I decided to explore the theme of organised chaos because it has so many exciting opportunities for interpretation, ranging from transport, the city, nature to even a simple bookshelf. This oxymoron (contradictory terms in conjunction) of 'organised', which commonly refers to objects being arranged systematically, and 'chaos' as being in complete disorder and confusion, captured my imagination and I am looking forward to exploring this idea in greater detail.
Mood Board For Inspiration
My Three Chosen Strands of Organised Chaos
- TRANSPORT (Mike Kelley and Brian Harris)
- STRUCTURES (Anthony Turpaud, Nobuyuki Tagachi and Keegan Gibbs)
- PEOPLE (Pauline Miller, William Klein, Alan Scheine and Jordan Clark)
I feel that these three sub-sections have potential to perfectly depict the idea of organised chaos.
Exhibition Visit - JR: Chronicles
When visiting Brooklyn museum, I saw French-born photographer JR and his JR: Chronicles. Here he "collaborates with communities by taking individual portraits, reproducing them at a monumental scale, and wheat pasting them - sometimes illegally - in nearby public spaces". The centrepiece of the exhibition I visited contains over a thousand people with some of their personal stories being recorded and displayed in the form of audio for the public to listen to in addition. This artwork particularly caught my interest due to the large number of people depicted, particularly the overtheatrical and wacky characters, which powerfully convey the vibrancy of the city of New York and its animated residents.
Source: brooklynmuseum.org
Source: brooklynmuseum.org
Exhibition Visit: Jeffrey Gibson
Gibson is an artist descended from the Choctaw and Cherokee Native American people. His works such as 'Aurora' and 'When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks' "incorporate elements of Native American art and craft into his practice, creating a rich visual and conceptual dialogue between his work and the histories that inform it". I find this artwork utterly compelling due to its carefully chosen bright colours along with its disordered placement, representing my chosen theme of organised chaos. Not only that, but the shapes in the artwork on the left are very similar to regular letters, creating mystery and intrigue to the message behind Gibson's work.
First Strand: Transport
As an introduction to this strand of transport, I will visit the London Gateway Port located in Essex in order to make myself more familiar with this project and attempt to capture the colourful containers that have travelled on ships from all around the world and the highly automated machinery that processes them.
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Contact Sheet
Evaluation
I was pleased the way this shoot worked out. There must have recently been a shipping container arrival as automated machinery was in constant, almost hypnotic motion, moving the containers from point to point. Visiting during a weekday meant that the machinery was being used to great effect at a high capacity. Large numbers of containers constantly being moved from ship to shore and onto and off trucks using state-of-the-art robotic, automated stacking cranes indicated my theme of 'organised chaos' superbly. I chose to keep my images in colour as the different coloured containers illustrate the wide variety of containers used, emphasising the gigantic variety of goods that consumers demand. Luckily there was a raised bank where I could shoot the containers above the security fence. The long lens I used with a high number aperture ensured the machinery looked compressed. Moving along to another location by the riverside I was able to shoot a ship registered in Panama loaded up with containers ready to unload its cargo.
1st Development of Transport Strand
For my development of this strand of transport, I will fixate on one of the most revolutionary means of transport: planes. Thousands of flights simultaneously criss-crossing the globe 24 hours a day at very high speed creates the potential for absolute chaos. It is only due to strict global air safety regulations, the use of sophisticated technology and huge numbers of air traffic controllers and other personnel that planes do not collide with one another in the air or on the ground. This perfectly encapsulates the idea of organised chaos. As a result, I will be focussing on planes in my strand of transport for my overarching theme of organised chaos.
Below, using https://www.flightradar24.com, shows the number of planes active in any one moment in time. It illustrates the sheer volume of flights travelling around the world, all perfectly under control and being heavily monitored by professionals and technology.
Below, using https://www.flightradar24.com, shows the number of planes active in any one moment in time. It illustrates the sheer volume of flights travelling around the world, all perfectly under control and being heavily monitored by professionals and technology.
My chosen photographers' work that I will use to create my own interpretation is by Mike Kelley and Brian Harris.
Kelley is a photographer based in California who specializes in photographing architecture. He has a wide discography, working with National Geographic, WIRED and BBC, but his series 'Airportraits' simply originates from having an obsession with airplanes. With the presence of Photoshop, he captures different planes exiting a terminal and turning them into layers, to combine them onto one image.
Harris is a British-born photographer who worked in the heyday of Fleet Street newspaper production and was once the Chief Photographer at The Independent travelling around the world covering the biggest stories of the time. His photograph at Heathrow airport taken in 1988 was a combination of an original creative idea, patience at the location and rudimental post production techniques. He was helped by the darkroom manager at the newspaper in cutting out the dozens of individual plane shots, ensuring they were of the correct size and glueing/pasting them on to a large white card in the “V” shape composition. Once this was photographed, it was then processed and printed as a final image with all the planes over the initial shot of the runway take off zone. It was then used on the front page the following day as an eye catching picture for which the newspaper was becoming renowned.
