Workshop - Lomokev

I got to spend today working with the rather splendid photographer Kevin Meredith (aka Lomokev) in a street photography masterclass. Kev gave a lecture when we were in the first year and I particularly remember liking a lot of the stuff he shot around Brighton, especially the exploits of the Brighton Sea Swimming Club. He started by showing us a short presentation of his work, some of which we had seen before, some of which was new, and then gave us our brief for the day.

The brief was a list of thirty images that we needed to capture while wandering around Bath. Some of them were quite obvious, like "at work" or "a bird's eye view" while others were a bit more abstract and would require more lateral thinking. I was shooting digital on my Canon EOS600D, while some others were shooting film. Kev said that we should all treat the exercise as if it were on film, thereby only taking one shot of each subject and then moving on. He said he would check file numbers at the end, so we couldn't delete any and re-shoot! I really tried to be true to this but it wasn't long before I started deleting the crap shots. Problem is I would see something that ticked one of the boxes, only to find something far more suitable later in the day. I can live with it.

Here are a few of the best shot I took on the day, along with their titles:



"At work" or "Dog"



"Someone with a camera who is not on the course"



"Bad hair day" (sorry Andy Penn, lol)



"Danger"



"Youth" or "Rat's eye view"



"Bird's eye view" (groan)



"Matching pair"



"Dog"



"At work"



"Matching pair"



"Lights by day"



"Bad hair day" or "Duotone"



"Perspective" or "Bad hair day"



"Self-portrait at arms length"



"Chaos"

All in all it was a really great day. I didn't manage to do any nice street portraiture but I did learn a valuable lesson - in order to do that sort of stuff you have to not give a shit and actually go and talk to people. Sol was amazing at this and I didn't see him get turned down once. I think he benefited from being a naturally happy, smiley kind of guy, and also because he has been doing loads of this type of work for his "A is for Afro" project. Fair play to him but it's not for me.

I was lucky enough to spend the whole day wandering around in a small group with Kev, so I got to ask quite a few questions and, perhaps more importantly, watch a pro at work. It was pretty funny watching him throw himself to the ground even in the middle of the street to get the right shot.



One of the other highlights of the day was stopping at the Jazz Cafe for one of their enormous "Big Breakfasts". Kev ordered one first and I was never going to shy away from an eating challenge. Suffice to say we both finished this:



When we got back to uni we all did a bit of a show and tell. I was not that happy with many of my shots. They are all okay but nothing really jumps out as special. We were all really impressed with Ali's shots, which it turns out he had cross-processed. This is a method that Kev uses quite a bit, whereby you shoot on slide film but then get is processed as standard colour negative. The results are really contrasty with over-saturated colours. It looks great, in classic lomo/instagram style, but surely that is then not really down to the skill of the photographer, is it? I thought about trying it for myself but turns out that slide film is about £10 for 24 exposures, which I simply cannot afford right now. Instead, I tried to achieve the same sort of effect in Photoshop:



I've never been a fan of over-processing but I actually think that shot of Sol and Taavi is rather nice. It looks almost 3D. Perhaps there is something to be said for fiddling around in Photoshop after all...

Bath Uni - What next?

This week we set to work on designing the actual symbols that would be used on the giant stencils. We also sourced a supplier for large sheets of 5mm orange perspex and spoke to Tom in the plastics workshop at uni about getting the stencils cut. He said it would be no problem for the CNC router and that it wouldn't cost us anything, bar the materials themselves. The plan is to get them cut but also to screenprint the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies logo onto them. We have given the details to the Bath Uni guys and they have ordered the perspex, along with a bunch of orange t-shirts, lab coats and chemistry glassware.

