iJourneys

John Gough Photography

Royal Picture Looks Odd

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Queen and heirs to the throne.

This is a photograph taken by Ranald Mackechnie of the once and future queen and kings. For many of us, the fact that the feudal relic of a monarchy has lasted into the 2020s is a glaring anachronism, but since the Prince Andrew disgrace and Prince Harry’s exile in Canada. The royals have gone into overdrive to present an ‘its all alright’, continuity theme.

Last month they were pictured in exactly the same outfits stirring Christmas puddings in palace’s Music Room. The Music Room which obviously doubles as a kitchen in polite society. Featured a number of regal decorations, including a crown, corgi, a throne, and a soldier.

This picture was taken on the same day as a Christmas lunch hosted by the Queen for the rest of her family. We know Prince Andrew attended whilst waiting for a call from the FBI. We also know that Prince Harry was on the other side of the world, with Mrs Markle and Lord Archie

This is the background to a very awkward photograph.

Too Tetchy

Mackechnie is a portrait photographer, used to getting a single sitter in front of the camera. But as we know from wedding photography getting a royal group together is like herding lizards.

The Queen and the Duke of Cambridge smile obediently. The Prince of Wales can only manage a grimace. It has been a bad year, he is waiting for his lunch and is obviously in one of those “bloody reporters” moods.

His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge has picked up his grandfather’s vibe and has a disdainful smirk on his little face, aimed at the photographer. As Prince Philip used to say of Antony Armstrong-Jones, “just a common snapper”.

Too Red and Too Fussy

No photographer would have chosen a dark location with claret red walls and carpet. The stairs at Buckingham Palace were obviously suggested as a useful device to ensure that Prince Charles looked as tall as his son and heir.

The red background sucks in all the available light, which makes lighting the shot a nightmare. The background is also too fussy, why leave the chair to the left? It is just distracting. There is also a sculpture under Prince Williams elbow and a column growing out of his head. The chandelier does help to frame the composition, but the photographer has had to add a strong vignette to hold interest in the royal bloodline.

Too Contrasty

The whites are too white and the darks too dark. The Queen’s dress is one blown highlight, there is no detail, even her left arm blends into her body. Prince Williams suit is too dark with no detail at all. Prince George’s legs are stuck together and his shoes are fused to his trousers. The shadows are all very black.

There has been a lot of dodge and burn in Photoshop to turn this dull image into something that is less dull.

All these features combine to create something odd as well as odious



Camera Wrist Strap

I have avoided dropping my camera so many times using a simple inexpensive wrist strap like this one. Cameras and expensive lenses do not bounce!

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Tony Ray-Jones

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There is an exhibition at the Martin Parr Foundation of work by Tony Ray-Jones.

The exhibition is on until December 21st 2019.

Pioneer

Ray-Jones was a pioneer and an inspiration to Parr.

“Tony Ray-Jones was one of my initial inspirations. His imagery showed me what was possible photographing my own country.” – Martin Parr

He is famous for photographing the eccentricities of English life. After studying in the US, he returned to England. Between 1966-68, Ray-Jones travelled around England in a VW camper van, capturing the customs and peculiarities of the British people, on the street, on holidays in seaside towns, and at social events. The ubiquitous class system so prevalent in 60’s Britain was a constant theme.

As he explained to Creative Camera in 1968:

I have tried to show the sadness and the humour in a gentle madness that prevails in a people. The situations are sometimes ambiguous and unreal, and the juxtaposition of elements seemingly unrelated, and the people are real. This, I hope helps to create a feeling of fantasy. Photography can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think that perhaps it is possible to walk, like Alice, through a Looking-Glass, and find another kind of world with the camera.

Influences

During his time in the States at the Yale School of Art, he knew and was influenced by young American documentary photographers like Gary Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz.

Returning home in 1965 he was full of ideas with notebooks full of lists and what to do next.

“Get more involved (talk to people),” began one typical list of these notes to self. “Stay with the subject matter (be patient). See if everything in the background relates to the subject matter. NO MIDDLE DISTANCE.”

There followed six years of photography that defined him, where he searched for the essence of Englishness. As the Guardian shows here it was an England that was not so swinging. The Ray-Jones version was how the 60’s really looked

In 1971 he was back in the States with his wife Anna working at a teaching position at the San Francisco Art Institute. He was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1972. He returned to England to be treated at the Royal Marsden Hospital but died aged 31.

