Grizo & Fallow 

Today I have been assigned to work with DJ Fallow and Grime and Hip Hop vocalist Griz-O, both from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK. 

Location:  Pirate Studios Cheltenham.

Meet: 15:45 - 19:00 

Equipment: Sony A7III + 50mm lens.   Canon A1 + 28mm lens, + Ilford HP5  +. 

Weather: Sunny all day with strong light. 

Aims: Create 10 photographs on Canon and Film 3 minutes of video footage to use towards 30 minute documentary. 

Editing: Create folder with all material to be used in documentary. Get Premier Pro again by signing into University account on my laptop. - Create initial file for documentary + save onto laptop and in material folder. (have 2 copies)  

Evidence 600 Hours. 
Proposal of 500- 800 words by 23rd September.
Main Research Period between September and January.
Deadline Wednesday 3rd March 2021.

Initially I proposed to carry on my current work but go the extra step of shooting colour portraits, on 5x4 sheet film in the streets with recording artists, producers, and music professionals. When the time came, Lockdown happened and the whole world was acting in response to a world-wide pandemic, resulting in countless complexities, one  of which is not having access to anymore equipment from uni. This whole situation lead to a lot of doing very little and watching tv for a while, and I had to continue my uni work somehow. So I bought a GoPro Hero 7 to start creating footage of my bike journeys and skates with the other half, I was pleased with the quality but It has me wanting to do better and to be able to use uni's equipment because I know that is what I needed. The audio wasn't great but I used it anyway as this also lead into editing skills and understanding the frame even more in terms of ratio and screen resolution etc etc. 
So I have created one film using the GoPro which is where I first test out the interview style with Dave, (JPDL) the footage was flickery and the frame rate was all messed up, this was a result of the wrong frame rate settings and a default as the lights were old yellow tubes and were not giving off the best quality. I used this footage anyway as it was the best I got from the time in the studio.   

I arranged a few days ago to create some video work with Grizz-O. We both were unsure what exactly we were going to attempt but I had a vague idea for an interview, straight to camera style short documentary. Something to be creative with and to help each other out. 

We met up Sunday 27th July, I had the Sony a7III with a 50mm lens, I was also shooting the odd frame with my Rollei 35S as usual, there will always be some film made from every event of shoot I attend. We met at Cheltenham bus station and talked for a while about recent news and family, we then eventually walked to Sandford park where we started creating footage. 

Sandford is a lovely place because it's relatively quiet, it's teaming with wildlife and is well landscaped so it is aesthetic for the footage. 

We decided to basically sit under a huge Wisteria where we had a nice natural woodland-green reflected into scene from all the plants around. The sun was trying to push through the clouds but was fluctuating a little. But this did not mean the colour was hard to edit in post. 

The lighting was spot on for me, Grizz-O was comfortable and he could be very open with me even with the camera. So I just let him speak for 5 minutes and filmed a couple of takes, I chose the best one where he doesn't mess up and he says his points clearly. 
​ 
I spent about 10 hours editing this new video on Premier Pro, I managed to source an unreleased track from Grizz-O himself after we created the initial footage which has been used to create a beginning to the video. 

I am very happy with this interview attempt and it has really given me hope to buy my own Sony A7III becasue I know this is what I need to start creating long term documentaries. Thank God I've managed to get hold of something to use, lockdown has holted so much of my flow it's been really annoying. 

The Visual quality if way beyond my expectation, as well as the sound quality, it is amazingly clear and there is not much background noise, to be honest it is nice to hear the birds and card going past every now and then, it gives it that bit more grounding. 


​

Today I left my house with my camera and Rode Mic in my bag, I was cycling through the HoneyBourne Line and I stumbled across Graffiti artists Farai and Slazz. I hadn't seen Slazz in a while and we caught up for a few minutes. I am always in relatively close contact with Farai so it was great to see them both doing some new Graff pieces on the walls. 

When I got there they were pretty much finished for the day, Farai was putting on the last bits, and I started getting some video footage of what was going on. Thinking of B roll and possible background shots that can be overlaid over interview footage and audio, cutting in-between. I love the smell and the colours of the tunnels, these people really give you an experience when it all happens. 

I was using the Sony A7III with a standard 50mm F/1.8 with a Rode Mic for good audio quality and reach. 

There wasn't much background noise so you can hear the clanging of the cans and the spray paint leaving the nozzle, its is quite immersive when captured right. The lighting in the tunnel was probably the brightest I have seen it, the sun was blaring down from both sides, creating a nice soft light all the way through resulting in minimal shadows. 

I have uploaded a few shots I took and some raw footage that is completely unedited.