So to the symbols. The four of us (Nathan, Andy Penn, Jordan and myself) each took the massive list of desired symbols that the science guys gave us and ploughed through them on our own, trying to make as consistent a set as possible. We then looked at the results and picked the best examples from each. We believe we now have a complete set - we are just waiting for approval from the science guys before we consolidate them and modify for consistency of size, stroke, corner radii. Here are the symbols I designed that survived the cull:



Once we have the definitive set of symbols we will set about designing the four templates themselves. I will also use the symbols to finalise the leaflet design (information from Bath Uni permitting), along with four big orange posters (screenprinted, one for each "message") and the artwork for printing onto the t-shirts and lab coats. We can also design the paper cups that will be used to serve coffee, as well as the large Actual Genius Bar logo and type that will be cut from vinyl.

Bath Uni - Leaflet design concept

Prior to our next meeting with the Bath Uni guys, I thought I could make the client/designer relationship run even smoother by presenting them with a mockup of a handout that they could give to people at a science fair. I thought that a concertina design would work well, so set about mocking it up with a bunch of placeholder text and images:



My idea was that the orange side would feature big bold graphical symbols for the four distinct areas that the Bath Uni people wanted to raise awareness of: Resource Scarcity, Attitudes to Chemicals, Fuel of the Future and Bio Plastics. The symbols themselves are still placeholder at this stage (I wouldn't dream of using the actual Apple logo to represent an apple!). The white side on the reverse would hold more detailed information about the exciting research carried out at Bath Uni.

I figured that if I set up this structure, they could take a look and see that there is not actually much writing required by them. They just need to fill in the gaps. I have dealt with clients in the past who are very reluctant to give you content until they can really see exactly how it is going to be used.

Andy Penn also designed a really nice "Little Book of Facts" which featured some lovely cutout sections. I am not so sure how this will work on a production scale though, as getting about 10 pages die-cut would cost a fortune. The Bath Uni guys really liked both ideas though, so it is up to them how much they want to spend. I think it is good to offer a variety of solutions to suit a variety of budgets, as we have not been given an actual fixed budget up front (I would assume that it is pretty small though).

Thursday Lecture - Neil Drabble

Neil Drabble is an old mate of our tutor Nigel, as are most of the guest speakers who come to Sion Hill. He teaches graphics and photography at one of the fancy art schools in London but also produces an insane amount of work in a variety of fields. There are two bits of work that Neil has done that made me really want to go to his lecture. Firstly there is this:



These beautiful geisha sculptures are made from a bunch of his kids' socks that his wife was going to throw out. There are no cuts or sticking and no other materials added, he just twists, folds and ties a sock until it looks like a geisha - really amazing! The fact that they are made from something so personal to him only adds to their beauty.

There is another side to Neil's work... Something really puerile that appeals to me hugely. Lots of his stuff includes cocks, shit and swearing. My favourite piece has to be this:



The piece is entitled Fuck Forever and he has actually gone to great lengths (fnar!) to paint this hideous scene, the likes of which can be found on those awful plates that grannies buy from ads in the Radio Times, and then he has daubed a huge comedy cock on it! I have no idea what he means by it but I really like it, partly because of the apparent destruction of a lot of painstaking work. Perhaps it isn't destruction though, as the image takes on a completely new meaning with the graffiti nob. I just don't know what it is...

After seeing this image it was obvious what I would do for the lecture poster. I simply printed the important details (who/where/when) digitally, then grabbed a brush and painted on a huge cock in his honour:



Yasmin clearly likes it. The wanger is obviously erect, suggesting that we are happy that Neil is coming to talk to us, a message that is reinforced by the crudely rendered "YAY!". Seriously though, as a poster I think it really works; it looks great, it certainly grabbed everyone's attention and it informed clearly about an event. Best of all Neil really like it and wanted a copy to take away! I told him that I made every effort to draw the cock exactly as he drew them, rather than my usual profile style where you would see only one ball. He commented that "you can tell a lot about a person by the way they draw a cock", which is something I have also always believed.

The thing is that Neil can really paint. I may be in the minority but I find that I will give a lot more time to someone's more conceptual work when I know that they have real talent and are not just a chancer with rich mates, like Emin, Hirst et al. His series of paintings for Amateur are fantastic and are based on "reader's wives" type ads from porn mags.



