Gallery

Our work has now been hung in the gallery by a few people of the course!

It looks really great and flows very well as a set. It was quite nice to see the varied work and the way different people interpreted rephotography!

I'm happy with my final image, although conceptually it's quite simple I think it works and fits in with most of the other work quite well.

It has been a positive experience to be included in a gallery exhibition however it's not been without it's headaches. Overall I think the exhibition is a success, everyone managed to get an image together and have them printed and mounted in a short time frame and the team who hung the exhibition did a great job in organising the layout and general exhibition!

Evaluation

Matt Smith

Professional Practice For Photographic Communication

In this module I really struggled to engage with my rephotography project. From the start I was unsure of how to get creative with it and it didn’t really interest me. After a visit to the archive I began to take an interest into the history of Salford. It was fascinating to see how much things had changed and in some cases how things hadn’t changed at all. We were asked to create 6-10 images, which would get displayed in the Salford Art Gallery as part of a course wide exhibition with the first year students.

We were given areas on a map and in a group we visited the archive. It was a slight drawback being given a certain area as our area wasn’t particularly interesting at first glance but having said that it gave us a focus straight away so logistically it made sense to be split off into areas from the start. After visiting the archives I decided to focus on change. I realised that my area was mostly residential and not very interesting however we had 2 major roads, Bury New Road and Eccles Old Road. I found a number of images on Bury New Road and instantly recognised the places having travelled down the road only a few times. This sparked my interest to try and show how little some things have changed.

I decided that I would combine my own images with archive photography in an attempt to display how little had changed and also demonstrate the advances in photographic technology by combining digital and film photography within a single image. I feel my final image is somewhat interesting and puts my ideas across but if I’m true to myself it’s not my best work purely because the project didn’t motivate me to push myself. I struggled to find 6 images in the archive that were of good enough quality to use and also communicated my ideas but I got there in the end.

It was a good experience that we got to prepare our work for display in a gallery however things were a little un organised with printing as we had a size that seemed slightly random and it was an uphill struggle finding a printer to print that size, mount and deliver within the short time frame.

I enjoyed the work experience aspect of this project. It was a very positive experience that I enjoyed and it has informed my decision about further freelance work in the future. I have seen what it takes to become a successful photographer in a competitive market and also work alongside clients to deliver high quality work that they are happy with. Writing the report gave me chance to reflect on my experience and pick out the positives and also touch on the things I learnt during my time with Tate Studio.

Final Images

In this piece of work I decided to focus on change. Rephotography often demonstrates how much things have changed over a period of time by showing differences between an original photograph and a current one. The piece I have created demonstrates the change in photography in 30 years while showing that the building has not changed greatly. The building is situated on Bury New Road and has remained in the same condition for around 30 years. The purpose of the building may have changed, the inside may have changed but the outside remains relatively the same. The inclusion of colour again pays homage to the advances in digital photography and gives further detail that the original archive image did not include.

Editing

After shooting my images I had to obviously combine my own photography with the archive images. To do this I decide to use Adobe photoshop and a series of masks.

Using layer masks allowed me to paint out areas of the archive images that I didn't want in my final image. In some of the images I had to use perspective warp to get the archive images to line up properly with my own images. I wanted to get them as close as possible as the point of my project was to show how little the exteriors have changed!

Once I had my images placed in photoshop and I had masked out everything I decided to import them into Adobe Lightroom and get them looking the way I wanted. I wanted to add a slightly aged tint to the whole image and have them quite contrasty.

Overall I'm really happy with the look of my images, I think they fit quite well into my initial ideas and I'm pleased I managed to get 6 images done as I initially struggled finding 6 locations to photograph.

Rationale

Rationale – Rephotography

When we were first introduced to the project I didn’t have much of an idea of what re photography was. We were shown some examples and then once I began researching online I found out it was a very popular technique especially over the last 2 to 3 years. Rephotography as a whole can be anything, it’s a very open area.

The first way for me to get some ideas was to visit the image archive at the salford art gallery and start finding images in my area. I wasn’t really aware of my area in Salford so this was a great chance to start learning about it. After visiting the archive I discovered my area was mostly residential and featured some prominent streets such as Eccles New Road and Bury New Road. I chose to focus mainly on these areas as I thought they would be the most interesting.

After giving a presentation as a group I decided that I wanted to look at change. Rephotography often features elements of change however I wanted to try and find images in the archive that looked similar to the streets today. Salford as an area has changed greatly over the years, some areas have had huge investments and some have suffered at the hand of recession and change in lifestyle.

The areas I’ve focused on have not changed all that much at least on the outside. The purpose of the buildings may have changed, the look or signage may have changed but generally the foundations and architecture have remained very similar over a 40-year period. I want to include elements from archive images and blend them together with photographs taken today. I hope to show the changes be they small or large. I always aim to try and include more information than the original archive images display. They are generally framed quite tight and don’t always offer much insight into the area. I am hoping that with a wide angle lens I can combine the archive images and my own photography to give the viewers a wider view and help them travel through several decades in a single photograph.

For my final gallery piece I decided to focus on change. Rephotography often demonstrates how much things have changed over a period of time by showing differences between an original photograph and a current one. The piece I have created demonstrates the change in photography in 30 years while showing that the building has not changed greatly. The building is situated on Bury New Road and has remained in the same condition for around 30 years. The purpose of the building may have changed, the inside may have changed but the outside remains relatively the same. The inclusion of colour again pays homage to the advances in digital photography and gives further detail that the original archive image did not include.

