The Whole Picture // The Whole Frame


The idea that a singular photograph can encapsulate subjective reality.
Generally speaking within documentary disciplines, a photographer; specifically a photojournalist is aiming to capture objective reality just as it is in front of them, to document parts of the world, generally this type of photographer is focused on telling the truth as best they can, the more details and information presented with the images the more of a picture or narrative of the actual reality you are able to put together, the photojournalist would be primarily creating work for news and publication organisations. But documentary can literally be implemented into any moment in life, you can document cultural events, people at work, your friends and family or yourself, the landscape, objects, absolutely anything and be able to create a representation of those places or people of thing across time. So I guess the documentary photographer has a lot of freedom within their perspective and access to the world so where is the point where the lines blur between straight objective photography and into subjective interpretation and expression of oneself rather then the outside world?
My understanding is that all photography can be viewed through any lens or from any perspective, I guess there is certain niches such as photojournalism and forensic photography that are considered truthful especially because they are used for piecing together objective reality and usually the photographer is highly qualified and has a good reputation from being real. But even still people are capable of wrong even in a serious context. As we know there have been major lies created and run by the BBC and other ‘official’ broadcasting services throughout the past 60 years, The Golf of Tonkin for example or WMD’s in Afghanistan, big stories that were fuelled by big media and behind that a whole casmn of happenings, movement of power and money across the globe, projects that will go unheard of for 100 years. There is most certainly a narrative that presented to the world and the past few years, and we can see behind the veil more than ever these days. The truth a lot of the time is what a lot of companies and media services are manufacturing, to create narrative and to construct a reality to get people invested and to ultimately hijack their sense of order in the world and to eventually hijack their identity, their power and ability to think for themselves, because people that think and question things get in the way and disrupt the stream of their ways of keeping oder at bay.
I find it hard critiquing the system and cultures legitimacy, and I feel I do not do any favours to myself but I know that I am capable of going against the grain, against the law to enjoy life and a lot of people do and they work and live in every avenue in life, it’s just how the human condition is, and god we are in a good position globally at the moment, we for sure have come out of hell as a civilisation and into a magical time period of abundance in which myself can walk freely anywhere and meet very little conflict.
So when is the photographer an artist? and what does it mean to focus on the inner eye?
The inner world for me is visual, I piece narrative together through imagination and through thinking to myself. In here is where you can create anything, you can explore endless energy and thought, you can link other reality into your own perspective and understandings of things. And through abstraction we can represent the things we see, what we mean and what we want to say or feel. Music is a good point of focus as through using words to express emotion and meaning the artist creates a subjective thread of consciousness in which the viewer can latch into and explore through their own perspective. And some of the best writers and performers such as Bob Dylan are so vague in their words, they speak in abstraction, that I guess the songs are open to many many interpretations. When listening or viewing good art then the viewer will have sparks of thought and ideas, there is so many different types of art and all types of people are attracted to things uniquely. And that is the beauty of it, art is like a catalyst into the mind, a doorway into endless possibility.


Everything you do can be a work of art. To be attentive in the everyday things, everything can be a work of art. Nature itself,






is mostly tying to say as much as possible through each frame, trying to abstract the meaning of reality as it is found into a single moment, specifically to show the truth, . I feel this idea is true for me, the more meaning, the more information that links to the outside world from within the frame that there is, then the situation can be articulated into a clearer picture in our minds eye of how the world is found here on out.
To protect the historical elements of the world, the core human values, that are increasingly becoming a blur as a result of the human conditioning and progress into artificial reality. It seems tempting to want more electronics, better and faster devices and more technology to aid civilisation through laborious work and through cognitive and mathematical problems. There is no doubt in my mind that these fields are here to stay and to be expanded upon, the threat of destroying the planet, ecosystems and the human spirit do not halt this progression and desire to transcend our current capabilities into things beyond our comprehension. But it does worry me as I feel what is really happening is not people being able to have more free time and more time to think introspectively about the world but to use and abuse people more, by not only just having their devices always connected to the grid, but also their minds, their complete attention. People are already working for free for these social media companies, by programming it with every search and every click, we are helping write the algorithms for AI day by day. Consequently by giving away our information through using these channels and devices, we are being understood by the companies and eventually AI how we think, what we are tempted by, what we desire, who we want to speak to, where to go. It will all be controlled somehow and these huge companies are also connected to the world wide grid of everything else communicating to each other. We are trapping ourselves through giving away our time and power to things that are made to take away our attention from the objective world but because of that we are taking time and attention away from deep thought and time with simply our own minds, with no interruptions just breath and the flow of consciousness, in which we find reality as it always has been, where we live and see and feel one another and our own values and meaning.
If we do not give the time to ourselves and articulate our thoughts and meaning in life, then things we do not understand will always get at us, we can not grow cognitively and can not progress spiritually as this is a process, it is a pattern of opening ideas and going into places that are to be explored by only yourself.
One of the real wonders of life to me is that I am here to experience life in a way that no one else possibly can, I will see things that no one has ever seen before and will never see again, it’s all here for me to interact with, absolute magic, the individual perspective, yet you are experiencing the same thing too. But I can only speak for myself.