Must be great to be able to paint your own porn! Other projects that really stood out include the banana skin made out of plaster entitled "Andy's Dead", a reference to Warhol and the classic Velvet Underground album cover. He actually picked a banana skin up off the street, made a mould out of porridge (wtf?) and then cast it in plaster before it painting it to look exactly like the original found banana skin. Mental.

My Arsenal looks at first to be just a table covered with various weapons. Closer inspection reveals that everything is made from household packaging and food containers, sprayed black. Really, really cool:



The attention to detail is really staggering, which seems to be a bit of a pattern in Neil's work. I think I could learn an important lesson here.

A large part of Neil's work is photographic. In fact, he worked primarily as a portrait photographer when he was in his early twenties, straight out of art school. He showed us a series of portraits of his favourite contemporary composers; the likes of Philip Glass and Michael Tippett. He managed to gain access to such famous people simply by writing to them and asking! From this he ended up getting commissioned to photograph loads of legendary people, including Woody Allen, David Byrne, Jackie Chan and my all-time musical hero Arthur Lee. The photos are really intimate and unpolished, mainly because Neil set himself the constraint of never using a studio or artificial lighting. I love this one of Stephen King:



I was surprised when Neil told us that the master of horror was in fact a really nice and funny man - a natural comedian. It must be pretty cool to meet so many of your heroes, providing they don't turn out to be dicks.

Another major project that Neil showed us was My Name Is Roy - a photographic study of his friend's son growing up in the US. The "warts and all" photos are always interesting and at times slightly unsettling; I half expected to hear that Roy eventually massacred everyone at his High School. Was that the intention? What does that say about me and my perception of the suburban US? Anyway, turns out that all of the photos were constructed/posed, which adds another dimension of meaning. Neil suggested that it might be that the project was in fact a portrait of himself. I understood what he was talking about but didn't take very good notes on it, so I will leave it at that.



This write up has only scraped the surface of the vast body of work that Neil has created. He was around all day prior to the lecture and gave loads of people tutorials. I only wish that I got one as I think I would have learned so much from him.

Penguin Design Award - Revised Cover Designs

After looking at the printed covers, I decided to change the cover of The Big Sleep to a dark grey. Nigel mentioned the way Paul Rand used grey in his work and it really made sense. Besides, The Big Sleep takes place almost entirely at night and it is constantly raining, so grey is perfectly suitable. It also looks really nice.



I decided to go for DIN Alternate Light & Medium on the back cover at 8pt, all aligned left. It has a much more modern, clean feel, which I really like. I used the same fonts for the secondary information on the front covers, shifting it all up to the top-left where there was more space, and it is more legible.

This has been a really good project where I stretched myself and got out of my digital comfort zone. Now I just need to get Steve to print and make up the blank books before I shoot them in situ at Mr B's.

After finalising the design, I did have one further idea which involved stripping the concept right back and making it more "graphic". I mocked the idea up and show it here to complete the journey, although I don't think it is particularly successful:

Penguin Design Award - The Cover Designs

With my chosen photos in hand I got busy putting the final covers together in Photoshop. Penguin provided a template and all the required text, which was handy, although I had to go to Mr B's to get the blurb for the backs of the other three books in my set. While I was there I told the incredibly nice and knowledgeable chap what I was up to and he said he would love to see the finished artwork. I plan to return to Mr B's once the blank books are made up so I can show him, and take photos of them on the shelves to see how they sit alongside the other crime fiction novels.

Without further ado, here are the first drafts of my final covers. The text on the back is HelveticaNeue LT 55 Regular at 11pt, which is a bit vanilla and possibly a bit too chunky. I will address this once I have printed them out and looked at them properly. I think that ITC Machine works really well on the spine as it is quite unusual and instantly says Hollywood, as well as reflecting the text on the front cover.



I am also not too sure about having two different shades of blue/cyan. I think it works for The Lady in the Lake but perhaps I can find something more suitable for The Big Sleep.

