Skin Art Stories: March 2011

Thursday, 31 March 2011

Tattoo Studio

Still not sure what format my final images are going to take: I have enclosed the contact sheet for the black and white versions, as I do really like them.

Have experimented a little with the blending mode in Photoshop but definitely need to work harder on that aspect if my images are going to work. I have actually been looking at YouTube for videos on how to use the tool effectively, though some of the videos are pretty crap so I have to weed out the good from the bad and mediocre. I have also bought the Tom Ang book: Digital Photographer’s Handbook, which is a really good reference book.

I still have one more session at the Tattoo Studio. I intend to perhaps interview Louis in this last session and hopefully make a video of the studio interior. I am still not sure what the final format will be, though I am tending towards a book only. I had hoped to show the project on my website but am not sure this will happen now. I will show it at a later stage though, once I can breathe again!

Monday, 21 March 2011

Barnardos Project

The Barnardos Exhibition opened today! It was at Wheatsheaf library and will run for three weeks. It was attended by around fifty or so people including all the kids whose photos we took. It was great to see the project come together and all the photos finally on display. It has been an interesting process and has given me great insight into working a team project. It has been hard but very worthwhile and I am so glad that I participated. I was really pleased as five of my photos were used in the exhibition out of the ten on display, and I only photographed five children in the group anyway. Some of the photos that I took are shown below.

Jack

Aaron

Lee

Louis

© Andrea Percival

Sunday, 20 March 2011

Saturday 19th March

Spent the day in the studio today. It is a long day, but whilst I am waiting for potential clients, I get on with other work for the course. It was pretty good day for subjects, managed to photograph about half a dozen people, one of whom coincidentally happened to be an old friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in about three years! Consequently she was confident in front of the camera and I got some really nice (if not slightly wacky!) images of her. I had asked Gary who worked there, if he would be able to ask around to see if he could find any potential subjects who had previously been tattooed at the studio. As mentioned previously in the blog, it is quite difficult to manage to get the intended shots from some people when they are not ‘natural models’. By that I mean that they are not totally confident in front of the camera. I myself hate being in front of the camera so am not the best subject. Unfortunately, the people he had in mind, did not turn up. If I had more time, I would probably attempt to get more subjects who could really pose in front of the camera and would not mind being photographed for longer than five minutes, I am sure that I would then achieve the photographs that I want. I cannot just get anyone in who has a tattoo as the project is about the Middleton studio and the photos that I have taken are fine for that purpose. I will however, as suggested by my tutor, experiment with different backgrounds and using black and white as well to see which images work best as a cohesive group.

Barnardos Project

What an exhausting week I’ve had this week! I knew that the project was due for exhibition in late March, but wasn’t sure of the exact date. I was made aware of this date last Tuesday – it is this coming Monday! Out of the ten kids that we were supposed to be photographing, we had only done six. The problem had been arranging available locations as all the kids had different aspirations, therefore different locations had to be found, a task that proved somewhat of a nightmare. Anyway, I found myself at a hairdressers on Wednesday, The Hilton Hotel on Friday and also Long Legs later in the day.

The shoot with Aaron was at a local hairdressers. He’s very fashion conscious and we wanted to show him in an environment to represent this visually. The initial idea was to put him on a catwalk with models, but his wheelchair might have made this difficult to achieve in a short space of time. He loved being at the hairdressers and had so much gel in his hair by the end of the night that his mother would have had a nightmare getting it all out before school the next day! I took some photos of him sat on a leather chair looking cool, surrounded by hair products. I was pleased with the photos and did not need to make any adjustments with them at all.

The shoot the following day took place at the Hilton hotel with Jack, who yearned for independence. We set up on The Cloud Bar on the 23rd floor and sat Jack in a corner with a computer and a drink in order to replicate a bachelor pad. He came with his parents and was pretty loath to leave at the end of the shoot! He obviously loved the location but I surmise it was more a case of avoiding having to return to school afterwards! The location was incredible and we completed the shoot pretty quickly.

