Part four: People interacting with places

Part four is divided in several projects as you can see below.

• Busy place, quiet place
• People unrecognizable
• A matter of balance
• Special processing

In part three where primarily the places were of interest and people secondary this part is about the interactions between people and place and not to forget how people can change the picture and the feeling it conveys.

1.

First is the busy and quiet place, in other words many and few people in the frame.

To find quiet places in Norrbotten is very simple and I took a few different pictures from different places and different seasons.

What I thought was important to take into consideration was the placement in the frame but even the size and the colour in relation to the surroundings. As written in the course material there has to be a sufficient contrast to give the beholder chance to see the figure in the frame.

Lone figure on the way to the top. Winter picture with my mother taking a walk. Positioned in the rule of thirds. the road leading the eye to the person and where she is going.

Landscape in Norway with lonely photographer. The car, the shed and the person creatng a triangle, yellow balancing the red of the shed despite him being smaller than the shed.Very close to the edge but both stance and as everyone can see what the person is doing is giving a tension and interest to the picture.

Lonely fisherman in norway checking the nets. Beinf close to the edge and sitting in a red boat in contrast to the blue surroundings, almost monochrome. Balancing it up I think quite well. I maybe should have dodged him a little to balance even better?

Main hall of the Ice Hotel. In the distance a single person, very small but contrasting against the white background and the pillars leading the view towards him. Symmetry was here one main goal.

Child running to the playground and with the pink shirt having complementary colours to the hedge. Positioned according to the rule of thirds. Maybe a little to close in order to give the impression of an empty place with a single person in it.

Here now the “busy” pictures. That is quite difficult upp here if not having summer as most people go into some kind of social hibernation during the winter. There fore a mixture of pictures of 2012 and 2013.

I have tried several approaches to have the camera in the crowd, a little lower that one get the impressions being part of it but I could not really make a small crowd look big, maybe a little bigger but not that much.

North cape with midsummer sun in the background giving both a nice backklit silhouettepictreu and with the people around it a feeling for the amount of people being there despite being eleven o’clock at night.

Mall as known from the third assignment.

Briefing at a trainingsday of Motocross. The load of drivers making a nice crowd which with the colours give an even more mixed picture and looks “biger, more crowded” than it is.

First of two pictures of this girl on a rocker with people in the background listening to music and looking at the group of people dancing traditional dances. Main focus id on the girl but the crowd gives some context, and the girl in this picture is also listening to the music which is a nice touch. The other girl is enjoying the ride conveying the feeling of the moment and event

Traditional dancing with people sitting and listening.

2.

People unrecognizable

I really enjoyed that part of the exercises as the was no stop for fantasy but I even saw that I had some “standard” angles and viewpoints but that there were several other ways of making people unrecognizable.

In the course material were several approaches mentioned. All of them aiming at reducing the visual attention that the face normally gets.

• Small and many
• Facing away
• In silhouette
• Partly obscured
• Motion blur

I tried to get those points and vary them a little.

Just showing the shadows.

Not really unrecognizable but the distortion of the window makes it not so easy to recognize the person. In combination with him maybe facing slightly away would have been more effective.

Helmets on – unrecognizable

Through a car window with raindrops on it focus on them giving a slightly blurred version of the persons face. In that case my mother who said that she never had a nicer portrait taken of her. And that was the truth she said!

Small figure amongst reindeer. Her having a red jacket does not help but when only looking at the people in the background the eyes are not particularly drawn to them as they are a small details in the whole picture.

shadow again, this time a “selfportrait”

Helmet, only small figure and attention mostly on the horse and leg-action. background unfortunately crowded but because of the light there were not really alternatives.

People amongst cars, a little like the reindeer shot but even less attention on the people due to the colour of their clothing

Partly obscured by a camera.
Photographers nightmare…being photographed.

Neil, my mentor, from behind with a camera which just shows what the person is doing but not whom. Does not show much of the place though but there are other

Silhouette

 

3.

A matter of balance

A difficult one I thought as one has several alternatives such as size of the figure, contrast and colour-contrast but very difficult to plan.

Here are my attempts at that. The pictures in the coursematerial showed two pictures where the one balanced to the place is almost monochrome with clear rhythm of lights on the wall and one backlighting the person in the picture going out of the frame, facing away, while the other one gts light on him, black dress in front of a lighter background, light on hmi and doing something interesting or at least strange when looking at the location and with that creating the question what he is doing there, and more.