I have curated some of his work here

Camera Wrist Strap

I have avoided dropping my camera so many times using a simple inexpensive wrist strap like this one. Cameras and expensive lenses do not bounce!

UK

USA

Terry O’Neill

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Terry O’Neill has died aged 81. A spokeswoman for Iconic Images said: “It is with a heavy heart that Iconic Images announces the passing of Terence ‘Terry’ O’Neill, CBE.

“Terry was a class act, quick-witted and filled with charm. Anyone who was lucky enough to know or work with him can attest to his generosity and modesty.

“As one of the most iconic photographers of the last 60 years, his legendary pictures will forever remain imprinted in our memories as well as in our hearts and minds.”

In the clip above he looks back on his life and remarks that he can’t believe it all happened. Of course, we are all photographers now, but back then we weren’t.

In the next much longer video, Terry O’Neill looks back on his life in photography.

He was around at a unique time when access to celebrity was still possible. The world was also undergoing a cultural revolution led by younger people like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Twiggy, Micheal Caine and Elton John. Terry O’Neill photographed them all.

What Terry O’Neill had was a camera usually a Leica and the eye for a good photograph. His pictures of public figures and stars have become iconic. As we and the stars have aged, the photographs have retained all the crispness and relevance they had the day they were taken.

This is the Terry O’Neill Instagram account.

I have collated some of his work here

Sally Soames

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Sally Soames
Sally Soames

Sally Soames died this week, she was a portrait photographer who worked in Fleet Street until 2000. She started as a press photographer in 1963 with the Observer and then worked for the Sunday Times for 32 years. She also freelanced for the Observer, Guardian, New York Times and Newsweek.

There is a gallery of her work here

Her portraits of famous people, including well-known shots of Rudolf Nureyev, Chris Eubank, Iris Murdoch and Hilary Mantel, are now held in galleries and collections around the world.

There are also studies of Margaret Thatcher, Seamus Heaney and Tony Blair, the latter taken during the 2001 election campaign. Her arresting image of Andy Warhol was photographed through a pane of glass.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has 17 of her images. However she said that “I don’t like to call them portraits, they’re photographs of people”.

Soames worked exclusively in black and white, out of strong personal preference, refusing to work in colour, despite newspapers switching to colour photographs during her time as a press photographer

Getting a connection with her subject was the secret of her mesmerising portraits. Once she had only three and a half minutes to photograph Sean Connery. Two of those minutes she spent in conversation with him, the connection however brief was for her most important.

As she said, “I used to talk to them. Nowadays you don’t have the time with people – everything’s changed and PR people are timing you; it’s a nightmare.”

Her trademark mono images were nearly always shot in natural light. Her inspiration was Anthony Armstrong Jones who did the same, taking black-and-white pictures using available light.

Save for a few pictures she kept to pass on to her three grandchildren, she donated her archive to The Guardian Media Group’s Scott Trust Foundation.

Her top tip: “Don’t do it. You can’t get the same quality stuff as I did. It’s not going to happen again.”

David Hurn in Conversation

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I have for a long time been a fan of David Hurn’s work. In many ways, he is the photographer’s photographer. This is because he cares so deeply about the medium, and is so anxious to encourage anyone who wants to seriously point a camera.

I first came across his work when I saw a BBC Two documentary: A Life in Pictures, which I have included above.

I also have a gallery of his work here.

Hurn is a massively successful photographer and a founder member of Magnum. In 2017, Hurn gifted two collections of photographs to the National Museum Wales; approximately 1,500 of his own photographs that span his sixty-year career as a documentary photographer; and approximately 700 photographs from his private collection of ‘swaps’, which he has compiled throughout the course of his career. 

I have been reading, On Being a Photographer, A Practical Guide, written by Bill Jay. A conversation between him and his friend David Hurn.

On Being a Photographer

I have curated some quotes from Hurn, that are in the book and that should inspire any serious photographer.

“My advice is: learn from the best or teach yourself. And do not bother at all if you do not have an exaggerated sense of curiosity.”

For David, photography is inextricably linked with life; the photographer is not invisibly behind the camera but projecting a life-attitude through the lens to create an interference pattern with the image.

“just wandering around looking for pictures, hoping that something will pop up and announce itself, does not work. Sorry about that, photographers, if it offends your fantasy of how a photographer behaves!”

“The photographer must have intense curiosity, not just a passing visual interest, in the theme of the pictures. This curiosity leads to intense examination, reading, talking, research and many, many failed attempts over a long period of time”.

