The Edit

When I first came back to the UK from Korea, and have processed all my films ready for printing I was finding it very hard to edit my hundred of pictures down into a story or a set of mini series.

When I had a tutorial with Jamie after I had got back with my contact sheets etc, he helped me put and edit together with a little difference.  We went for Texture, and images that you could tell there was signs of people being there without people being in the images. Although we came to this edit, we thought that we would print a couple of people images out just incase and we could edit them out later.

After having the talk with Jamie about editing, I took the rest of my work prints and tried to sort them all out into some sort of series. I came up with a few categories and just sorted through my images into the different categories. After the categories were sorted out, I then went through each one and edited them down further.

The categories I sorted the images into were;

Buldings  – These are images that I have placed together as a mini series to show all the different buildings throughout the village that I came accross.

Horse Show Men -  This set I took of the men in the village who actually did gymnastics and things on the horses.  All the images were taken as they were doing their training on the horses and I managed to get some pretty decent shots.

Straw – This is a very short series of 4 images that show the different ways that they use straw throughout the village.  This is not a strong series but I like the way they use the straw for different things throughout the village., from making brooms to actually living spaces.

Water - This is a series of 6 images, thaat show the different types of images that i have taken throughout the village, these are not the only pictures that I have taken of water but they are the different types of pictures that I have taken using water, many of the other water images I have taken are close ups etc, and I felt I had allot of close up images already.

Detailed Buildings - This is another building series but this time the images are all more detailed shots, you see the corners of the buildings with the many things that are kept outside.

People Of The Village – This is a set of 6 images of the people what are in the village. There are 3 landscape images of people doing their work and also 3 portrait style images of the peopl in their own environment.

Detailed Close Ups – This is a series of 9 images of different close up images that i have taken throughout the village that didnt quite make the final images.

Some of the little series were not strong at all such as the straw series, but they show things throughout the village that I found interesting. If they were printed better I think the images alone would stand stronger, reaching the final decision and the final images in the series were just done by me editing the images and arragning them in order to see if they fit.

I have learned allot from editing my own images throughout the project. At the start I could piece any of my images together in any form of set and now I am able to sort them into little series and  set them in some order to look an attractive set.

If I was to take any of the series out of the project it would be the Straw set and the Water set, because I do not feel they are as strong as the other sets.

Mixing Chemicals

With me using Fibre Based Printing I found it useful to learn how to mix the chemicals I needed to use for the wet printing.

Learning how to do this has been very useful and  has saved me allot of time throughout the printing stages. I have not had to wait for the technitions to come and change all the chemicals in the trays I have been able to change them when needed and mix a fresh batch.

Whilst I was printing there was allot of first and second year people using the chemicals so they needed changing a couple of times whilst I was printing.  It has been very useful and something I am glad that I have learned to do it.

Different Papers

I have learned that your images and exposures all depend on the paper that you use.

Resin coated paper is thinner than fibre based paper so it is allot easier to get a decent print on resin coated.

For this project I decided I wanted to use fibre based paper. Not only fibre based paper but warm tone fibre based paper.

This was the first time that i have used fibre based paper, I found it really difficult to start with as it is allot different from resin coated paper. The paper I chose to use was Ilford Warmtone Fibre Based. I think the paper is beautiful and really does work well with the type of images I have but it was incredibly difficult to get started and to limit the amount of pieces of paper I was going to use per image.

After goin through so many sheets of paper, I started to limit myself as I was running low on cash to buy more. so my final 12 images became 9.

Time Keeping

I have always found time keeping to be a very importrant park of my project, but with this particular project time hass been more important that ever to keep on top of. I went to Korea at the very begining of the project and came back giving myself enough time to develop and printing with two weeks extra for ANY problems that I may come across.

I have managed to stick to my time management plan throughout the project and had my final images printed 3 weeks to the deadline, which gave me extra time to print the extra images discussed in my tutorials.

Giving myself that 2 week window had allowed me to extend my project further and add an editorial piece into it as well.

Traveling To Another Country And Getting Used To Another Culture

Travelling to another country was a very larger learning curve for me. Actually travelling to the unfamiliar and settling into another culture is allot tougher than I thought it would be.