So Photography to me is about acquiring a deeper insight into life, so that when I have my camera to hand I can recognise moments that are meaningful so that I can say something about how I see the world and how I interact with it. There is a profound sense that only a few people have that I have ever met and it is the ability to be so sensitive to being in any given moment, and within those moments to be able to extrapolate photographs that say just what was thought, understood or felt, or to simply observe from within a completely non partisan perspective, to simply see more and to be more. I feel I need to do this because life is hard and things will sure get the better of me unless I understand the values that transcend the confining parts of us.




Photography: The Antidote To Chaos.


All art aspires to the condition of music. - Walter Pater.
A portrait photograph is reassurance to the photographer that they are trusted by the person in frame.
Photographing people is one of the hardest tasks to get a full image of someone. A proper portrait should capture someones shadow, or have an expression of the inner and outer world in some form. This could be through the use of shadow or through layers or composition of the subject in relation to the surroundings and the shapes and forms in the abstract frame on the negative.
To me Photography is an abstract art, I’m taking small light sensitive images on a thin piece of film and then printing onto a flat surface (paper)… So from reality to photograph, there is quite a difference. ultimately it is experience turned into object. Yet the photograph is still as close as we will get to replicating objective reality, and we have pretty much documented ever corner of the surface of our planet this way. In many objective ways there is not much left to explore or to discover at the macro scale. A lot of the hard work has been done already. So it is only necessary to focus inwards, into the inner world of thinking; the micro, where it all takes place, where the battlefield is fought through words and where we see through conversation, through progression of idea; likewise to a song fluctuating through build-ups and falls, we can come about moments and realisations of our understanding of theories and ideas but also become conscious of the felt presence of the moment and bring forward clearer images of reality. And if the intake is clear (meaning; being fed well, listening and reading good work) then the ideas seem to be more achievable and simpler, not as much overthinking, which I do struggle with. So I guess a good focus for me is how the body, the image of the human figure can tell a lot to me.




I am not interested in shooting new things. I am interested to see things new. - Ernst Haas.


The truth requires no belief. It is the truth.

