Barnardos Project

Meant to have put this bit in the blog earlier but have not found the time. I am taking part in a Barnardos Project with the Rochdale branch in conjunction with See Gallery involving a group of ten children. The project is about the group’s aspirations and involves highlighting each individual aspiration through photography. I have been to three different locations with individuals in order to photograph them for the project. The first one was with Lewis and the shoot took place in a garage. His dream is to be more independent and he has trained as a car mechanic. He wouldn’t be able to achieve his dream because of his epilepsy but loved working with cars so we decided that this would be the subject of his photograph. We dressed him in overalls and photographed him working on the engine and changing a wheel. The location was pretty dark and we set up a couple of Bowens lights at either side of Lewis whilst he ‘worked’ on the engine. There were a lot of fluorescent lights, which were a little annoying and space was very limited around the car, which meant that we couldn’t put the lights exactly where we wanted but we persevered. Julian the photographer took some photos then I took a series of photos using my flash card. I used their camera as it was a Canon 5d with a 24-105 L series lens, which produced a far sharper photo than my Canon 40d and 17-85 lens. I think it will be some time before I can afford a 5d. The first photographs I took of the subject positioned over car engine were probably my strongest. The next photos were taken at another end of the garage and I tried to move the lighting as best I could in the limited space but we didn’t do a meter reading so the resulting photos were very bright on one side of the subject. Even though the composition of the photo was perfect, I am not sure I will be able to rectify it using Photoshop. I am hoping that Julian has got a better version of this as the image looks really good. I know it is really important to get the lighting right in the first place and will endeavour to ensure that I do this no matter how much stick I might get from the subject!

The next kid well, young adult really, was Lee who loved going to the pub with his friends. We decided to photograph him playing pool with his mates. The location was a working man’s club which was great in that we had use of the back room for several hours but just a little dated in appearance. We decided to just let them play pool and we would photograph them throughout. The photographs I took of Lee with his mates didn’t work quite as I had planned. There was never really an instant where they were all crowded round the table without it looking too staged. Perhaps in retrospect, we should have taken this approach initially: staged the shot, taken the photographs and then let them get on with their game. The stronger images were when I focused on him alone pocketing the balls. I don’t think it matters that his friends weren’t present in the image as long as he is seen to be playing pool, which was the original idea we had for him. Julian might have some stronger images showing Lee with his friends.

The last couple of locations were with Sandra and Rebecca. Sandra’s photograph took place in a wedding shop and Rebecca’s in a Travel Agent. Julian brought along another photographer and initially it looked as though we were going to each shoot in different locations as time was really tight. The other woman went into the Travel Agent and I remained in the Wedding Shop with Sandra and Elaine, the Barnardos Team Leader. We only had one sync lead though and I though I tried to set off the remote flash using the built in flash on my camera, it didn’t work so I had to wait until they had finished in the travel shop before I could begin to take photos. In the meantime we got her in a beautiful dress ready for the shoot. Once they brought the sync lead, I was able to take quite a few photos before the other photographer asked if she could have a go. The subject, Sandra was not quite in full flow and no matter how hard we tried, we could not get her to smile naturally. I had wanted to take more as the other photographer had sole input into the Travel Agent shoot but when she asked again, I felt pressured to allow her to take some photos though I hadn’t finished what I wanted to do. As her shoot was in a different location we moved all the lighting and she actually spent quite some time taking photographs. Though I managed to get a few more photos in, once again she started to take over the shoot and almost treat me as her assistant. I realize that we have to get good photos out of this project and no doubt, she is a better photographer that me which is fine, but I had been involved in this project from the beginning and want to be able to show my photography in the exhibition, not be fighting for a place amongst a group of photographers who are more experienced. I was pissed off at the time but after thinking about it, I have decided that it is a lesson to be learnt. It is a dog eat dog world out there, particularly in the field of photography and I will need to be more assertive when in that situation again and clarify with the organizers, who is going to be the main photographer on which shoot. Having three photographers on location is not ideal because everyone wants a go and the subject ends up posing for a longer period of time. Perhaps we can organise it that there is only two photographers for the remaining five sessions (one subject might not be participating). Next week is going to be full on as the exhibition date is looming so we need to move quickly in order to work within the deadline period.

I won’t publish any of the photos on the blog yet as most of the kids are still considered minors but I should have no problems once the exhibition has taken place.