I over came the different culture and soon got used to the way you are seen by other people in that country, and that not all people see you the way you see other people.  I was just as facinating to the Korean’s as they were to me. The country aren’t used to foreign people in their country yet as its only a recent thing that the country has been open to foreigners.

When i first arrived into the country I was very shocked and apalled by the behavious of the everyday people in Korea. Many people were incredibly rude and you was pushed and barged into quite allot, it wasn’t until someone explained to me the nature of the Korean culture that I actually understood why they were so rude.

It turns out that if you are not introduced to someone personally in Korea, you technically do not exist, so therefore they don’t see you. It sounds rather strange, but I soon learned that the people were absolutely lovely and very welcoming once you had been introduced to them.

People in restaurants and bars, were lovely, they would fall over themselves to make your stay happy and pleasant.

The food was also another learning curve as they do not eat western food out there, it was all completely different. I learned fast that Koreans do not waste a thing. They ate things like intestines and other animal parts. As well as traditional Korean meals such as Galbi, Donkas and Bu-deh-jii-geh.

The first image is traditional Galbi,which you can have either Korean beef of bacon. and you get it served with lots of different side dishes.

The second image is Donkas, which is like a Korean version of Chicken Parmazzan. This is pork meat with cheese covered in breadcrombs with a sweet sauce on the top.

The third image is Bu-deh-jii-geh, which is a very strange meal that I wasn’t too keen on.

In this stew looking bowl there are noodles, ricecakes, vegetables and hot dog sausages the sauce that the food is in is quite a spicy sauce and is served with a bowl of rice.

Travelling to another country and experiencing all the things that I did was an incredible learning curve for me because I do want to travel and spend time in other countries. And I learned that it wasnt as easy as I thought, sometimes I felt I shouldnt be taking images. Sometimes I felt I was invading the privicy of people. I never thought that I would feel like that but I gained a great deal of respect for the people and didnt want to invade privacy sometimes.

Lewis Hine

Lewis Wickes Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on 26th September 1874. He studied sociology in Chigago and New York, before finding work at the Ethical Culture School, Hine purchased his first camera in 1903, employed his photographs in his teaching and established documentary photography.

Hine used his camera to capture the poverty he witnessed in New York. Which included the study of Ellis Island immigrants. In 1908 Hine published ‘charities and the cammons’, a collection of photographs of tenements and sweatshops. He used these images to help bring about social reform. He told one meething that he beleive his photographs would encourage people to ‘exert the force to right wrongs’.

One of the major pieces of work Hine did was working for the National Child Labour Committee photographing child labour in the Carolinas and day labours before their time. Hine travelled the country photographing children working in factories. In one 12 month period he covered over 12,000 miles.

Unlike photographers hired by Thomas Bernardo, hine made no attempt to exaggerate the poverty of these young people. Critics claimed his images weren’t ‘shocking enough’. hine argued that people were more likely to join the campaign against child labour if they felt the photographs accurately captured the reality of the situation.

What I like about Hines work is that is a true abmount of whats goin on, he doesnt like to exaggerate the truth, he does not add anything to his images, what you see is truely what is happening. I have seen many of the bernardo images and they are just awful. I would like to make tre documentary images rather than images that have been edited and added to make it more dramatic.

When I go to document the village i wasn to capture the true nature of the village and the people in it.

I really like the images above and think they they would have been just as useful as the Bernardo images.

As you see the protraits of the children you really see how Hine has captured the person and  the images draw you in.

I would like my images to do a similar thing, draw you in and make you want to look.

Weegee

Weegee – born Arthur Felling was born in Austrailia, emigrated with his family to Manhattens lower east side in 1909.

Weegee was forced to leave school at an early age to support his family, he made a living for a while being a street photographer in the east side ghetto.

Looking into Weegee’s documentary work of  New York, taken between the 1930′s and 1960′s. I was really drawn inby the we he too the images of New York. The composition and the way he really gets in there with his camera is amazing.

Weege was anamazing street photographer all his images are amazing and make you feel like you are there.  The lighting and composition again are amazing. I hope to be able to capture the people of Korea in a similar way that Weegee did in New York.

I really do think that the composition on Weegees images are amazing, I hope that I can create some images that are just as amazing and as captivating as Weegee.

August Sander

August Sander was boring in 1876 in Herdof, near Cologne. As a youther he worked as an aprentice in the local coalmine, where he was one day chosen as a guide to a photographer commissioned by the mine owneres. This was his first introduction to the camer.