         Thank you for sending over your photographs, Firstly it is relieving to see your work again after quite some time, it really is great to see. I will simply write what comes to mind and articulate myself a little to make it a bit interesting.
The photographs of the flora you have stumbled across along the way are really well thought out frames, the lighting is quite important throughout especially in the ones that are pulled back a bit and I can tell you have been attentive because the way you use the whole frame; But not are they just photos of plants and trees because you have a wide knowledge of the plant kingdom and you love the outside world so you really know what you are looking at… You also have a fascination with the inside world and unraveling thought and meaning even within what can seem mundane to the casual mind, to be able to look deeper into reality. 
The photograph of the beautifully sun lit Silver Birch resting near the edge of a river bed in which the river flows over the rocks in the distance towards the foreground, in what is a seemingly wild and spiky woodland, takes me back to one of my first school geography trips to Devon. I was around 8 or 9, our teacher lead us down some hills and into a shallow river, to teach us about how rivers are formed. The purpose was to walk downstream in the river and see how the stones carried by the flowing water have eroded the further away from the spring we went and to piece together how the landscape has been formed. This memory gave me a lot of meaning and fascination with geography and nature. It is this same feeling and memory when I look at this photograph, the elements in the frame are close enough to bring back the memory of one of my first realisations and gazes into natures wonder, it’s birth and wholeness, remembering how a river is born and seeing the landscape erode from the power of water over a long time. And the young Silver Birch in the foreground is the abstraction of myself maybe. Watching, looking back, interacting with everything around, I can see that moment in which you felt and maybe had a fascination with the scene or the light or the tree.         Thank you for sending over your photographs, Firstly it is relieving to see your work again after quite some time, it really is great to see. I will simply write what comes to mind and articulate myself a little to make it a bit interesting.
The photographs of the flora you have stumbled across along the way are really well thought out frames, the lighting is quite important throughout especially in the ones that are pulled back a bit and I can tell you have been attentive because the way you use the whole frame; But not are they just photos of plants and trees because you have a wide knowledge of the plant kingdom and you love the outside world so you really know what you are looking at… You also have a fascination with the inside world and unraveling thought and meaning even within what can seem mundane to the casual mind, to be able to look deeper into reality. 
The photograph of the beautifully sun lit Silver Birch resting near the edge of a river bed in which the river flows over the rocks in the distance towards the foreground, in what is a seemingly wild and spiky woodland, takes me back to one of my first school geography trips to Devon. I was around 8 or 9, our teacher lead us down some hills and into a shallow river, to teach us about how rivers are formed. The purpose was to walk downstream in the river and see how the stones carried by the flowing water have eroded the further away from the spring we went and to piece together how the landscape has been formed. This memory gave me a lot of meaning and fascination with geography and nature. It is this same feeling and memory when I look at this photograph, the elements in the frame are close enough to bring back the memory of one of my first realisations and gazes into natures wonder, it’s birth and wholeness, remembering how a river is born and seeing the landscape erode from the power of water over a long time. And the young Silver Birch in the foreground is the abstraction of myself maybe. Watching, looking back, interacting with everything around, I can see that moment in which you felt and maybe had a fascination with the scene or the light or the tree. 
         Thank you for sending over your photographs, Firstly it is relieving to see your work again after quite some time, it really is great to see. I will simply write what comes to mind and articulate myself a little to make it a bit interesting.
The photographs of the flora you have stumbled across along the way are really well thought out frames, the lighting is quite important throughout especially in the ones that are pulled back a bit and I can tell you have been attentive because the way you use the whole frame; But not are they just photos of plants and trees because you have a wide knowledge of the plant kingdom and you love the outside world so you really know what you are looking at… You also have a fascination with the inside world and unraveling thought and meaning even within what can seem mundane to the casual mind, to be able to look deeper into reality. 
The photograph of the beautifully sun lit Silver Birch resting near the edge of a river bed in which the river flows over the rocks in the distance towards the foreground, in what is a seemingly wild and spiky woodland, takes me back to one of my first school geography trips to Devon. I was around 8 or 9, our teacher lead us down some hills and into a shallow river, to teach us about how rivers are formed. The purpose was to walk downstream in the river and see how the stones carried by the flowing water have eroded the further away from the spring we went and to piece together how the landscape has been formed. This memory gave me a lot of meaning and fascination with geography and nature. It is this same feeling and memory when I look at this photograph, the elements in the frame are close enough to bring back the memory of one of my first realisations and gazes into natures wonder, it’s birth and wholeness, remembering how a river is born and seeing the landscape erode from the power of water over a long time. And the young Silver Birch in the foreground is the abstraction of myself maybe. Watching, looking back, interacting with everything around, I can see that moment in which you felt and maybe had a fascination with the scene or the light or the tree. 





It also makes me feel like I am one of those stones in the river bed, slowly being eroded by natures might whilst time washes over, just waiting to be picked up and carried along with the current and realising that even that stone has a purpose, it is part of a landscape that is all reliant on everything around it, the whole dance of life. But I am also the Silver Birch tree watching it all happen and adapting to all of the obstacles that come its way over time, it shows the peeling of layers in its bark, each layer a season in the cycle, useful it is, providing fire and warmth, waterproof material and sap to drink in the spring and shelter…
It a great photograph to me on a personal level,  it allows me to see deeper into the wilderness by simply having sight of it and knowing that there has been joy in taking the image and joy in gazing at the world and that something has been felt.
It makes me think that we usually articulate meaning through narrative and that this has done just that for me.
I feel that courageous spirit, a sense of adventure and curiosity to find a beautiful location or a moment to celebrate life over/ with/ to. I think that is the driving force in your search for photographs. It makes the world a nicer place having photographs to be proud of and to look back at, but also knowing the artist who made them to be able to speak to and discuss life and what and how we want to say our vision.
Restecpa .
Safe, Aiiightt. R.

