Evaluation

My final book is a far cry from my first idea, I began this project wanting to create a book based around car fanatics and their pride and joy; their cars. I wanted to base my book on something that I knew nothing about. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to find out more about something that other people held a lot of passion for, where I felt none. This book was going to be called ‘60 seconds of passion’ and would contain a 60 second transcribed interview with each subject followed by a series of portrait/editorial type images. Oh how I am glad that I changed my idea, I quickly realised that 12 weeks is not a long time at all, especially when you consider that I also needed 2 weeks for delivery of the book (if I used an online book creator) and what if the first draft wasn’t right and I had to send it off to get reprinted, thats 4 weeks gone already. I had given myself a lot of work to do in this small time frame, I then decided that maybe creating a book about something that I already hold a passion for myself, would make life a lot more easier and I could therefore put more of myself into it.

My idea started to form in my mind over the next week, over the past few years I have based my Photographic career within the Music scene and I have noticed a change occurring. With the age of Digital Photography there seems to be more and more ‘Photographers’ at live shows every week, with the invention of longer lenses and more powerful flashes you no longer need to be in the photo pit at the front to get decent images of the bands. What I find frustrating is the next day the internet is awash with imagery and it is hard for Photographers who rely on their photos to pay their rent to get their images noticed. I observe more people every night taking photos on their phone and standing in a crowded venue uploading the said image to facebook, instagram or twitter within seconds of taking said image. I witness these people missing bands on the stage pouring their hearts into every second of the performance, just so they can get a badly lit, poorly composed image online to say “hey, look where I am!”. Do they realise that they could experience the show for themselves, right there and then and still go online the next day and see images created by photographers who are paid to be there.

I therefore wanted to base my book on this idea of Music Photography and the battle against ‘iPhoneography’. I wanted to show that Music Photography is something that some of us pour our hearts into rather than just pointing a phone over the crowds head and hoping for the best, then missing two songs whilst you show your online friends. I thought that just using my own images wouldn’t be the best way t go about this, mainly because I wanted a lot of variety in the images and I also wanted to reach a wider audience, maybe a collection of photographers and their images would be the way to go. Each Photographer would need to have a distinctive style to make the book work so I started to look for potential people to collaborate with on this project. The beauty of this idea is that it combines everything that I had thought about so far in the build up of this project; photography, people and their passions and Music Photography.

I sent an email out to prospective Photographers, probably about ten in all and I received replies from all of them; only three however said that they would have time to contribute in the small time frame that I had. I was happy with this, myself included that gave me four Photographers to contribute. I also asked one of the Photographers if they would write a small introduction for the book. I thought that this would add to the book as she is an editor on an up and coming London based music magazine called ‘Discovered’. This I thought would help with getting the book out there to the public. Unfortunately when it got closer to the deadline she had no time to supply either images or an introduction. This was a big blow to the structure of the book and I decided to get it written myself.

I eventually had ten images each from three Photographers, myself, Andy Ford and Greig Clifford. We each work in different areas of the south of England so as a collective it was quite a nice mix. I started to play around on Blurb.com with the images to edit them down and create an order that felt right. I started with Andy’s images as, to be honest, they were and still are my favourite ones. I believe that he has a great eye and always captures the moment of a show in a fantastic way. I whittled his ten images down to seven and placed them in a order and particular book format that suited the images. I chose 13 x 11 inches as I felt that this size gave the images the viewing format they deserved, small pages therefore small images would have been too small for the subject matter. Once I found a layout and order that suited the images  i did the same for Cliffords and my own images. I felt that the book needed something else to carry on the concept, I asked each of the guys to write a short piece about why they love music photography, why they do it and what their thoughts on the books concept were. This added another element to the book, it no longer was a portfolio of images, it now had an idea behind it, it gave the book purpose. I originally had this text at the beginning of each photographers section, I later chose to move it to the end, this worked better as a it added a kind of full stop to the end of the sections.