The intention of this footage is to add to my large long term documentary video project on Artists in cheltenham. Graffiti will definitely be a chapter.

"We common mortals can see neither our own eyebrows, which are so close, nor heaven in the distance. Likewise, we do not see that the Buddha exists in our own hearts". 

​

Now that I have a short edit put together (my editing skills are shoddy at the moment) I can start to see information that is missing, how the first parts are starting to build up and possible narratives. I need to focus on Dave a lot more, get some proper interview footage, (good quality sound and visuals) this could be him explaining in more depth his work, the people behind the scenes, to big up people who don't usually get heard. Connect the whole picture, and show it how it is. Because for me life is magic and these films i'm going to make through out my life will explain this. 

I have known many many people for quite some time in Cheltenham and have made amazing friends here. I have the opportunity everyday to meet up and to create work with these people, they are all happen to be creative somehow. But the question is; as always, what is important enough to create work on, together? 

Lockdown is obviously the talk of the town right now and it will be for a while. So how are people coping? well many are enjoying their time out of work, many are picking up new hobbies, (cycling, photography, skateboarding, growing plants etc) people have more time to get their creative work outputted, and more time to themselves and family. This is very beneficial for the people who are motivated, who have access to places that allow them to create quality material and work. 

So, my next focus for the documentary will  be to interview people with a concentrated focus on voices of people, to find the power in each individual, simply through the voice and simple imagery. For me this is a nice place to start because it abstracts the world to the quality and cancels out the background noise of life. 

I want to create powerful work. I want to use Dave (JPDL), Victor, DJ Fade, and a few others to create some high quality sound and visuals. I feel that I can do really well if I spend a few weeks on each person, one at a time. I will use the people in life that are powerful to me. Griz-O. Dave, Beth (Grove) etc etc. I know who they are. 

From the first little bit of footage I have been capturing, I already see possible narratives. I feel I should focus on refining the interview techniques, I need quality sound and visual equipment, the GoPro just isn't enough, so i'm going to buy myself a good microphone/ zoom mic/ Rhode etc. 

Zoom Microphones are cool, they are a bit too much for me for what I need to do. I need something that is simple, relatively cheap and strong. 

Rhode Mic's seem perfect, I have used them a few times and they do an amazing job, the quality it pretty dam good for interviews even outside in a bit of wind. They are £50 or so which is nice. Lightweight, durable and it looks good.

The camera I need would have to be digital, full frame, predominantly made for filming. Sony seems best for me, I've used them, they are easy, lightweight and amazing sensor quality. The best combination I have used is Sony A7 with a Voightlander 28mm F/1.9, the depth is just right - wide open. 

Ill have to get this kind of set up soon if I want to progress into digital after university. (ill have to get it anyway as they are closed).



​
   

So during The time with Pav and Dave, I filmed on my GoPro throughout a couple of days. I then used Premier Pro to put together the clips so that the main interview footage would run throughout the background, and used B roll to bring in context and to build it up and slow it down. 

I also used a sound track that was made during the project I was filming. The soundtrack and the sound in general are not great, I was only using the GoPro mic and no external aid. I am still editing this video visually and acustically. 

​As you can see below the editing bar is not looking that complex just yet, I am already feeling happy about how it feels and looks, but I am going to create some more footage, I might re take the interview so that I have some better audio and better footage as there is an interlaced flicker because of the lighting in the room and becasue my Frame Rate was too fast, I should be using 30FPS inside from now on. 

​

I've recently been recording interactions on a GoPro Hero 7 White, to try and piece together something (rather than nothing) during lockdown. I have attended two shoots with JPDL and Heron MC at Barley Field Music on the lower end of the high street and on the streets whilst looking for locations for photographs.  

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Dave Leongson AKA. JPDL. Told me about a collaboration between himself and a Polish rapper Pav AKA. Heron, in which they are combining forces and bringing back the old school HipHop beats of the 90's and 2000's to create an album in just two weeks at Barleyfield Music on the lower end of the High Street in Cheltenham. They invited me along with my love Jussara, where we got to meet Pav and producers of the studio, Kingsley and Sa. We all got on perfectly well, the producers/ owners of the studio showed us around and talked about the history of how they got the studio and the building. 

So we went along for three shoots across a couple of weeks, each time we took a Sony A7 with a Voightlander 28mm lens, a Canon A1 with a 35-70 loaded with Portra 400 colour negative film, a GoPro Hero 7 White with a selfie stick to get those angles and a polaroid 600 with colour film. 

