Identity and The Portrait
Initial Idea - The Travelling Community
My parents used to be part of the travelling community, they moved from a bus into a house when they found out my Mum was pregnant with me and my sister. I have always been a part of the travelling community and travelling will always be in my blood. We travelled to Spain fo a year spending about 5 months in a converted van that my dad kitted out, he has a knack for utilising space and we were all more than comfortable.
About a year after my parents divorce my mum took us to New Zealand, we were there for two months, one of these months was spend travelling around both island in a van. Now every summer my mum and her partner pack up the house into their mercedes horsebox conversion and they travel the U.K going from festival to festival running childrems areas and perfomance stages. Up until a few years ago i also spent my summers on the road so i have an idea of what this community is all about. I have always loved the sense of family and community within travelling groups and i have a great number of friends that still live in vans or buses.
Bristol is very central to my life at the moment and i spend a lot of time there so it makes sense for me to base this project in Bristol. I want to focus my portraits on one family unit that live in a vehicle and look at how they adapt to new settings and life in a confined space. A family of four or more would be ideal so that i could have a range of different ages for the portraits. I need to do some research but i am confident that either my mum or one of her close friends will have connections within the community. Im not sure how the idea came to me but i am really excited about it already, this means that i have only focused on one idea and do not have a back-up plan as of yet.
Below are some photographs that my Mum took during her years as a traveller.
My mums first home - An old ambulance.
Mums second home - A Dodge bus.
Photographed during the Rythm Doctors tour around Northern Europe.
Minus 14 in a bus during winter - Amsterdam.
Gaining Access
I spoke to my Mum on the phone yesterday evening and asked her if she had any connections with travellers around Bristol, she gave me the number of her good friend Abi (who i have met several times before) and used to live on a site in Bristol. I texted Abi and got a quick response, she immediatly liked my ideas and i sent her an email explaining exactly what i wanted to do in more depth. She then replied and forwarded my initial email to a number of her friends that currenty live on site. She also said that if I didnt get a response then i was welcome to come to her and photograph her family, they live in a house now but still own a number of live-in vehicles.
This is very positive in terms of moving forward with the project, if in two weeks i havent had a reply from anyone on the emailing list then i shall try to contact them myself. If that fails then i can travel to see Abi and her family to see if their life could make a good photostory. Beneath i have attatched the email that Abi sent.
The email from Abi
Research - Publications
Raw View Magazine
Raw View magazine is a non-profit magazine that showcases a wide range of photojournalism and documentary photography from around the world. The magazine is put together by a team of writers, journalists, photo-editors and graphic designers that work on a volunteer basis. Raw View provides a platform for new and old, established and unestablished photographers to publish their documentary photo series. The magazine is published quarterly.
I really like the style of Raw View, it is thick, bustling with work but it is simply and beautifuly placed on the pages. All of the photography that I saw when Iooked through issue 1 amazed me. The layout has been clearly thought out and image size doesnt jump from big to small too quickly and there isnt too much blank space. What i also liked was the fact that some square format images had been used and centred in the page for one of the photo-stories, this was really effective and gave me ideas on how I might like to place my work. The design of the magazine definetly has a classy look too it, it isnt too bright and wacky, it keeps it simple.
The Raw View Magazine website.
FOTO8 Magazine
8 magazine was created by British man Jon Levy alongside the FOTO8 magazine, he later went on to create the Host gallery. 8 magazine connects documentary photographers, authors and audiences, it has a new level of respect for photojournalism. Over ten years 8 magazine explored a wide range of global contemporary issues through photos, interviews and essays. Each issue of the magazine is centred on one particular issue, for example the Oil issue, looking at oil spills and enviromental disasters. Foto8 holds interactive displays and exhibitions to showcase this work in a beautiful way. Unfortuantely the last issue of the magazine was published in 2011, the website and FOTO8 still has a regularly updated website.
Different styles and positioning but this layout works really well, it doesnt leave too much blank space.
