My first idea I had for this project was focusing my theme on 'chavs' as they're commonly referred to as. I was thinking I could try to talk to some of them to follow them around, in hope they dwelled into subjects such as anti social behaviour, drugs and see more people like them. But this is too big of a project as it requires planning properly and in the weeks we have to do this project there wouldn't be time. I think it would have made for a good idea, I may revisit this idea in the future as I think its something that could be dwelled into further as I don't think it really has been properly looked at by people.
One particular photographer who I have looked at before but thought is revenant towards this project is Khalik Allah, who's photography I love to look at. Some of his photography of the drug homeless person, which I will go into more detail later, has a gritty feel of New Yorks rougher area, he shoots with a film camera and lower his iso to give the effect of gritty.
Here is some examples from him (not of the grittiness) which I can achieve.
The next idea was just a drug addicted person, who I could follow around and also document his/her uses of drugs. I was thinking of possibly going down to the crypt in leeds to see what I could do to try and achieve the change of getting to photograph someone. But, again, it comes down to planning and time. But I again looked at Khalik Allah, but this time at his photographs of him documenting a man who is a drug addict and the side effects of the drugs he takes. His photographs, I feel, are really good and I love the way it feels gritty dark and shows emotion. The following is the the gritty dark feel I was on about in the previous paragraph.
I think, in the future, I would like to explore parts of life like this and document them. I not only find them interesting, but also think if done right can produce powerful images.
My next idea was looking at some documentary photographers who I like to look at, aside from idea for the project in hope that it would give me any ideas.
I saw Mike Brodie's work a while ago on a news website about his latest project he produced, about America homeless train-hoppers. I think some of these photographs are brilliant as he has managed to capture the sense of adventure and of risk.
Alex Masi is one I really like, he has done numerous set of photographs ranging from the town of Fallujah to Karachi's special police force and India.
From the photographs posted and the numerous websites I visited, it makes you think how important it is to capture these events and happenings. But its not also so much to do with the fact of just capturing whats going on, but also to make it pleasing to the eyes of the viewer as the subject matter wont always make someone look at the photograph if its just placed in front of them.
So, in the end I have decided that I'am going to be doing my documenting project on old trades such as butchers, cafes, barbers etc. that are still in existence today. I wish to also include the owner or an employee of the place, and their name, to include more depth than just the shop photographs.
I plan on taking these photographs in Leeds and possibly going out to try find more. Also this has a possibility of becoming my final major project, given i can find enough places to make plenty of content to which I would be happy to use for the project. But with doing this I fear that I won't get enough participants.
I saw an article on a news website, which includes a similar kind of idea of which I want to do.
I wish to photograph the shop and the contents like the above photographs, as it gives a good idea of the contents of the shop than just the outside.
I plan of somehow taking the photographs of each location and somehow producing some kind of collection of them per business be it in a book or by other means.
Proposal
Im going to go around different old traditional shops such as tailors, butcher, shoe repairers and alike to take photographs. In these photographs I'm going to make sure I get them applying their trade and also of their shop which they operate in. I feel that in modern times it is important to capture these as they are a dying bread, which is a shame but its the truth.
After visiting a number of locations I am wanting to form a book out of them. I think this would be a good idea to do, travelling to other places outside of leeds to try and get the book built up. This wont be done in this project but subsequently in other projects and my own time, should I decided to go ahead with it.
Development
These photographs we're taken in leeds at a shoe repairers under the company Timpson which has been running since 1869. The shop itself is small, and has hardly any space at all to move around in as a customer. So taking that into account I had limited space to work with so I knew that most photograph would be from similar angles.
Editing
With these photographs there wasn't much I needed to do in terms of editing. All I did was tone down the highlights as the lights were bright in there and add a bit of contrast. Thats all that was done to these images.
The following are some shots from the shop which I didn't choose to include in the final images.
I tried to crop this to get the shoe in however do to his positioning it doesnt look right is more of the arm is showing. The only thing editing wise i did was to increase exposure and add a little contrast.
The difficulty of the shop was that there is limited room and I had to lean across the counter to get some shots, so the further out ones like this one makes it hard to see what he is actually doing. I couldn't move further to the left to get a better shop as the shop is only a number of feet wide.
I removed the highlights so it dimmed the whiteness of the board behind him. I increased the contrast and made his shirt more blue.
Final images
This one i cropped and made black and white because I thought it would make a better close up shot than a further out one. I like the black and white, I didn't want to make it too heavy toned but decreased the exposure and increased the contrast accordingly.
I like this shot as the photograph is well taken for getting the shoe in the machine. I think black and white works well for this image, although the colour one was nice as well, because its feels to me like a timed photograph.
As you can see the image hasnt been edited all that much. I just added a bit of contrast and felt that was all what was needed.
This ones nice as it shows you his hand movements in holding the shoe just before he sands.
With this one I thought it would be a better idea to crop the image to focus more on the shoe than the environment. I didn't do much editing, just added a bit of contrast and decreased the highlights and that was it.
He has a firm grip of the boot and is sanding. The image is nice as part of the process of attaching the heel.
I just added a bit of contrast to make the brown of the shoe shine out more.
The final outcome. This is good to have a photograph such as this one in a set of images as you see the process of the heel and the final outcome.
In addition to the main photographs I got some around the shop photographs as well.
Evaluation
Because of incidents such as my camera getting stolen, it has put me behind with work. I was wanting to do more shoots than I did, I went to another place on the day in the time i had to do this and they wasn't open. Apart from that though, I think these images are really nice to portray the work of a shoe repairer. I think they would go well in a book should I make one, and I would credit the shop and the man which their names in it. I didnt have anything go wrong on this shoot, apart from the shop being very small so I couldnt get any different angles. But I feel, and also talking the him about the work he does, has made me more excited to try and do more of these.