Original picture with a yellow jacket contrasting both the red and green

Blue jacket (Photoshop) and by having a darker colour not pulling the eyes towards it.

First of two pictures of this girl on a rocker with people in the background listening to music and looking at the group of people dancing traditional dances. Main focus id on the girl but the crowd gives some context, and the girl in this picture is also listening to the music which is a nice touch. The other girl is enjoying the ride conveying the feeling of the moment and event

looking into the frame and almost into the camera creates more interest than the other girl

Green photographer, almost camouflage against the green background.

Landscape in Norway with lonely photographer. The car, the shed and the person creating a triangle, yellow balancing the red of the shed despite him being smaller than the shed.Very close to the edge but both stance and as everyone can see what the person is doing is giving a tension and interest to the picture.

 

4.

Special processing

Again a very interesting exercise even thinking about the fourth part of the DPP course where discussion was around the ethics of manipulation.
There was e.g. the picture of my father sitting on a bench and by adjusting colour, contrast and with help of dodge and burn get more focus on him.

Normal procedures that can be used are vignettes, dodging/burning, lighteing up the figure and giving more contrast to the background. Cropping to give less or more space in the frame. Including or excluding things that might draw attention from the person, e.g. lightsources, colourful things, and so on.

Everything light and at least to my eyes first at the second glance the photographer catches the eye.

Darker with just distinct light sources and the photographer and mirror image on the water being dodged and by that getting a bigger place in the frame.

 

Motocross, the way to photograph people?

As I have begun with the next part of the People and place course, this time about photograrphing people without being able to identify them one of the things I did was combine two things.

The course and something I wanted to do a long time….action-photography. The helmets make a wonderful way of not being able to recognize them! 🙂

We live close to a motocross-track and every weekend during the summer months we get bothered with the noise. So why not join them if you cannot beat them?

Here some pictures I took today.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed to take them!

The users point of view

This exercise is about showing the position of a person being in that space, in other words showing how it looks when you are there. something like a “point-of-view” position.

Almost when taking pictures of children or animals the camera should be at eye level so that the beholder can relate to the subject, may it a room or an animal.

Down here are again pictures taken from the trip looking for conference facilities. This time I chose a longhouse, basically just two wall leaning against each other, giving a triangular cross-section. The pictures show first the view after having entered the building, looking towards the stove which might be considered the middle of the house. Second pictures shows a closer look at it and then looking back where one came from and with that giving an impression on how it looks inside the houses.
As I described earlier were the eye level chosen slightly under “normal” eye level to show that the height is not as bid as in a normal house, the stove of course while kneeling down.

 

The last two pictures show different situations and spaces. The first sitting at the open fire in one og the “tipi-houses” showing how it looks while drinking coffee. The last one is shot while sitting in a more conventional building, almost like a picnic-place, looking out. An alternative might have been to sit on one of the tables that you see in the picture and looking out, being the eye of the beholder, but I decided against that as our visual field is so much wider than I can capture with a camera and with that much of the feeling of the place had gone lost.

First building to give the general impression

Longhouse

Stove

While sitting at the stove looking back

Inside a “tent”-building

Space and function, part three of the P&P course

So after some time without direct contact with my blog I continue with the third part of the people and place course.

this time it is about “Space and function”.

I have interpreted as to learn how to look at spaces and try to convey the space and the function via pictures so that one, not knowing the space, can see or guess what the space is used for.

My thoughts about that are that you have to have an open eye, curious and not taking things for granted. A little like cognitive behavioural therapy means that you cannot assume things but need to ask how they are and not how they appear to be. Even Kierkegaard should be taken into consideration as you cannot assume that the beholder knows the same things as you and by that you have take him or her from the level they are on and lead them on. Otherwise you are just a show off.

