BA Phot

EyV: Assignment 3, The Decisive Moment


fLIP

Due 1st March 2019

Back - rework - text history - image history - contact sheets - tutor feedback

See the blog entry for 13th April.

These are the eight prints to be submitted for this assignment. A later box contains the remainder of the shortlist. Further details of the shots taken for this assignment can be found here and the contact sheets are here.

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1. Anti-Tommy Robinson March, Whitehall, 9th December 2018
2. Heckler, Whitehall, 9th December 2018
3. Pro-Brexit demonstrator, off Parliament Square, 13th December 2018
4. Preacher, off Parliament Square, 13th December 2018
5. Anti-Brexit demonstrator, TV Village, off Parliament Square, 13th December 2018
6. Owen Jones, Britain is Broken protest, Trafalgar Square, 12th January 2019
7. Protesters, Britain is Broken,  Trafalgar Square, 12th January 2019
8. Youth Strike 4 Climate, Parliament Square, 15th February
Image Camera Lens Focal length Aperture Shutter ISO Event
1 Panasonic G80 Lumix 12-60 60mm (120mm) f/8 1/250 1600 1
2 Panasonic G80 Lumix 12-60 43mm (86mm) f/8 1/200 1600 1
3 Panasonic G80 Olympus 75-300 75mm (150mm) f/5.6 1/200 3200 2b
4 Panasonic G80 Olympus 40-150 74mm (148mm) f/7.1 1/200 1600 2a
5 Panasonic G80 Olympus 40-150 40mm (80mm) f/7.1 1/250 1600 2a
6 Panasonic G80 Lumix 12-60 60mm (120mm) f/9 1/100 1600 3
7 Panasonic G80 Lumix 12-60 60mm (120mm) f/9 1/25 1600 3
8 Panasonic G80 Olympus 40-150 40mm (80mm) f/8 1/100 640 4

No. Event Date Location  
1 Opposition to Tommy Robinson in London March
9Dec18 Whitehall, London  
2a Daily anti- and pro- Brexit demonstrations 13Dec18 Old Palace Yard, London  
2b Daily anti- and pro- Brexit demonstrations 15Jan19 Old Palace Yard, London  
3 Britain is Broken Demonstration 12Jan19 Trafalgar Square, London  
4 Youth Strike 4 Climate 15Feb19 Parliament Square, London  

As noted in the blog, I appeared in the background of a video made at the pro Tommy Robinson event.


1. Prints
Send a set of between six and eight high-quality photographic prints on the theme of the ‘decisive moment’ to your tutor. Street photography is the traditional subject of the decisive moment, but it doesn’t have to be. Landscape may also have a decisive moment of weather, season or time of day. A building may have a decisive moment when human activity and light combine to present a ‘peak’ visual moment.
You may choose to create imagery that supports the tradition of the ‘decisive moment’, or you may choose to question or invert the concept. Your aim isn’t to tell a story, but in order to work naturally as a series there should be a linking theme, whether it’s a location, an event or a particular period of time.
Reasoning for submission of photographic prints for assignment 3:
The OCA strongly encourages students to submit a print submission for assessment (this is mandatory in Levels 2 and 3). Sharing some prints with your tutor half way through the module is an opportunity to get feedback on print quality. If you’re hard pressed to submit the prints you don’t have to send the whole assignment, you can send a selection and submit the rest of the series via blog or in the usual way that you’ve agreed with your tutor.
2. Assignment notes
Submit assignment notes of between 500 and 1,000 words with your series. Introduce your subject and describe your ‘process’ – your way of working. Then briefly state how you think each image relates to the concept of the decisive moment. This will be a personal response as there are no right or wrong answers in a visual arts course. You’ll find it useful to explore the photographers and works referenced in Project 3, if you haven’t already done so. Don’t forget to use Harvard referencing.
Reflection
Check your work against the assessment criteria for this course before you send it to your tutor. Make some notes in your learning log about how well you believe your work meets each criterion.
Reworking your assignment
Following feedback from your tutor, you may wish to rework some of your assignment, especially if you plan to submit your work for formal assessment. If you do this, make sure you reflect on what you’ve done and why in your learning log. OCA, Photography 1: Expressing your Vision, pp.72-3

Submit assignment notes of between 500 and 1,000 words with your series. Introduce your subject and describe your ‘process’ – your way of working. Then briefly state how you think each image relates to the concept of the decisive moment. This will be a personal response as there are no right or wrong answers in a visual arts course. You’ll find it useful to explore the photographers and works referenced in Project 3, if you haven’t already done so. Don’t forget to use Harvard referencing.


The course material refers to the decisive moment as a "stylistic cliché" (Bloomfield, 2017, p.69). It was an application of the technology of its time: Cartier-Bresson was an early adopter of the 35mm Leica rangefinder and used it from the 1930s onwards to photograph street scenes usually involving people. While it might be less relevant in the digital age of the ubiquitous selfie, Cartier-Bresson's definition of the notion still merits consideration,

the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression Cartier-Bresson (1952, Forward) 

The latter part is calling for photographs to be well composed and to exclude extraneous detail, which can be applied successfully to a range of genres. The first part (despite the assignment brief noting that landscapes and buildings can have decisive moments) is particularly applicable to changing subjects where Cartier-Bresson advocates what David Bate (2016, p. 68) interprets as "the pregnant moment … where the past, present and future can be read".

I chose to photograph people largely because I rarely do so, other than at family events. Seeking a source of ready subjects, I lit upon demonstrations, protests and the like as the participants tend to be animated and also disposed to being photographed. I have made 9 outings to 12 events, including several to Parliament Square. The contact sheets are available online (Blackburn, 2019a).