Rephotography

Wonderful London 1924 & 2014 from Simon Smith on Vimeo.

Wonderful London in 1924 and 2014
"In 1924, Harry B. Parkinson and Frank Miller documented London in a fantastic series of short films, known as "Wonderful London". Over the last few months, I have stood in their foot-steps, recapturing their shots exactly, and have blended the two together creating a window through time"

This is the first time I've seen anything like this and I think it's great. You get a much broader view of how much things have changed with video and it's generally more exciting than photographs. The work that has gone into the above video must have been very tedious matching up the lines and panning at the right speed etc.

I think the use of mixed media is really great, it's something fresh in an area that's quite overdone now. Old Vs New is slightly played out, especially in London but Smiths video is a clear success, at least in my opinion!

Research

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2611205/Google-TIME-MACHINE-Street-View-lets-travel-world-changed-2007.html

"It's been seven years since Google launched its Street View service and during that time the world has changed significantly.

Parts of New Zealand were devastated by earthquakes in 2011, the east coast of America was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and New York's Freedom Tower was completed last year.

Google Street View has now added a new feature that lets you travel back in time to plot these changes using historical images, and see them develop in front of your eyes.

Clicking the new clock icon in the corner of the Street View screen reveals a scrollbar in the top left-hand corner, pictured. Images date back to 2007, when the service launched. The dates of the most recent images vary, but the majority include up to at least 2013"

This article is quite a different take on rephotography. Google are pioneers of maps/all things internet and they have now enabled a feature where you can view landmarks from different times. For example you can view the eiffel tower as it stands now next to how it stood in 2007 and compare the differences (or lack of).

It seems like a very unique feature and certainly a first I've seen. It's a nice way to travel back in time and see the changes in famous places!

They are basically doing the same thing I am trying to achieve in my project - Showing the passage of time in a single image. Although they are clearly demonstrating the changes architectural where as I want to display the lack of architectural change in my area of Salford in 40 years.

In my area the buildings exterior have remained pretty much the same however most have been re purposed and changed to suit a new business/purpose.

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Nicky Bird - http://nickybird.com/

"Beneath the Surface / Hidden Place (2007-2010)
Nicky Bird is an artist whose work investigates the contemporary relevance of found photographs, and hidden histories of specific sites, investigating how they remain resonant. She has explored this through photography, bookworks, the Internet and New Media. In varying ways she incorporates new photography with oral histories, genealogy, and collaborations with people who have a significant connection to the original site, archive or artefact."

Rephotography

I have been looking online at examples of rephotography to try and gain some ideas and find out what it's about. It seems like a very popular method of photography and there are many examples of different techniques used! I quite like the work of Mark Klett who adapts a photojoiner style with rephotography to create very interesting panoramas spanning several decades!

"Over the past three and a half decades, Mark Klett has pioneered and refined the art ofrephotography. In 1977, Klett, with Ellen Manchester and JoAnn Verburg, began the Rephotographic Survey Project, locating the vantage points of iconic 19th-century photographs of the American West and meticulously reframing these views from 100 years prior. The new photographs were published alongside the originals in Second View (1984). "

I feel these images work really well because they are so detailed. There's a lot to look at in them and they are generally beautiful landscapes. The inclusion of older images is a nice touch as we can see how a natural landscape developed and changes over time. I'm not sure this is the technique for me as I'm not sure it's practical enough having only a few archive images for my area at my disposal. There are plenty of other examples of rephotography online and so I'll keep researching until I find something I think is fitting for this project.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480888/Not-changed-Photographer-fuses-historic-scenes-Salford-modern-day-snaps--surprised-city-looks-same.html

"Not much has changed! Photographer fuses historic scenes of Salford with modern day snaps... and was surprised to find the city looks much the same. Postal worker Neil Pearson, 46, blended archive images with his own to create an intriguing mix of past and present

An Arriva bus pulling out on to Trafford Road bridge in Manchester is met by the unusual spectacle of a team of horses dragging carriages of freight.
Meanwhile a modern 4x4 is parked just around the corner from a classic Ford Model T - in trademark black. 

These evocative images, showing a bizarre clash of past and present, demonstrate beautifully the way our cities have changed with the passage of time - and the ways they haven't."

I have recently came across this article from 2013 on the daily mail online. It's a very similar project to mine and is very relevant research!

A man has taken old photographs from around salford and combined them with elements from today and created a mash up of times. In the above photographs he combines elements from old salford with new salford but the only things that have changed are the cars in some!

In each photograph the streets are packed with people and yet in the newer ones they seem much quieter. Is this a sign of the times or just a coincidence?

I really like the images but I can't help that think the poor quality of them is letting them down massively. Obviously he is limited to the quality of the archive images but there may be ways around this such as scanning original negatives etc.

I will certainly take some inspiration from these images as the techniques are very much the same as I will be using. Unlike some other rephotography projects online I like the way he has used the full image and then masked out certain elements. I have found a lot of people placing the full image within a square of a new image and this style just does not appeal to me. I think blending the two images together is certainly the technique I am going to use for my final images!