Kelley is a photographer based in California who specializes in photographing architecture. He has a wide discography, working with National Geographic, WIRED and BBC, but his series 'Airportraits' simply originates from having an obsession with airplanes. With the presence of Photoshop, he captures different planes exiting a terminal and turning them into layers, to combine them onto one image.
Harris is a British-born photographer who worked in the heyday of Fleet Street newspaper production and was once the Chief Photographer at The Independent travelling around the world covering the biggest stories of the time. His photograph at Heathrow airport taken in 1988 was a combination of an original creative idea, patience at the location and rudimental post production techniques. He was helped by the darkroom manager at the newspaper in cutting out the dozens of individual plane shots, ensuring they were of the correct size and glueing/pasting them on to a large white card in the “V” shape composition. Once this was photographed, it was then processed and printed as a final image with all the planes over the initial shot of the runway take off zone. It was then used on the front page the following day as an eye catching picture for which the newspaper was becoming renowned.
I find Kelley's and Harris' images so impactful and bold due to their originality in depicting the organised chaos of air travel. As a result, I will visit Heathrow Airport and capture each flight taking off from one of the two runways over the course of an hour. As planes can travel over 200km/hour when taking off, I will use an app on my phone to track when planes are scheduled to leave and make sure I am alert by capturing multiple pictures of each plane as they leave the airport.
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Contact Sheet
I was not helped by the weather on the day I had chosen to go to the airport. It was dull, grey and raining, meaning that I could not achieve the bold colour of Kelly's airportraits. Instead of brightly coloured planes taking off in a blue sky, I chose to change the images to black and white, similar to Brian Harris's original work.
Process:
1. Using the pen tool, I roughly highlighted around each individual plane to get an outline.
2. Once completed, I right clicked on the selected plane and pressed 'make selection'.
3. Then, ensuring I was on the 'move' tool, dragged the plane into the chosen landscape in which I wanted to display all the planes.
4. To adjust the size or the rotation of the plane, I went to 'edit', 'transform' and then either 'scale' or 'rotate'.
5. I repeated this process roughly 35 times.
1. Using the pen tool, I roughly highlighted around each individual plane to get an outline.
2. Once completed, I right clicked on the selected plane and pressed 'make selection'.
3. Then, ensuring I was on the 'move' tool, dragged the plane into the chosen landscape in which I wanted to display all the planes.
4. To adjust the size or the rotation of the plane, I went to 'edit', 'transform' and then either 'scale' or 'rotate'.
5. I repeated this process roughly 35 times.
My First Attempt:
Evaluation
I thought this was a successful shoot and the final edited image illustrated transport organised chaos', based on the ideas of Mike Kelley and Brian Harris. It also highlighted the very topical issue of people's carbon footprint and shows the amount of air traffic coming from just a single, albeit busy, major airport. The initial problem I had was that you do not know which of the two runways the airport authorities use for incoming and departing planes. However, with the flight tracker app recording the movements of planes, I could see the direction of planes leaving, and with Google Maps I could position myself directly under the take-off zone of the planes, just outside the perimeter of the airport near the village of Stanwell. Over the course of an hour, I managed to shoot 36 planes departing for various destinations. At first glance, the aircraft look very similar, but upon closer inspection many of them vary in size and shape. Some of the larger planes were obviously long-haul aircraft covering tens of thousands of miles and the smaller ones heading to Europe and closer locations. I captured many different types of airplanes including one which was driven by propellors. It stands out on the right of the image a bit like Harris's image of the now decommissioned sleek super fast jet, 'Concorde'. The trees, road sign and lamp post show how low the craft are as they leave the runway. The bigger long distance aircraft seem to need all of the runway length to get airborne, while the smaller ones are able to take off a without such difficulty. This, however, makes them a lot smaller in the finished composite picture. Carefully placing the aircraft on a contrasting background makes each plane more eye-popping. Only minor alterations were made to increase the shadow of the planes. I was pleased to take them at a similar low angle to Harris as they roared overhead, and was even lucky to catch a few as they banked early, so were "side-on" like Kelley's 'airportraits'. I think the image combines the modern presentation of Kelley and the more old-fashioned aesthetic of Harris whilst bringing it up to date by illustrating the amount of planes now in the sky at any one time as mine was captured over a fixed period of an hour. It shows exactly how the information in www.flightradar24.com picture is brought to reality - rather than just dots on a computer screen. In order to improve the image, I would shoot the whole scene over a longer period of time using a wider angle lens to have a bigger canvas in which to put the aircraft.