I shot with the digital initially to capture the promotional shots to be used for their album and for social media coverage and also to see here for my blog and to submit as work for university projects. When I was satisfied I had captured enough digital imagery I would switch to my Canon A1 with colour film in, to capture those really nice portraits, which I could piece together during the time i'm shooting and testing with the digital. Every now and then I would use the GoPro to get some wide angle video segments to piece together a moving image that they could possibly use for something or just so I can get to grips with videography and editing a bit more personally. But Jussara would film on the GoPro most of the time so I didn't have to think too much at once. If I was on the other side of the camera in the situations I find myself id be a fking one man band. Id also pull out the Polaroid every now and then so that I can give them something in the moment. 

The whole time we were laughing and telling stories and drinking Polish vodka, which was nice :) 

The ethos of this collaboration (to which I made sure to ask) was about language, Obviously. Two different languages coming together under the understanding of music, and HipHop specifically. Dave and Pav talked about the title of the project called "International Flow". They explained through both of their understandings that "music is the only way out of chaos" and that the flow of music runs through everybody and that there will be at least one song on their album that everybody should like because of the variation in the whole thing. 

What I learned from these few days of meeting, chatting, learning and getting back into photographing again was that Dave really is so fking passionate about life, his music, other people and me, and that the world is a lot bigger than the problems we are faced with as a pussyclart society. As for me I had to go against the 'advice' from the government to meet up with these people to photograph something quite important to us all locally. I'm glad I have made this work and I will end on a quote I remember my girlfriend saying whilst listening back to the music they just recorded in the studio.  

Jussara - "This music is good because it talks about struggle and perseverance, and it needed to come out during lockdown as perseverance comes from struggle. This music is  good as the energy from it flows through your body you simply cant stop dancing, even though you can't understand the lyrics, you understand the flow". 

She began her career shooting musicians Moby, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell, as well as personalities like Debi Mazar and Spike Lee. She worked for British Vogue and for VIBE, where she was a contributing photographer and columnist for two years. While shooting stills on a music video the director asked Lisa to shoot B roll; so began her career as a cinematographer. - https://minormattersbooks.com/pages/lisa-leone 

She has recently made a book called 'HERE I AM', I really want it!
BEST SELLER! Featured by The New York Times, Juxtapoz, Visionaire online, Rolling Stone online, Jet magazine, Time Out Dubai, NPR, and more; with photographs recently featured in Netflix's series Hip-Hip Evolution! 
10 x 9 horizontal hardcover; 104 pages; $50.00
ISBN: 978-0-9906036-03 - https://minormattersbooks.com/products/here-i-am-photographs-by-lisa-leone 

Any way I was looking at her work because her style and subject matter is very relevant to the work I am currently producing, I have always known about her photography and it was only until recently that I came across her videography which can all be found on her Vimeo page - https://vimeo.com/lisaleone . I love how she is using these mediums to tell the stories of young individuals, this video specifically (above). When watching these videos I am thinking of the documentary to create back in my home town at some point, so I'm thinking, camera position, lighting, audio clarity, music, transitions, voice over points, B roll, Titles. as much as I can take from it i'm evaluating. 
Firstly she is close to the subjects, 


 

This book consists of 35 large format photographs and a transcribed conversation between photographer Alec Soth and novelist Hanya Yanagihara. Starting with photographs, taken all across America and Northern Europe, Soth conveys a very subtle, relaxed feeling through the colour pallet of soft pinks bright blues and yellows and emotion within the portraits. ‘I know how furiously you heart is beating’, is a very personal glimpse into Soth’s interests and interactions, it throws you right into his work, ending the visual with a conversation, Soth is asked questions about his whole process and how he came about the new body of work. This book is valuable because it reveals the work of an American photographer explaining the technical and the theoretical elements within his work, Soth is easily understandable and has some very interesting perspectives. Although I would like to have seen more of his own text within the book, the photographs speak for themselves and some are quite remarkable. I also think that the limited amount of text creates a suspense of wanting to keep looking and decoding the work. ​

Alec Soth - I know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating - Sean Kelley Gallery - New York - March 21 – April 27, 2019

I need facilities more than ever to create my work. I need my own darkroom my own enlarger and chemicals. I want to start outputting my work on a bigger scale, i'm thinking of 5x4 negative and positive photographs enlarged, mainly portraits of important figures on my life and in the local community, to simply make a statement on the processes and minds behind what I see as great work. But I also want to work with others, a small team of people who have the same interests and intent. 

Due to the recent shutdown of most businesses including the university and their facilities, I have no option to be able to process, scan, print or output my work. Initially all of my work starts with the negatives/ slides and a sketchbook of ideas around a project, I would then make physical contact sheets and single prints all of my work then digitise it all and then select work to be posted onto this website. So I need to think of a new way to get around these problems. For me I have no problem to shoot my project and then wait until somewhere can process the work for me and scan it in, there is no rush, but I have a university brief to adhere to, which requires a fast turn around. With all of these limitations I have come up with some ideas.