I like the way that they have been creative with this 'scrapbooking' page style, it adds something subtle, if it was like this throughout though it would be too busy and would ruin the efffect. I works well with this old photograph.
Having a comment from one of the children written in white handwriting against a black backround has a huge emotional effect on the reader. it seems more hard-hitting and gritty.
The four photo grid is a good way to get a lot of images onto a page with text without confusing the viewer.
I personally really like the style of 8 magazine. It gets accross a vast amount of information without being busy and confusing on the pages. The style of the magazine is really clean and simple and it works well. However, I feel that my portraits of travelling families might not fit in well to this magazine. Most of the work in here is really gritty, hard-hitting photojournalism. Within an article itself it would be okay but i dont think this is the best magazine for my work.
The FOTO8 Website.
Research - Medium Format Cameras
For this project we are going to be using medium format cameras which use 120mm and 220mm film. I havent had much experience with medium format cameras so I need to do some research. I started by looking at what cameras we had avaliable to rent out at from the stores at the university.
Mamiya 645 & Mamiya 645 pro
-First series of 4.5x6 SLRs made by Mamiya
- Originally appeared in 1975
- Shutter speeds range from 8s to 1/500
- Double exposure lever
- Narrow depth of field, good for portraits
- Hand grip makes it easier to handle than the 645
- Compact for a medium format camera
- Released in 1997
- Performs smoothly like a 53mm
- Hand grip makes it easier to handle than the 645
- Compact for a medium format camera
- Released in 1997
- Performs smoothly like a 53mm
Hasselblad 500C
Hasselblad 500C
- Introduced in 1957
- Very sturdy and reliable
- All elements are interchangeable including thw focusing screen
- The film magazine can be switched mid-roll
- It uses a range of high quality lenses
- It is very heavy duty weighing over a kg
Mamiya RZ 6x7
Mamiya RZ67
Pentax 6x7
Research - Iain McKell: The New Gypsies
The ‘New Gypsies’ began in the 1980s with a group of post-punk, anti-Thatcher protestors in the U.K. In 1986 Iain McKell was sent by the Observer to photograph this community on route to Stonehenge. A year later, Thatcher sent in troops and smashed up all the travellers vehicles saying that they were causing damage to to Stonehenge, in reality she wanted to crush any chance of rebellion. McKell said he was immediately drawn to the community by the fascinating idea of ‘punk in the landscape’.
McKell’s second meeting with the travellers was in 2001, fifteen years later when he returned to Stonehenge for the summer solstice. He returned with the intention of capturing some portraits of people in their wagons. McKell was more focused on photographing members of the horsedrawn community but this led him to a huge, diverse range of people, a hybrid of the travelling and horsedrawn communities. There is widespread discrimination against all forms of travellers, especially in the U.K, but against this negative perception this way of life has a deep set attraction.
McKell asked Pete, a member of the horsedrawn community why he chose to live this way, his response was “Iain I couldn’t live any other way. I cant operate in the city. I just cant function in society as we know it. This is the life for me. Hard or romantic or just the way it is, it suits me.” Pete worked at many festivals, including the Big Green Gathering where he held horsedrawn workshops teaching people a variety of skills from harnessing a horse to painting the intricate details on the trailers, he also gave horse and cart rides across site for people. I went to the Big Green Gathering with my family twice, the later being in 2006. I remember getting a cart ride with all our luggage across site and all the horsedrawn travellers settled under the trees with their campfires and horses grazing.
Kate Moss’ link to the travelling/horsedrawn community is largely Glastonbury festival and her position as global superstar/gypsy. McKell said he included Kate in this body of work because he “wanted to show that friendship transcends perceptions of both traveller and supermodel. When I was looking through this book I noticed that their was a portrait of my childhood friend Rowan that is part of the gypsy community, it was taken at Glastonbury festival in 2002.
