>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Halloween

I’m not a fan of Halloween, which seems just another sad synthetic commercial opportunity. There is something very unpleasant about the whole ‘trick or treat’ idea, a kind of demand with menaces (and one which sometimes gets out of hand.)

Not that I’m against people having fun, and I do rather like the sight of zombies invading our streets, generally simply out to have a good time and a bit of a party. These and more formal Day of the Dead celebrations perhaps owe more to All Saints Day and All Souls Day than to Halloween which comes before them, although now they have been drawn into a single commercial exploitation.

In 2006, (somewhere well down this page) I met up with some very fine zombies, including the two ladies below for a tour around Oxford St.

Starting from the very spooky Ben Crouch Tavern (now sadly converted to a pub I find rather plastic and unpleasant) we toured a shopping centre on Oxford Street and walked past the hard-core shoppers before slithering down the steps to Ramillies St (which later became the home of the Photographers’ Gallery),

and on to another pub at the top of Carnaby St.

On that occasion the pub ‘Crawl of the Dead‘ had started in late afternoon, and although the light was failing there was still enough to work with even by the time I left them.

The following year, in the City of London, the Crawl of the Dead started later, which was probably better for zombies but not for photographers, though I was able to take some pictures before the start in ‘Ye Olde London’, a rather dimly lit pub with some appropriate decoration.

but by the time we got to staggering on the streets things were a little trickier.

It certainly didn’t help that my SB800 flash decided to pack up – in need of a rather expensive flash tube replacement – and I was left only with the built in flash on the camera, really only suitable as a fill, and not usable with big lenses which cast a shadow in the image area.

This year it was fully dark when the ‘Dance of the Dead’ street parade from Hoxton Square to Dalston was gathering, and the rather dim street lighting had the very orange colour of sodium lamps.

So although there was just enough light in some of the brighter areas to take pictures at ISO3200 and get some reasonably sharp, it isn’t possible to get good colour, even when shooting RAW, as the light is essentially monochromatic orange and sadly lacking in other colours. The image above, taken at 1/20 f4 was about the best I could get.

Using the SB800 mounted on the D700 camera did produce some better results, but the orange light was still a problem. You can’t light up the whole world with a single flash, so I normally use flash at high ISO when I can to pick up enough ambient exposure to add some background detail. Because of the poor colour of that ambient and to get better quality in the flash lit areas, I compromised on using ISO1000. With the flash I was working at 1/60 f7.1 to get a bit more depth of field and avoid movement blur where the ambient was stronger. I think that was equivalent to around 4 stops underexposure for the ambient, but I didn’t make a precise calculation. Looking at the results on the computer now, I can see that the flash, despite being set at -2/3 stop was actually overexposing slightly, though seldom enough to burn out the highlights completely.

My favourite image from the event was also the simplest, a young girl waiting for the event to start. I photographed her first with her mother standing watching the preparations, then got down on my knees to make this image, in which her witches hat becomes a kind of purple halo.

There are some other pictures that I quite like – and you can see a largish set on My London Diary – but none that really lived up to my expectations, as it was a very tricky, fussy and at times fast-moving event. Perhaps if I’d followed the parade further I would have found some better lighting, and the dance at the end might well have been fun, but I’d been on my feet and taking pictures for over 7 hours and was feeling rather tired, and when I saw a bus approaching I rushed across the road to jump on it and start my journey home. Perhaps next year I’ll do better.

EDL & Israel

I have my disagreements with the English Defence League, but have tried despite these to cover their London events as objectively as I can. Some of them at least realise this and so I was able to cover the event with relatively little harassment compared to some of the other photographers present. Several of the EDL stewards were supportive, and I only had a couple of minor problems, which were soon resolved. At one point a woman did start shouting at me, telling me to get on the other side of the road, but I simply walked away into the crowd of EDL and I think one of the stewards had a brief word with her.

© 2010, Peter Marshall
Handing out placards to the marchers
The meeting place for the march had to be changed at the last minute as the pub they had planned to use had decided to remain closed when it learnt they were coming there. Perhaps this was why I arrived at the event rather earlier than the other photographers and for around twenty minutes or so was the only photographer on the pavement with the protesters drinking outside the pub. Of course we all like to get pictures that other people don’t but there are also times when you welcome the support of colleagues.