2nd Development of Transport Strand
As the idea of montaging planes like Kelly and Harris was so effective, I wanted to try it on other modes of transportation. The River Thames used to be an incredibly busy thoroughfare for boats unloading their cargo at the various docks and quays in the Port of London. With the advent of huge container ports further downtream and road transport, lots of those docks have now gone. Many have been turned into luxury riverside apartment complexes, but the river is still used greatly by pleasure seekers, commuters and various industries. I plan to record the movement of boats, again over a one hour period, from London Bridge looking East towards Tower Bridge with the battle ship HMS Belfast in the background to add to the image.
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Contact Sheet
Process:
1. Using the pen tool, I roughly highlighted around each individual boat, therefore getting an outline.
2. Once completed, I right-clicked on the selected boat and pressed 'make selection'.
3. Then, ensuring I was on the 'move' tool, dragged the boat into the chosen landscape in which I wanted to display all the boats.
4. To adjust the size or the rotation of the boat, I went to 'edit', 'transform' and then either 'scale' or 'rotate'.
5. I repeated this process roughly 15 times.
1. Using the pen tool, I roughly highlighted around each individual boat, therefore getting an outline.
2. Once completed, I right-clicked on the selected boat and pressed 'make selection'.
3. Then, ensuring I was on the 'move' tool, dragged the boat into the chosen landscape in which I wanted to display all the boats.
4. To adjust the size or the rotation of the boat, I went to 'edit', 'transform' and then either 'scale' or 'rotate'.
5. I repeated this process roughly 15 times.
My Attempt:
Evaluation
I was surprised when I first looked at the images at just how many boats used the Thames in a single hour. There were dozens and dozens of boats travelling up and down, all at different speeds, much more than I anticipated. Technically it was hard as I had to zoom in on the boats, as from my position on London Bridge some were very far away - too small to effectively montage together. The other major problem was that only a narrow channel of the river was being used at any one time, presumably because of tidal and water depth conditions . Large red buoys on the left hand side of the original images were also restricting boats from passing nearby, possibly because of some submerged hazard.
I decided to change the original idea and illustrate more of a cross-section of the types of craft that use the river, rather than including every single one, as there were simply too many of them. Because there were more commuter and sightseeing boats, I decided to include more of them, but needed to show all the other type of craft, such as the big dredgers, refuse craft, fishing boats and emergency services that use the river. The image did not work quite as well as the plane montage as it was difficult to depict the boats in a realistic size and scale due to the distance from which I had to photograph them. It was particularly challenging to manipulate the images because of small area they were travelling in on the Thames. This would just show up in a montage as a long line of vessels - not really chaotic transportation. Also, placing the boats in the body of water was more complicated as I had to adjust them to show them as if they are travelling through, rather than just simply sitting on top, of the water. Adjusting the colour balance was difficult as over the course of an hour the sun was constantly coming in and out of the clouds. So in order to try and represent the chaos idea, I placed the boats at random angles all over the river. All of these boats had been travelling along the river at this time but not on this exact trajectory. The different size and shape of the boats adds to chaotic nature. I like the picture as it does show what an important resource the Thames is to Londoners and how it is used by so many people that often is not recognised by a casual observer.
I decided to change the original idea and illustrate more of a cross-section of the types of craft that use the river, rather than including every single one, as there were simply too many of them. Because there were more commuter and sightseeing boats, I decided to include more of them, but needed to show all the other type of craft, such as the big dredgers, refuse craft, fishing boats and emergency services that use the river. The image did not work quite as well as the plane montage as it was difficult to depict the boats in a realistic size and scale due to the distance from which I had to photograph them. It was particularly challenging to manipulate the images because of small area they were travelling in on the Thames. This would just show up in a montage as a long line of vessels - not really chaotic transportation. Also, placing the boats in the body of water was more complicated as I had to adjust them to show them as if they are travelling through, rather than just simply sitting on top, of the water. Adjusting the colour balance was difficult as over the course of an hour the sun was constantly coming in and out of the clouds. So in order to try and represent the chaos idea, I placed the boats at random angles all over the river. All of these boats had been travelling along the river at this time but not on this exact trajectory. The different size and shape of the boats adds to chaotic nature. I like the picture as it does show what an important resource the Thames is to Londoners and how it is used by so many people that often is not recognised by a casual observer.
Second Strand: Structures
In this strand of organised chaos I will focus on structures and architecture. Constructivism was a philosophy created in Russia with the ideas of photographer and painter Alexander Rodchenko and architect Vladimir Tatlin in 1915. Post revolutionary Russia embraced the ideas of forward thinking ideas of Cubism and Futurism. Buildings began to be designed not with traditional composition but with themes based on construction. New materials were used to create very modern structures and buildings. The Shukhov Tower in Moscow is perhaps the the most famous example of this avant-garde movement. Rodchenko would photograph these by shooting from unconventional angles and using cropped compositions.
