Saturday 27 August 2011

Assignment 4: pulling together a plan

This isn’t going to be prescriptive but I have a rough plan of how my 12 images could be made up, based on the thinking covered in my previous two posts.

The series might comprise:

·         1/2 broad images of the town, in the context of its valley and its surroundings; I have two potential locations/angles in mind and I know that the best light for one will be a.m. and for the other late p.m.

·         3/4 people-oriented images; not that these will be the only ones including people, of course, but people will be the main subject. I probably will include one from my Folk Festival series, already shot in the context of this course and with this assignment in mind.  Then I hope to go for portraits for the others – 2-3 arranged/posed; probably local shopkeepers, bar/cafe owners; probably outside their premises.  Finally, in this category, I might look for an image that focuses on the tourists.

·         2/3 heritage-style images – and I have plenty of subject matter to go at here, perhaps just re-shooting some that I have already done, but trying to get people into some of them, for added interest and an element of ‘interacting with place’.

·         3/4 town centre images; and again I have some specific ideas – a wide angle image including car park and church that I have taken ‘roughly’ before; something showing the heavy traffic, ideally interacting with people; an angle on the Picturedrome from behind the church contrasting old architecture with names of rock bands; and no doubt 1 or 2 others.

·         3/4 detail shots, for which, again, I already have some idea.

That adds up to 12-17 images and, in practice, I can see how I might end up with a long-list of about 20.

This, on the face of it, looks like a lot of pre-planning, but I refer back to the idea that Holmfirth is a complex place, a bit of an odd mix, and so conveying as much of that as possible in a series of 12 images needs some thought.  Ideally, I will get all of this done in the next month.

2 comments:

  1. Very interesting Stan. I look forward to seeing how this work translates into pictures. I think the pre-planning and thinking should help enormously, in getting your brain ready to really look at the place.

    I do wonder, though, whether you may not find that you see things you didn't expect to see and find that you end up taking a different path in some parts of this work at least. For example I don't know that it's essential to try to convey as much as possible about the place - it might be equally or even more interesting to explore one or two partcular aspects of it. I guess we will find out once you start taking the pictures. Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, agreed, Eileen - it's unlikely that the end result will be exactly as planned. But I felt the need to have some ideas in place. I live less than five minutes from the centre of the town, so know it very well and, interestingly, that has made me more inclined to want to do this planning. It may be because I know that I can't use my instincts to generate an impression of the place because I'm too familiar with it. Don't know - we'll see what emerges.

    ReplyDelete