Much of that time I was talking to the EDL members, and although most were happy to be photographed (and quite a few insisted on posing for me) I spent much of the time being questioned about the way that the press in general treats the EDL, concentrating on acts of violence and pictures showing some of their more extreme members. I tried to suggest to them that rather than blaming or attacking the photographers they should make sure there was no violence or other extremism to be photographed.

The EDL are also pained at being labelled racists and were keen to point out that they will not allow racism and that they support gay rights, and there were several placards making this clear.

Later some of the same people I’d been talking fairly sensibly with were among those baiting several of my colleagues and were making threats at another photographer until a police officer came and stood between them.

It was the speeches which upset me most on this occasion. I find the stand they have taken over Israel and their opposition to the Palestinian people hard to understand, and they seem to me to go deeply against our British traditions of fair play and support for the underdog. There really does seem to be a failure to distinguish between opposition to extremist Muslims – which I share – and opposition to all Muslims, particularly those who live in this country and most of whom are now our citizens. One of the guys I talked to outside the pub told me that Muslims may live here but they are not and never can be English. I had to disagree.

You can read my account of the march and rally opposite the Israeli embassy in London on 14 October – with many more pictures – on My London Diary.

Blurb’s London Celebratory Kickoff

Last night I was at Eastcastle House for the start of Blurb’s London events, celebrating the new pop-up store and the 2010 Photography Book Now winning books. Several of the winners were present including the Portfolio category winners, Dutch photographers Thijs groot Wassink and Ruben Lundgren, though we had to be content with Judith Stenneken, whose Last Call won the $25,000 Grand Prize, on video.

Some of the judges were there too, and I talked briefly to Martin Parr and a number of old friends at the event, as well as drinking too much fizzy stuff (I’m sure it was the bubbles that made me just a little unsteady as I walked towards the bus stop after the event.)

After this morning’s session, the events continuing at the London Pop-Up store until Nov 14 are free, and I’ll be there again talking on Sunday about ‘Before the Olympics‘ and my other two Blurb books. Also in Sunday’s programme are some of the Blurb winners, Anton Kusters and ‘WassinkLundgren‘ as well as Jonathan Lewis, and the day ends with a self-publishing debate with guest panellist Bruno Ceschel of Self Publish, Be Happy.

More pictures from last night on My London Diary.

Yangtze and More From Photomonth 2010

Nadav Kander’s Yangtze – The Long River is the outstanding show of Photomonth 2010 both in its scale and its concept. The exhibition continues until 13 Nov 2010 at Flowers East and comes from several voyages that Kander made cover the river from its estuary to the source during a three year period. His journey along the river, shrouded always in the light orange brown haze of pollution gives us an insight into the rapid growth of China, with image after image showing people dwarfed but remaining significant by the giant structures erupting around them.
He says in the gallery notes, “The photographs are an emotional response to what I saw. I gave them simple titles so that viewers are encouraged to respond subjectively before seeking the facts.”

I’m not sure how well that latter idea works in the gallery, and I’d recommend that anyone visiting the show go first to watch the video being presented where he talks about the pictures and his ideas, which to me was vital in really appreciating his work. In it he also says that one single picture – a line of washing hanging sturng between rough wooden posts leaning against a wall under the huge girders of some giant bridge in Shanghai- for him sums up the whole process he was observing, and it was certainly one of my favourite images.

I took only a very quick look at the book published to accompany the show which includes “ca. 77 color ills” (couldn’t they count?) and although the work on display covered the two main areas of the ground floor gallery with three or so more tucked away (one of my favourites hidden in an office) there were rather fewer pictures on show than that. But even so there was a certain repetitive aspect which after a while I found slightly disturbing. The prints were very big and I often found myself moving in close to look at the people in them, and felt that perhaps occasionally the photographer might have done the same rather than always keeping a distance. The closest he comes is to a group of five, picnicing under a multicoloured umbrella on the riverside with a large bridge behind them, and I think it no co-incidence that this picture is featured as the largest of four images on the gallery handout.