I bought this film off of a fellow photographer who bulk loaded some rolls from expired reels into 35mm canisters. I have seen results before from this film and love it, and now I have my hands on some I can really give it a go myself.
This is my good friend shin.

I held a meeting at JOLT, Creative Community Space in Gloucester on 03 03 22. We met up to discuss how we will present to the public and to come about a few main talking points to help us establish our aims of the whole event. We started with introducing ourselves and our place in the community, them I will explain the importance of photography in the modern age we find ourselves in and why it's an important roll for me to do what I do... We will then have a discussion between the photographer perspective and the musicians perspective to help articulate to the public the symbiosis of the works created between ourselves and how the work is actually made... How the relationships are formed and how access is gained into peoples lives to be able to photograph them comfortably but meaningfully. I will also present how they work is presented in its final form from my personal take on it all and also how commercially it is realised in the world of public art and engagement within communities. 

There is still a lot of development and a good slideshow to create and finalise but we are getting there. 

Next meeting is with JPDL (Dave) to discuss and get him in the know of how we will present and his role too. Having these two friends along side me presenting and us communicating in a serious public domain will help us all grow and come about more solid perspectives from either side. They are both extremely talented and establish artists within Gloucestershire and are great friends to be there. Stay tunes and come to the talk. love. 

The images I am trying to upload will not display properly sometimes so I will create a google link that has all of them inside of so that they can be downloaded to full resolution so they can be viewed somewhat properly. 


​

I have loved every step of the way of my large format project from the initial creation of the photographs all the way to posting them on here. But I am disappointed I did not manage to present or to hand my work in to the level of satisfaction I wish of or that of my tutor would like to see, but I know what to do differently to achieve those aims next time. 
What I have also realised is the forever changing world, I need to focus more of my energy into photographic projects and research so that I have a more grounded point of view that actually is informative to the level of study I am trying to achieve.  

I have been watching most of Borut's reviews on photo books and artists work, his advice is quite useful in most of his videos but I don't particularly find him that insightful. What I really like about this guy is what equipment he uses and his final prints and plates. He is useful for being able to go through complex photographic processes such as carbon printing, wet plate photography and the way he presents his work at the end is a really nice quality mounting and framing. He is worth watching and keeping up with I believe. 

​https://fanho-forgetmenot.com/ 


The Japanese love their paper and are incredible printers, consequently they know how to frame each shot (with a print in mind) very nicely. I can see this straight away with Fan Ho's work, contrasty black and white images in which there isn't any part of the frame that doesn't aid the composition or feel of the photograph.

I think the reason I am so interested in this type of work is because there is a professionalism that can be seen on the surface even with an untrained eye. I get inspiration from his work because I aspire to take and create photographs that resonate the same sort of feel. 

composition to me is the photographers confidence and experience with taking photos on film for years but also being a printer they know what needs to create the edges and shapes and so on... Looking at this work tells me this photographer is committed to photography and print but also lives within strict confines of judgement and critique. This doesn't mean that there is a correct way to taking photos on film and printing them correctly, it's just I like them and they seem to have many many shots that are very formal in style, this guy has been looking at the world a lot and taking a lot of photos. 

What I also love about Japanese photographers is that they use and abuse film and all kinds of equipment, ranging from half frames to ultra-large formats. The Japanese made a lot of amazing equipment, many still make cameras today but certainly they are all still put to good use out there. It seems to be embedded in their culture a lot more; almost being at one with the process of making photographs chemically - being happy with it and doing it for fun... I guess the Western mindset is leant on acts of consumerism that is far more progressive and the content that people want to see.

I have not been able to get hold of the paper stock I wanted to use to print my negatives on. 

So I will be submitting my images digitally as I have run out of time, I managed to catch the Corona-virus and quite frankly I feel that by the way the university treats analogue photography it simply will not be appreciated so I will create them in my personal time after the course for my own and my friends interest. 