Om jag vill föra en människa mot ett bestämt mål måste jag först finna honom där han är och börja just där. Den som inte kan det lurar sig själv när hon tror att hon kan hjälpa andra. För att hjälpa någon måste jag visserligen förstå mer än vad han gör, men först och främst förstå det han förstår. Om jag inte kan det, så hjälper det inte att jag kan och vet mycket mer. Vill jag ändå visa hur mycket jag kan, så beror det på att jag är fåfäng och högmodig och egentligen vill bli beundrad av den andre istället för att hjälpa honom.” – Sören Kirkegaard, Dansk Filosof 1813-1855

I guess that with most spaces it is obvious what their function is when looking at them. Either by the way they are build or by the things that are in those spaces.

Down here you have a few pictures I took while exploring possibilities of different conference centres. As you can see are the places quite exotic by western standard. It is a very simple “down to earth” place, without any electricity and just the basic accessories.

The first house has basically just two floors with beds on either one of them. I took first a picture of the whole house to give impression of the building ad size and then from the inside. I thought about taking a picture of the staircase but that did not really give any more valuable information. I wider lens would have been nice but I do not have one.

view from the outside

First floor

The second building is more or less build like a big tipi, in other words round and with a fireplace in the middle. Sitting facilities or beds on the side.

The last building is an old farmhouse and as half of it was not in use and not renovated I concentrated on the kitchen and dining area. I probably should have used more pictures to even show details of the room to give a better impression of how it looks and feels inside there but I wanted to minimize it.

A public space

The next step in this part of the course is to take photos in a public space, examples were t.ex. a park or a beach….but as we have between minus 15 to minus 30 degrees Celsius the chances of getting a good opportunity to take pictures would have meant waiting to June or July.

I therefore decided again to to take a shoot from the summer and have some pictures of a very small wintermarket outside, just before Christmas

There is a tradition in this part of the world that almost all weekends before Christmas is a market where people sell things they have build. Traditionally mittens, smoked fish, pastry and more.

I took pictures with wide angle to get a feeling for the place and how the people mingle around but thereafter went closer to show interactions between buyers and sellers. taking one small series of a younger man talking to an older man about a smoking machine. I liked that because of the clothing of of one and the very typical facial expressions of the other person.

I also took some “portraits” of visitors or sellers to get a little the feeling for the place. Who of course can withstand a dog? So he also got in one picture.

The next series shows a small girl going to the playground, being excited, running to it and then playing with other children, climbing on the slide with help of a friend and under the watchful eyes of her father.
She was very open and did not care about the camera, so I guess that she has practice as a model for her parents.

An organised event

Next step in the “people unaware” section. This time we were asked to photograph an organised event where photographers were exspected and there were several things happening.

As always, this time of the year, almost all people are in hibernation, at least in social hibernation and there are almost no social or public events to take pictures of.

I thereafter decided to take pictures I had taken during a wedding as it fitted the description of the exercise exactly.

The first few pictures are taken during the dinner after the actual wedding. There they had a professional photograph and I did not want to interfere with his work. It was staged in a restaurant around a big table. First I wanted to catch the reception and show the bridal pair. After everybody sat down I wanted to get some pictures of the couple, more closeups of him and her and of course the speeches of the fathers and other emotional moments. There after a small girl playing bride and strutting around.

Of course here is just a part of the pictures chosen not to have too many. Click on them to get bigger versions of the whole picture.

The next day was a garden party and I was asked to take picture of the guests and the party itself, the location and what happens.

So in other words again reception, but as it was an open invitation it was both in the hall of the house and in the garden. I wanted to show some of the guests how they sit. children playing, the barbecue and the last present they got, which was a painting done by all the guests during the party.

Down here again a selection of pictures from that. Click on it to get bigger version and the whole picture.

Summa summarum: Which focal length to choose?

During my exercises I came to the conclusion that in the state of experience that I am in the standard lens is the most versatile and probably used in 80% of my pictures so far. For other purposes, like where you cannot interfere with the subject or it is too dangerous the telephoto lens is preferred.

I still am not a friend with the wide angle lens as I think it is very difficult to coordinate the frame with all the information that you get in it.

Probably is this just a feeling of not having used it enough.

Time will tell.

Good use of a wide angle lens….

Standard focal length

Finally there are the standard focal lengths, in other word around 50 mm on a full frame body.

It has a little both of the advantages of both worlds.

You can get a shallow depth of field but have to be closer than with a telephoto lens and but without the compression.

You can get lots of surroundings in the frame but sometimes not enough to get the whole story, the distortions that can be used with a wide angle lens cannot be used with a standard lens but on the other hand is the standard lens good in a way that it shows the world how it is. A little WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) in other words you can imagine that you have seen the situation with your own eyes.