The weakness – and I think it is one – is not in the photographer’s project, but in the selection of images for the gallery show. On Kander’s own web site (its the first item under ‘Work‘ on the menu) there is a more varied selection of 49 images. Also on the web you can watch the video being shown in the gallery on YouTube.

Upstairs Flowers was showing another very fine show, which again I mentioned briefly in an earlier post on its opening night, Edmund Clark‘s work ‘Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out’ which combines some startling images from Guantanamo (though many of the images I found most telling were absent from this particular showing) with images in the homes of former detainees now trying to rebuild their lives. All of the pictures are without people, but Clark builds up a very strong atmosphere in these very carefully framed images. Also on show are some of the letters and cards sent to Omar Deghayes, a Brighton resident who was held for 5 years in Guantanmo.

You can see a few of Clark’s photographs on his web site, but rather more on Lensculture. I wasn’t convinced that the ‘Letters to Omar’ actually added anything to the show and would have preferred to see more photographs. As well as this show at Flowers until 14 Nov, there is another show of this work across London at Photofusion in Brixton until 26 Nov 2010.

A couple of doors down the Kingsland Road is the printspace, where there were a series of large portraits of dogs looking out of closed car windows, ‘Mute‘ or ‘Dogs in Cars’ by Martin Usborne. Superb control of lighting and every hair apparently manicured into place, these seemed to me to be great examples of advertising photography – and taken on a Canon DSLR seemed to blow away the arguments for ‘medium format’ digital. But somehow the very gloss of the finish seemed to take something away from the impact of the work, and looking at them I couldn’t feel they had been deserted but felt they were being watched over not just by the photographer, but a whole team of assistants, stylists, art director and proud owners.

Another short walk takes you to the Red Lion in Hoxton St, where an exhibition by the Shoreditch Group of London Independent Photography (LIP) continues until 20 Nov 2010 – go up the stairs to the right of the bar. The show, which includes personal work by members and a group project ‘Parallels’, is as you would expect from such a group uneven, is worth a look. But having tried the beer, I’d advise going the short distance to one of my favourite London pubs, the tiny Prince Arthur in Brunswick Place with a well-deserved reputation for serving a good pint – and sandwiches (nothing fancy) at sensible prices – though unfortunately rather uncertain opening hours.

Talking of pubs and shows, another LIP member Anne Clements, has a show ‘Don’t Pass Me By‘ in Photomonth 2010 at the Jerusalem Tavern in Britton St, Clerkenwell which opened a few days ago and continues to 26 Nov 2010.

One venue that I was surprised not to see taking any part in Photomonth was the basement at Shoreditch Town Hall. It’s a large and curious labyrinth, great for a group show as it needs to be manned while open, and really worth a visit just to see the place. I couldn’t resist going in to see the show ‘to be or not to be: a false dichotomy‘ by a group of thirteen artists based around Forest Hill in South London, curated by Dunio Mauro and advertised by a rather large pig. Unfortunately the show was only on for five days – I imagine the space is fairly expensive to hire despite the dilapidated condition – and ended on October 27. Although I didn’t find anything of photographic interest, I did enjoy much of the show, and thankfully they had provided a numbered map to find my way around the more than 20 spaces (not all in use.)

Geoffrey Crawley RIP

I read yesterday of the death, age 83, of Geoffrey Crawley, and wasn’t intending to write about it as I didn’t feel I had anything to add to what had already been published, particularly by the BJP and Amateur Photographer – he worked for both. The twenty years he spent as editor of the BJP, from around 1967 to 1987 were perhaps its best years within living memory, although not commercially.

I can’t remember ever having met him, but as a very occasional contributor and letter writer to the BJP, I did talk with him a few times on the phone and received several letters from him, including a very nice personal reply following a complaint I made about a rather insane review the magazine had printed by Ainslie Ellis (1920-1997.)

Like many photographers I made use of the developer formulae which he contributed to the British Journal of Photography Annual, the whole ‘FX’ series of fine grain and acutance developers, some of which, such as Acutol and Acutol-S were commercially marketed.