I wanted to get some experience of photographing buildings before my planned school field trip to New York where I would shoot the famous skyscrapers and buildings.
London is a constantly changing environment with huge construction projects taking place. The East End of London and Docklands has seen some of the biggest of these projects in Europe over the past 30 years. The architects have been bolder with their designs as the companies that employ them want to make a statement about their office blocks and headquarters. It offers lots of scope to show chaotic structure in a recognised organised form in the style of Constructivism.
London is a constantly changing environment with huge construction projects taking place. The East End of London and Docklands has seen some of the biggest of these projects in Europe over the past 30 years. The architects have been bolder with their designs as the companies that employ them want to make a statement about their office blocks and headquarters. It offers lots of scope to show chaotic structure in a recognised organised form in the style of Constructivism.
Contact Sheet
Enlargements
The shoot encompassed a wide range of chaotic structures that are in the Docklands area. The Arcelor Mittal Orbit tower in the Olympic Park built for the 2020 Olympic Games is a perfect subject for the Constructivism theme. Random artistic projects like the tree/taxi installation in Trinity Buoy Wharf embrace a more surrealistic approach. The playful way the artists create can certainly appear somewhat random. The suspended containers now used as offices, all brightly coloured, adds to the sense of not following any strict rules and guidelines - anything can be recycled and used for an alternative purpose. The construction sites with intricate scaffolding looked chaotic in a structured way as the workers clambered around it. Shooting Canary Wharf and the O2 Centre on a telephoto lens at 200mm compressed all the detail, and the bold colours added to the image. I thought the picture of the people climbing the roof of the O2 was a good representation of organised chaos in the style of Rodchenko as it was shot as ground level looking up, just like his Shukhov Tower image.
1st Development of Structures Strand
Anthony Turpaud is a French self-taught photographer who focuses on landscapes and cityscapes around the world. He has visited places such as Italian villages Camogli and Cinque Terre, but also expanded his subject matter to USA, more specifically New York. His cityscapes of New York stood out to me as they are full of soothing yet bold blue skies, combined with iconic landmarks amid the chaos of urban infratructure.
New York City is widely regarded as one of the most dazzling and incredible cities in the world to visit. However, during the 1970s and 1980s, it was considered one of the most dangerous places in the world. It saw 1814 homicides in 1980, which is three times what they have today, as well as rampant drug use and prostitution. Fiscal problems forced the New York Police Department to lay off 50,000 employees in 1975 during times of rapid growth in serious crime. However, by 2001, crime had reduced by 56% due to a $1.8 billion plan involving hiring more police and placing them on the streets. Nowadays, New York is one of the most iconic cities in the whole world, so I will try to capture that essence.
Source: Business Insider |
I will attempt to use Turpaud's methods and replicate them on my trip to New York City. I will be visiting places such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the One World Observatory and I will bring an additional wide-angle lens when capturing the beautiful scenery of the city.
Contact Sheet
Enlargements
Evaluation
I believe that my enlargements for New York depict its uniqueness and its chaos. With a population of 20 million people and an additional 14 million international tourists per year, its need for constant construction of new buildings and renovations of current structures is depicted within my photographs. I also chose to capture some of the many famous bridges of New York to convey just how congested and noisy the streets are. Over 2.5 million vehicles per day use the 47 toll free bridges, including the world-famous Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge.
2nd Development of Structures Strand
To develop this theme, I will be looking at the work of Nobuyuki Taguchi and Karl Redshaw. Taguchi is a Japanese-born photographer who studied Fine Art in Sculpture at The University of East London and has lived in the UK ever since. Redshaw is a full-time freelance photographer who is a member of the Royal Photographic Society and has won many awards. I have chosen to explore the work of these two photographers because both use similar methods when capturing interesting structures.
Lloyds Building
The Lloyds building, otherwise known as the Inside-Out Building, is located within London's main financial district, on Lime Street. Built in 1986, by architect Richard Rogers it was quite unlike any building built before in the UK. Rogers had previously been involved in the construction of the similar Pompidou Centre in Paris. The name given to this type of architecture was "Radical Bowelism - a transient architectural and flippant style", with the premise of maximising interior space by having the services of the building (lifts and sewage pipes) located on the exterior of the structure. Made with sheet metal rather than traditional bricks and mortar, this gives the building a totally unique appearance.
Source: Wikipedia |
Contact Sheet
Evaluation
I believe that this shoot of the famous Lloyds building highlights the evokation of organised chaos through structures and architecture. There is no particular part of the building that the viewer's eye is drawn to, as all of it is fascinating in its intricacy. I chose to convert my enlargements to black and white because it highlights the juxtaposition between the calming sky and the purposely designed disorderly building. The metallic structure itself has no colour so I could experiment in black and white with the contrast to accentuate different aspects of the building. It is challenging to shoot as the surrounding streets are incredibly narrow so I was always seemed to be looking up and it was difficult to get a general view of the building itself rather than just portions of it. Shooting at f16 on a wide angle lens ensured all the building was in focus to emphasise the chaotic nature of the whole structure. The organic flowing form of the waste and heating ducts are at first glance alien and anarchic, but, in reality, perfectly functional and organised.
