TAOP - Assignment 5 - Narrative and Illustration

TAOP - Assignment 5 - Narrative and Illustration

Introduction

The objective of this assignment is to illustrate a story for a magazine. This includes the requirement to illustrate the cover for a magazine and several pages inside. I am able to use between 6 and 12 images and I have chosen to use the full 12 images. All the images have narrative captions and are telling the story of our visit to Lancaster University. Ben has completed his 1^st year at college and in preparation for his second year we are visiting Universities that he is considering  that he may study at in 2014.

Story telling through illustration requires a combination of obvious images and images that require the viewer to do some exploration but must maintain the development of the story. I have used some narrative to help explain the images and to give continuity throughout my set of images.

The theme of this story is illustrate the day we spent at Lancaster University which was a mix of exploration, learning, assessment and placement within a mind for comparison against universities visited and those yet to be visited.

I had contacted my Tutor in advance of starting this assignment and of what my plans were and he gave me some advice regarding the approach e.g. create a “fly on the wall” set of images and to avoid conversion to mono as I had first suggested but to keep colour in the images as was more the norm for this style of reportage type photography. I chose to use a de-saturated effect, an effect that appears popular in modern day films and I hope help binds the images as a set.

On the day before our visit I explained to Ben and his Mum the type of photography I would be performing, how I would try to make this as unobtrusive as I could so that they felt more relaxed about being photographed and I could also create the style of images I had visualised. This I learnt was a key strategy since on our return and viewing of the images both Ben and his Mum were extremely surprised at the number of images I had taken and many of those that were taken they didn’t recall or never saw being taken. Both elements are key, I believe, to a reportage style of photography.

I have used elements of both the Narrative and Illustration section of this module and in addition the elements I have has learnt to date for the earlier sections with The Art of Photography Module.

In preparation of this assignment and of the visit to Lancaster University I advised Ben and his Mum the objectives of my images:

a)    To create a set of images that would help remind Ben of his visit to Lancaster University 
b)    To creative an illustrative story that would help to tell a story of our visit but also one that Ben could use to share with his college friends and 

c    c)    To, of course, enable me to create an assignment submission for this section of the module

As part of my research to this module I studied a number of magazines where I found in general there were a much smaller number of images being used, space clearly a premium. I also studied the photographic images on the BBC news website where these were often available as a type of scrollable library of images. The internet media is more suited and able to hold larger collections of images as a narrative story.

Of particular note were those of events happening in the internal Syrian conflict where of late the victims of atrocities are well photographed and I also recall the many other images Arab Springs both in Libya and Egypt. This have influenced me in terms of how they were taken, how they captured and created a story and they conveyed elements that us in other locations would never have seen

Extreme respect goes to those photographers who put their lives at risk in creating these illustrative images, many need no narrative at all such is the power of the images they captured. Unfortunately some photographers also perished as a result of the bravery in showing the world what most can’t see. I can’t compete but for those who can’t get to Lancaster may find a story being told by these images.

I had planned a rough image capture work flow which was at the high level:

i)             Introduction images

ii)            Story line – steps toward learning about university life

iii)           Closure image

This I elaborated into:
 1)    University Entrance

2     2)    Ben and Mum walking through doors to reception

3     3)    Multiple images of conversations with Uni advisors

4     4)    External views of Campus / items of note

5     5)    Meetings / Discussions in various halls for University and Course discussions

6     6) Preparations to leave the University

“Plan for the best, expect the worst” – In photography terms despite best plans my strategy had to change throughout the day so I needed to go back to my high level strategy and work with what I could manufacture / what presented itself. This often meant spur of the moment decisions. Being adaptive and flexible was a strong requirement. I found this a great introduction to reportage photography and I did enjoy this!

For my blog I've uploaded the 3 "magazine" pages I've created after converting these to jpeg, 

Front Page

Inside 2nd Page

Inside 3rd Page

Assignment Learnings

a) Have a plan - This could be called structure, workflow or even pre-visualisation but it is key in starting with this if you are to get anywhere near what you want to create. This is a key element I've learnt as part of my overall learning from TAOP. 

b) Be prepared to deviate from your plan. Reportage / "Fly on the Wall" type photography will often involve things happening that you didn't plan for - this can be deviations from what was planned or simply a specific opportunity that can be captured when the need arises

c) Know your camera - In changing situations confidence even with the basics can be key to being able to take advantages of situations and to be able to adapt quickly to say different light

d) Fly-on the Wall type documentary requires the subjects to feel comfortable with your presence and camera. Brief the subjects by explaining what you are going to do. At the very beginning there was some self consciousness about me taking photographs but this quickly faded - this is important to be able to capture natural and candid images.

e) Take lots of images - there is little time to review what you have captured and no time to set up "posed" or contrived images. Even the final image of my set that may appear a little contrite was actually an unplanned instance - the camera in my hand ready for any situation even at the end of the day proved to be good practise

f) The sorting of images - this was difficult and time consuming and sometimes what could be regarded as better images in terms of composition were not necessarily the best images in terms telling a story

g) Be prepared to feel self conscious - I felt very self conscious at the start of the day with my DSLR - I didn't notice anyone else with one, plus with the big lens hood I stood out. People looked at me and I think its mainly from curiosity - a simple smile back gave re-assurance and I was soon ignored. This in turn gave me more confidence and I soon ignored the looks and carried on with my assignment. I think if you look confident and like you should there taking images - people around you will think this.

h) I tried to create many different images to not only give myself a better choice when constructing the story but also considering the end viewer - 12 similar images may become boring

i) Creating a story through images is not easy - I have tried to tell a story through the images I have selected - it would be interesting to get feedback from people reading this blog entry to see if this worked

j) Narrative - This is important. This joins the images and can give prompts / direct as to what the purpose of the image is - What may appear obvious to one person may not be to another

k) Fonts - I did some research on magazine fonts. I used Paletino Linotype - This appears to have worked OK for the front page. I'm not sure this has worked for the smaller text - Having created the pages in MS Powerpoint the grouping and copying into paint and saving as a jpeg has mean loss of quality and change from what I created. I should have done some more research into alternative tools I could have used.

l) Whilst portrait images require creating an image to create a connection between subject and viewer e.g. eyes / emotion, reportage photography is much different and in my opinion much more difficult. How do you connect the viewer to the images?

m) I found there was a lot to think about - images to be created, format of image, lighting, histograms, camera shake and ISO and at times staying upright on my feet. However it was an exiting challenge and one that has made me stronger in confidence and also be able to better predict likely changes in a future attempt at this style of photography and story telling selection of images. My images could have been better if at times I slowed up my processes and perhaps thought slightly ahead of what I was doing e.g. I have no front on images - the ones I did have with the flash were close up and effectively ruined by the lens hood causing shadow - I'll remember this in future when doing close-ups