My final book arrived in the post and I have to say I was very pleased with it, the front cover image is subtle enough as to not take over from the text but attention grabbing enough to draw you in. The title itself ‘A View From the Pit’ was my second choice but I find works very well with the concept. The flow of the pages works well, it starts with a contents page and then you are faced with the introduction which i think outlines the concept in a short but punchy way intriguing the viewer to turn the pages. The quality and finish of the paper is very nice, I went for the more expensive heavy weight/matte finish. This was so it didn’t feel cheap in the readers hands and it also reduces shine off the pages so the images can be viewed from most angles. The only thing I would change about my book at this point would be to add more Photographers, it feels as though the book should be thicker and once you have got to the end you feel as though their should be more to come. maybe this is something that I can continue with after the module has finished. All in all I am proud of my book and it has encouraged me to do more with my images after the shutter has clicked. Photography has come a long way in the past ten years and we only seem to view images on a screen now, this module has spurred me on to change this with my own work.

Book Review

Charles Peterson - touch me i’m sick

The year is 1991. The place is Vancouver. The singer is held aloft, like Jesus among the disciplines, by his adoring fans. His Fender strat obscures his face but the ripped jeans and dirty blond hair can only belong to one man: the legendary Kurt Cobain. The photographer’s name is stamped across the centre of the image in bold white, deliberately lower cased lettering: charles peterson. The concept and title follows in muted grey: touch me i’m sick. This gives us all the information we need about this book, whilst Peterson is a little known photographer in today’s circles, if you are interested in the scene of late 80s / early 90s grunge or rock movement then you know the name Charles Peterson; this is one for the fans.

Something else that is self-evident from this very first image is that this book, like the musical movement it documents, is unapologetically non-conformist. It is clear from the outset that there will be no stringently posed, clinically lit and masterfully edited images of the bands; Peterson shoots when he wants, what he wants and how he wants and the image of him at the back of the book  taken in 1982 with his middle finger up says ‘If you don’t like it I don’t give a fuck’. And within that statement lies the whole concept of this book and, it could be said, the focus behind Peterson as a photographer as well as the appeal of the 80s/90s grunge rock movement. This book gives us a chance to view that movement from the inside as though we were there as it happened, with Peterson we are given an access all areas pass.

Famed for documenting the scene as Sub Pop’s (a record label famous for it’s grunge releases at the time) unofficial photographer, Peterson had the unique chance of documenting Seattles sudden explosion of grunge and rock bands, some of which went on to dominate the music scene. This book encompasses his early photographs from this era. Bold, brash, black and white: Peterson’s trademark style is evident in the pages of touch me i’m sick. His focus is more on catching the energy and passion of the people and experience he documents rather than on producing the perfect brightly lit, almost staged images that we see in all of today’s popular music magazines. This emphasis is clear from looking at the first twelve pages of the book. Introduced by Eddie Vedder (front man of the now world famous Pearl Jam), and with an essay by Jennie Boddy (publicist for Sub Pop at the time), the pages contain four images, in two of them the subject’s face is cut off from the composition, the other two simply show a dirty floor or a stack of amps. The inclusion of Vedder and Boddy’s texts in these opening pages shows that Peterson was well respected in the scene, both by the subjects of his images and by the people those images were produced on behalf of. The beauty of these first images, and I am including the cover image in this, is that it shows how Petersons images didn’t need to follow the same pattern as every other music Photographer working at the time. This book isn’t about straight up portraits of the singer looking great and therefore cultivating the perfect ‘Pop Star’ image, the images capture the true raw brutality of the grunge clubs and the music, musicians and fans that adored them.

Peterson’s style is consistent throughout; all the images are shot on high ISO black and white film, sometimes with a blast of flash. Always uncropped, Peterson’s images are known for the fact that what was shot at the time is what is displayed to the viewer. The rest of the book contains over ninety images by Peterson, all of which display this raw, passionate feeling in Petersons trademark gritty imagery. This reader’s interest is maintained by the varying formats Peterson uses to display his images on the page, some are single image double page spreads and some are side by side complementing each other. Throughout the book the images contain no signifiers as to who they are of until you get to the end, the last section of the book contains a couple of index pages, these are displayed as small thumbnails with the bands name, the city they were shot in and the year. Rather than cataloguing bands in neat chapters, Peterson blends his images together; Mudhoney collide with Pearl Jam, Nirvana jostle Black Flag and throughout it all the fans are omnipresent with whole pages given over to them screaming along and being thrown around in the moshpit. As well as maintaining interest this format plays another important role in the book by helping to show how interconnected the scene at that time was and also the great importance played in that by the fans and the fans experiences. One page that truly sticks out to me is a single image on a left hand page of Henry Rollins, singer of Black Flag at the time (a man who has since gone on to become a well-known name in the industry to say the least), turned away from the camera displaying his iconic tattoos, calm and ready with his microphone in hand. For me this image is immensely powerful, his onstage persona is beautifully captured and you can sense in the image just what this music lifestyle mean to him, it is everything.

