08: Body Posture
Many photographers have emphasised the body posture of the people being portrayed. Erwin Wurm has produced a number of 'One Minute Sculptures' where he or a model pose in temporary and spontaneous positions to produce humorous and thought-provoking outcomes. In the project Removed by Eric Pickersgill, figures fixed in their everyday poses were photographed with their mobile phones removed. In portraits by Arielle Bobb-Willis, models holding awkward positions have been photographed in strange locations. The postures of people in the photographs by August Sander often indicate their occupation or role in society. Investigate appropriate sources and produce your own response to Body posture.
Research
Lou Smith
Lou Smith is my favourite photographer, he captures concerts like no one else can. The way he can capture the movement and the posture of the performances is incredible. Before I started to go to these concerts myself, I would watch his videos and look through his photos religiously, now that I go to a lot of the same gigs as he does, I get to see him in action. He always is so up close to the performances, often resulting in injuries and damaged equipment. Pretty much the only criticism I have of. his photography is his use of black and white. I am not a big fan of black and white concert photography because I think the lighting and colour of a performance is a very important part of it, and I think there's a lot to be explored by experimenting with colour in concerts and in photography, From. I think having Lou Smith as someone to research is great because we take photos at a lot of the same gigs so I can compare and contrast my results with his. Despite this I do want my photography to be quite different to his as I'm experimenting with my own style.
This is my favourite photo I've seen from Lou Smith, the subject of the photo being the frontman of Lou's (and my) favourite band, Lias Saoudi of Fat White Family. I think this photo perfectly captures the insanity of Lias' performances, with him covered in sweat and leaning into the audience. I like how Lou has captured both the crowd and the performance in this one composition, I think the woman looking on in concern at the front of the crowd is a great addition to the photo. It goes to show how extreme his performances can be and his effect on spectators.
Arielle Bobb-Willis
I really liked the use of colour and shadows in these photos. This was definitely my favourite photographer out of the ones on the exam paper. Although I don't think that the postures stand out in the photos that much, I feel like their addition to the images is a lot more subtle. For example the first photo, of the man with a foam sword in his mouth is interesting because of how it draws attention to the neck of the subject of the photo with it being the centre. I feel like this isn't a part of the body that is often a focus of a photo. I think Bobb-Willis' fashion photography style works well because of the textures in these images too. For example I like the last photo of these four for many reasons but something that adds a lot to it is the fact that the wall and the woman's dress are the same colours but have contrasting textures. I was more drawn to the textures as well as the posture in this photo because that is where the light is. The face of the subject, which would normally be the focus of most pieces of portrait photography is shrouded in darkness in this photo, making it a lot more difficult to pick out any details. This photographer explores the idea of obscuring faces in all of the images that I used, in my opinion the most striking one being the second one with the face of the subject being covered by what looks like colourful lolly sticks.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson is a photographer that I've already researched for a seperate topic but I feel like body posture is a key part of his photography. Unlike Arielle Bobb-Willis, Cartier-Bresson's photos are all candid, considering that I'd like to focus on concert photography I think it's a lot more important for me to research candid portraiture. I feel like there is definitely a skill to capturing the right moment when it comes to selecting to take a photo in candid situations, I imagine this could be quite a struggle in a concert setting too considering the flashing lights and the fast movements.
Henri Cartier-Bresson is a photographer that I've already researched for a seperate topic but I feel like body posture is a key part of his photography. Unlike Arielle Bobb-Willis, Cartier-Bresson's photos are all candid, considering that I'd like to focus on concert photography I think it's a lot more important for me to research candid portraiture. I feel like there is definitely a skill to capturing the right moment when it comes to selecting to take a photo in candid situations, I imagine this could be quite a struggle in a concert setting too considering the flashing lights and the fast movements.
I think the things that stand out most in these photos are the silhouettes of the subjects. The people and specifically their postures are emphasised so much in these photos through a stark contrast of the highlights and the shadows. This style of photography is centred around composition, a part of photography that i definitely need to be thinking a lot about when capturing concert photography,
Chris Killip
Chris Killip's photobook; 'The Station' released in 2018 but captured in 1985.
This book documents the punk venue 'The Station' in Gateshead. Killip subverted expectations by not pointing his camera at the bands, but at the audience. Here he captured the community of anarcho-punks that frequented the venue. He managed to document the chaotic and unpredictable crowd and their moshes.
This book documents the punk venue 'The Station' in Gateshead. Killip subverted expectations by not pointing his camera at the bands, but at the audience. Here he captured the community of anarcho-punks that frequented the venue. He managed to document the chaotic and unpredictable crowd and their moshes.
