The Plan
At first, I was planning on doing a landscape shoot. However, I didn't feel good about doing that because it's the type of photography I have done for many years and found it perhaps a little too "easy and apparent".
I wanted to do something entirely different. Something hopefully nobody has done for this brief in a long while, if ever. So I contacted a Motocross club to see if I could shoot some shots of them doing their races and jumping. However, their first meeting was too late in the month for me to finish this brief on time. So I had to go back to the drawing board.
Thankfully, whilst looking on the internet and in the papers, I read something about a 1940's weekend that was taking place in Haworth, Yorkshire. It's a weekend where everyone gathers in the village, wearing 1940's clothes, hair and even drive old vehicles. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to go and take photographs of a pretty special subject.
I decided to give my best friend a call and ask him if he fancied coming with me for the day as my assistant. Unfortunately he had to work on the Saturday, which meant I only had the Sunday to get all the shots I needed. Therefore, to guarantee good photographs with no modern influences or people in modern day dress in them, we decided to make sure we would arrive in Haworth early morning. To do so, I stayed over at my friend's house in Bradford for the night so I didn't lose time by having to travel all the way there first. This ensured that when we got there, there weren't many visitors yet and that gave us the opportunity to photograph the subjects with neutral backgrounds.
My idea was to try and get as many different subjects, with their period clothing etc., and try and focus on shooting portraits. I wanted to try and capture as many different styles and uniforms as possible. From Nazi to Allied Forces to normal people from that time. The reason why I wanted to focus on portraits was the fact that I wanted to try and capture photographs that could come directly from a photo album from that time, or even a soldier's pocket. So to try and capture a wife's husband, dressed in his military uniform. Or to have 'the soldier's sweetheart', whose photograph he would carry in his pocket everywhere on the battlefields.
My idea was to try and get as many different subjects, with their period clothing etc., and try and focus on shooting portraits. I wanted to try and capture as many different styles and uniforms as possible. From Nazi to Allied Forces to normal people from that time. The reason why I wanted to focus on portraits was the fact that I wanted to try and capture photographs that could come directly from a photo album from that time, or even a soldier's pocket. So to try and capture a wife's husband, dressed in his military uniform. Or to have 'the soldier's sweetheart', whose photograph he would carry in his pocket everywhere on the battlefields.
With the idea sorted out, I decided to have a look online at what other photographers have done within this type of photography so perhaps I could use them as inspiration for my own work.
The Research
Looking online, there's a lot of different types of photographers to research around this subject. From real war photography to re-enactments to portraiture. Some of the people I looked at were Jim Naughten, Don McCullin and August Sander. All very different in type and style.
Looking at Jim Naughten and some of his portraits, it's clear they're in the right category. Reenactments. I can't help but feel an emptiness though. Although it was very normal in those days to have your portrait taken against a blank background, I just feel like something is missing because of that. It feels as though the subjects have been cut from their environment and pasted into a world of nothing. I wanted to try and capture people within their environment, be that next to their old car or in a military tent. To me, this tells you more about a person than when they stand in front of a white background.
Don McCullin on the other hand, was more to my liking. Although he was often in the thick of it, side by side with the soldiers, he has also shot a few portraits during his travels. His portraits are full of character. You can almost sense the tough lives some of his subjects have lived and the pain they may have felt. Although his images are are from real life situations, trying to get these emotions across in my images is still something I could use and take away from looking at his work.
August Sander is one that that has shot images that that are quite close to what I wanted to achieve. I found some images on the internet of soldiers and people from back in the day, posing in their natural environment. That was something that I much preferred to the white backgrounds of Jim Naughten. Again, they're from real life situations, but the look of the images was definitely something that I could try and use in my own work.
The main inspiration however, came from a photographer called Paul Smith. His photographs of re-enactments were so close to what type of images I wanted to shoot. The colour tint was also very close to what I pictured in my mind. What I liked about his images is the fact that there were a lot of portraits, which is exactly what I wanted to try and make the main focus of my project.
For more information on other photographers I looked at for this project, please look at the separate posts on research for this unit.