3rd Development of Structures Strand
Network Rail in London have allowed graffiti artists to cover the walls of the railway sidings around the Brick Lane area in London's East End where street art has become a major tourist attraction. I found out about the cult of the graffiti artists on Instagram and wanted to go there to photograph them as they make their images. This is not a random act but a collective effort so it fits in with developing my strand of organised chaos. Nicholas Goodden, a London based photographer, has specialised in street photography and particularly graffiti artists. He has shot advertising campaigns for major companies using graffiti as a backdrop. He highlights the artistic nature of the displays, juxtaposing other criteria such as pedestrians, street furniture and random messages to enhance the paintwork. His work is a tribute to the artists whose work may last only a few days before it is covered up, but has taken many hours to produce.
Enlargements
I was pleased with my images from this shoot. The graffiti artists were busy creating their work and did not mind me photographing them. Some of the work was very colourful so I wanted to preserve it as the artists had created it and not convert any of it to black and white. Using the artists working in the pictures added another dimension to the images rather than just portraying the graffiti itself. In the picture above, the graffiti artist looks as though he might topple off his ladder as he reaches up to shade his picture, which creates a sense of tension. The eclectic styles of graffiti and the subjects chosen by the artists enhances the chaotic theme. The bright sunshine helped with my aim to convey the vibrant colours of the artwork and, using a wide angle lens like Goodden, ensured I could get the whole scene framed the way I wanted. Using a large number aperture of f22 meant everything was sharp and all in focus. I only had to do minor adjustments in Photoshop using the brightness and contrast actions to achieve the most effective results. Stepping back and shooting a wide picture showed all of the artworks side by side and illustrated the anarchic range of artists inspirations.
Third Strand: People
US photographer Walker Evans was one of the first people to take advantage of technological advances in camera designs and created set of images called Subway Portraits that showed New York commuters in transit. He painted his camera black and hid it under his overcoat with just the small lens poking out near the buttons. He fired the shutter with a cable release attached to a chord which he ran down his sleeve and operated it from his pocket. The candid images showed the passengers immersed in conversation or lost in their own thoughts and emotions. His fascinating unposed pictures are a record of a period in time that inspired me to see if I could similarly shoot some contemporary images. London tube network has thousands of commuters each day so was the ideal place to capture the pictures as it relates to my theme of organised chaos.
Contact Sheet
Enlargements
Evaluation
I embarked on this project by first of all sitting on a tube train and shooting people as they sat opposite. However, with the advent of smartphones, most people were looking down and I could not effectively capture their faces. I decided to shoot from the platform instead as people were alighting or entering a train so their faces and expressions were more visible. To add some authenticity I converted my images to black and white, like Evans' vintage pictures. I was able to use a high ISO of 1600 to capture the people as they boarded and sat on the tube train. I was able to take lots of pictures with my camera at a discreet position. Often without looking through the viewfinder, I could capture people as they went about their business. Sometimes when I did raise my camera to my eye people would notice and look directly at me but this evoked some of the images of Evans. The people he photographed are looking at him as if he may be acting suspiciously but they cannot be sure. Their expressions then change to a more puzzled look. I had to prefocus the lens and shoot at f5.6. I could not afford to go any lower than this as the images would be out of focus. This meant some of the images were blurred but only added to the depiction of the chaotic nature of commuting into a major city. It was a successful shoot in the style of Evans with lots of expressions captured and an historical record of commuting in London in 2020. I was pleased to have finished the project before the outbreak of COVID-19 which has forced so many people to work from home and drastically reduce the amount of commuting in London in an attempt to stop the virus spreading.
1st Development of People Strand
William Klein is an American photographer born in New York City in 1928. Having served in the US army for 2 years during World War 2 and living in Paris studying fine art and painting he came to prominence in the 1950's with his collection of chaotic abstract street photographs when he returned to his hometown. He recorded his vision of his neighbourhood as half "amazed foreigner and half streetwise New Yorker".