I have been finding it very difficult to create anything in the past year along the means I expressed in my proposal for the project, the course was fragmented already and then the lockdowns just halted everyone meaning what I am going to present for my final outcome is everything I have done photographically to try and get some sort fo grade out of all of this mess. 

I will keep it short and sweet, but by no means void of photographic understanding. 

So with this projects I have decided to keep only a very limited number of photographs to display along side a decent amount of contextual writing as I feel the writing will situate each photograph in its place very strongly. I want the emotions and the encrypted stories to pour out of the faces of these people, and I can achieve this through strong writing and well presented outcomes. 

American Cultural Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has".  

I might get the work printed out onto fine art paper from the Darkroom Uk LTD. This will give me a visualisation of the photogrpahs initially and I can start placing text along side somewhere in the sequence of material. Doing this will help me pull together these very complex ideas in which I still feel only I can articulate and translate into a visual and journalistic documentary perspective which will be presented as a high quality photo book/portfolio/ display archive box of very simple design and order, but will also convey the complexities  and personalities fo this sub-culture. 

Sketchster- Tom




Ryan Scott - Ryan was the first person I got to know in cheltenham, he is everywhere these people go, a really good friend to all, Ryan used to create the posters for events for places like the Frog and Fiddle, he created and helped put together some really big events for the small town of Cheltenham under the name of 'Drunken Masters', to name a few... 'The Four Owls', 'Datkid' Mic D, Jam Baxter, Dr Syntax Sumgii and many more. Ryan has been an important person t help network artists into the local vicinities, and it is because of these events that these names grow in size and gain better recognition, if it were not for people like Ryan I may not have ever stared to pursue the documentary of HipHop within Cheltenham and Gloucestershire. 




Tommy Burnz - One of the oldest members of this groups of people - a legend in the UK graffiti scene, Tommy has been painting the world with colour and tags since the 90's whilst also rapping for various HipHop groups such as Vital Organs in which I believe JPDL and SKetchster were all a part of at one point. Either way all of these people I have been documenting and writing on are connected a lot closer than it may initially seem. Most have been friends for some time now, groups of MC's have parted and others have stayed, some people have moved away to Amsterdam and places across Europe and some have stayed local and are still in the same parameters do this day

I hope that my photographs re-imagine the ideas associated with HipHop culture. By documenting certain moments in history within Cheltenham, I aim to reveal my perspective of the people who create and lead HipHop/ music events and activities. I initially planned to photograph a select number of people (around 4 or 5) but when I created the event on Facebook to get people together for the 'Traditional photo shoot' I had more interest that I thought I would get. This meant that I had a nice little project underway and the people who could attend were the people I had in mind, for me that would complete the project. 

The Lockdowns gave me and the artists I was working with time to think, time to articulate real issues and more time to put into the photographs for this project. As I was using a Large Format Camera, people just got as involved as they could, this big metal tripod with quite old equipment just staring them in the face. Just this opened up conversation about what was going on, what we were planning on doing in the future with projects and how we can communicate them across the community. It was just as helpful for me to create this photoshoot as it was for the artists to be documented during the Global Lockdown of 2020/ 2021. 

After creating the photographs I have been thinking over and over how to present them, firstly I feel there needs to be more images, I only feel I have 3 or 4 satisfactory ones that can be printed and talked about meaningfully as some of them have imperfections, such as really bad framing, really bad development and fogging, some of them I just don't think captures them in their best light. But after all of this I am happy that I managed to create something rather than nothing in a time when it was very hard to just meet up with someone. 

Griz-o - My favourite Rapper In Cheltenham that has a lovely warming presence, he always offers something, whether it's him showing me his new music that he has just recorded and had mastered or asking my opinion on photo/video shoot ideas for promotional material... He's always behind good ideas and loves to put his voice across to express his understanding, although he can be a bit reserved when its been a late one.