As well as the magazine, he also edited the annual from 1967. In 1988, which I think was the last issue, it made the proud claim to being the oldest photographic annual in the world, first appearing as a wall calender in 1860, and then as a pocket book supplement to the magazine in 1861. You can read or download the 1898 issue (long out of copyright) made available by the University of Toronto.

It’s interesting to re-read the two page editorial in the 1988 issue by Crawley on advances in technology and how these will effect the future of photography – he notes that the “keynote of the next few years… could well turn out to be the increasing use of photography as a notebook in everyday life and particularly in leisure activities.” But writing in 1987, the article nowhere mentions the idea of digital imaging – how quickly things were to change in that respect.

The 1988 annual had another great figure from the last century of British photography as picture editor, Colin Osman, noted as a photo historian but also as the financial supporter for the crucial years of the magazine ‘Creative Camera.’ I was very pleased to have four of my pictures included in the picture section, along with work by many other photographers, including David Hoffman, Anna Fox, Tom Wood, Crispin Hughes, Mike Seabourne, Barry Frydlender, John Blakemore and many others.

One of the strangest stories which Crawley was involved in was the 1917 Cottingley Faires hoax, and it was an article on PetaPixel about this that made me change my mind and write this post. As Michael Zhang notes, it’s interesting that so many people were taken in by these pictures (though they were not as he suggests “in the early days of photography” but when it was 78 years old.)

The hoax, carried out by two girls aged 10 and 16, was a very amateur affair. That people believed them was simply because they wanted to believe them, not that they were in any way believable – to any unprejudiced eye they were obviously fake. What Crawley did was to show in detail exactly how they had been made, and to gain the confidence of Elsie Wright and enable her to at last confess to the truth of the matter.

Stuart Freedman

Stuart Freedman, a Londoner born in 1967, has been a photographer since 1991 with stories “from Albania to Afghanistan and from former Yugoslavia to Haiti” published in leading magazines around the world, including Life, Geo, Time, National Geographic, Der Spiegel, Newsweek and Paris Match. He is represented in London by Panos Pictures.

In 1998 he was selected for the World Press Masterclass and the following year for the Agfa Young Photojournalist of the Year, and has gained awards from Amnesty International (twice), Pictures of the Year, The World Sports Photo Award, The Royal Photographic Society and UNICEF, and his work has been shown widely.

Looking at his new web site, it is easy to see why, with fine photojournalism is stories both in black and white, for example The Mutilated, with images from Sierra Leone, and some stunning colour work in all the essays on the site, although perhaps sometimes I find the colour a little over-saturated.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Stuart talk about his work, and there are some excellent pieces of writing on the site, as well as on his blog, Umbra Sumus (We are but shadows.) One recent piece, “I am not a witch” Well, actually I am had some sensible things to say about the Halloween scam as well as his portraits of some British pagans.

I did have a few minor problems with his new site, which certainly looks very stylish. As well as my often-mentioned aversion to sites that need you to scroll sideways (I’m still waiting for a mouse with a scroll wheel that works that way) there were some links that only wanted to work if I opened them in a new tab.

Lost Steps Again

If you missed my broadcast in the Lost Steps series on ResonanceFM last month, you can now listen to it any time you like on the Lost Steps web site – or even download it from there as a podcast. And there have been a couple more programmes since mine, one about London Hauntings and the latest with Nigel of Bermondsey and Vanessa Wolf-Hoyle from London Dreamtime which has a couple of film clips of the Old Kent Road, one from the 1970s. I photographed it at some length in the early 1980s, one of the last projects on which I used transparency film and I’ve been there occasionally since – one of my sons lived there for a year. The last time I walked a few yards along it with a camera several people asked me to take their pictures – this guy was the first:

I don’t much like hearing recordings of myself, though on the programme I do sound rather more like I think I do than on some other recordings. And apart from a couple of silly slips I more or less seem to make sense. Its often hard to gather thoughts when being interviewed, and interviewer Malcolm Hopkins had only told me what his first question would be – there really was no other preparation. Actually that one was really the hardest to answer.