I then decided to ask my Mum to look through the book to see if she recognized anyone else in it, she proceeded to point out two families and another two woman that she knew! One of these families had travelled down to Cornwall before and parked up their wagons and horses in our field, I was only about ten but I remembered immediately when she told me. It took me back to memories of sitting around their fire in the evenings and the way that they could fit a family of four into one wagon so effectively. At first I was shocked but it made sense, the community is quite small and close-knit, a lot of people know eachother, my Mum spent about ten years in the community living at various plots of land and traveller sites, she met a lot of people in this time and her best friends still live in vehicles.
This book seemed the perfect starting point for my research and it has taught me a lot already McKell has a beautiful way of capturing this lifestyle with honesty and sensitivity. McKell said “It is ironic that I see the way of life of the New Gypsies as the future, not the past. These are modern, predominantly city people who have moved out of largely working class urban communities, out of poor accommodation, escaped the shit being dumped on them.”
Photographs from 1986, McKells first encounter with the gypsies at Stonehenge.
Copyright - Iain McKell
I love the way that McKell has used a tarpauling as a backdrop, the colour works really well with the lighting but I like that fact he has used avaliable resources.
Copyright - Iain McKell
The man on the left is Spencer. About 10 years ago he and his family spent about 2 weeks camped out in our field, he is a friend of my Mums.
Copyright - Iain McKell
There is something about the use of natural and artificial light that gives these images a lovely colouring and really make the subjects stand out. They work really well together.
Copyright - Iain McKell
Again it is the lighting that drew me to this. The use of a lighting kit has really made the grass stand apart from the sky. I was also drawn to this image by the positioning on the page, it has been done well.
Copyright - Iain McKell
This is my childhood friend Rowan, i find it amazing that he is in this book because I met him when I lived in Spain. He is part of the travelling community though and I catch up with him most summers at festivals. This was taken at Glastonbury festival, 2006.
Copyright - Iain McKell
Hasselblad 500C
I have decided to shoot this project on a Hasselblad 500. We had a look at the Hasselblads and Mamiyas and the Pentax in lecture and knew immediatly that I wanted to shoot on a Hasselblad. I loved the depth of field and the way you look down it to see the image, it is a beautiful camera to use. Underneath I have included step by step photographs of loading 120 film so that I can refer back to it if I get stuck.
Loading a Hasselblad 500c
For the test shoot I will be using a roll of 120 colour film that I already have. This films has an ISO of 100, I would normally use something a bit higher.
Remove the sticky tape from around the roll, ensuring you hold it tight so it doesnt unravel.
Move the empty spool from the right side of the carrier, over to the other side. Place film in the empty side.
Carefull unravel the paper until the arrow comes into view, hold it taught to keep it in the right place.
Pull the backing paper accross the back of the carrier and use the clamp to hold it down. Tuck the end of the paper into the empty spool and carefully wind the spool til it catches it.
Continue winding until the film is pulled tight accross the back of the carrier.
Place the carrier back inside the camera back, ensuring the dark slide is in place. Lock it in using the wheel on the side.
Place the back onto the camera then wind the film onto frame one, lock the winding arm down.
The film is now loaded and the camera is ready to use.
Test Shoot
I wanted to do a test shoot using colour film and the Hasselblad before my first proper shoot to get to grips with the lighting kit and the camera itself. The pictures that I produced don't have any relevance to the project but it was a good learning curve and made me feel more prepared for my first shoot. Below are some of the images from the test shoot.
Research - David Gardner - Life On Wheels: The New American Nomads
David Gardner is an American photographer based in San-Francisco. His project Life on wheels: The New American Nomad really caught my attention. It has been really well shot and his use of fill in flash and lighting really inspired me. The project looks at Americans who have willfuly traded in their home life for a life on the road. Gardner became interested in this sub-culture whilst travelling cross-country in his own motorhome, he spends several weeks a year travelling around taking photographs. On his travels, he noticed that there was a group of travellers (known as full-timers) he kept coming accross that spend all year round in a motorhome, he became interested in this concept.
