They Live on in Light

During the first few weeks of January I spent a great many evenings and nights continually photographing my family slides. It was actually one of the more harder photographic exercises I had involved myself within, simply to due the nature of how I was capturing these slides.  It may sound funny (and perhaps even slightly weak), but holding a camera in one hand at eye height towards a light, with the other holding a slide for hours on end really does take its toll on you; aches and pains as if I had spent countless sessions lifting weights at the gym, as well as Space Invader blotches plaguing my vision from constantly looking at the lamp.  It wasn't easy, put it that way.

Despite these issues, the results were immensely rewarding to begin with, yet there was a part of me that did feel somewhat disappointed.  I always thought that the image of my father (below) taken during my final year at Plymouth College of Art was simply perfect - the lighting, the silhouette of my hand, the crispness of the slide - yet recreating this same atheistic seemed almost impossible a few years on. Perhaps I was trying too hard with this project to replicate the result in the same way; when results didn't quite work out, rather than attempt to understand the problem, I pushed these alternate versions quickly aside and continued repeating the same process, making little or no progress evening after evening.

My father, taken during my final degree project, 'i am Alive'

After a few days of zero progress, I was almost ready to pack this project in.  I became increasingly annoyed with the end result; what I had in my head compared to what was looking back at me from my Mac screen was vastly different.  I took an evening off to clear my thoughts, completely forget about what I was doing or why I was doing this and hope that the following day I would have a better understanding of the direction for this project.  Knowing what I know now, this did seem to work a treat.

The problem I began to note with replication was this was simply down to human error, as opposed to something technical. We can not and will never have the ability of replication that a computer so easily seems to produce, despite the fact that we initially created the machine to begin with; tiny imperfections quickly become giant sized hinderances and no matter how much you strived to recreate, it will never be seen in the same way as it truly began.

With this in mind, I soon realised where I was going wrong and how to direct the project in the right direction.  Looking at the series of images produced so far, much of the problem lay with the idea of far too much empty or unnecessary space. I had already noted this in a previous post, my assumption of cropping the final image in a 1x1 ratio, an improvement would immediately be found. Yet with dozens of images lying side by side, each housed in a black background with a silhouetted hand, the contents with the slide became lost and the full emphasis of this project quickly disappeared.

I called Luke Broadway at Plymouth College of Art the following morning and kindly asked if I could borrow a Macro lens for a limited time and he thankfully obliged.  Using this lens, I was able to completely remove myself from the image and focus solely on the contents of the slide. I didn't need my hand to represent the idea that I was holding onto a memory of someone lost, the Macro, along with how the slide was photographed in front of the lamp affected the picture turned the end result into a true memory within the mind. The produced photos took on a more dream-like state as subtle differences in light and shadow created a wonderful vignette around the subject matter.  What had slowly become a chore over the week, soon became a joyous exercise in bringing the past to an artistic present.

I continued to use the same Instagram styled presets in Instagram I had used during 'i am Alive', while tweaking the exposure and temperature, along with dark and light elements to achieve a look I was ultimately happy with. I decided to capture a few images direct from the camera and showcase the huge difference following various post processing alterations. 
   

The images below represent just a small selection of this final body of work. We often forget just how beautiful our family really is, that our parents and their parents actually did live their own wonderful lives before we came into this world. I still have much to find out and understand about the people in these pictures, where they were and why and what they were doing or feeling at the time. This project has been an immensely cathartic and very rewarding and these photographs go a long way in continuing to connect the dots as to why I am here and who I really am.

I rarely produce work that is on a personal level, yet the way I have conducted myself throughout this project has been very encouraging to see. At some point during the year I will add 'They Live on in Light' to my website, though for the moment this is more for family and friends to embrace in their own time. 

Admittedly this blog post did take a little longer to produce than I had hoped, though I do have a pretty good excuse.  Round two onboard the Brixham trawler Emily Rose happened last week and it has only been just a few days since I have returned back to dry (with exception of the current crazy winds and lashing rain) land.  My next post will be a wonderful insight into the lives and labours of three fishermen during January's cold winter fishing season 30 miles off the south west coast of England. And for the record, I did throw up. Considerably.