An early decision, which I have stuck to, despite repeated doubts, was to shoot in black and white. This was the traditional medium for Cartier-Bresson and for all newspaper reporting until the 1980s: it continues to be used for documentary photography, although colour has become increasingly common (Bate, p.74): this is explored more fully in the blog (Blackburn, 2019b). In avoiding the distraction of colour, the photographer and the viewer are forced to concentrate on the subject. Against that, it is undeniable that colour enhances some images.

A14 A14a
Asg. 3 Asg. 3
Figs. 1 and 1a
Whitehall, London, 9th December 2018
Figs. 3 and 3a
off Parliament Square, London, 15th January 2019

The set is a mixture of close-up facial images, group shots and wider angle narrative photographs. Little aggression was encountered during the shoots: in most cases, I was looking for individuals to photograph, either because of their fresh-faced winsome enthusiasm, or the grizzled features of determined old campaigners.

Guardian
Fig. 9 Guardian
20 Dec 2018

image © Guy Bell

Looking at the individual images:

Fig. 1 As noted above, colour would add significantly to this image. The suavely-dressed subject grinned broadly at all the cameras and appeared in The Guardian a few days later (see right). He tried to remain the centre of attention: not especially decisive, but he captured the mood of the demonstration.

Fig. 2 This was the only confrontational moment I witnessed on this side of the opposing demonstrations, taken a few seconds before fig. 1, when an excited pro-Brexiteer hurled abuse at the speakers before being hustled away by stewards and then the police. It was a brief incident.

Fig. 3 On a week of heightened feelings outside the Houses of Parliament, Old Palace Yard was full of demonstrators from both sides of the Brexit argument. The mood was generally good-natured but this image shows a Brexiteer in stern eye contact with a Remainer. Again, colour would add an extra dimension to the picture.

Fig. 4 The media tent-village on the green was notionally closed to the public and this preacher, carrying his own PA amplification, was trying to be heard on the news reports. The decisive moment lies in the brief withering look of the passing pedestrian.

Fig. 5 Steve, the leading anti-Brexit demonstrator is notorious for intruding into the background of television interviews with his placards. That is one of the reasons the interview tents were raised on platforms, but Steve, whose presence was still tolerated, responded with a longer placard arm.

Fig. 6 Owen Jones addressing a demonstration in Trafalgar Square is pictured in typically demonstrative dudgeon.

Fig. 7 Part of the rather sparse audience at Trafalgar Square. I was interested in the range a facial expressions in this shot: while all are ostensibly listening to the speaker, the degree of attention paid varies widely.

Fig. 8 Enthusiasm was far more evident at Parliament Square for the Youth Strike 4 Climate. It is difficult to get a shot when placards are not obscuring faces and those faces are all animated, but this image works well and features the most common message of the day, There is no Planet B.

Turning now to the assessment criteria:

Technically, I am satisfied with the set. I have changed my workflow (influenced by the methodology of Art UK's Sculpture Project, for which I have volunteered ) and now work from the raw files: although I have only just started on this learning curve, I am realising how much more control it allows me over the final image and how the need for bracketing exposures is reduced. I have used a lab to print the hard copies as my home office scanner/printer as not up to the task of printing black and white of sufficient quality.

Outcome: I have stated that my target aesthetic is journalistic and similar images have appeared in the national press in the last few months, notably fig. 9 as illustrated in The Guardian. I would say that I have documented more telling moments rather than decisive ones.

Creativity: experimentation and development of a personal voice are mentioned in the course material (Bloomfield, 2017, p.34). None of the work presented here is ground-breaking but it is a major change of personal direction because, as noted, I have not previously photographed people.

Context: the work does not consciously derive from any of the photographers mentioned in Part 3 of the course material, though a key influencing factor is that Cartier-Bresson and the other Paris street photographers such as Ronis and Brassai all worked in black and white. The uniting theme is protest and my aim was to emulate workaday press photography: in that I believe the set is reasonably successful.

[996 words]

[4Apr19 I'm not sure what happened here, this should be called "Quality"]

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References

Bate, D. (2016) Photography, the key concepts. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Blackburn, N. (2019a) BAPhot: Asg. 3 Contact Sheets, [online]. Available from: http://www.baphot.co.uk/pages/asg_3_contacts.php [Accessed 22 February 2019]

Blackburn, N. (2019b) BAPhot: Blog 2019, [online]. Available from: http://www.baphot.co.uk/main/blog_2019.php#feb15 [Accessed 17 February 2019]

Bloomfield, R (2017) Expressing your vision. Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.

Cartier-Bresson, H. The decisive moment. New York: Simon and Schuster. Cited in Hsu, L. (2015) The Decisive Moment. Fraction Issue 81, December 2015. [Online]. [Accessed 15 February 2019]. Available from http://www.fractionmagazine.com/the-decisive-moment/

Jones, O. (2018) Immigration is a force for good - and Labour must say so. The Guardian 20 Dec 2018 [online]. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/20/immigration-force-for-good-labour-migrants[Accessed 17 February 2019]

The remainder of the shortlist.

JW Sidcup
Jehovah's Witnesses
Sidcup Hight Street
12th October 2018
Asg. 3
Anti-Brexit demonstrator
off Parliament Square
13th December 2018
Asg. 3
Anti-Brexit demonstrator
off Parliament Square
13th December 2018
Exc 4.2
Leafletting
New Eltham Station
2nd January 2019

Protest at
Holborn Family Court
6th February

Protest at
Holborn Family Court
6th February

Youth Strike 4 Climate
Parliament Square
15th February

Youth Strike 4 Climate
Parliament Square
15th February

Youth Strike 4 Climate
Parliament Square
15th February
Page created 22-Jul-2018 | Page updated 28-Oct-2019