Full-timers spend all year round on the road, they are largely couples at retirement age but he also photographed younger couples and solo travellers. Many of these people still work from the motorhome. Gardner began speaking to these people and making connections, he then began photographing their rigs and aspects of their daily lives, often staying with them for extended periods of time. I think this is really good because Gardner has something in common with these people, he can relate to them easily, meaning they will be more open to photographs. Gardner is interested in how this way of life effects family relationships and friendships and also how the travellers view the world.
Gardner says that on his travels whilst photographing this community he became fasinated as to how the older generation have adapted to the ever-changing world around them. This was personal to him as he says 'I myself am reaching the Golden Years'. Gardner says this project has given him a new outlook on how he might want to age himself.
This project is a great source of research for me, i have emailed David Gardner and asked him for some advice on shooting in a confined space (motorhome/live-in vehicle), hopefully he will reply with some tips for me as his use of fill-in flash and lighting is spot on.
I really like the way this has been done, I will definetly be using this idea to create a good establishing shot of my subjects in front of their vehicle.
Placing the subject in-front of the most exciting part of the campervan then getting down to eye level creates a personal, striking portrait.
The use of reflection and eye contact is what makes this image so strong. The view from the window is also perfectly exposed.
The use of flash really brings out the subject and her surroundings whilst still looking natural. I have asked David what loighting he used for this series.
Another really striking image, he has got down low so that the subjects appear to be looking down at him, giving them a sense of power. The strong sunshine has created beautiful shadows accross the image. This could be another idea for an establishing shot.
Again this image has been shot with flash but it still looks natural, i think David mustve had a large diffused light source or bounced the flash of a white object to create this clear, crisp effect.
David Gardner responded to my email with some really helpful advice and tips. He spoke about bouncing flash off the ceiling and using white walls or white sheets to diffuse the light for a more even spread of light. I have decided to take my Nikon camera with me to do some test shots, these will be a insight to how the film pictures will come out.
The email from David Gardner
Shoot One: Michelle & family 23rd March
I have contacted several families living on travellers sites and have two main responses, both from women with newborn babies which is brilliant as it will add variety to my portrait series. The first shoot is arranged with Michelle Savage and her husband and their baby. The family live on a site on the outskirts of Bristol. I will have to get a train to bristol, then a bus to the centre then a bus to a mile away from the site. Michelle has kindly said she will pick me up from the bus stop.
Travel Arrangements
11.12 AM
King George VI (SW-bound)
[Bus] 70 towards Temple Meads
27 min (21 stops)
11:39 AM
The Centre (Cq)
[Walk] Walk
About 1 min
The Centre (Cq)
[Walk] Walk
About 1 min
11:44 AM
The Centre (Cp)
[Bus] A1towards Bristol International Airport
33 min (9 stops)
The Centre (Cp)
[Bus] A1towards Bristol International Airport
33 min (9 stops)
12:17 PM
Airport Terminal (W-bound)
[Walk] Walk
About 38 min , 1.9 mi
Airport Terminal (W-bound)
[Walk] Walk
About 38 min , 1.9 mi
12:55 PM
Backwell
BS48 3EQ
Backwell
BS48 3EQ
Equipment List
- Hasselblad 500C + 80mm lens
- Nikon D60 + standard lens
- Light meter
- Tripod
- Metz Flashgun
- Lighting stand
- Small white umbrella
- Umbrella attatchment
- Sync cable
- Notebook
- Pen & pencil
- Sketches of planned shots
The Shoot
The shoot with Michelle went really well. She picked me up and took me back to the site. We sat and chatted for a while and I discovered that she used to study photography and she worked as a photographer for a circus company for a few years. It was great to have someone to relate to and she was really friendly. Her and her husband owned a truck and show trailer but they were in the process of moving from the truck to the trailer and she wanted to have the photos taken in the truck. She said that the truck was more personal to them and had her favorite things in it and the only reason they had to move into the trailer was for more room for the baby. The truck was still fully functional and they plan on using it during the summer for travelling and festivals whereas the trailer was more permenant and for the winter.
