photographers Archives

Pete Souza: The Way I See It

The Way I See It, is a documentary about former Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza. Recording his personal journey as an image maker, with top secret clearance and total access to President Obama.

As a photographer, the film is interesting because it shows the way Pete Souza worked. It is accompanied by hundreds of examples of his work, which are wonderfully clear and compassionate.

Shade

On another level, the documentary is a comparison of the Obama presidency with that of his successor Donald Trump. Souza was apolitical and photographed four presidents including both the Reagans and the Obamas. What changed was what he saw as Trump’s total disregard for the Office of President.

His book Shade documents why he considered Trump unfit for office.

Pete Souza Photography

It is his however his photography that I find spellbinding. The photographs are more than just a record of the Presidency. OK, the Obama’s are undoubtedly photogenic, but the intimacy he has been allowed to capture shows a trusting and valued relationship between President and photographer.

His range is impressive, from formal group portraits with a medium format camera and studio lights. To press photography with flash and long and wide lenses. To intimate portraits indoors using just available light.

You can view his work in his book, Obama an Intimate Portrait, which contains over 300 pages of his Obama photographs

Precious historical documents . . . vividly human and often funny . . . these images tell the true story of a presidency that words have failed’ Jonathan Jones, Guardian

The Way I See It: Video

Watch, The Way I see It on Prime Video either rent for £1.99 or buy.

Bailey Portraits

by John Gough

It is strange isn’t it that you have views on everything but you know nothing. My view of the photographer David Bailey was that he was a famous fashion photographer of the ’60s, who went on to shoot some portraits of celebrities. For example the famous photograph of Michael Caine with a cigarette.

What I had not understood was the depth of his work and his astonishing output over the years since the 1960’s.

At Christmas I was lucky enough to receive Baileys Stardust, the book that accompanied a major exhibition of his portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2014.

The portraits in this book were personally selected by Bailey from his work over fifty years. These include actors, writers, musicians, politicians, film-makers, models, and artists. As well as the people he encountered on his travels to Australia, India, Sudan and Papua New Guinea.

It is uncanny how he can bring something fresh to faces that we are all familiar with. Creating something extraordinary.

As Bailey said:

“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary”

Resources

I have attached a documentary about the irascible but brilliant Bailey, and collated some of his portraits here

The book, Bailey’s Stardust may be about to go out of print. This version is in Spanish, but get it while you can. It is the photographs that you will want to savour.

Rankin’s 2020: Sky Arts

by John Gough

Rankin has a new show on Sky Arts, which reviews the results of a photography challenge launched in the summer to document life in 2020. In the programme, (Rankin’s 2020) Rankin demonstrates how he would tackle each assignment and with two guests reviews his images and their images.

Sky Arts is now a free-to-air channel on Freeview Channel 11.

There are six parts to the series. Each episode will focus on a different category – family, fun, self, beauty, empathy and nature.

Rankin is a renowned portrait photographer, who has now diversified into fashion, advertising and film. He is best known for working with models Kate Moss and Heidi Klum as well as photographing celebrities like Madonna, David Bowie and the Queen.

Rankin describes this project:

“Photography is my life and passion and I truly believe it has the power to reveal and connect. Now we all have cameras in our pockets, I think it’s time to use them. Rankin’s 2020 is an open call to anybody who thinks they can take a great picture. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve never taken a photograph before or you’re a professional, I want to see your view of our world. Together we can document this crazy year and make something positive out of it.”

There are now two photography based programmes on Sky Arts. I have reviewed Master of Photography, and I have watched the first episode of Rankin’s 2020. I enjoyed Rankin’s interpretation of empathy and seeing how he worked. The images submitted were also refreshing, in that they did not look like traditional photography competition entries. Many had been captured on a smartphone. They were alive, immediate and compelling.

Master of Photography: Sky Arts

by John Gough

Fantastic news. Sky Arts, the Sky channel, is now available on Freeview, Channel 11. The channel started broadcasting this week, which means that we can all now get to see one of their most popular programmes: Master of Photography. A photography competition, in which contestants compete with one another to gain the coveted title and 150,000 euros.

I watched the first episode this week, on Friday at 2pm. This was a repeat from the first series broadcast in 2016. I imagine the series is shown across the schedule. However, you will need to trawl through endless repeats of Tales of the Unexpected to find it.

