Some thoughts on the Portrait Prize

I have just made the annual pilgrimage to Elephant and Castle (LCC) to drop off my print entries to this years NPG Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize.
For anyone that considers themselves a portrait photographer being included in the final exhibition of the prize would be the ultimate recognition by your peers. But is it the case that such a prestigious competition could, or should, define you? There is a stigma attached to the prize a running joke among photographers that to get in it you need to shoot a ginger, freckled, miserable looking teenager. And having viewed the exhibition many times it has to be said that there is not much joy displayed. Is it true then, to say that the majority of people are melancholy, awkward or miserable? Or is it closer to the mark that a miserable or awkward looking portrait holds a higher pedigree in that it asks unanswerable questions about the subject and by default the viewer?
Like everyone I have had my own opinions on the images that have progressed and won in the past, some I like, some I don’t. My personal view is that a portrait should show a part of the person that is the subject - a visual representation of their aura in the present, in the flesh. All too often it looks to me like the photographer has projected their own interpretation of what a strong portrait is onto the subject they are charged with representing, I often don’t see a person but an idea of representation polluted by the photographers motives.
There is (as we all know) no right or wrong way to approach your work, and all we can do is execute it with the highest integrity we can, and hope that the execution translates our vision as we intended.
To pander to what you think would be judged right by the peers of a competition, no matter how highly regarded would be to water down the integrity of you work, and you would therefore probably have less chance of progressing.
This year I entered two prints, one I would say fits in well with the historical style that has been successful in the comp. The other is a portrait of a model called Meryl. I had to enter this because it is - to my eyes - as true a representation you will get of a person in a photograph that I have taken. It was shot during a break on a commercial shoot, we were chatting and I happened to have the camera in my hand, I photographed the moment without any consideration, even the composition is slightly awkward and unconsidered, but it all add to the moment that she was just being. Meryl.
I have more technically proficient images, I have images that are more instantly arresting and I have images that are more poignant. But this image is Meryl, when you look at it you see her, not me, or my idea or her, it is Meryl as she is when you meet her.
Who knows how I will do, I guess I have as much chance as anyone, I believe in the integrity of my portrait and that is all I can do. And if I am really lucky maybe next year there will be an image of someone smiling in the exhibition.

| LA |

Some thoughts on image rights

I shoot stock imagery! There I have got it out like some sort of stock anonymous introduction. I feel clean, like my dirty secret is out and I can finally start my 12 step program to recovery.
There is still a massive stigma associated with shooting for image libraries, something that until recently I have never understood. I started doing it when I was assisting as a way of commissioning myself, and with a view to easing the bridge to photographer with a monthly royalty income. It has to be said that at times this income has put food on the table for my kids when there would have been nothing otherwise. For this reason I continue to produce the occasional shoot for library. I know for a fact many household names shoot for libraries, often under different names, as do big name fashion photographers with catalog. The fact is everybody needs to make a living, and despite the hardcore voices booing from the height of giant horses, if the alternative is to not feed my kids I will gladly take it. I understand the argument against, and in many ways I agree, I can only assume that many of the vehemently anti faction must come from a time before the stock empire and remember when all clients came to you directly. I love my job, but at times it is difficult and uncertain, a quiet period involves sleepless nights wondering how to pay for my daughters ballet lessons. The library work is a fairly constant income that keeps her dancing.
So until now all has been rosy in my soirees with stock agencies.
Enter a popular Spanish band who contacted me about an image that they had found on my site. It was a simple portrait of a girl who I had shot on a shoot that had been submitted to a large image library. The actual image had not been used so I assumed everything was ok. After the image had been sent to the band they contacted me to request an official usage contract, fair as this was, it sent alarm bells ringing in my head, I suddenly remembered reading a section in the library contract that mentioned all images related to a shoot being managed by them, even if it had not been submitted. Surely an image that I had taken, produced and paid for with my own money must be mine? The fear of getting in trouble has always filled me with dread, even if people accuse me of something I haven't done I feel sick with guilt. To be perfectly sure I told the band to hold fire and contacted the agency. Turns out the image was not mine at all but theirs, apparently if I had not checked I could have been sued by the agency for whom I provide images, with my own effort and my own money. Worse than that the band could have been sued as well, bearing in mind the image would already have been produced on a run of CD covers, it would have been a disaster. This may seem naive to many but having never come across a situation where my rights were called into question I had never given it much thought. To some this will make me part of the problem, I understand the need to fight for rights to our work, but I had never really considered it much because until now it had not affected me, and this may be naive and a little selfish, but I am an image maker pure and simple. I don't pretend to understand the business or legal complexities of the industry, even if I didn't do this for a living I would make images anyway because that is what I love to do. What this experience has taught me is that this is not enough, if I want to continue to make my living from photography and provide for my children with a job I love doing then I need to pay more attention to not only the business of it, but also the politics. It is time to be involved in not only photography but also the photographic community.
I will probably still produce library images, I don't particularly hold any grudge against them, it was my mistake in not knowing my position. At the end of the day they run a business with rules to protect themselves, and over the years I have benefited from their business. I do however intend to be more selective as to what I do give them and become more educated as to the implications of not only my own rights but those of the wider community.
This week I will not have one of my images on the front of a CD by a popular band, but I will take more pictures and my daughter will dance.