I started by setting up my digital kit after reading the light to get some test shots before I shot the film. As soon as I set up the metz flash and lighting stand the batteries died. Thankfully the truck had several windows on all sides so plenty of natural light was let in. Below are the contact shoots from the digital shoot, I will develop and upload the film next.
Digital Shots
Film Shots - Shoot 1
The films from my first shoot with Michellee went really well, I made sure to take a range of portraits and close-ups of objects within the truck. The lighting and the design of the truck, combined with the fine details gives each image character and links them together as a set. Because i forgot to set the ISO on the light reader, some of the images are slightly overexposed but I can adjust that in the edit.
Selected Shots - Unedited
Set Task 2 - Recreation of a portrait using flash
Below is an image of Noel Gallagher shot using extra light. I have chosen to recreate this portrait because I know someone that looks like him and I think it would work quite well. The light is coming slightly from the left hand side casting strong shadows across the right hand side of his face, highlighting the wrinkles created from his facial expression. To recreate this I lit the background to reduce shadow and shot him with the camera slightly to the left so that the shadows were cast accross the right side. I bought up the contrast and the grain to give it that rough, older feel.
Set Task 3 - "Making a portrait is a collaborative event"
For set task three we created an outdoor group portrait using location lighting. We took two lighting kits, a power pack and two umbrellas out of the stores. We then shot it in the lane behind my house. I wanted to bring the cleanliness of using lighting kits to the dirty, grotty setting of the lane behind my house. I set up my subjects so that they were staggered down the lane to produce an interesting composition. Although the shot has no relevence to my project but a degree of though went into setting it up.
Research - Tina Barney: Photographs
I found Tina Barneys book Photographs - The Theatre of Mann in the library, I Was instantly drawn to it because of the strong use of focus and detailed colour film. Tina began photographing her friends and family in the 1980s and 90s around affluent areas of New York, Long Island and New England, 'I began photographing what I knew'. Tina used a large format 8 by 10 camera to ensure that she retained the focus and detail in her large scale prints. She prints her photographs at 5ft by 4ft which resemble twentieth century oil paintings.
The attention to detail is clear in all of the images i saw in the book, Tina mixes use of floral, chintz fabrics along with colours of her subjects clothing to create balance within the shots. The thought that has gone in to ensure intersting and complex composition is impressive. I have included this body of work mainly because of the composition, the style of the photographs and the setting is worlds away from my travelling families work but I admire the thought that has gone into the images and the book.
Tina's website homepage.
The front cover.
The image on the left seems very busy because of the chairs at the foreground, the subject is easy to spot however because of her central positioning and the colours that she is wearing compared to the colours in the rest of the scene. The image on the left has a beautiful blue tinged colour cast over it, this coupled with the composition makes it a beautiful shot.
I like what she has done with the above shot, by photographing the same couple again several years later she has created a beautiful pair of images.
This is a perfect example of Tinas intersting use of focus. Although there is someone infront of the lense we see through her to the subject which is in focus behind. Her use of lush vibrant colours is clear in this image.
Where I Am With The Project
I had initially planned to shoot a few different families living within the travelling community and then use one shot from each of these shoots to build up my four different portraits. I was really keen on this idea but only two families got back to me. Michelle and Whim and Doug and his partner. On the same weekend as my first shoot with Michelle I had also planned to shoot Doug, I had everything arranged and Doug seemed really keen to be involved. On the day of the shoot however, he wouldnt return my calls or emails, I guess something cropped up or he decided against it last minute.
It is getting quite late in the project now and I am keen to get some more progress going so I have decided to change tactic a little. Instead of photographing several different families I have deided just to focus on Michelle, Whim and their daughter Senara. It will mean that I only need one or two more shoots with them and I will have the full set. I want to focus on getting a nice family portrait in shoot two.
My Chosen Publication - Doc! Photo Magazine
Earlier on in the project I did some research into possible publications for my work. I had a look at Raw View magazine and Foto8 and a couple of others but I didnt feel like any of them truly suited my work so I went back and did some more research. I came accross Doc! magazine, a documentary photography based magazine. I immediatley liked the style of it and I found that subject matter varied hugely from article to article. They focus on documentary photography with some fine art stuff thrown in occassionly. It is a European based magazine but it has features from accross the world.