Project Idea - "Sorry, there is no photography"

When I visited London for a few days at the end of November, I visited a lot of galleries and exhibitions. I saw some great work but I think my most enduring memory was hearing the strange phrase "sorry, there is no photography". I am sure everyone has heard this at an art gallery from time to time, and probably wondered why photography is not allowed (is it really so that you buy souvenir prints or books in the gift shop?), but the fact that I heard it so much over a short amount of time made it really stick. I must point out that the comment was only directed at me once, at the Whitechapel Gallery.

What I found most strange was the precise wording that I heard on a few different occasions...

SORRY, THERE IS NO PHOTOGRAPHY

What a weird thing to say. This got me thinking about a world in which photography did not exist - could I make an interesting project from this concept? I tried thinking of the most iconic photos of all time and how their messages would have been conveyed without photography. Perhaps I could put on an exhibition where all of the "photos" were just text descriptions of the original scenes, with a "sorry, there is no photography" logo in the corner. Perhaps something like this:



I think an exhibition of these "photos" would look really great. Perhaps I could have a sign at the entrance saying "photography permitted".

Penguin Design Award - The Shoot

I managed to book an afternoon in the photography lighting studio at short notice, which is incredibly rare, so I headed down with my posh camera and all the bits of my diorama. I had decided to shoot covers for four of Chandler's books, and not just The Big Sleep that is required for the Penguin Award brief. I have been reading an old Chandler omnibus, which includes The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The High Window and The Lady in the Lake, which made an obvious set for me to work on.

Oh, and before I forget, here's a quick mock of the cover for The Big Sleep using one of the test photos I took yesterday:



I really like how this is shaping up and reckon it would look really great if I treat each of the four covers with a different colour "wash". Anyway, back to the business at hand. The actual shoot went very well with no technical problems whatsoever. Here are a couple of shots of my setup:



Once I got the title text in exactly the right position, I played around with various props for each of the four covers, with Weegee popping up in different positions in each. I didn't want him to be too intrusive but I like the idea that some people will spot him on all the covers and make the connection. Once all the bits were in place, I shot each cover a number of times, varying the focal length to see what would happen. I found that a 1/40s exposure at f13 gave enough depth-of-field to slightly blur the first word of the title, while delivering a lovely rich tone. Here are the four images I settled on for the covers:



I actually think I like The Lady in the Lake the most, which is unfortunate because the Penguin competition brief is for The Big Sleep. I really like how the text is slightly obscured by the scenery and how the figure looks like it could indeed be floating in a lake.

Bath Uni - Presenting our ideas

We set to work putting together something that would help us get the Bath Uni guys as psyched about the project as we were. I worked up a mock of the Actual Genius Bar in Google Sketchup (3D modelling tool) as well as the logo for the bar itself.



Nathan and Andy Penn came up with a couple of alternative logos, although is it just me or does Andy's one look like a cat?



I think that the chemical symbol looks best, although we will need to confirm with the science guys that the caffeine symbol is indeed correct and appropriate. I also came up with some t-shirt designs, with the chemical symbol on the front, along with "actual genius" or "scientist", and a modified Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies logo on the sleeve, where Apple put their logo. It would seem that there may be a few issues with us modifying the logo, primarily using it orange on white and a reversed white on orange, although the Bath Uni guys were happy to go with it. We also thought it might look nice on lab coats.



Nathan suggested having some snacks on the bar, covered by those clear plastic domes that would be branded with the chemical symbol for the food inside. We also liked the idea of an elaborate system of tubes and glassware for making coffee, like the scene from Breaking Bad:



Finally, I produced a few typography samples using various weights and styles of DIN, while Nathan and Andy photographed the Helix stencil that I had bought, then used Photoshop trickery to illustrate my giant stencil idea, as well as a teeny business card-sized version that could be given to kids:



Nathan put all the content together in a nifty little iPad book, which we took along to a meeting with the Bath Uni people at a pub in town. Suffice to say they were impressed by our presentation and were fully onboard with our ideas. It was really useful to meet in an informal setting and we got a lot done before the drinking began in earnest. We agreed to have such meetings on a regular basis until completion of the project.