“The best pictures, for me, are those which go straight into the heart and the blood, and take some time to reach the brain”.

“In all cases the pressing of the button is a reasonably continuous process, because you never know if the next fraction of a second is going to reveal an even more significant, poignant, visually stronger image than the previous one”.

“frames build up to a crescendo where a gesture, expression, or arrangement of shapes, signal that the image is captured — or the sequence abruptly ends because the event has collapsed”.

“Then someone who knows little about this way of working will see a single image, say in a book or at an exhibition, and think: that was a lucky shot!”

“Josef Koudelka who was shooting pictures around my cabin. I couldn’t understand what he was seeing, as the images seemed to have no connection with his known work. He said: “I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not ‘photographing,’ in order to keep the eye in practice.” That made sense. An athlete has to train every day although the actual event occurs only occasionally”.

The book is full of good advice and does not pretend that photography is easy and that anyone can do it.

Marketa Luskacova

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Marketa Luskacova
Marketa Luskacova

There is now an exhibition by Marketa Luskacova at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol entitled By the Sea and I encourage you to visit.

Marketa Luskakova is a Czech documentary photographer, whose wonderfully gritty observation of humanity shows through in the cold tones of her black and white images. You can see her work on her website and I have collated some North East images here, and there are more on her website here and here.

Have You Seen This ….. Martin Parr in Conversation

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This is an interesting video of Martin Parr talking to a group of students. It is a few years old now but worth a view. It is very short.

If you are not familiar with Martin Parr’s work then this is my Pinterest Board

Three things to take away from what he says:

  1. First take a lot of crap photographs, without taking the crap you will never get to the good.
  2. Connect with your subject. The only difference between your photograph and that of someone else is the quality of that connection.
  3. The connection, however, has to be so powerful that the photograph will stand on its own. Does it talk to us without you being in the room?

Here is more of his work. If you want to understand the meaning of connection then look through this book.

 

 

An Evening with Martin Parr

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Martin Parr

Last night I went along to the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, to hear Martin Parr talk about his life in photography.

These are just a few of the notes that I took away from the evening.

Obsession

His father was a fanatical bird watcher and every weekend Martin Parr would accompany him on birding trips. Parr admits that his photography is an obsession, a trait no doubt inherited from his father. However he is grateful, he believes that to be a successful photographer it has to be an obsession.

Projects

Projects I have always thought should have a beginning and an end date. Martin Parr does not always follow this rule. Although he has projects which have an end date, for example, he is currently working on a project which will be published as a book this year about people taking selfies. He also has recurring projects like the British seaside which he says he cannot resist, and keeps coming back to. This follows the success of his early book The Last Resort which was first published in 1986.

There are also longer term projects, for example, his love of photographing people dancing. This like his pertinacity to document the British class system, are continuing themes.

Colour or Black and White

Parr changed to colour in the early eighties. Even then colour was not a professional medium. Instead, it was more the domain of holiday snaps and hobbyists. I asked whether he had ever thought of returning to monochrome with the advent of digital. “I see in colour and photograph in colour” he replied, “I have no intention of going back”.

Gaining a Momentum and Eight Good Pictures a Year

Martin Parr admitted that when he arrived at a scene where he was going to take photographs, he would take lots of pictures. It is about getting into a momentum he said, so when that great opportunity happens, you are ready. He joked, that what we don’t see are the thousands of images he rejects. What was his hit rate he was asked? About one in ten thousand, or around eight really good shots a year.

Ordinary Things

In the early days, he would challenge himself to photograph things that were as boring as possible. He has always been interested in the mundane. The ordinary things later become extraordinary. He showed an example of a lady filling a car with petrol in the 80’s. Look he said the cars have changed, the pumps have changed and the fashions have changed.

Last Word

At one point during the evening, he said that it was his job to make fiction out of reality. That I think sums up his work.

Where to See His Work

He has a show Only Human at the National Portrait Gallery. There is also a book to accompany the event.

 

There is an exhibition of his photographs of in and around Manchester at the Manchester Art Gallery.

 

Don McCullin Retrospective

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Don McCullin

A major retrospective of the work of the masterful photographer Don McCullin starts at Tate Britain today. There is also an insightful documentary on BBC iPlayer for the next 27 days called Don McCullin : Looking for England. This shows the legend at work, photographing people at various locations in England, and working creating black and white prints in his dark room. The clip below is charming because he is usually so very serious and professional.