| LA |

Some Thoughts on Value

Value, quality, what something is worth to you personally is subject to our own individual experience and perspective, one persons treasure is another’s curse. This is a good thing.
My perspective on the value in photography is transient. It is arguable that the value of photography has decreased with the continued saturation and fickle nature of its use as a means of communication and validation. There is also a case to answer that its abuse and manipulation in the hands of those who seek to use it as a tool of propaganda both political and economic draws into question its integrity. In its simplicity it is a means of documenting something, whether an idea or a physical rendition. How this is used and the honesty and integrity to which it is employed is a complicated subject far too deep to explore here.
So why drivel on?
Yesterday was my sons 4th birthday, I hate taking my camera to these sorts of things, normally I take pictures on my camera phone, it feels more natural to take family pictures this way, if I use my pro it feels like I am objectifying them. Yesterday I decided to take the big one anyway and I really enjoyed it. Rather than looking for a perfect shot I just took what I could without getting in the way. It was a reminder for me that the value of a photograph is in the content relative to the viewer. It was lovely to get quality shots of my family because they hold massive value to me, others may see the same shots differently, but the value is in the content - not the technical application - or the commercial value - Not even in their final use. The most valuable image to me is one of my son smiling on his birthday.

| LA |

Some thoughts on photojournalism

Before I start on this I would just like to say that these are just thoughts and opinions based on spur observations, people are complicated, and the world and the way it works even more so. I would never profess to assume anyone's intentions or to purposely be antagonistic, but there are some observations recently that have got me thinking about how we use imagery to tell a story and the ethics involved with this responsibility.
There is no doubt that imagery has massively informed modern communication and the subject of its value as a means of information delivery is far too vast to be discussed in a flippant thought based blog.
On the front page of the Guardian today was an image of a man who had just been informed by Malaysia Airlines (we are led to assume) that a close member of his family was almost certainly dead. He is obviously distraught - head in hands, tears streaming, features frozen in a contorted caricature of pain. But it was not the mans obvious distress that jumped out of this image at me, one of the things that I first noticed was the 5 or 6 other people taking pictures of him within the picture, some even on smart phones, suggesting they are simply interested in the mans lowest moment on a purely personal basis, maybe they were later to share these images, identifying themselves with this major world event.
What stood out even more was the obvious fact that the photographer had used a wide angle lens. This is not merely a technical observation - the choice of lens meant that the photographer had to be very close to the subject - probably less than a meter, it also means that the photographer was waiting and anticipating this moment, to capture this perfect immediacy of sorrow alongside the dozens of others waiting for this man to break so they could immortally preserve his pain.
What struck me most of all about this picture is the total lack of dignity given to this man in what will undoubtedly be the worst moment of his life, for what? To get the 'money shot' the image that most shows his breaking point? To sell papers? To make a living? This is someones job, to capture the most devastating moments of peoples lives, but not from a distance, from less than a meter away, multiple cameras surrounding the poor man while flashes freeze his tears. Is this where we are? A place where it is acceptable to throw a mans dignity to the side to capture a descriptive image for the world to comprehend the horror? Any normal person will understand the horror of this moment, more so by reading the details taken from a safe distance away from the embers of the mans hope. But we need immediacy, we need to see the horror before we understand it, we need to pick up the paper to look so we can understand why!?
I am sure that Don McCullin, Robert Capa and the multitude of photographers that have brought world events to our doorsteps over the years have had nothing but righteous intentions, but their lives were in danger, they made sacrifices on many levels to share events the world would otherwise never of seen or heard about. I cannot see them however waiting in an airport for a man to break on the inevitable news that members of his family are dead, this, to me, seems a step too far in the pursuit of a visual description.
There is no doubt that photojournalism is the most valuable form of photography, and has changed the world in which we live, often for the better, but it cannot be beyond account. Is it acceptable to sacrifice one mans dignity, to bulldoze into his darkest moment to share that with the world so that they can digest its consternation in seconds rather than minutes? Are our own valuable moments worth more than this mans worst? Or have we become so voyeuristic towards the horrors of others that we are numb to its effect?
I am sure papers were sold on the story, I am sure the photographer was paid and his family will eat this week, but the man he shot, the man whose bitter tears he could almost taste won't ever see some of his again. No picture will change that.

| LA |

Some thoughts on focus.

