Pub Culture Collage

Below is a collage of various photographs into pub culture that relate to my idea. From looking at it it, there are a range of messages and stories being told in each picture and the collage catches the different reasons for why people go to the pub and why people drink, this is what I want to show through my photography essay. The various ways of portraying messages can be seen through these pictures as well. I have gained much inspiration from these photographs and they will help when planning my my shots, however, I need to not let it stifle my creativity and need to keep in mind that I am telling a story.

Bill Bradshaw

When researching photographers who have used pubs as their focus of a project, I didn't find many, however, Bill Bradshaw came up who took many photographs of pubs and the drinking culture. He took many photographs of people enjoying themselves in the pub and of the actual pub or drink on their own, which is quite different to the sort of photographs I am planning on taking. Also, the pubs used in his photographs are a lot more elegant than the ones that I am planning on using, if I were to take my shots in the same sort of pubs he used then the message could be lost. For example, if I were to take a shot of a man sitting on his own, whilst trying to give off a sense of loneliness, a pub as glamorous looking as the ones Bradshaw uses, then the message could be lost. However, there are a few photos of his that do link to mine and that I may use as inspiration for my own project. Below are some examples of his that I may mirror as they capture the range of different people in the pub or a certain group for example;

Main idea for photography essay

For my portfolio for photography I am required to create a photography essay that consists of 6 to 8 photographs which sends a message and tells a story. After a lot of thought I had the idea of basing my project on pub culture. I have worked behind a bar for the past few years and have found that there are many different people who go to pubs and for different reasons. With this I believe that I could get some very eye catching photographs that would highlight the range of different peoples lives. However, with pub culture as the topic and the lives of different people in the pub as the main focus, I am not sure how to approach the story telling part of my essay as I plan to get photographs of different people and not have just a single person or people in most if not all of the photos. However, I believe that when going out and taking practice shots, that it will become clear to me which route is the best one to take.

Over exposure photos

Whilst photographing strangers on campus and trying to capture different gazes I realized that I had made a very big mistake. When looking back at the photos that I had just taken it was drawn to my attention that over half of the pictures were overexposed leading to them being extremely bright and very difficult to see. The exposure of each photograph is affected by aperture, shutter speed and ISO. It became clear to me that I had made a major rookie mistake by not looking at each of the settings before taking the photos and even more of a mistake by not checking my photos after I had taken each one. Below are some examples of the terrible photos that I had taken due to my mistakes:

The gaze of strangers

During a workshop we discussed the concept of gaze in photography, in particular the male gaze. The male gaze refers to the way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. The concept consists of three different gazes; that of the person behind the camera, that of the characters within the representation or film itself and the gaze of the spectator. Below are some photographs that I took whilst trying to capture different gazes;

Aperture photos

In photography and digital photography, aperture is the unit of measurement that defines the size of the opening in the lens that can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or digital sensor. Aperture therefore ultimately affects the brightness of the image, below are some examples of pictures that I took using different aperture settings:

Shutter speed photos

In week 2 we were introduced to the concept of shutter speed and how it affects our shots. In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time when the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light, also when a camera's shutter is open when taking a photograph. The amount of light that reaches the film or image sensor is proportional to the exposure time. When using slow shutter speed blur is caused by subject motion. Below are photos that I took at different shutter speeds. 

Initial Photos

In our first week of the photography module we were introduced to the SLR camera and the basic techniques of photography. We were taught about aperture priority, shutter priority and manual exposure, I will go into detail about what these things are and how they affect photographs over my next posts. We were told to get used to the SLR cameras in week 1 so in order to do this I went out and took photos of various things. Below are some examples of the initial photos that I took:

My take on Photography

In order for a photograph to be successful I believe that it has to be captivating and have a message behind it that the photographer is aiming to get across to their audience. However, it is not always as easy as it sounds to find the message that the photographer is trying to highlight and the audience often has to read the photograph in detail to find it. Different interpretations from different audiences will lead to various messages that could be portrayed in each piece. Photographs with unclear messages that are very hard to find can still be very engaging and successful pieces. Below are a few photographs that I believe to be visually appealing and also open a lot of questions such as 'What is the message?'