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New year's cheers

Libération, Le Mag 24-25th Dec 2011

Ah the French, I love working for the French. At least I love working for Libération, a newspaper so beautiful that even though I require a simultaneous translation to read it I always buy a copy when in france, just to look at the pages. Before christmas I was sent by Libé to photograph the only whisky distillery in Wales. The Penderyn Distillery is a relatively new enterprise but has already received high praise and awards from the whiskey experts. My brief from Libé was typically liberating "...do what you feel...this is the best thing". And so after shooting the barrels, the still and portraits and suchlike I asked the MD, Stephen Davies, if we could go up the road to the edge of the Brecon Beacons to get some landscapes. It had been a grim, grey day, but the clouds were beginning to shift and as we drove along the road the light started to break through. I ran about shooting for ten minutes or so before I had to leave for my train from Port Talbot but I got a few nice frames. I edited the set and sent it the next day, making a mental note of my favourite images and hoping that one of them would be used. In fact the three images that were used in the christmas edition were all on my list, and that hardly ever happens. Best of all one of the landscapes was there looking great, something I felt like doing had been appreciated. And I was given a bottle of the most delicious whisky by the lovely people at Penderyn! And that is why I love working for Libé.

Farewell to all that

Ice-tree, Labrador. ©D.Tyler 2004

This week marked the close of a chapter in my photographic life. After much soul-searching and some cold, hard reasoning I finally sold my two leica rangefinders.

I used those leicas in temperatures of -40C in northern Labrador when I had to put tape around the viewfinder to stop my skin sticking to the frozen metal as I shot. They survived sandstorms in the Kalahari and rainstorms in Transylvania and endless bone-jolting rides on Skidoos, rickshaws, motorbikes and 4x4s. They recorded death and new life, through them I saw amazing and terrible things and with them I shot most of my favourite images. I think I could work myself up into sentimental grief over selling them, but otherwise I'm strangely unmoved by their absence. The fact is they were wonderful tools but they were overtaken by the death of film and much as I would have like to buy the new digital Ms I don't have that kind of money to spend on what would always be a second kit after my DSLRs.

Now that I think about it, I will miss the faint, nearly-un-sound of the shutter and the dense weight of all that glass and metal, the huge window of a viewfinder and the ghost-focusing. When I first picked up a leica I remember wondering how anyone could get used to so many idiosyncrasies and then, when I did, I marvelled at how the weaknesses had become strengths and how the camera had made me unlearn so many bad habits. In fact the leicas taught me to shoot in a very different way, a more considered and thoughtful way perhaps, certainly a slower way. Instead of snatching images, with the rangefinders I started to stalk images. I hope all that is still in my brain somewhere and can hold out against the DSLR, double-tap everything and let post-production sort 'em out way of working.

On a positive note the leicas really held their value, I think I might get more than I paid for them and that means new toys, I mean tools, for the new year.

It's what they would have wanted.

Cover versions

The Fens, standing in for the Ouse. © D.Tyler 2010

I heard Olivia Laing talking about her book To The River on Woman's Hour in April and immediately felt that this was a book I was going to love. The idea of weaving a narrative through and along a river had been haunting me since reading Dart by Alice Oswald, a book that I was drawn to after swimming that river at various points for Wild Swim.

Anyway, "To The River" is a wonderful book, you'll find excellent reviews all over the place, many evoking the "new nature" writings of Deakin and Mabey and the psycho-geography of W.G.Sebald. I think it's beautiful, honest and transportive and when I was contacted by the publishers to ask if I might have a image in my archive for the paperback edition all I could think was that I really hoped I did.

Initially we looked at work from Wild Swim and in particular images that were strong but that didn't get into the book. As well as these I sent some other work from different projects that I thought might be suitable and it's one of these that was eventually chosen, an image from my Watermarks project. The proofs (see below) arrived yesterday and I'm delighted with the result, even more so because I hear that the author and the publishers are also pleased. I can't think of an un-cheesy way to express how proud I am to be a part of a really great work, a small part, but a part.