I spent most of my years during college in the early two thousands trying to make film look like most high end digital cameras look pretty much straight out of the back now. Super sharp, super clean, punchy. I am pretty sure I am not the only person now constantly trying to make my digital images look like most of my film work back then, the stupid irony is that whatever people are doing en-mass as a professional photographer we have to provide something different, something separate with its own identity. Even if it means sabotaging our own work. Back in the day your average persons pictures were soft, they had aberrations and light leaks, colours were odd and un-uniform, so we tried to provide sharp clear images that stood out, had clean uniform colour and crisp lighting. Now that this is achievable out of most peoples smart phones.
Increasingly I seem to prefer slightly soft digital images, since the advent of digital imaging, we have become increasingly obsessed with sharpness in images, and I am only just starting to wonder, why?
Understandably if you are shooting a product, or if there is a brand or logo that need attention sharpen the hell out of it until it makes you eyes bleed from simply looking. But when we look at portraits why does it have to be sharp? why do the eyes need to look as though the are made from cubic zircons? If a softness helps the image then why not? if the overall appearance is better for the approachability and sensitivity that softness can add then why have we made it so unacceptable to use it? Sharpness seems to have become a rule that we all abide by for the simple reason that it is a rule. As a professional photographer I know I am capable of getting an image sharp in (most) circumstances that are within my control. I am now reaching the point that it does not hurt my professional dignity to allow softness in my images, a slower shutter or a impossibly large aperture, sometimes even physical tools to create aberrations that add rather than take away from an image.
It has never ceased to be used in fashion photography, whether willfully or not. Fashion on most levels has always had the benefit of being able to cross the art - product boundary, and despite all of its misgivings often in the fashion world you are allowed an amount of artistic license over functionality.

Below is a shot I did for a fashion Magazine last week, it will not make the edit partly because it is soft and partly for other reasons, but it was by far my favorite image from this outfit, and probably the shoot. The softness adds to this image. I don't look at it and think 'the photographer fucked that up' I look at it and think that I see a lovely image. Maybe it is because I took it, or it might just be that I am going soft.

| LA |

Some thoughts on Branding

Branding has become our new religion. Too much? OK, agreed, but there are some similarities. We Identify ourselves through brands. We describe ourselves or who we think we are/would like to be by wearing, driving, drinking, eating and affiliating with brands that identify (or at least prescribe to) with our desired projection.
We appear to have become so comfortable with the idea of brand as identity that we have in many cases starting branding ourselves, mostly through online identities which seem to me to work on a business model of a projection or core values and objectives.
More so in the photography world in which much of my online presence resides. Constant updates of progress and success to keep hearts and minds certain not only of our existence, but our resounding success and popularity. To be quiet or struggling is the modern taboo.
As a photographer we are selling ourselves as well as our work. The constant self affirmations and political posting of otherwise insipid information is at fever pitch, twitter and Facebook are a battleground of self PR, an artillery of likes and favorites charged down by a brigade of re-tweets and re-posts.
I am there with a few tweet jabs (and blog post uppercuts) and can't complain much as my agent found me through twitter. In a marketing driven highly competitive industry such as ours anyone would be foolish to ignore the potential that the social media platforms offer, I just wonder if there is a flip side, a price to pay for allowing ourselves to become a product instead of a person. Do I have times when I lose sleep because I am struggling? Do I worry about what is around the corner? Of course, I don't believe anyone that works the way we do wouldn't. Would I ever voice it over social media? No way, what if a potential client thought that you were struggling? your stock would drop, shares in Liam Arthur would tumble and my brand would be hung drawn and quartered, spread to the far corners of the internet.
Anyway this is all conjecture as I am so busy turning down world-wide campaigns and polishing my awards that I barely have time to spare it much thought.

| LA |

Daniel Mendes has just turned pro. I met him through another shoot that I was doing and it turned out that we boxed at the same gym. I had wanted to do a boxing shoot ever since I started, but it always seemed such a cliche thing to do, once you have an idea the rule seems to be that you then see versions of it everywhere. I didn't want to replicate the standard images that I had seen, but after meeting Daniel I had the idea that I wanted to show the stillness and the focus that comes with boxing. It was a surprise to me when I started that there is very little violence in it, not in the physical sense as there is no getting away from the fact that you are punching each other in the head. But more the mental side of it, there is a reason that chess boxing exists and it is not simply a gimmick, when you are sparring/fighting it is like a chess game, your wits against theirs as much as your brawn.

In the set of images below I tried to capture that feeling of focus and of the silence you need to create in your head to allow thought and reaction to combine into a coherent movement. I want to thank Daniel for taking part and being a great subject, and wish him the best with his boxing career. I would also like to thank Victoria Poland at LPA who managed to give us a great sweaty look, although oiling him down was probably not the worst job she ever had to do. It is also worth mentioning that because we shot in a working club we we had a time limit of 3 hours to shoot the story. In all I am very happy with the results.

| LA |