With the help of advanced technological developments in the manufacturing of small film cameras, no longer did photographers have to carry heavy glass plate cameras which were cumbersome, restrictive and drew attention. The new cameras meant they could walk around the streets of New York relatively unnoticed documenting the lives of the people that lived and visited the city. Grants and funding from prestigious organisations like the Guggenheim Trust enabled Klein to follow in the footsteps of the pioneers of the newly termed "Street Photography". However, instead of just recording what he saw, he tried to illustrate it in a way like no-one before. His pictures were were very grainy, blurred and framed in an abstract way. This technique just seemed to express the chaotic nature of city life better than others. He broke all the established conventional rules of photography to try to get images that showed the nature of New Yorkers at work and play. He would fill the whole frame of the camera with close-up expressions as people walked by or were distracted by something in the street. He would choose events, or the time of day in the city, when large numbers of people would gather and shoot pictures from within the chaos, instead of standing on the periphery. His grainy and inky black photographs show the vibrancy and energy of a city as it emerges from the dour gloom of wartime to freedom and optimism. William Klein's images were shot on fast black and white film which enhanced the grain to good effect in the image. Due to digital cameras and Photoshop offering the possibility to closely copy some of those ideas, I will attempt to replicate this.
With the help of advanced technological developments in the manufacturing of small film cameras, no longer did photographers have to carry heavy glass plate cameras which were cumbersome, restrictive and drew attention. The new cameras meant they could walk around the streets of New York relatively unnoticed documenting the lives of the people that lived and visited the city. Grants and funding from prestigious organisations like the Guggenheim Trust enabled Klein to follow in the footsteps of the pioneers of the newly termed "Street Photography". However, instead of just recording what he saw, he tried to illustrate it in a way like no-one before. His pictures were were very grainy, blurred and framed in an abstract way. This technique just seemed to express the chaotic nature of city life better than others. He broke all the established conventional rules of photography to try to get images that showed the nature of New Yorkers at work and play. He would fill the whole frame of the camera with close-up expressions as people walked by or were distracted by something in the street. He would choose events, or the time of day in the city, when large numbers of people would gather and shoot pictures from within the chaos, instead of standing on the periphery. His grainy and inky black photographs show the vibrancy and energy of a city as it emerges from the dour gloom of wartime to freedom and optimism. William Klein's images were shot on fast black and white film which enhanced the grain to good effect in the image. Due to digital cameras and Photoshop offering the possibility to closely copy some of those ideas, I will attempt to replicate this.
Emirates Stadium
Taking inspiration from him, I decided to visit an Arsenal football match at their Emirates stadium in North London. An extremely crowded, animated and noisy scene with lots of security people trying to control, it fits ideally with my theme of organised chaos. The stadium averages over 50,000 people per weekend match even though its prices are the highest in Europe. This shows that these fans are passionate and dedicated so I attempted to capture their facial expressions in the midst of the chaos as they arrived for the match.
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Contact Sheet
Enlargements
Evaluation
Getting to the stadium well before kick-off meant I was able to scout some locations I could observe and record the people as they passed by en route to the game. The fans are channelled into certain areas depending where they are sitting, so going to the main concourse I was able to get among large numbers of fans as they were diverted to different sections of the stadium.
Being in the crowd I was able to catch some good expressions like William Klein. Everybody seemed to be lost in their thoughts and I was able to take pictures as they looked up at the stadium, admired the several statues of famous players or chatted to their friends. The main issue however is the amount of people now looking at their smart phones - in many of the pictures I first shot they had their heads down. Moving around the ground to where people congregated to await friends arriving they were constantly looking up so that made some nice images. Using a combination of close ups and wider shots, I was able to give the idea of not just individual single images, but when assembled together, a composite of the chaos of the fans moving around, in different directions whilst still having a connection together. I wanted large areas of the image to be in focus like Klein’s work so used a wide angle lens and selected an aperture of f11 and f16. This still meant that as people walked by me, or when I walked towards them, some people may be a little bit blurred giving the impression of movement.
In post production, I first converted all the raw colour images into monochrome. Selecting images which had interesting depth of field and compositions, I enhanced this by cropping tightly so there was no area in the picture with "empty space”. The idea being that the frame of the photograph is filled with information - just like Klein's.
Using the noise filter in Photoshop, I was pleased to be able to replicate the grainy effect. Adding more contrast to make the pictures even darker further explored his ideas.
I think the shoot worked well and being a football match the demographic of people attending made interesting images. Young children obviously excited with their parents, alongside older generations who have been attending matches for many years, produced images which portrayed a range of emotions.
Getting to the stadium well before kick-off meant I was able to scout some locations I could observe and record the people as they passed by en route to the game. The fans are channelled into certain areas depending where they are sitting, so going to the main concourse I was able to get among large numbers of fans as they were diverted to different sections of the stadium.
Being in the crowd I was able to catch some good expressions like William Klein. Everybody seemed to be lost in their thoughts and I was able to take pictures as they looked up at the stadium, admired the several statues of famous players or chatted to their friends. The main issue however is the amount of people now looking at their smart phones - in many of the pictures I first shot they had their heads down. Moving around the ground to where people congregated to await friends arriving they were constantly looking up so that made some nice images. Using a combination of close ups and wider shots, I was able to give the idea of not just individual single images, but when assembled together, a composite of the chaos of the fans moving around, in different directions whilst still having a connection together. I wanted large areas of the image to be in focus like Klein’s work so used a wide angle lens and selected an aperture of f11 and f16. This still meant that as people walked by me, or when I walked towards them, some people may be a little bit blurred giving the impression of movement.