It’s always interesting to see what others think of you (and sometimes – like this – reasonably flattering except for the photograph.) I was interested to see the selection of pictures and comments by producer Nick Hamilton, with three very different photographs. My favourite of them is one only labelled there Ilford High Road, June 2002:

This is of course part of how East London celebrated the Queen’s Golden Jubilee (I went on from there to photograph a rather livelier street party in Mile End.) But what strikes me particularly about this image is the rather poor colour reproduction, rather typical of images shot on film. Of course I could probably make a better scan, but digital has so much improved colour, and made it so much easier to get good colour in the images in My London Diary– though I still occasionally manage to mess it up a little when I’m in a hurry.

At the street party I had terrible problems with flare. There is a little on this image but there might have been some water on the lens as it was raining when I took this picture. Later it was dry and probably I’d managed to leave a fingerprint on the filter. Dirty lenses are of course still a problem with digital, but there is at least some chance to spot it in the results while you are still taking pictures.

Incidentally I’m still using a Lens Pen to clean my lenses when I’m out working – the ones I have are actually called Hama Lenspens – they cost me around £6 from 7Dayshop and last for around 6 months to a year. Very easy to carry and do the job well, though apparently there are some cheaper imitations that should be avoided. I also have a lens cloth and some cheap cleaning fluid to use if things get very messy.

Some years ago I appeared a few times on an American Internet radio programme, talking over a phone line rather than in a well-equipped studio, and every time we started getting into a conversation, one of the two presenters would interrupt with an ad for Lens Pens – and they used to give them away to people who phoned in, though I never got one! But despite that I still recommend and use them. Lost Steps was considerably more professional, despite being non-commercial, or perhaps rather because it is non-commercial.

Nick has also used a quote from the first Blurb book I produced, 1989, ‘real’ images and fictional text relating to walking around North East London. Here’s a part of it:

Its Sunday morning and on the newsagents board the News Of The World promises us it will UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF SUPERSEX just like last week and the next week, but still they remain secret.

I go in and unlock the secret of a Mars bar instead.

(you can see the whole page here.)

Unfortunately now I have to watch my sugar levels as well, and I can no longer indulge in Mars Bars!

Blurb Pop-Up London

I’m not exactly sure what a Blurb Pop-Up is, but we are getting one in London shortly, when Blurb launches its first-ever U.K. pop-up store on Wednesday, November 3. They say “It will be buzzing through November 14 with free workshops, guest speakers, and special events.” It’s at ~~22 Newman St,~~ a couple of hundred yards to the north of Oxford St and 5 minutes walk from Tottenham Court Rd tube. See comment – now closer to Oxford St tube.

The events are listed on the web page, with links to click to RSVP if you want to attend, and everything is free. If you look through the programme you will find that I’m down to give a presentation on my Blurb book, ‘Before the Olympics‘ on Sunday 7th Nov at 13.00-14.00, but there are some highlights too!

Later that day I’ll also be there to take part in the Self-Publishing Debate with guest panelist Bruno Ceschel of ‘Self Publish, Be Happy‘ at 3pm.

Although the main part of my presentation will be about ‘Before the Olympics‘ which gained an ‘Editor’s Pick’ on Blurb, I’ll also be talking about my two other Blurb books and a little about my plans for forthcoming publications, as well as my comments on Blurb and the whole idea of self-publishing and answering any questions people have. I hope it will be an interesting session so if you are in London and free around Sunday lunchtime you can book a free place on the web page.

Striking Firefighters March Against Cuts

I was pleased with this image of the fire-fighters at the front of the thousand or two trade unionists marching to a London rally against the cuts. Framing was a bit tricky as I was holding the camera up as high as I could above my head and saying my prayers – a ‘Hail Mary‘ shot. I took several frames, looking at the image on the camera back after each and trying to get the distance between me and the closest man right as well as the angle of the camera, and this one seemed to work. The D700 does have a shutter blind which stops light coming in through the viewfinder affecting the exposure, but in practice it’s often easier simply to cover it with my other hand as I did on this occasion.