To the right of this image is one of the pieces of text that pepper the book, an excerpt from ‘Melody Maker’ magazine in March 1990. Written by Everett True it asks the question “How on earth can they afford it?” He is, of course, referring to Nirvana’s obsession with trashing their instruments on stage. This is followed by an response from two of the three members of Nirvana, Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain (the bassist and singer/guitarist respectively), “Why do I do it? Why not? It feels good. Somebody cut down a nice old tree to make that fucking guitar. Smash It! We only ever do it if the feelings right; it doesn’t matter where we are” - Kurt Cobain. In this statement echoes of the title of the book can be found, we are witnessing something beautiful in decline, something sick. What I love about this book, and I guess this could be said to be the reason I love the scene of that time as well, is the frenetic blend of emotion that went into it. On one page you have this beautifully calm image of Rollins, then a discussion of the iconic destruction that went along with the scene (a destruction that extended to its participants as well as its artifacts) beautiful is documented, and then nine pages you have images of Kurt Cobain’s frenetic stage presence. With Peterson we are privileged to witness the eye of the storm as well as the havoc within it.

As well as this, the book also contains ‘behind the scenes’ images that show the everyday reality of the people involved in the scene. We see Mudhoney at a urinal in Bristol, a ‘Reservoir Dogs’ style image of Pearl Jam walking across an airport in Spain and Beat Happening in tuxedos attending a wedding in Seattle. This shows Peterson’s ability to capture the moment off stage as well as on. Peterson was clearly someone the musicians felt comfortable with and were willing to let into their world and, because of this, we are allowed in too.

All in all I love this book. As someone who was too young to be a part of the early grunge scene, it offers the chance to put on some music, open it’s cover and lose yourself in Petersons’ world. touch me i’m sick is a book that contains passion, youth and talent whether it be the subjects themselves or Peterson as a Photographer. History has shown that the scene sadly did not last the 90s; it was, indeed, sick. And I do want to touch it.

Charles Peterson - Book Review

I have chosen to review Charles Petersons book 'Touch me I'm sick.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Touch-Me-Sick-Powerhouse-Classics/dp/1576873919/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357140599&sr=8-1

Review will follow in another post.

See the below link for a PDF of my finished book.

http://philiphardmanphotography.zenfolio.com/aviewfromthepit.pdf

Book Introduction

The below text was written as an introduction to my book. I was waiting for an introduction that was going to be written by Georgia Rawson, the editor and owner of a London based music magazine who also photographs bands. She was also going to contribute some images for the book, unfortunataly she has had too much on to so she hasn't contributed either the introduction or any images. This has held up a few things and has also meant that I only have three contributors as apposed to four.

I ended up writing the introduction myself, I felt it was quite fitting as I was the one who put most, if not all, of the work in to it. I am hoping that if I were to do another book with the same concept (A View From The Pit 2), then maybe I would get someone else to write the foreward extrapalating on my concept.

"I am an eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, I am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see” - Dziga Vertov (1919).

Skip forward almost one hundred years and the singularity of Vertov's clear-seeing mechanical eye, the eye that shows, is all but gone. No longer does one man show to man what he has taken time to craft, no longer is photography merely the realm of the artistic. Now everyone has a mechanical eye. And that mechanical eye supersedes the human eye. The world is seen through these all-seeing mechanical eyes. And we are all privy to their sights.