In post production, I first converted all the raw colour images into monochrome. Selecting images which had interesting depth of field and compositions, I enhanced this by cropping tightly so there was no area in the picture with "empty space”. The idea being that the frame of the photograph is filled with information - just like Klein's.
Using the noise filter in Photoshop, I was pleased to be able to replicate the grainy effect. Adding more contrast to make the pictures even darker further explored his ideas.
I think the shoot worked well and being a football match the demographic of people attending made interesting images. Young children obviously excited with their parents, alongside older generations who have been attending matches for many years, produced images which portrayed a range of emotions.
To improve this, I chose to modify some of the pictures further in Photoshop. I added more noise to the images which created a more grainy effect, as well as adding more contrast, making it feel less contemporary and more in the style of Klein.
2nd Development of People Strand
In order to develop this strand relating to people I will use the methods of Scottish photographer Pauline Miller and her 'Streets in motion' to explore and convey organised chaos. Like William Klein, she works mainly in black and white but she captures street scenes with a different approach. Instead of facial expressions and high contrast grain, she uses a slower shutter speed, lower ISO and high aperture to capture a more blurry effect which adds a sense of distortion and movement to the commuters passing by. She says "it's the constant motion of life that fascinates me the most". Working in her adopted city of Hong Kong she moves about shooting as people pass her to create a flow of humanity.
Columbia Road Flower Market
I decided to go to the famous Columbia Road Flower Market in East London which happens every Sunday. It is popular with tourists and Londoners hoping to buy cheap flowers and plants. It is normally very busy so hopefully the large crowds will provide an opportunity to replicate some images similar to Miller's. Also, flowers have strong connotations of beauty and elegance due to their variety of bold colours and forms which can make my images more eye-catching, adding to their overall aesthetic. Therefore I will use the 'blurred' technique like Miller but put my own twist on it by adding colour.
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Contact Sheet
Evaluation
This overall shoot can be considered as a success. I was able to capture relatively large groups of people, displaying some of their facial expressions in the style of Pauline Miller. There is a small central walkway where people congregate so it was useful to position myself there and let people pass around me. I was glad I chose to make my images in colour, rather than black and white, as the hue of the flowers was far too spectacular to not illustrate. I was interested in creating a blur effect with all the range of colours from the blooms on display. Shooting quickly and sometimes when walking with a slow shutter speed added to the effect. Using shutter speed of 1/15 sec at f8 with a wide angle lens, colours merged into one another and it was not the primary concern to make everything in focus. I like the last image of the woman's hair, blurred like the flowers she is looking at, and the same colour of the wrapped flowers she has bought. I wanted the shoot to be an abstract rather than a literal observation and I think it achieved the result. I walked unnoticed as people were gazing at the flowers as they went by. Some isolated figures remain crisply in focus as the blurred customers seemingly swarm by. Like some of Miler's images, by using a slow shutter speed, I managed to distort some faces as they approached my lens. I intended to create a collection of pictures showing the hustle and bustle and chaos of market trading and create an atmosphere of the noises, sights and smells as you are immersed in it rather than as a casual observer.
3rd Development of People Strand
Alan Schein is a contemporary US travel photographer who shoots cityscapes and the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life. He pushes the idea of using even slower shutter speeds than Pauline Miller to emphasise blurring, creating the impression of movement as people scurry about the daily lives, living on top of one another in very congested areas. With this unconventional approach, he creates ghosts of people as they move across his viewfinder, which I find extremely effective. He shot a series of pictures at New York's Grand Central Station as commuters dashed about to catch trains to go home and places of employment. The station has a large decorative clock as an iconic centrepiece that has four sides so people can check the time at any place in the station.
Waterloo Station
Nearly 5 million passenger journeys are undertaken each day in London. People commuting on the extensive rail and tube network account for over 38% of all transportation. I plan to go to one of London's busiest train and tube stations, Waterloo, in the evening rush hour to capture the commuters returning home. Using similar slow shutter techniques, I hope to create the feeling of movement in a chaotic way as some people hurry to catch their trains. Like some of Schein's images at Grand Central Station I will use the famous clock at the station as a focal point.