Either I’d misread the details or it started early, as I was expecting to be at the meeting point for some time before the march actually started, but I met it coming along the road a few hundred yards away. It’s almost always a good idea to go early when photographing events but I’d had a few things I’d wanted to do first. Some days when I’m photographing a whole series of events it just isn’t possible. But often things are more interesting before the actual start.

There were plenty of trade union banners and I particularly like this one from Islington Trades Union Council which commemorates the ‘Grand Demonstration‘ by the Metropolitan trades unions to campaign for the release of the Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1834, which gathered at Copenhagen Fields. I was there last year when TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances OGrady unveiled a plaque to commemorate the event.

The image on the Islington banner very much reflects the current population of London, and there was a strong group of demonstrators at today’s event from the Refugee Workers Cultural Association Women’s Branch, carrying placards from the AvEG-Com against Militarism, War and Racism, to which they had added the word CUTS.

I thought the Islington banner made a fine backdrop against which to mover closer to photograph an elderly woman, I think one of our new Londoners, in a flower-decorated scarf with its crowd as a backdrop.

Of course there were other pictures, including those of the two main speakers, the RMT’s Bob Crow and FBU’s Matt Wrack, as well as many more of the crowd, all in Trade Union March Against Cuts on My London Diary.

A Place to Cut?

I’d not gone to Windsor to take photographs, but for a walk with my wife, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. Fortunately the latter of which finds beards fascinating, so when I was pushing her around in a push chair all I had to do when she got a little upset was to tilt the chair back to horizontal so she could see me making silly faces and she smiled back. She even seemed to enjoy my singing and whistling, which is more than I do.

But as we got off the train at Windsor, lots of men on horses started to come past and so I stopped to take a few pictures of them. And there were a lot of police around. Apparently it was all a rehearsal for the state visit a few days later of the Emir of Qatar, paying a visit with one of his wives to the Queen.

I suppose you can’t expect an Emir to pay for a taxi to take his suitcases up the hill, and the Queen could have sent a car down to meet him, but the scale seemed pretty obscene given the cuts we are going to have to make in other things. Keeping hundreds of horses isn’t cheap, and there seemed to be three carriages. The army are complaining about lack of manpower, so these guys could have been better occupied, as too could the police.

I’m not entirely against a little pageantry, and I’m sure it does tourism no harm, though I doubt if too many actually get to Windsor to see it, but couldn’t we make do with just a dozen or two guys and some inventive filming to create a bit of spectacle?

I wasn’t at my best that day, and at some point managed to switch the camera to manual by mistake and didn’t notice. It’s fairly easy to do, holding down the wrong button with your first finger when trying to dial in some exposure compensation. When I’m very much engrossed in looking at the scene (as I usually am) I can be completely unaware of the viewfinder display – sometimes I think it was better when cameras didn’t have one. Of course camera designers can’t win. Reviewers would grumble if they made changing the mode settings hard to do and I’d like them to make it harder.

When I’m going out to take pictures I always like to do a quick check through the settings for A, S and M modes and set them to sensible values before I start taking pictures (things like f8, 1/250 second.) It’s one slight disadvantage of using Auto ISO as I was that however silly the settings you make there is a good chance of getting an image that looks OK at a glance on the camera back. On the way to Windsor I hadn’t bothered, and the manual setting I’d engaged – 1/60 f6.3 – was actually perfect for taking a few family pictures later inside the pub where we had lunch, but pretty hopeless for galloping horses, where a considerably faster shutter was needed to stop movement or a much slower one for arty blurs. At 1/60 what I got was slightly unsharp images – sharp enough for the blur not so show at a quick glance on the camera back.

I was standing right next to the road as the cavalry came back and galloped up the hill, and it was an impressive sight. If I was an infantryman on the opposite side with only a musket and a short sword I would have felt pretty scared at the crashing of hooves and the shaking of the ground as the troop passed. But those days have gone and its perhaps time to move on too. These guys really are real soldiers, but we are still getting them to dress up as if they were fighting Napoleon, to carry swords and to shine their boots so they can see their faces in them.

There are just a few more photographs on My London Diary.