As well as showcasing up and coming documentary photographers they also publicise events, exhibitions, talks and galleries. They also offer a chance to people like me that are looking to recieve help with publishing their first work. The first thing that drew me to the magazine was their simple, clean cut cover with a large photograph and not much else. When i read further in I noticed that they had a beautiful was of displaying photographs, large so that you are not distracted from the image that you are looking at.
There are around 120 pages in each magazine, these pages are filled with lots of different photographers showcasing their work, each article gets a page of writing and introductions and then three images. Of course this varies through the magazine but this is what most of the articles look like. This would be perfect for my four portraits, they also use square format a lot and a mix of film and digital and they have a strong focus on people and cultures. I think that my travelling families work would fit into this publication nicely.
Research - Katrina d'Autremont : If God Wants
Katrina was born in 1980 in Montana and then Arizona. She used to travel to Buenos Aires for a few weeks every couple of years to visit her grandparents and her mothers family. This project explores the influence of her grandparents, they have strong beliefs that God controls everybodys life. As a child photography was merely an amusement to Katrina, at 14 she used an slr for the first time and learnt how to develop film at school. She took a few college classes in photography at the end of her teenage years but it wasnt until travelling around South America that she realised she wanted photography to be a part of her life. When she returned home she enrolled at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Today Katrina reflects on how families are affected by distance, this is the main theme for this project 'Si Dios Quiere' or 'If God Wants'. "The project started off as an extended family tree but it soon shifted and became about fmily dynamics and the physical spaces that relationships occupy". The elders in her family are heavily featured in this project, she compares the dignity and respect of the older generation to the apartment itself, beautiful, grand, worn down by time. "Nostalgic grandeur is another thread that runs through the series, a connection to the past".
I found Katrina d'Autremonts work on the Hasselblad Masters competition page in the portraits section. I found her use of the space amazing and the fact that she shot it on a Hasselblad makes it a perfect choice of research. The colours and lighting are all very strong, she set up most of the shots very precisely but several unfolded naturally. I think this is a really strong body of work.
Shoot Two - Michelle, Wim and Senara
Below is the contact sheet from my second shoot with Michelle and Senara, this time Michelles husband Wim was there too. I really wanted to focus on getting a family portrait of the three of them together at this shoot, I also really wanted a shot of them outside the truck to put the rest of the images in context. The shoot went well and we had a lovely day in the sunshine but there were a few technical mistakes on my behalf. Because it was such a sunny day i forgot to factor in all the reflections from objects in the truck and the amount of windows everywhere. This meant that some of the shots are slightly over-exposed. I also had real trouble focusing properly, I think it was the bright sunlight coupled with wearing contact lenses. Although the shoot didnt go very smoothly I still got one shot that I am really pleased with and it was the shot that I had set out to achieve, a family portrait.
Selected Shot
Final Evaluation and Final Shot Choices
Below are my final shots. I have included an evaluation on each image because I wanted to explain each one on their own rather than writing an evaluation for the images as a set.
Accompanying Text
This is intended to go to a sub-editor. Michelle and her family live an idyllic life on their site. They live with other travelling families and they all work together to bring up their children. I wanted to focus on their life in particular but I would like the opportunity to return and photograph their life as part of the site, looking at other members of the community as well. The images that I have chosen are the four that I feel best represent Michelle but also her family. The project began by focusing on Michelle and how she manages family and work life whilst living on a site but I also wanted to include a family portrait and some shots from around her beloved truck to showcase the important aspects in her life.
I know that a portrait as many people know it is an image of a person but a portrait can also be an image of something that represents a person. That is what I have gone for with these images, a nice balance of traditional portraiture and slightly abstract portraiture. If I could do it again then I might involve other members of the site who are close to the family and also Michelles beloved cat. This project has made me realize how utopian this life style is and why so many people choose to live on the road.