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Contact Sheet
Enlargements
Evaluation
The high vantage point of a balcony gave me a perfect place to photograph the commuters unnoticed. The most effective pictures were created with the announcement of which platform a train was leaving from and people scurried off en masse from their positions standing under the notice boards. After experimenting with various times, I used slow shutter speeds from 1/15sec to 1sec to capture the pictures. The blurring effect created ghostly figures as they moved around the stationary commuters. I had to use a tripod to catch the scenes as it was too challenging to hand-hold the camera. Any slower shutter speeds created too much blur and the people were not identifiable. I was pleased with the colours and range of different coloured lighting enhanced the picture. Only minor alterations to the colour balance were made. I cropped some the images in Photoshop to eliminate any details that were too distracting. Many of the station employees were wearing hi-vis jackets which took the eye away from the important aspect of the commuters in motion. To improve the pictures, I would have liked to shoot people face-on rather than just from behind as that could produce interesting expressions and emotions. The station was constant hive of activity with people moving in all directions as they sought their trains. The pictures, particularly as people are exiting the Tube into the station, show how many individuals move around the city at particular times and how congested small areas can be. There is an order to the chaos and unspoken rules as people queue, wait patiently, then suddenly explode into life to catch their trains home.
4th Development of People Strand
Jordan Clark is a collage artist based in Upland, California. He collects vintage images of portraits and creates muddled paper collages over the subject's face. His work is heavily influenced by certain art movements such as Cubism (considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century) and Vorticism (focus on geometric styling), used by famous artists such as Picasso, to highlight the idea of distortion. The Cubist idea of illustrating a 3D image on a flat canvas is the central theme. Abstract kaleidoscopes are created as seemingly randomly deconstructed portions of an image are then reassembled. This ties in fittingly to my final development of organised chaos through people as the patterns appear disarrayed yet are intentionally placed in specific places to make the final image as aesthetically interesting as possible.
Contact Sheet
Process
1. First, using the marquee tool, I created an outline of 30 inch by 30 inch in Photoshop to create the perimeter of where the 5 inch by 5 inch squares would be in.
2. With each square, after selecting an area with the marquee tool, I right clicked and pressed 'layer via copy'.
3. After repeating this process for a total of 36 times, I dragged each square out of the 30 inch by 30 inch square to then cut that area, leaving it blank.
4. I then placed each square within the blank area in a way that appeared random and chaotic, to then make it into one layer.
5. I then chose the original image of the subject and duplicated the layer of the 5 inch by 5 inch squares onto the original image.
6. Then, using the free transform button in 'edit', I rotated it to create a diamond shape.
7. I then went to 'image' 'adjustments' 'black and white' and then to 'brightness and contrast'. This made the final image more eye grabbing and abstract.
8. Using the clone stamp tool, I went around the perimeter of the squares to reduce some of the blank white lines around each square.
2. With each square, after selecting an area with the marquee tool, I right clicked and pressed 'layer via copy'.
3. After repeating this process for a total of 36 times, I dragged each square out of the 30 inch by 30 inch square to then cut that area, leaving it blank.
4. I then placed each square within the blank area in a way that appeared random and chaotic, to then make it into one layer.
5. I then chose the original image of the subject and duplicated the layer of the 5 inch by 5 inch squares onto the original image.
6. Then, using the free transform button in 'edit', I rotated it to create a diamond shape.
7. I then went to 'image' 'adjustments' 'black and white' and then to 'brightness and contrast'. This made the final image more eye grabbing and abstract.
8. Using the clone stamp tool, I went around the perimeter of the squares to reduce some of the blank white lines around each square.
Enlargements
Evaluation
I was really pleased with the outcome of my final body of work. After extensive manipulation in Photoshop, I enjoyed creating three striking images based on Clark's methods. The process was highly creative and quite different to my other strands where only slight changes were made post-production. I explored the creative process by converting the images to black and white which I think makes the pictures more interesting. Based against the white background, the contrasting shades of tones draw the viewer to explore and examine closely the final images. The subjects' eyes become the first recognisable things to distinguish, then you scan the scene for other facial features. Experimenting with constructing the chaotic kaleidoscopic patterns into a form was interesting. It was noticeable after my second attempt that breaking up the mosaic blocks with the subjects' hair improved the pictures significantly. The first attempt was constructed mainly with just skin tones and facial features. Using the model's dark hair in the third picture helps to create a pleasing chequerboard-like image. I chose to make the kaleidoscopic patterns only on the face, rather than the whole of the subject, to create an interesting juxtaposition between abstract and reality. To possibly improve my images I would perhaps experiment with different shapes other than squares to create more diversity and shoot more than one subject at a time.
I think I have successfully explored the theme of organised chaos through a wide selection of ideas. Some of these have been expressed literally, using people moving around the city, transportation methods and architects' wild designs. Others have been creative ideas such as congested aviation routes and Cubist inspired portraits. An enjoyable assignment to investigate.
I think I have successfully explored the theme of organised chaos through a wide selection of ideas. Some of these have been expressed literally, using people moving around the city, transportation methods and architects' wild designs. Others have been creative ideas such as congested aviation routes and Cubist inspired portraits. An enjoyable assignment to investigate.