The format is similar to The Apprentice, Masterchef and Bake Off. Twelve contestants battle it out each week, until one is eliminated. The judges are eminent photographers and there is a guest photographer to give advice. The series has been running for four seasons, and hopefully, they will all be repeated for Freeview viewers.

Master of Photography Season 1 Episode 1

The contestants chosen from the ‘thousands’ that applied. In this episode, spent six hours shooting on the streets of Rome. Not all the candidates were familiar with street photography, so it was fascinating to watch their different styles. No doubt they were good photographers to win through and get a place in the competition, but the judges were ‘underwhelmed’ with the results.

It may have been the difficulty of street photography. Alex Webb the Magnum street and travel photographer was on hand to give advice. Street photography is 99.8% disappointment he said.

The best bit of advice, however, was kept until the end.

Shoot for yourselves, not what you think the judges are looking for.

Glenys Garnett

by John Gough

I have long been a fan of Glenys Garnett, her creative flower photography and landscape work are an inspiration.

RPS Virtual Events

I mention this because the RPS is hosting a virtual event where Glenys will be talking about creative landscapes. It will cover:

In this 60 minute presentation Glenys Garnett will give you some overview and insight into her approach to capturing and creating landscape imagery. She will share her influences and the techniques she uses both in-camera and in Photoshop to show how she goes about creating her composite landscapes.
Glenys will also explain the tools you need to make a start in developing your own creative images.

The RPS is also running an online workshop where Glenys will be talking about Making Creative Landscape Images. It is restricted to six people only, but I have written to the RPS to try and make the recordings available.

Links to the Work of Glenys Garnett

Meantime if you want to follow Glenys and sample her wonderful creative images, find her Twitter feed. There are new wonderful photographs almost every day.

To see her work I have created a Pinterest board, but it is just a sample of her vast output.

Glenys is also very generous in sharing her techniques and knowledge. You can subscribe to her YouTube feed here.

One of the things I been practising during the lockdown is to imagine a scene and then to attempt to create it. This has been more relevant during these times because our freedom of movement has been curtailed. Choosing a location, turning up and hoping an opportunity will present itself is no longer so accessible. This has made me look inward more and create with what is available.

With this in mind, as we come out of lockdown. I am going to take time to study these tutorials on YouTube and the RPS, in the hope that I can share in some of the Glenys Garnett creative magic.

Joshua K Jackson

by John Gough

Joshua K. Jackson is a British photographer based in London, Working in colour, photographing everyday life in the capital. His work has been published worldwide and exhibited in the UK, USA and Europe.

Check out this series of videos about street photography and the work of Joshua K Jackson, promoted by Adobe.

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!

USA

Bruce Davidson

by John Gough

Show me a grainy black and white photograph from the 1960s and I am sold. Which is welcome, because the work of Bruce Davidson is now on sale at Huxley-Parlour in London

I love the documentary photography of that time. Especially the work of Tony Ray-Jones, Marketa Luskacova, David Hurn, and Don McCullin.

Bruce Davidson [Magnum Photos] came to the UK from the States in the 1960s. On an assignment from Queen magazine to go and photograph the British.

Bruce Davidson Shoots the British

Driving around the country in a Hillman Minx for two months. He was able to capture the country as it transformed from pre-war to post-war. Gritty in many industrial areas that had not changed since the 1930s. A country still riven by class but changing rapidly.

“They gave me carte blanche because Cornell Capa told them, ‘If you want to get a beautiful set of pictures, let him take off. You will be surprised.’ And that’s what I did,” Davidson says.

His pictures were first published as Seeing Ourselves as an American Sees Us: A Picture Essay on Britain on April 12, 1961. “I was free to encounter life,” Davidson says. “I was open and didn’t have any agenda. There was a certain sense of sky and fog, of another place. That’s why those pictures are delicate – and I was delicate too. “

I have curated some of his photographs from that trip here.

Exhibition

You can visit the Bruce Davidson exhibition A United Britain. At Huxley-Parlour in Swallow St, between the 17th Jan and the 14th March.

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!

USA

Royal Picture Looks Odd

by John Gough

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!

USA

Tony Ray-Jones

by John Gough

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!

USA

Terry O’Neill

by John Gough

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