Revisiting the Light

During the final term of my degree, as I was building 'i am Alive', my interest quickly grew to one day return to the work produced during the 'Found Photography' module and give it the attention and production values it truly deserved.  It was all due to this photo, a single square format image of a slide of my father, taken of him during his time in the military and held intently by my hand; I realised I had something quite magical of someone very special to me, and someone lost a long time ago.  At the time this was taken, my tutors acknowledged this as a defining moment of my 'i am Alive' project.  Despite the hospital #selfie being the original starting point, the image of my father neatly became the key and central focus of my final print.

'i am Alive'

The difference in terms of the quality and detail captured was always going to be an obvious jump; from an entry level D60 used on 'Found Photography' to a full frame D700 on 'i am Alive', the contrast in terms of ISO control and in particular how the camera behaved in front of a light source was vastly superior.  While the originals were either too dark in many places or simply overcome and washed out from overblown highlights, the D700 allowed the bright glow of light to be far less harsh on the eyes and more accommodating and gentle towards the contents included within the slide.  Perhaps this was also to do with the change in light sources used; the above image did seem to possess a wonderfully subtle outlined finish that resonated an almost angelic appearance around my hand.  It may have be a little strange to consider but sometimes even the littlest of things really do have a huge impact.  The photos taken during 'Found Photography were held in front of my ceiling light, while the image taken for 'i am Alive' used my bedside lamp.  It wasn't just the strength of the source that made such a striking difference, I could also hold the slide much closer to the light.

The way this image had been edited in post was something I wanted to explore further as I delved deeper into this project.  Even though I didn't have the original RAW files, I still managed to achieve a certain level of control.  Using the various saved presets from my 'i am Alive' project, I imported the 'Found Photography' images into Lightroom and began editing the photos as a potential indication of what to expect with the revised, reshot and remastered editions.  I found the Radial tool to be a very important instrument during the edit, allowing me to focus on the most notable aspect in each photo - in this case, my father - as drawing a circle around him allowed me to affect either what was outside or inside without altering its opposite.  It wasn't long before I was bringing him out of those D60 shadowy darks and into a more visible light.

Lightroom - Before & After

I absolutely adored this photo of my father and immediately knew that this would be one of the first slides to be replicated when I came to begin shooting 'They Live on in Light'.  The fact that the contents of the slide were not lying exactly in place added even more to the finished article, like some individual reel from a film.  It was something I simply didn't wish to correct; my father looked every bit the Hollywood film star, a towering presence and power frozen forever within a perfect light.

I decided to crop the images in a 1x1 ratio, just as I did with the entire series of 'i am Alive'.  As with Instagram and my final degree piece, there was something similar here with the look and feel of these slides; the square format and nod towards the long lost Kodak era seemed to beg for the presented shape to be that of equal sides.  The image also seemed far more intimate this way.  I felt that with the initial 2x3 ratio, there was far too much unnecessary information in the picture; condensing the crop bought me closer to the subject as if I was once again holding the slide.

The removal of the text was pretty much a given from the start.  It just seemed, well, tacky, for want of a better word.  The font I had chosen back then was also extremely childish - though at least it was a step up from Comic Sans - and while the chosen words were sweet and thoughtful, they did seem more the unsure me back then than the confident graduate and practising photographer I am today. Sometimes you don't need words to convey a message.  Sometimes an image will speak for you, from within, to each and everyone wishing to listen.  I felt 'They Live on in Light' would do exactly that.

The final stage of this project is now very much underway and I expect to have this fully concluded before my next outing at sea in a few weeks time.  Going back over 'Found Photography' in a more structured way has been immensely helpful in how I will present and publish my new set of images; eighteen months following graduation and it has been encouraging to see that I am still using the same planning and preparation methods to formulate an outcome.  Elements that worked and those that did not may have not been quite so noticeable had it not been for my time spent revisiting and revising the original project, as well as re-editing those initial photos; the Instagram styled presets, the 1x1 ratio, the removal of text, the change in light source, each component added further layers to a perfect foundation.  Along with the vastly superior difference in equipment, I felt that the end results for 'They Live on in Light' were not only going to be very exciting, but immensely beautiful indeed.