Martin Hannett - The Redemption

These are some shots from a night in Manchester dedicated to Marin Hannett. All the shots I've used from the set are in black and white, because the lighting isn't appealing in colour, as can be seen in the contact sheets. I used a 70-300mm f5.6 lens, an 18-55mm f5.6 lens and a 50mm f1.8 lens for the night, but mainly used the 70-300mm to allow me to work from further away, having more room to shoot. 

I like the range of photographs I've produced, the small exhibition of Martin's equipment allowed me to make more than just band photos, broadening the range of photographs.

This is one of my favourite photographs from the set, mainly because there's no detail in the people apart from a small amount of light on the top of their heads. You can only just tell that they are heads, which I think is a positive point to the photograph.

I did a lot of close up shots like this, mainly because using a longer lens allowed me to get much closer in to produce shots like this. I really like the close up shots, because they focus much more on the artist than anything else, it's a way of working I'll definitely use again, but in a broader range of work.

This is one of my favourite shots from the set, I love that the artist is oblivious to the photograph being taken, making it seem a lot more natural. Even though there is a microphone stand in front of his face, the large aperture makes the stand out of focus, and harder to see. I also like that the lighting is really soft on his face, because he is at the back of the stage.

If I was to reshoot this, I'd use a faster shutter speed. The drummer's hand is blurred because my camera isn't set fast enough to capture the hand still. It's something that's a problem in live music work, because the artists are constantly moving, but using faster shutter speeds means using higher ISOs, making the photographs grainy.

I really like the photographs of Spider Mike King, mainly because of the overhead lighting. His hat blocks out a lot of the light, creating large shadows on his face, making him seem more mysterious.

This one is the best example of the shadows, the artist is pretty much a silhouette because of the shadow from his hat. I think the photograph has been shot at a really good time, just as his face is almost completely blacked out.

A problem I had with using such a long lens was taking blurry or out of focus photographs, because the lens is so big, it's harder to keep steady, especially when shooting from long distance. Although I think I've produced some good work from the set, I will stick to using shorter lenses when possible to assure that more of the photographs are in focus. 

Body Photographs

These are some more photographs taken of people's bodies in the studio. I think some of these have turned out better, mainly because the model was a lot more comfortable being photographed. As well as that, the model being topless meant that I didn't have to worry about getting clothes in the frame.

This first photograph is my favourite from the shoot, the skin of the model look really smooth because of the soft box lighting, it also really highlights the tiny beads of sweat on the skin, which really draw your eye to the specific spots.

I like that you can't see all of the model's face in any of the photographs, especially these ones. It is something I'd like to do more often, because the main part of the photograph isn't the face, so it isn't needed in the frame. Saying that, I didn't want to cut the head out of the frame completely, so showing just the lips seemed appropriate.

Although more of the face is in this one, you can barely see any of it, both because of the angle the photograph is shot at and the model's hair in her face.

The rest of the shots from the set are below. Most of them I didn't use because of the composition. 

A Beautiful Body

I've been looking at photographers and artists who work with bodies and people, and this is one of the one I came across
http://www.abeautifulbodyproject.com
It's a photography project based around the body, and different issues with it.
This is one of my favourite pieces from it, titled 'It's Beautiful To Cry' http://www.abeautifulbodyproject.com/it_s_beautiful_to_cry_daughter_mother

It's based around the woman above, and her mother being diagnosed with breast cancer. She gives a short explanation on her feelings about it all, and how crying can be beautiful, which I thought was a really optimistic way to look at it. Seeing crying as a strength instead of a weakness wasn't something I'd come across before, so reading this woman's opinions was really interesting.
This lead me to think about photographing people showing a range of emotions, perhaps brought on by stories and objects from close ones. Photographing natural emotions, without trying to make the models look good like the photograph above would be a great series.

Bodies

I decided to shoot some more photographs of collar bones, but changing my lights slightly, the front light was lowered in power and I added a back light to give a subtle strip of light on the side of the model. I really like the darker lighting, it captures so much more detail in the skin, such as freckles and imperfections which are lost with the over exposed lighting.

I really like the ones with a shallow depth of field, it draws focus to more specific areas like the collar bones.

This is one of my favourite photographs from the shoot. I really like the brightness of the light on the right compared to the smoothness on the left. It really highlights the shape of the models body. Although, if I was to reshoot these, I would try avoiding getting the models clothes in the shot, this will be something I'll try to do in future.

These are the rest of the photographs I shot, which I didn't use. Most of them are quite similar, with small adjustments between them, so using them all would of been pointless.