Old wrecks

Hackney's abandoned cars. Click for larger image. © D Tyler 2000.

Whilst searching for some ancient scans last week I popped an old, un-labeled CD into my computer and I found a series of images that I'd almost entirely forgotten: images I'd made soon after moving to Hackney focusing on wrecks of cars. When I first lived in Hackney, back at the turn of the century, one of the area's most characteristic features was it's wealth of abandoned cars. At the time you had to pay to have cars scrapped and so many were left on side roads to slowly fall apart or become magnets for more unwanted scrap. These cars, and those stolen and then torched by joyriders, kept the area looking edgy and deprived even as the first wave of neo-yuppies (like me) moved in, carrying with us the seeds of gentrification. Hackney is very different now, in some ways. There are fewer abandoned cars and more fixed-wheel bikes, fewer empty shops and more deli's, it's less edgy and deprived perhaps but still referencing edgy and deprived, ironically and with retro flair. Nevertheless for a big part of the population the last ten years evolution has meant nothing more than a greater range of things to feel excluded from. Hackney's underprivileged youth have yet to reap the benefits of the hipster influx and the two groups are suspicious if not hostile towards each other. The abandoned wrecks are off the streets now, but have they really gone away?

I might well never have remembered these images without accidentally finding them, which is a shame, not because I think they are particularly good, but because ten years on they form a historical record and serve as a reminder that photographing the ephemera of daily life can ground your recollections in interesting ways.

 

Richard Feynman on Beauty, Honors, and Curiosity | Brain Pickings

Brain Pickings is one of my regular stops in search if inspiration or diversion. I have to restrain myself from re-blogging everything they do but this series of films made from stock footage and interviews with the late, great Richard Feynman are too good not to share.

Richard Feynman on Beauty, Honors, and Curiosity | Brain Pickings

Flipping Ming, for real...

Ming Campbell on St. Andrews beach © D Tyler 2006

In the run-up to the Lib-Dem's leadership vote in 2006 I was asked to shoot some portraits of Menzies "Ming" Campbell that could be used to loosen his elder statesman image and show him in a more relaxed, informal mood. We did the shoot in-between his constituency duties in St. Andrews one cold morning in January and among the images that worked best was this shot of him walking on the beach. I've used the portrait in my portfolio on-and-off. I like the drama and the light and the fact that he's a well know figure shown in an unexpected context, not in a suit stalking the corridors of westminster. When I took the picture he was walking and I was keeping pace backwards while shooting with a Leica and a 35mm lens. It wasn't bright and I needed a fast shutter to avoid blurring from the movement so manually focusing at f2 or f2.8 meant a few of the shots were soft on his eyes but this one is pin-sharp, you can even see a tear forming from the bitterly cold wind.

I don't know whether the images were ever used by Ming's campaign, though he did win the election to leader. As far as I know they didn't appear in any media at the time so it was nice to have a request last week from the New Statesman magazine to use the image, I guess either Ming or the image or both have aged well.

As you can see the image got flipped to fit the page. It certainly wouldn't have worked in this layout un-flipped, his face would be in the gutter and the balance of the page would be way off. Sometimes you wonder why images get flipped, even resent it, but I have no complaints about this. It's interesting how we still recognize a face in mirror-image, I doubt more than a handful of people would notice the difference, if any. Interestingly Ming himself would be less likely than most to realize he's been flipped since we all recognize our mirror image more readily than a straight picture. I read once that it's good practice to show clients their portraits in mirror-image for approval for exactly this reason, does anyone do this I wonder?

Anyway, I think after 5 1/2 years "Ming on the beach" now holds my record for the longest gap between commission and first publication.

Glamour and the retouch

Marlene Dietrich by George Hurrell 1931.