I really appreciate the fact that Chris Killip can create such clear and unblurred photos in this setting, considering the darkness of the venue and the fast paced movement and moshing of the audience. Something that I find very interesting about Killip's work too is the fact that he was not at all a punk and so his perspective of the venue was that of an outsider, so I feel like his perspective of a concert would differ a lot from mine as I have already been going to these venues and the majority of the time I will already know the bands as well as a lot of people in the audience. I'm interested to see how my work will differ from him considering the similar subject matter but the difference in perspective. I also think I'd prefer to take photos of the performers instead of the crowd, mainly because the venues I go to won't have a barrier and so there wont be a space for me to face the crowd. As much as this sounds like an excuse I always end up forgetting to document the best gigs i go to just because I end up enjoying it too much.
This is my favourite photo I've seen from Chris Killip. I love how he managed to capture both the performer and the crowd in the same photo as well as showing the wide range of facial expressions and postures of the members of the audience. Something else I think is great about this photo is how no one is looking into the camera despite the fact the camera's facing directly at them and the photographer is using the flash. I think this is perfect as a way of showing how into the music these people are. In my own concert photography I hope I can capture passion for the music whether it's the musicians passion or the spectators passion. I've always felt like a good crowd is an important part of a good concert, so I think it would be good to be able to incorporate the crowd into the photos in some way.
My Work
This is my favourite photo capturing body posture from component 1. I like the way that Ollie (the main subject of the photo) is leaning forward and holding onto the mic. I also like how the mic cable is wrapped around his arm and all the way to his other hand. I think that the bright light shining on only one side of him came out really well too.
Before taking my own photos for the topic 'Body Posture', I used this photo that I had found in a junk store because I thought the body posture and face of the subject was expressive and striking. The left hand side of the photo is completely red, the red is covering up the other people that were in this photo, the two other women in the image seemed so posed and ready for the photo that I felt that I needed to make something where it's just the one woman who doesn't seem to be reacting to the camera at all. The woman in the photo looked sad already, but by isolating her from the other subjects of the photo and making her the focus, I feel like the sadness of the photo becomes far clearer and more exaggerated.
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I have decided to create a response to the topic 'Body Posture'. Portraiture is something that I began experimenting with towards the end of component 1. I think the topic I chose is one that comes with a lot of opportunities, I'm going to try and take photos every day, because I feel like my lack of content in component 1 is the main reason I found it so difficult. I want to experiment with a variety of locations, subjects and processes. I already have a few plans, but I think I prefer to just go out and leave my photography to chance, I just need to remember to take out a camera wherever I go, and if I can't then I should just remember to take photos with my phone.
Here are some photos I took on Wednesday, I'm not very happy with how they came out, I don't like the lighting in them and I also don't like the composition of them. Something I do like is the subject matter though, I'm always happy to take photos in a music venue, I just hope I can improve on how I take these photos. I do like using blurred and colourful photos though, I think they can be great at conveying emotion as well as movement, I also think they're great to put next to another photo in a diptych. Having one photo there to show the subject matter and being a clear image, and the other a blur of the same subject would be a good layout for diptychs if that's what I choose to do.
I used lighter colour and darker colour photoshop layer blending for these photos. I really like how this made the guitar look, I think that it makes it look like some impossible blur. It was after I had made this image that I decided to change my project theme from "Altered Faces" to "Body Posture", because I knew I wanted to use this and I realised that the body posture was something far more important to the concert photography I was taking than the musicians faces.
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The symbol I used for this photo is a symbol for the pope, the band is called "Children of the Pope" and they use a lot of Christian lyricism and imagery in their work (as you can see from the crucifix on Juno's guitar). I like the idea of having some symbol or design complimenting a photo and I think this is a great example. I feel like the symbol matches well with Juno's jumper in this and like this could do well as some sort of poster or something similar. Another thing I like about this image is the fact that the lighting is just standard white lights. I took this photo during their performance in a record store and it was good to be able to take a photo of a concert where the bright colourful lights weren't taking over the photo.
Ollie Brown, aka Neuro Placid is one of my favourite performers to capture, he always shows his clear passion for his music through his body and his voice, I think the photo above is a good example of how he is during his gigs.
Re-editing old photos to fit with how my new photos look. A problem I had with a lot of my old concert photography is the fact that the lighting was often too bright in obnoxious colours, I've realised now that I can change the hue of these photos to avoid this problem.
I only really like to use warm colours in my photography, especially for concert photography because I like the feeling of being in a crowd that's enjoying the concert and the energy of the music, which I think is represented better through using reds and oranges. I also really like the fact that there isn't any strong lighting in the photos of Children of the Pope, I think that venues having such bright and strong lights can sometimes be too distracting from the photos. |
I like how these photos show a lot of movement and the silhouettes. I also like how the 'Threshold' version came out because I think it draws a lot more attention to the movement. I really liked the performance and posture of this artist, "Black Lotus" which makes it more annoying that I didn't get any great photos of him.