Julian, the curator at See Gallery and coordinator of the project, asked if I wanted to attend the next shoot which was going to be at Long Legs in central Manchester as it was going to be shot by a professional photographer, Andy Farrington. A lecturer at Blackburn, I am sure he is known to staff at Preston. I would not have wanted to attempt this shoot anyway, as I knew it to be a lap dancing club and was not familiar with the layout so wasn’t sure if I would be confident enough. I was however, keen to watch a professional at work. The location was really nice, and we were able to set up in the VIP lounge. The interior was very contemporary and the staff really friendly and accommodating. Andy had an assistant called Neil, one of his second year students and between them they set up the lighting really quickly. The kit was tungsten rather than flash, which has inspired me to be more experimental with my tungsten kit. The lighting was set up before Dan, the subject of this shoot arrived. We had originally decided on this shoot as Dan loved the ladies and though nineteen, his parents were initially consulted and gave the go ahead. It was however decided that this particular shoot would not be representative of Barnardos but would be used for a future project. The experience however was really useful and the use of strobe lights and smoke machines to create a sultry atmosphere was something that I will consider using myself for future shoots. I do want to practice photographing in such locations - maintaining the dark atmosphere whilst enhancing the subject. His shots looked stunning and having checked out his website, he is obviously good at what he does. His website is http://www.andrewfphotography.com/ or http://andrewfphoto.deviantart.com/. Dan loved his experience at the club and I am glad that I attended the shoot. Afterwards, myself and Julian the curator, went through the photographs to get an idea of possible final images. That decision however will be made once Jackie, the other curator at the Gallery has looked at the images herself.

Monday, 14 March 2011

Vivian Maier

There has been much hype about this photographer, even some suggestions that the whole episode is too good to be true and in fact a hoax. Regardless, I will give a little background and show some of her photos, as they are really good and worth sharing.

The story is that a former estate agent called John Maloof, from Chicago paid $400 for a box of old negatives in an auction, hoping they might be useful for a book he was writing on Chicago's history. The contents of that box have resulted in a commitment to unravelling Maier's story, a task which has so far taken four years.

Maier was born in 1926 and died in 2009. She never married or had children, nor seemingly, any close friends. People who knew her recall a reclusive, eccentric individual, who spoke in a thick French accent and always wore a heavy overcoat and hat. Her legacy is the 100,000 negatives that are the result of a lifetime of street photography. Her photos give an amazing insight into the way of life in the 1950s and 60s. Her subject matter veers from humanist portraiture and street life, to abstract.

Maloof and the curators of Vivian Maier Photography are sorting through the negatives and some 12,000 negatives are in the public spotlight with her work being compared to legendary street photographers such as Brassai and Cartier-Bresson. Her work is currently on display at the Chicago Cultural Centre and the exhibition is entitled 'Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer'.

Sunday, 13 March 2011

Inspiration

Found a couple of books in the library entitled: National Portrait Gallery Photographic Portrait Prize, Editions 2007 and 2009, of which I have included some of the portraits that I particulalry liked.

Michal Chelbin - Stas sentenced for murder - Juvenile prison Russia, 2009

Billy and Hells - Sophia, 2008

Billy and Hells

My favourite portrait was Sophia by Billy and Hells. I found their website which is http://www.billyundhells.de/Seiten/Pictures.html so that you can see their work for yourself. It was actually the cover image – Sophia that attracted me to the books in the first place.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Manchester Tattoo Convention

I was supposed to be in the tattoo studio on Saturday but I couldn’t get in touch with the tattooist so ended up at the demo in Manchester instead. Whist there, I heard about a Tattoo Convention at Manchester Central Convention Complex (G-Mex) on the Sunday and wondered if that was why I couldn’t get in touch with anyone at Middleton. Ended up forking out £10 to get in and that was with student discount! It was like going to a market, except the stalls were mini tattoo parlours. There was quite an eclectic mix of people at the convention,
a sign of how tattoos are more acceptable in mainstream society. There were some real interesting characters there too who would have been brilliant photographic subjects but I didn’t want to get too much into their personal space and the opportunity never came up anyway. I concentrated on photographing as many tattooists at work as I could and tried to soak up the general atmosphere. I also checked out the work of most of the artists, some was excellent, some not so hot. I know that when I went for my tattoos I wanted them to be created by a professional, not a wannabe. Picked up business cards and postcards of the good/original ones. There were a few more traditional tattooists such as Mr Nu, a traditional Thai tattooist and it was fascinating to watch them at their trade. Not sure which looked more painful, the gun or the traditional tools that they used. Spent a few hours there all in all. No one seemed to mind me taking photos, maybe the size of the camera fooled them into thinking I was a professional!

Here are some of the photos that I took on the day anyway. Oh and it transpired that Louis was in Switzerland anyway!