The Photographs
The following images are the end result of my photo shoot. The equipment at my disposal was as followed:
Evaluation
My aim with these photographs was to recreate images that could come straight out of a photo album from the 1940's. I wanted to take photographs that could have been found in an album or even carried around by perhaps a soldier in his pocket on the battlefields.
I think what I ended up with is exactly that and even more. There are indeed images that would easily qualify that description in my opinion, but there's some that are more than that. The photograph of the soldier in the back of the army truck for example. That on its own tells a story and raises questions. What is he thinking about? Who or what is he looking at? Where is he going? Every photograph makes you think about it, but some manage to do that slightly more than others. And it's images like that in my opinion that make this project even more special, because once you start asking questions like that about an image, you forget that these are only re-enactors. It's not actually real.
On a whole I reckon this project has been a big success. It's definitely a set of photographs I'm very proud of. It's been a difficult project to shoot, because it is hard to make sure there are no modern objects or influences in images like these. We live in 2013. There are mobile phones and other modern objects everywhere. So that was definitely a challenge, but one that I enjoyed. The photographs have turned out almost exactly how I pictured it in my head at the beginning.
I would like to think I've been able to use a few influences and inspiration from the photographers I researched. Even if it meant doing the exact opposite, simply because I saw something in their work that I really didn't like. Like the blank backgrounds Jim Naughten used in his images. I really didn't like that, so made sure there was always something behind my subjects, however neutral. Also, August Sander and Paul Smith gave me ideas for style and composition.
The final images that I've submitted are, as I said before, more or less what I had in my mind when I started this project.
The composition, I think, is good on each image. I have tried to really bring out the details in the clothes worn by my subjects. Examples of this are the fur on the women and the uniforms on the men, which both show a lot of detail. The backgrounds are neutral, but add to the images by making the viewer focus on the subjects. Looking at the colours, the Sepia tint is hugely important in making the images look more dated, which is crucial for the effect I want them to have on people.
I decided not to apply the grain you would normally get with film cameras from the 1940's, mainly because it is the one thing that always annoys me a little when I look at images from that era. There are a lot of people that really love that. I, on the other hand, feel a lot of detail gets lost when using cameras like that, which is why I decided against applying any sort of noise to my images in Adobe Photoshop.
Even though the people in my photographs are re-enactors, I reckon I've managed to create the illusion of the subjects showing their emotions and thoughts. The soldier with his sweetheart for example, they really look like a couple that is deeply in love with one another. Or the soldier in the back of the army truck I mentioned earlier. Each image raises different questions, different feelings. And that's what, ultimately, I wanted to achieve.
If I were ever to undertake a project similar to this one, I'll have to be even more aware of the modern influences. When I got home there were a few images where people had mobile phones in their hands or sticking out of pockets, which I didn't notice at the time. So that's something I could improve on.
Another thing is sharpness. Now I think a big part of that is the fact that my lenses aren't of the expensive type, but even so I want to make sure I always do everything in my power to achieve the maximum sharpness possible with my equipment.
The most important thing I have to work on though, is dealing with people. I have to become more confident and know that it's fine to approach people. I know it doesn't really show in my images, but I find it really difficult to interact with people when they're my subjects. This is probably why I started out as a landscape photographer.
This project has been great to do and I've really enjoyed it. Thinking about how perhaps to take this type of thing further would entail perhaps getting in touch with the organisers of the event, to see if they'd like to hire me as their photographer. Perhaps my images could be used in brochures to advertise the event or similar events. My images could also be used in books about the 1940's or perhaps books that focus on re-enactments. Exhibitions on the era are another place where my images wouldn't feel out of place. To be honest, the sky could be the limit.
August Sander is one that that has shot images that that are quite close to what I wanted to achieve. I found some images on the internet of soldiers and people from back in the day, posing in their natural environment. That was something that I much preferred to the white backgrounds of Jim Naughten. Again, they're from real life situations, but the look of the images was definitely something that I could try and use in my own work.