The first four pictures are taken on a farm in Northern Scandinavia while I was following a photographer who did a reportage about them. I had my trusty 24-205 mm on the camera and that gave me a good mixture of standard and light telephoto pictures. The pictures shown the boy and his father  feeding the cows. It was nice to be able not to interrupt them but on the other hand being able to describe the situation. If I used a wide angle lens I probably would have gotten too much clutter in the frame.

Milkfarmer with helping hand

The next pictures are a collection of several occasions. As you might know is the orb standing on the North Cape and the standard lens gave just the right angle of view to get it and some people around it to give some extra information. Thereafter a portrait, so not unaware people but I think that it still shows that this focal length is the best for the job.

After that you have two pictures of a couple dancing, mother and doter are dancing to the tune of a band playing traditional songs of the region. As it was a festival very many were dressed in the traditional cloths that was worn to festivities. this lens again giving a good framing as a telephoto lens had not gotten the band in the background and a wide angle lens had gotten too much of the place. In this picture I think it is important to just have the dancing couple but the band to give some context.

The last pictures show that the lens can be used up close without getting too much distortions, the third and fourth picture showing that you get enough surroundings without having to interrupt.

Close and involved

The former exercise was about telephoto lenses and this is about the opposite…wide angle lenses.

Most people call it even a “documentary” lens as it has such a wide angle of view that it cannot really exclude the surroundings, if you don’t want to go very close, getting distortions as a negative effect.

The big advantage is that you have to get close in order to really get a focus on the subject of interest.

The big disadvantage is that you have to really be careful what you take into the picture and you can get really disturbing things like signs or other people that take focus of the subject of interest.

As I just recently bought a wide angle lens there were not so many opportunities to use it. I still feel uneasy with all the information that has to fit into the frame. Therefore it has been a second hand alternative when choosing lenses for me.

The pictures I have chosen are a mixture where I used the 17-40 mm lens apart from the interview picture, there it was a 24-105 mm lens at 24. Main reason I chose the wide angle lens was to get more of the surroundings in the frame.

 

The first two pictures show impressions from a lesson in horse riding and I wanted to capture the seemingly lack of structure when looking at the parking lot and then getting a rider and the instructor in the frame as well as some of the other members. Another possibility might have been to to shoot through the people and catch the pupil and instructor to get some framing.

The next few pictures show two horses with carts. Sitting on one of them, taking mostly pictures of the other equipage. The big advantage was that I got lots of the surroundings into the frame, but it was important that the background was not too cluttered.

last are some pictures that show our horse to give the picture of two carts driving. and a feeling of what you see as a coachman.

This picture was taken while following a friend while he was documenting those two people on a journey.

They sit inside of a tipi-style tent made of lumber. My intention was to show them with the open fire. as it was an interview situation I could not change my position to show even the man interviewing them.

 

Standing back

When looking at possibilities of taking pictures of strangers, or unaware people you have to decide what kind of focal length is the best one for the job.

This exercise is about medium to tele-lens.

I guess that this is the preferred lens for people that are not as confident, don´t want to interrupt or of course not want to get into trouble as e.g. coming too close to a motorcycle driver or rider.
An advantage is that you can isolate the object from a maybe messy background but even the fact that telelenses compress the picture gives some advantages. In the course material the possibility of maybe getting cars or people between you and the subject of interest but I think that that is just minor.

“Real” streetphotographers think that a tele is “not the real deal”, other lenses than wideangle is not worth going for. Of course having a tele can be compared to being a sniper while a wide angle lens is more like hand to hand combat.

 

Down here are some examples I took to show the use of telephoto lenses.

The first to isolate the man and get a clean background while getting an interesting foreground with the antlers of the reindeer.

This was used to vie compression show the huge amount of reindeer.

The next three are an example about how important it can be to stand away from the action in order not to interrupt the work and to scare the reindeer even more than they are.

This one gives again via compression the impression of a huge herd of reindeer with the man in the background being small and out of focus to put even more strength on the reindeer

The last two pictures show again people who are unaware and don’t want anybody standing in their way as they compete with their horses

 

In all the photos I used a short depth of field to isolate the subject more.