With time to kill between jobs last week I went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the BP portrait award and also the Glamour of the Gods, which is a selection of photographs from the Kobal collection of hollywood portraits from the 1920's onwards. There's something wonderfully ethereal about photographs from this era, they have an almost powdery softness that always makes me think of a moth's wing. It's not just the soft-focus I don't think, it's the quality of light and the printing too. The new prints in the show, made from old negs, look immediately different, still gauzy but not so tactile. Photographers at this time were using magnificently massive cameras and alongside the portraits there are some fascinating pictures of the photographers in action.

Clarence Sinclair Bull photographing Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind, 1939
by Fred Parrish

There are images shot in natural light, or mostly natural light, like Elizabeth Taylor on the beach in a publicity still for "Suddenly last Summer", but most of the images are studio shots lit with incandescent lamps. In the shot above you can see the whole lighting rig more-or-less, I think the light on a stand close to us is the main light but there may be another out of frame, above Gable and Leigh is a spot which looks like it's acting as a kick light on their hair to separate them from the background, it maybe flooding onto the dress too. The little spot by the window over Gable's shoulder might both illuminate Leigh's face and highlight his jaw, or maybe it's another kick for his hair? I can't find the images this set-up produced to check what's doing what so it's a bit of a puzzle. This style of complex, dramatic lighting was exemplified by George Hurrell, who seemed to play fearlessly with shadows, often letting his subjects eyes fall into deep darkness or retouching harsh highlights to a near-metallic shine.

Since I'm always trying to improve my lighting I thought it would be interesting to try to replicate the '50's style portrait so I made some notes at the exhibition and looked through an old George Hurrell book for ideas. I didn't want to copy any image exactly so much as to get a feel for how the lights were positioned and where the shadows fell. I don't have models at hand so I used myself which also meant using a tethered set-up with my 5D and laptop so that I could sit and shoot simultaneously. I might blog about the tethering another time, it's cool to be able to do it. I shot using a monochrome picture style from the camera's menu but without the colour filter option.

For lights I used my Bowens kit but only the modeling lamps, set on proportional output so I could adjust them. I think that power-wise the modelling lamps are about the same as 1940's photographers would have had, close up they gave easily enough light for good exposures 5-6 stops down from full power. Using constant light meant that I could monitor the shadows and highlights and move my head accordingly. I had a main light with a small diffuser out front on one side and a silver reflector bouncing back to fill the shadow. Above me and over my shoulder there was a second light at the same power as my main light which gave a characteristic edge and some key highlights on my face.

I wasn't shy of retouching, since the look of those classic portraits is very worked. Hurrell would exaggerate his highlights using a soft graphite pencil on the negative plate, giving that alabaster shine and I kept dodging until I got somewhere close. I used a skin-retouching methodology that I've mentioned before (I think), it's from Joel Grimes' website and I like it because it allows a lot of control over how much detail you want and how much smoothing you apply. I also applied a film grain using the DxO labs FilmPack plugin and duotoned the final image for a slightly warm tone. Here it is:

Help, they airbrushed my face.

It looks wierdly like my dad. Looking again at the work from the show it's also a much more conservative image than most of them. In particular I've lit my eyes with a nice bright keylight whereas some of the most iconic images in the show leave deep shadows in the eyes. This composition is woefully pedestrian by comparison too, but in my defence, my model wasn't very cooperative. Lighting-wise I think it's nearly there, the Key, Bounce and Kick set-up delivers plenty of modelling. By the way you also get that contrasting gradation on the background where the lit side of the face is against the darker side by "feathering" the edge of the light so that it falls off, this works best when you light at right-angles to the camera view.

Here are some process pics that should enlarge if you click them:

Then I spied a bottle of theatrical blood on my desk (you never know when it might come in handy) and, well, this happened:

New Facebook profile picture perhaps?

Image control

    © D.Tyler 2011

I photographed Rob Brydon for the Indy Magazine a couple of weeks ago for a slot called "My secret life". It's a one page feature with a Q&A format that runs with a single portrait and is usually about a celeb who is on the PR circuit at the time, promoting a book, film, TV show or whatever. You know the sort of thing.

