.
Great experience and really glad I did it. It might even make me look at my photography in a new light. Should anyone be interested in listening to me banging on about photography in general and how I got involved with taking pictures in particular can find the podcast on itunes. Just search for Photography 121 Stephen Cotterell in the podcast section of said apple store. It is also on Stephens webpage http://www.cotterell.net/_/Podcast/Podcast.html with a portrait for those who can stomach seeing as well as hearing me. I’m number thirteen on the list.  I have been thinking about maybe doing some photography based courses and although I have no problem talking to groups the experience of being recorded will considerably help me structure them.
I’ll talk more about that idea in my next blog but if you have any opinion or suggestion on how you would like a learning/discovering experience photography wise I’m all ears.

Well the ten prints for the open house show in Worthing became thirteen. With the aid of great friends, my lovely lady and just a little profanity we got them grouped on the wall. Even if I say so myself (and I do) they look superb. Some in thick black wood frames others in white or brushed alu make for a fantastic display. Had loads of positive feedback from many visitors and made a sale so a great start. Still got two more weeks of display time so if you haven’t already popped in then I’m in Mooeys Mocha Shop opposite Worthing town hall. I’m the one gibbering in the corner. I can’t resist the excellent coffee and drink enough to have me shaking like a power lifter doing a clean and jerk. Tripod at the ready as hand holding a camera really isn’t an option while this show is on.