From 1918, he travelled through the Westerwold countryside, systematically taking portraits of the different ‘types’, tradespeople, classes and individuals he came accross. Moving in ‘progressive art’ circles, from 1920 began to the formulate his great project, ‘People of the Twenttieth Centuary’.

His first exhibition was held in the Cologne and was well known and respected, as the 30′s progressed, sander fell faul of the arising power of the Nazis, who aproved neither of the style of photography, nor his inclusive approach to his subjects. In the late 30′s, the Gestapo destroyed some of his work and Sander retreated into landscape photography during the Second World War.

More negatives were destroyed in 1944, his his Cologne studio was hit by a bomb. After the war, helfped by his son, Gunther, August Sander salvaged the remains of his archive. The work was ‘rediscovered’ in the early 50′s.

Looking at Sander’s series of images i am really amazed and find the images very strong. In each image you see so much about the person and backgrounds, the details are amazing.

From looking at the images you can tell the class of the people, the images have great compoisition and the use of light on the subject is used incredibly well to compliment the person.

I think all the images above are very strong images, and are of people in their environment and surroundings they are comfortable in. I hope that When I get to Korea I can get some decent portraiture of the people there like this.

Ian Macdonald

Born in North Yorkshire, Ian Macdonald documented the industrial River Tees, it is said his work is ‘rich and extensive’. His documentart work from the 1970′s and 80′s have appeared in the popular Side Gallery in Newcastle. These works include; ‘Greatham Creek’, ‘ The Tees Estuary’ amd ‘Quoits’.

Ian also lived as part of the Eton College Community in 200-2007, as part of Ian being there, he was a teacher whilst making a documentart of his expering in that environment.

Ian had visited the college on two occasion and has given us a lecture on his work and his documentary projects throughout the years. The first time he came to the college I remember him talking about his visit to Eton as he had just finished his year there.

I really like Ian’s work from Eton, it had a mixture of portraits and details of the college. Fromw hat i remember Ian saying he has over 3,000 images to edit into a book. The book that he has published contained 48 images, I cannot imagine having to edit such a best amount of images into such a small amount.

What I like about Ian’s work is that he really does connect with the places he photographs. It may help that the documentaries he has done are all on his home teritory, but I feel that you can really connect with his images, some of them seeming almost romantic.

From looking at Ian’s work I would liketo get a similar connection with my images.  I want to take in my surrounds, taking in the great detail and also the people living in the area.

I would like my project to have great depth and meaning also.

Heres some images of Ian’s that I really like of Ian’s;

Tees Estuary

I really like the composition fo these images above. I really like the way that Ian uses light, and the quality and detail in the images.

Paul Strand

Paul Strand was born in New York City in 1890. He was given his first camera at 12 years old, two years later he was at the Ethical Culture school where he was taught by Lewis Hine.

Paul was greatly influenced by the photo- seccession group and made some amazing abstract images.  Inititally he did some experimental work with the medium but move over to straight photography. He relied totally on the suject, viewpoint and choice of lighting, rather than the manipulation at either the negative or printing stages.

Some of his work appeared in the last two editions of Camer Work (1916-17). In what was the last edition of the magazine, Alfred Stieglitz described Strands work.

‘ His work is rooted in the best tradition of photography. His vision is potential. His work is pure. It is direct. It does not rely on tricks of process. Whatever he does it’s applied with inteligent process. In the history of photography there are but few photographer who, from the point of view of expression, have done much work of any importance. And by importance we mean has some relatively lasting quiality, that element which gives al are its real significance….the work is brutally direct. Devoid of any film flams; devoid of trickary and any ‘ism’; devoid of any attempt to mystify an ignorant public…’

Paul Strand himself said;

‘ Objectivity is of the very esscence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limitation. honesty noless than intensity of vision is the prerequisite of a living expression. This means a real respect for the thing in front of the photographer, this is accomplished without tricks of process or manipulation through the use of stright photographic methods.’

Images Paul Strand Took.

I really like Paul Strands work, I like his composition and the abstractness in his images, I like the way he frames his images, the people and the objects and the way he uses light. Looking at his images have given me some idea of how I would like to photograph some of my images in Korea.