A fair few of my portraits over the last few years have been shot for this or similar pages in the Indy. I like the jobs because each of them is a self-contained puzzle (a bit like photography soduku but without the one solution), you have a short time and a limited space to make an interesting image of this person.

Before the Brydon job even began I received two requests, the first from Penguin Books, publishers of Brydon's upcoming book and hosts for the shoot, and another from his PR company. Penguin required a copy of my "insurance certificate" before I'd be allowed to photograph in their offices. Unusual but OK, I thought, I supposed they meant my public liability cover and sent it over. The second request was more worrying. Brydon's PR asked me to sign a "Syndication Form" that confirmed my agreement not to use the images from the shoot for anything beyond the Indy's commission without their prior permission. This was entirely new to me, but apparently it's standard practice in the US and more and more common among PR companies here. On the face of it the contract (that's what it is right?) gives the PR company control over my images. If they or the Celeb don't like them, for whatever reason, they can make sure no-one ever sees them again. And not signing means I don't do the job. There was no mention of copyright but how am I supposed to feel about a third-party vetoing sales of my work? And of course there's the not-so-subtle implication that pictures they like, flattering, on-message, brand-conforming images, will be more likely to be allowed out than anything unflattering, off-message or brand-confounding. It's not like I shoot portraits to be unflattering but I do try to respond to what I see in the subject and not what the PR wants the image to be.

The power is in the hands of the agents and the celebs and the PRs. For now they call the shots because the commodity they offer, fame, sells papers. The big agents in the US basically dictate how and what content is used in the press and this will happen in the UK too unless the press join forces and refuse to accept the conditions. It would be a wonderful thing to see, the nations media outlets refusing to trade publicity for content, interviewing someone who doesn't have something to sell and ignoring the press releases and the brand guff.

I would like to show the image I shot of Rob Brydon but It's been requested that I wait until October when the Indy plan to publish so as to coincide with the availability of his autobiography: Small man in a Book, published by Penguin 13th October, priced £20 hardback, available in all good bookshops soon.

Update Oct31st 2011: I've added the image now. Brydon wasn't that keen on this coat hanger idea, when I suggested it he said "The question is "why?"... I always cringe when I see a comedian doing something wacky in a photo." But he let me try it before we moved on to a straighter set-up. Even if it did make him cringe, I like this image. I think it fits with his Q&A in the magazine, there's even a bit where he says "I'm always happy in a pink shirt", I mean, honestly, what could be a more perfect illustration for a comment like that?

Context is the key

Photo Op: Inside the Situation Room - WWD.com.

Photo-editors react to the Pete Souza image from the night Osama bin Laden was killed.

Doing the Corporate

Earlier this year I had a great little run of commissions for Serco's Corporate Responsibility Report. The work came more or less out of the blue, I got a phone call from an art director who'd seen my work at least a year before. Initially we talked about one shoot, then two and in the end I had three in the diary. If only that happened more often. These three jobs were great, not just because it's a financial boost to work at corporate rates for a few days but because they were challenging and interesting and most significantly they made me work to produce the strongest possible images. I had great art direction from Ian Dutnall at Sunday Publishing, who gave me a brief specific enough to let me know what I was aiming for and vague enough for me to feel I could approach the shoots in a documentary style. It's nice to have a brief that says "reportage" and means it.

The first shoot (above) was at the International Fire Training Centre in Darlington, run by Serco. I've added a set of images from that shoot to my website here. The other two were a day in the life of the London Cycle Hire scheme and a shoot with Serco's dive team at work in Devonport dockyard. All very elemental with the fire, water and, erm, pneumatic tyres is air right? I was really pleased to be given an excuse to shoot in the water again and I had a most excellent day with the dive team. We were initially scheduled to do the shoot in the Kyle of Lochalsh, which would have been glorious, but it wasn't to be. I borrowed a dry suit from one of the team and tried my best to look like a seasoned diver in front of the engineers we were working with but I don't think anybody was fooled when I managed to flip over in the water, flailed around like a cow on a lilo and had to be put right-side-up by the real diver.