Nick Clegg's visit to Oadby & Wigston Recycling Depot

Today, Nick Clegg visited the Oadby & Wigston Recycling Depot after it won a bid for £1.5 million as part of a £250 million fund, entitled ‘the Weekly Collection Support Scheme’ (WCSS).

After Mr. Clegg was 10 minutes late, the visit only takes 15 minutes as it was a short visit before a business Q&A elsewhere.

There were the usual elements: Props being shown, the workplace being observed, and posed shots including group shots.

Architectural photography - inspiration for montaging/presentation

In the continuing presentation research, of particular interest is simple montaging which transforms an image and, because this series is on architectural photography, focuses on the form on the image and intersecting lines.  

 The current photographer of interest in this matter is Katerina Drzková's 'Landscapes' series, where a single image is cut into a triangle and repeated to create a square. This results in an abstract, almost painterly effect.

As an early experimentation, the below montage was taken in the courtyard of Guildhall, Leicester. The centre of the montage somewhat demonstrates the same kind of abstraction created in Drzková's montage, though another shoot has been done with more of the ground showing. Once those have been edited, I'm going to see how it looks in this style of presentation.

New Topographic and Large Format photography

A current project of mine is focused on my intention to draw out the aesthetically appealing elements in the buildings in my local area, Oadby, Leicestershire, as they were not intended to be aesthetically pleasing, rather they are primarily functional. I could then, as an area of expansion, photograph Leicester as a comparison.

This could photographed in the style of the 'New Topographics', transforming the objects by reducing them  "to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion and opinion...". In addition, to enhance detail and slow the process down to carefully think about composition etc., a large-format camera could be used (typically 5x4), though a lot of preparation with digital will need to be made before shooting on 5x4.

Winding Tower by Bernd and Hilla Becher

 

Inspiration from the Russian Avant Garde

 I have the album 'The Man-Machine' by Kraftwerk, and was intrigued by the art on the back cover. Turns out is part of an artpiece by El Lissitzky. I particularly like the usage of simple geometric shapes to create a strange arrangement. It kind of reminds me of (IKEA) assembly diagrams!

I then shot my own photograph with various objects aligned in straight lines, and in Photoshop, I added the lines and colour.

El Lissitzky – 'And on the black was established red clearly'

Usage of El Lissitzky's art on the back cover of 'The Man-Machine' by Kraftwerk

My image, inspired by the aforementioned art

Floral photography for the 'Aabeda Choksi - Floral Design'

 Photos taken on 13th October. The shoot went really well, though there were only three arrangements, and big gaps where the next arrangement was made. This did allow me to discover little improvements to the lighting while I waited, so it worked out well in the end.

Overall, these will be a great addition to my portfolio, as I haven't photographed floral arrangements much before, especially is a carefully light situation such as this.

The arrangement in the fourth photograph was in a foam block which was in a tall glass. Due to the lighting, the only parts you could see of the glass was the base as it was on a wooden swivel display base (not seen in that particular photo).

Architectual Photography

Inspired by a theme in this (http://www.worldphoto.org/competitions/sony-world-photography-awards-2013-open-competition/) competition, I'm exploring Architectual Photography.

I'm reminded of my visit to Liverpool last year, specifically the 'Exploring Eye' exhibition of Eric de Maré's work.

Minor White: Abstract b&w still life

Quite inspired by abstract still life photography at the moment, particularly artists such as Minor White. The photographs (by White) below illustrate my inspiration, because they are somewhat recognisable, but still quite surreal. This is heightened by the use of black and white film, which, as the human eye sees in colour, is less familiar to us than most colour photography.

Watch this space concerning my own interpretation!