Because I have not even been able to get out any digital equipment from the university either then all I have to use is my phones camera, or the webcam built into my Macbook. 

I could create digital imagery through corrupting the data of the files to represent the current situation of the world. Uncertainty, biological corruption, chaos, etc.

I could keep in the same mindset of the current work I am producing, Hip Hop, visualising this subculture through photographic processes, alternative processes and straight documentary.  

I could go against my whole philosophy of creating at a relatively slow pace using analogue equipment, by photographing with my smart phone and making it as easy as possible. - I find this a problem for me, I am a photographer who loves the process and the chemistry of each photograph, in my world I am so focused on getting beautiful and meaningful photographs by understanding simultaneously the limitations of my analogue equipment with the situations I find myself in, it's like I am working with my equipment, it is a part of the resolution. If I use digital equipment I feel as if I am allowing the work to become filtered with modern ideology and disposability philosophy, I would be de-valuing my masterpieces. The difference between a handmade photograph and a digital image on the phone is that the handmade prints are mine and I understand what i'm looking at, the photograph and the content become the focus, I can have a conversation about reality without any other bullshit. But I find that the digital data image is constructed by nano processes that relate to electricity, circuitry and the overtake of other information sources. 
The phone is a source of information that is not only visual, it is a computer consisting of very complex workings, that no one understands when then look at it. It outputs and inputs sounds that can connect to other phones all over the planet etc etc. I use the right tool for the right jobs. I use my phone to call. I use my camera to photograph because they are for different purposes, I want to have a conversation directly through photographs and I want that to be obvious. 

So what I really want to do is maintain ownership of my work through the processes and creation of physical prints, books, negatives and slides, I do not want to submit to the mass mashup of disposable content that is inexhaustible already. My work is different, I am inspired by great works, great people and conversation that actually invests in figuring out something rather than nothing. Something with value that looks beyond material and objective mindsets. 

So here we are at the top of Snowdon, Wales. After a few hours of walking and climbing. The last third of the climb was the hardest, but mentally we were in a very good flow of conversation and understanding all the way, we were walking on a path of amazing rocks of all sorts of patterns and colours, pointing them out to each other, which gave me the picture of Bob Dylan's Beaten Track painting, (a musical influence of us both also). It was definitely steep and challenging but we were up in no time, we reached the ridge with the peak in our sights. This is where it turned very windy, must have been about -10 degrees Celsius as everything was frozen solid with icicles all swept over to one direction. Our gloves were wet, from the humidity, the cameras were fucked and we were frozen. But somehow we managed to get the large format camera out, focus it, load it, wipe the lens and take the dark slide out, then take the shot which was about half a second. The visibility was quite bad and there was other people reaching the peak at the same time. You can see the ice formed on the rocks and the figures on the peak, Will is sat half way up the spiral staircase looking down lens.

This adventure took us right to the edge of the unknown, out of our comfort zones, but we were still very focused and found it very enjoyable, I could do that again and again with anybody. I'm glad my drive to make photography was still with me at the top, even though I couldn't really feel my hands or feet, I still made that photograph and was super excited to see it develop with detail on there. 

I achieved what I set out to do, I managed to create one very nice E6 slide photograph, and 5 black and white photographs, 1 bnw was fogged and the others were okay. I was tested in every way technically, physically and mentally. Then when I got back I had to develop the film too, then scan it in and evaluate it here. 

So here is Martin, I met him one day when it was snowy, I was young, and me and my best friend saw him walking down the road, we threw a snow ball and hit him on his back. Since then we have stayed in contact and had conversations in the street outside of his house. 

We talked about our music interests, hobbies, work life and childhoods. Martin has been a waste refuse truck driver for 20 years or so, He absolutely loves the classic musicians such as, Queen, Abba, Joe Brown, Pink Floyd among others, is an avid wine drinker and lives on his own in High Wycombe, my home town. We talked about music and I told him my childhood and my experiences with music stars such as Frida from Abba and John Lord from Deep Purple. He was amazed and told me that he was actually Bruce Willis's brother-in-law. Which I never believed until I searched his name one day. 

Life is funny sometimes, the way we met and the situations we are both in is just so interesting its a funny story. 
The image above for me works very well as a stand alone documentary photographs that represents this man is an honest way, that also gives the viewer a glimpse into this mans home. 

Martin actually give me the camera which these photographs were taken on, his sisters Canon A1. He gave it to me in pristine condition with a few lenses and in its original bag etc. A few months after he gave me the equipment I went back to his to shoot him in his home. The camera has been my main shooter since and came to the top of snowdon with me recently.