JPDL - Jean Pierre (Dave) and his Wife have recently become a father to a little boy Reggie Leongson and so much has changed since when I first met Dave about 4 years ago. He was a lot different as a person, he drank a lot of beer and had a few bad habits. Over the years we have traveled around Gloucestershire going to HipHop events, festivals, residencies, house parties and live cyphers in which I have been given access to freely photograph everything I wish with the understanding and intention of documenting a beautiful and alive culture and friendship between myself and everyone we have come across along the way. Now years later he has just had his first child, stopped smoking, cut right down on the booze and is a lot healthier mentally, he is working within Gloucestershire managing workshops and young creative events with local businesses and organisations who have the same kind of ethic as he does. Dave has been a king pin in this whole environment for me, he is someone who always welcomes you with open arms, he will jump at any idea to help bring forward photographs, plays, songs and so on, he gives ideas a chance, and has taught me to be more joyful in my craft. At first I found it hard to impress him through my photography but after a few deep conversations and showing him my projects and books, I feel that he seees my intentions and longevity when it comes to trying to reimagine the HipHop subculture of Cheltenham and Gloucestershire, the South West of the UK. 

Now I have developed the large format and 35mm film that I planned to shoot for this project I am now working out how to present and talk about the work in context with my original proposal. 

I am going to create a book/ presentation box using the negatives shot, first I will be hand making the paper in which I will choose the best fibre to create the finest quality for detailed photographic prints. The reason I want to create the paper is because I have never made paper before and I feel I can do a good job at it after researching how it is created, I also want the overall project to reflect my ability to work with people within my community and to bring ideas together in which we all played a part in... 

Next Steps:

Create A3 size frame with fine mesh for paper making.
Create A3 Paper from Silk/ Indian Cotton/ Muslin fibres and water.
Start designing book/ presentation box with 'Functional Art and Design Members' (community based group made up of designers, artists and critical thinkers.
Create Book/Presentation box out of fine quality hard wood that also is designed uniquely e.g. How it opens, the designs on the front and back, the way it is stored inside of the home. 

I will then contextualise the work I have been doing, I will talk about the people I have been working with and the spaces that made it possible to bring forward my ideas through my preferred means. 
I will also write about my work within it's cultural context to situate it in a relevant place within the music scene of Cheltenham, the South west of the UK and it's historical parallels between the digital world and the physical. Doing so will allow me to finish this last piece of university work and will free up time for me to start something completely new. 
I will then talk about new ideas coming into light, new equipment I wish to create with and ways of working that will help facilitate the progression of ideas. I aim to create workshops in this community to inspire, to keep alive what is already being forgotten even within our own universities. 
I will talk about the future of the role of the photographer within society and the significance of this discipline when it comes to critical progression and responsibilities that we face when there is a time in life when these people are in demand to represent what it means to be alive right now, to refresh the image of the world through conversation upon looking at reflections of ourselves? something like that...

I will then finalise my experience at university and open a new chapter of life, one which will be more fulfilled with free time to think, more time to create and less of a worry about chasing money, because I have realised whilst  working a full time job is that I am giving away my time to an idea that was created without me in mind... So I am going to be loyal only to myself and those who are actually helping the world move and not sit still.  

 

I have managed to create around 20 or so negatives in the past couple of months on large format alone, these have been across different shoots with around 10 or more individuals. 

Firstly these ideas to document musicians, producers and creatives on Large Format have been in my mind for a while, well since I have been inspired by people I consider great artists and individuals during my time at university.  Obviously the lockdown has completely disrupted everyone. But no matter what, I have tried to hold onto my ideas of creating the quality of work I aspire to, as I explained in my initial proposal that I wish to step up in the technical side of my practise because I want to set levels within my work that are not easy to be reached ever again, hence the use of the universities equipment (Large Format) in which I find most challenging. If I don't bring forward those ideas and make the most of it then what else. 

So I have shot the work, Developed most of them by myself, some I got developed at the Darkroom business at the end of the High  Street, they are amazing in there, extremely attentive to film and its archival care. Some of the film I developed and scanned using the universities equipment, this was a fun rewarding part of the project that gave me a lot of success. Not all of the negatives came out as I hoped, some with light leaks and dirt marks from the poorly cared for dark-slides. I have achieved some really nice portraits, that are completely different to anything I have made before using standard 35mm and 120 films. The frames on these photos are lovely, some of them have a light leak around the edges and places where the film has stuck to the dark-slides on the inside, so they are naturally inset into a 5x4 frame of light and imperfection.