I think the red and green of these photos came out really well, I achieved this colour through editing because the photo was originally an ugly bright purple, so I just changed the hue in photoshop. I also like the way that Josh (on the right), looks at Niamh (on the left) in these photos. Josh is usually the drummer for Niamh's band so I think it's nice that they're still having this nice moment even during Niamh's solo set. I think the fact that josh doesn't look out of place in the composition despite just being there to hold the mic shows their connection.
Weebly compresses thresholded images terribly. These are my first real attempts at non-candid photos, still just taken with my phone. I really like how these came out though, especially after using the threshold effect, I think that it highlights Niamh's posture well whist also doing a great job at showing off the textures of the wall as well as Niamh's outfit. These were my first attempts at non candid photos during this project and I liked how they came out. Although this doesn't fit with the rest of the concert photos, Niamh is a musican and frontman in a band I like to go see so I think it's interesting to compare how musicians are when they aren't on stage considering the fact that I've noticed a stark difference in personality when it comes to a lot of musician's stage presence.,
I've been trying to understand the reason for me liking a photo. I've realised that because I like different photos I've taken for very different aspects of them, I can't really simplify what makes me like a photo into anything specific, because of this I think for my making day I want to make an exhibition exploring this, grouping different photos based on what I like about them and also grouping them by how the body posture of the subject affects the photo. Previously when I've made collages or exhibitions, the composition of the photos has had no real ideas or reasoning behind it. Another idea I've had is that I want to just outline the posture of the subjects in the photos and then make a separate composition entierely composed based on the body posture of the people.
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This is my attempt at creating a composition that is more freeform and based around how I feel about the photos. The photos I like more being larger and the photos that I consider to be connected being closer to each other. I'm not entirely impressed with how this came out, I think that the photos being so close to each other, with the aesthetically similar photos being so close to each other makes the images just blend in with each other and lose their individual value. I've learnt from this that I'd rather keep my images in a composition separate instead of all being mashed in with each other.
These are the first photos that I took with my camera at a concert, there weren't too many people in the crowd so it made me feel a lot more comfortable using my camera. I liked the results so it makes me feel like I should've done this before instead of relying on my phone. I found that a lot of the time it was very hard to find the right settings for the photos to not come out blurry or just completely dark, so I think it'd be good to continue to gain experience with the different functions of my camera so I can know what I'm doing in tricky circumstances such as gigs. I think that the blurriness of some of these images adds a good sense of movement though so I wouldn't want to completely remove that aspect from my photography. I really liked the postures of all the members of the band, each of them having their own very different characteristics.
Cam, the frontman and guitarist pretty much hunched over into a fetal position many times during the set, which is something I've found to be as a somewhat recurring theme with a lot of the performers I go to see. I feel like this is something a psychiatrist would have a field day analyzing. On the other hand, Niamh, the bass player is really exaggerated and confident in all of their movements, at times jumping into the crowd to dance whilst playing, their outfit alone enough to catch peoples eyes. Louis, the drummer was the most difficult to capture because of back of the stage not being lit too well and because of the speed of his playing. Louis' posture in his performance might not be as much of a spectacle compared to the other two, but you can see the passion for what he's playing shine through as he never looks up from his drums, almost always staring down and keeping his eyes from the audience, also the fact he's a complete blur in almost all of these photos shows the sheer force he is playing the drums with.
Cam, the frontman and guitarist pretty much hunched over into a fetal position many times during the set, which is something I've found to be as a somewhat recurring theme with a lot of the performers I go to see. I feel like this is something a psychiatrist would have a field day analyzing. On the other hand, Niamh, the bass player is really exaggerated and confident in all of their movements, at times jumping into the crowd to dance whilst playing, their outfit alone enough to catch peoples eyes. Louis, the drummer was the most difficult to capture because of back of the stage not being lit too well and because of the speed of his playing. Louis' posture in his performance might not be as much of a spectacle compared to the other two, but you can see the passion for what he's playing shine through as he never looks up from his drums, almost always staring down and keeping his eyes from the audience, also the fact he's a complete blur in almost all of these photos shows the sheer force he is playing the drums with.
When it comes to passionate performances, I've noticed that people will usually either scrunch themselves up, hunching over or getting onto the floor, or throwing their limbs and making themselves as big as possible.
This diptych I made is a lot closer to the kind of composition that I want to make than the jumbled mess I tried making before, a lot more
This is my second idea for a final piece. I like this a lot better than my last one so I'm definitely a lot more likely to use this. My ideal way of displaying something like this would be by printing it out to like A2 scale on a wall. I took a lot of these photos on my phone though so I feel like it might be a bad idea to print them out so big, because their bad quality would be obvious.