The main inspiration however, came from a photographer called Paul Smith. His photographs of re-enactments were so close to what type of images I wanted to shoot. The colour tint was also very close to what I pictured in my mind. What I liked about his images is the fact that there were a lot of portraits, which is exactly what I wanted to try and make the main focus of my project.
For more information on other photographers I looked at for this project, please look at the separate posts on research for this unit.
The Photographs
The following images are the end result of my photo shoot. The equipment at my disposal was as followed:
- Canon 550D DSLR
- Canon EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS Lens
- Canon EF 70-300mm USM Lens
- Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Mk II
- Several other things such as filters, wireless triggers etc.
Evaluation
My aim with these photographs was to recreate images that could come straight out of a photo album from the 1940's. I wanted to take photographs that could have been found in an album or even carried around by perhaps a soldier in his pocket on the battlefields.
I think what I ended up with is exactly that and even more. There are indeed images that would easily qualify that description in my opinion, but there's some that are more than that. The photograph of the soldier in the back of the army truck for example. That on its own tells a story and raises questions. What is he thinking about? Who or what is he looking at? Where is he going? Every photograph makes you think about it, but some manage to do that slightly more than others. And it's images like that in my opinion that make this project even more special, because once you start asking questions like that about an image, you forget that these are only re-enactors. It's not actually real.
On a whole I reckon this project has been a big success. It's definitely a set of photographs I'm very proud of. It's been a difficult project to shoot, because it is hard to make sure there are no modern objects or influences in images like these. We live in 2013. There are mobile phones and other modern objects everywhere. So that was definitely a challenge, but one that I enjoyed. The photographs have turned out almost exactly how I pictured it in my head at the beginning.
I would like to think I've been able to use a few influences and inspiration from the photographers I researched. Even if it meant doing the exact opposite, simply because I saw something in their work that I really didn't like. Like the blank backgrounds Jim Naughten used in his images. I really didn't like that, so made sure there was always something behind my subjects, however neutral. Also, August Sander and Paul Smith gave me ideas for style and composition.
The final images that I've submitted are, as I said before, more or less what I had in my mind when I started this project.
The composition, I think, is good on each image. I have tried to really bring out the details in the clothes worn by my subjects. Examples of this are the fur on the women and the uniforms on the men, which both show a lot of detail. The backgrounds are neutral, but add to the images by making the viewer focus on the subjects. Looking at the colours, the Sepia tint is hugely important in making the images look more dated, which is crucial for the effect I want them to have on people.
I decided not to apply the grain you would normally get with film cameras from the 1940's, mainly because it is the one thing that always annoys me a little when I look at images from that era. There are a lot of people that really love that. I, on the other hand, feel a lot of detail gets lost when using cameras like that, which is why I decided against applying any sort of noise to my images in Adobe Photoshop.
Even though the people in my photographs are re-enactors, I reckon I've managed to create the illusion of the subjects showing their emotions and thoughts. The soldier with his sweetheart for example, they really look like a couple that is deeply in love with one another. Or the soldier in the back of the army truck I mentioned earlier. Each image raises different questions, different feelings. And that's what, ultimately, I wanted to achieve.
If I were ever to undertake a project similar to this one, I'll have to be even more aware of the modern influences. When I got home there were a few images where people had mobile phones in their hands or sticking out of pockets, which I didn't notice at the time. So that's something I could improve on.
Another thing is sharpness. Now I think a big part of that is the fact that my lenses aren't of the expensive type, but even so I want to make sure I always do everything in my power to achieve the maximum sharpness possible with my equipment.
The most important thing I have to work on though, is dealing with people. I have to become more confident and know that it's fine to approach people. I know it doesn't really show in my images, but I find it really difficult to interact with people when they're my subjects. This is probably why I started out as a landscape photographer.
This project has been great to do and I've really enjoyed it. Thinking about how perhaps to take this type of thing further would entail perhaps getting in touch with the organisers of the event, to see if they'd like to hire me as their photographer. Perhaps my images could be used in brochures to advertise the event or similar events. My images could also be used in books about the 1940's or perhaps books that focus on re-enactments. Exhibitions on the era are another place where my images wouldn't feel out of place. To be honest, the sky could be the limit.
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