With the advent of smartphone technology and social media anybody at any show in any town can hold aloft their mechanical eye and then loudly proclaim to the world that very instant, “Look! I am here! Here I am! LOOK!’ And yet what are they looking at? Not at the show, but at a machine. No longer a part of the crowd they now stand alone, disconnected from the experience happening around them. I look around now at shows and the crowd, that used to be in darkness, is lit up by a thousand tiny lights all pointed at the stage. And then they use that same device, that machine that records the very minutiae of the event, to casually book their taxi home. And so the world wide web  fills up with badly lit, poorly shot, unimagined images and we waste unfulfilled minutes scrolling through these artless artifacts.

Photography is now so affordable, now such a cultural leviathan, that most people in the Western world hold the means to it in their pocket. But when photography becomes this easy to afford do we lose the artistic philosophy that used to drive it?

Don’t get me wrong, photography’s popularity has done, and will undoubtedly continue to do, great things for the art form. From huge developments in equipment, to funding and advances in teaching, photography has benefited enormously from its new cultural standing and I certainly don’t mean to bite the hand that feeds. But it’s about what we do with this new wealth in the photographic field. It’s about maintaining the integrity it started with whilst using the developments in the industry to continue to produce images that have real value in the world, images that we can be proud of.

This book is an attempt to do just that. Shot in the South of England at shows in the past two years, all of these images have been taken by photographers who have a deep seated passion for their artform and for the music shows they shoot at. They shoot not only to show their peers that “they were there”, but to capture the moment and in so doing turn it into something beautiful, something timeless. They seek to create images that are not only interesting to people who know who the band is or are fans of the musicians but to reveal something about the world as they, and only they, can see it.

Welcome to the View from the Pit.

PDF of current book draft

I have uploaded a PDF version of my book in its current state to my website so it can be viewed online. I used the Print dialog box to do this as it is a free way of saving it, although it doesn't allow you to include the front cover for some reason, it also applies a watermark over the top for obvious reasons.

A View From The Pit

New page

I chose to add a contents page to direct readers to a specific photographer if they wish. It, I believe, helps shape the book giving it more of a professional feel.

More layout changes

I have also reconsidered the cover and the title of my book. I have removed the image from the rear cover as I found it to be competing with the front cover for attention, for now I have kept it completely black other than a small piece of text in the middle of the page saying "A collection of Photographic Works", I felt that this gave a small hint as to what was inside but without giving anything away forcing the reader to want more. The cover contain the same image as I have always thought that it lends itself very well to the books concept and it also fits well with the layout, text etc. 

Change of layout

After a short session discussing my book layout with my fellow Students and Tutor I have decided to change the layout slightly. I was suggested to me that the text in each section should not be on the same page as an image as it takes something away from the image. I agreed with this and have done away with the page at the end of each section that simply contained the photographers website address and replaced it with the blurb. The website address was making the book feel like more of a editorial piece advertising each photographers work. This was not my intention for the book so removing the websites from sch a prominent position helps. I may still include these on a back page at the end of the book so the reader can find more work by each photographer if they wish but it is not my intent to merely promote businesses. 

Andy Ford's Pages

I have put together a rough version of Andy's pages to see what they would look like together, it took a lot of rearranging to get them to flow in a way that I was happy with, but I feel that the way they are displayed below works well as a set of pages.

Andy also supplied me with a couple of paragraphs axplaining why he love music and photography and the combinantion of the two. It read as follows.

"Since the day I started shooting punk & hardcore shows my goal was always to try and distill down all the raw energy & chaos of a live show into a single frame.  The kind of photograph that puts the viewer right there in the middle of all that sweaty mayhem.

I now find myself working with much bigger bands and festivals, but my aim is still the same, to try and make exciting images that give you a sense of really being there.  I try to avoid the standard ‘man playing guitar’ images you see a lot of and mix it up with different lenses and angles, always looking for those iconic moments, keep it fresh for myself and the viewer.

I’ve been lucky to find myself in the middle of a really exciting underground music scene in the South West over the past few years.  It’s nice to have the opportunity to work with a few big names now & then, but intense, grimy punk shows are what I truly love, once there’s someone swinging from the ceiling and a few kids back flipping off the speakers, that’s when I feel like I’m home."