Evaluation APME302 Specialist production. Matthew Davis http://mtdfmp.blogspot.co.uk
I set myself the brief to create a series of photographs in a street photography, Bressonesque way, fusing old ideas with new technology and shoot using a Gopro. I intended to keep with Bresson’s rigorous traditions on shooting, and shot only candid images. Candid photography within Bresson’s style is paramount to the honesty of the image, and the expressions within. A candid approach as Bresson puts it shows more real emotion and passion. ‘When the subject is in any way uneasy, the personality goes away
where the camera can't reach it.’ (Bresson,H,C. (1952). The Decisive Moment. New York) I feel I met the brief I set for myself. The brief took some time to write as my idea and concept took a while to develop. My initial idea was to incorporate my love of the outdoors
with not only photography, but expedition photography. I was planning to photograph the people in and around Mont Blanc. This was a trip I had planned, and wanted to record in every way and so read up and investigated how one can prepare for and what to expect. On return of the trip I had thousands of photographs, but there were not many pictures of people, and I wanted to record people primarily. The project evolved from here. Cornwall was where the main body of the work was to be shot, and I couldn’t see how I could relate this to the mountaineering project. I was considering photographing the peaks of Europe, but financial constraints was one of the things that stopped me. I next considered cycling across the county as I love to cycle, and I came up with some ideas and routes from north to south, and photographing people, markets, and towncenters en-route. This idea I really liked, but I still couldn’t find a way to tie it all together, and as such I wasn’t comfortable with it. Then I had an epiphany, and thought of Bresson. The research and knowledge I have of Bresson from previous projects and my dissertation is relatively large, being very inspired by him already I thought what better way to further my knowledge of him, and street photography. I decided to photograph a set of street images in a very contemporary way. The brief was set, with a few more tweaks to come. I wanted to photograph people on the street in a totally candid fashion and in Bresson’s style .I wanted to use a contemporary piece of equipment. The equipment I chose was the latest Gopro Hero3 Black. An incredible little camera designed and build for extreme sport. This camera has a 12mega pixel sensor, and would be very interesting to use photographing people on the street. The consideration came upon me that Bresson used a Leica, and this revolutionized photography and made photography mobile, and moved photography to very different areas. The Leica took the photographer from the studio and put him on location anywhere. This links with the idea to use a Gopro. The Gopro is traditionally used as a ‘Look at me’ camera. People video themselves and others. If they are shooting the video or photos themselves , then the images are generally from a point of view angle-so the audience can imagine what it is like to be the person doing the stunt. 99% of the time the images and videos portray extreme feats and very extreme sports. The Gopro has revolutionized photography for this reason. I wanted to use this revolutionary device in a contemporary way and push the boundaries of this technology. This is why the Leica and the Gopro have a lot in common in response to my brief. I had the brief and I set out onto the street and started snapping. The Gopro has the option of a remote control, and also a full remote operation vis a smart phone application. These I tried, and I found to be incredibly slow, cumbersome and not good enough. The shutter had a lag time in excess of a second, and when you want to capture people on the street the shot comes once, and when its gone its gone.