Tonight Matthew I'm going to be...

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My two boys are now at an age where they want to reenact their favourite TV shows and football matches and it is, noise and all, a joy to watch. Whilst in Cornwall for a half term break I was inspired by their play and imagination to emulate the work of one of my favourite photographers, Tony Ray Jones. In the 1960s he returned to the UK from the studying in US and, taking his experience of New York street photography embarked on a project to show the culture, traditions and changes of the people of England. So, when I had a stolen hour on holiday, I decide to just sit, watch the beach tell the stories and pretended to be Tony Ray Jones.

Till next time.

Matt Peers


We're all photographers now...

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This weekend I took my annual pilgrimage to the NEC for The Photography Show ( previously Focus on Imaging). Think car show for petrol heads and sweet shop convention for fat kids and you get the picture (no pun intended). The pixel peepers and lense lusters were definitely out in force salivating at the best the photographic industry has to offer. What was even more apparent than any other time was the availability of exceptional quality aimed at every day consumers. Software vendors promise within a few clicks your images will be outstanding and manufacturers present pocket sized point and shoot cameras querying the notion of lugging around an array of back breaking lenses and camera bodies. If photography is for all, it raises the questions of what value we put on it, and, if we do, what are you actually paying for?

A punter taking a rest from the choice on offer.

I recently attended a conference on school photography, where in the opening address, the chairman bemoaned the current state of the  market " where any Johnny come lately who had a digital camera for Christmas think they can do it". This he said was a state of de skilling the work of seasoned pros who are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. These arguments of de skilling can be found regularly in debates such as is the iPhone killing photography? However, I have very little sympathy for the protectionist, elitist view of photography being for the few and not the masses. It's hard to think of any other art form that promotes and fears mass participation in such a way.  I wouldn't be persuing my love if it wasn't for the accessibility and advances in digital photography.  Access to word processors, pens, note pads, oils and canvases are not questioned when people wish to write and paint. It is about  ideas and their application that is key - not the tools themselves. After all, Salman Rushdie wrote the cream cake advert slogan " Naughty but nice" and the Booker prize winning Midnight's Children. It was never about what he wrote them on. For me,photography offers not only to create but also to explore the  meaning of what it is to be human in the world ( sorry, I can't get rid of the Psychology student in me just yet..)

It's easy when you know how...

So, if you find yourself wishing to buy an image or the services of a photographer for a special occasion what are you buying? From a technical level you get someone that understands the capacity and quirks of their equipment; why that equipment is right for them; how to handle the light conditions and how the colours or tones of the final image will work. Countless hours will have gone in to answering a multitude of 'what if' scenarios before a single pose has been struck or a button clicked. Ultimately though, it's an ability to share a sense of their view of the world with you and create images that never lose the power to captivate. As the show proves technology will march on,making things easier than ever before. However, the real creativity will always be within the individual. 

Till next time...

Matt Peers


Teacher for the day

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Following my ' Do something blog' on street photography I was contacted to see if I could help a young student with her street photography module in her photography GCSE. Putting aside my jealously that you can not only now study photography for GCSE, but you can also choose a  street photography project, I said I would be delighted to help.

The first thing we needed to decide was a theme for the images to follow. As Birmingham has a history of industrial and social change, we agreed the theme of old and new would be broad enough to encompass the diverse aspects of Birmingham street life. Next on our agenda was to brush up on the technical know how of operating the camera and gaining control away from  the auto mode. Whilst cameras are getting ever smarter to deliver the best it can automatically, if you take an amazing image but are unable to understand how it was done, you're unable to replicate it whenever you want. Rather than making the camera fully manual, the aperture priority mode was selected so that all you had to decide was how much of your shot was in focus. For example, if you wanted to take a landscape image and wished for all of the image to be in focus it would be  a high f number between 11- 22. Or, if you wanted a portrait to pop out from a blurred background, that's a low number generally between 1.4 and 4.0.

Not only teacher, but but I was also a model for the morning. Image copyright Katya Hall

Our first location was in the heart of the chocolate Mecca of the midlands - Bournville. Nestled between Victorian terraced houses the Bournville Cafe is an old fashioned greasy spoon somehow shielded from the omnipresent Starbucks and Costa coffee shops. With its varnished pine walls, chips with everything menu and mugs of tea for 60p, it was an ideal place to get the creative juices flowing.

 To contrast this vision of yesteryear we headed off to Birmingham's wonderful arts complex, The Custard Factory. The once site of the nation's Birds Custard production has for over 20 years been reimagined as a diverse arts and retail complex. 

The hustle of the collectors market made for lots of wonderful people watching. Image copyright Katya Hall

 Image copyright Katya Hall.

It was also a great chance to experiment with street portraiture, talking to the locals and seeing what opportunities existed for a shot out of the ordinary. We got that chance after the charming owners of the skating shop opened the indoor ramp located within the railway arch. As the skaters did there stuff, Katya and I got a chance to experiment with low light and action photography, and in keeping with our theme, demonstrate how skater culture had made something new out of an old Victorian railway arch.

The surreal combination of mask and man in low light creates a wonderful combination in this image. Image copyright Katya Hall.

An off centre portrait allowed the image to show the colour of the complex and the matching attire of our subject.Image copyright Katya Hall

Whilst the weather was still holding up we decided to finish the day with an exploration of the new in the form of the rebuilt Bullring shopping centre. Taking photographs in shopping centres is something that has to be done carefully as it is not always clear as to what is public and private property. Without prior formal permission taking photos inside the shopping centre is not permitted, so to be on the safe side we kept to the public walkway that runs between the two halves of the site. Fortunately, this allowed us a great way of experimenting with the flow of the crowd against the modern retail architecture.

The reflections from the rain and the movement of the shoppers add to the atmosphere in this scene. Image copyright Katya Hall.

The reflections from the rain and the movement of the shoppers add to the atmosphere in this scene. Image copyright Katya Hall.

Katya's confidence with her camera and street photography techniques blossomed throughout the day, and as I'm sure you'll agree, she has taken some outstanding images for her Photography GCSE. You don't need to be studying for a GCSE  if you fancy either getting to grips with your camera or to take your first steps in street photography. Why not drop me a line at matt@me-and-iphotography.co.uk or via Facebook to see what what we can do? I’ll even throw in a mug of tea... 

Thanks to Yumm Cafe and Ideal Skate Supply for their help in making it such a successful day.

Till next time.

Matt Peers


A camera shy kinda guy

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In my experience of family shoots you will often meet one or more of the group who does not like having their photograph taken. Even if someone doesn’t say outright you can tell the signs almost instantly. Or maybe I can because I'm one of them too. If you looked on my phone you wouldn't  see any selfies or an extensive choice of profile pictures for social media. As a kid, I couldn't wait for the packet of photos to be returned from the developers to see myself in a photo. If it didn’t have me in it, I wasn’t interested. Those youthful care free times however, were soon replaced by teenage insecurity and self consciousness. My early twenties concern about whether I looked 'fit' enough was then dwarfed by the realisation that my once thick mane of hair was now rapidly thinning. Consequently, countless images of significant times of my life have been either ripped up, deleted and never to be seen again.  Each of these events was met with the recurring thoughts of ' next time I'll look better and then I'll have lots of photos taken'. Occasionally I was  happier to have my photo taken, but more often than not the imagined ideal ' next time’ never arrived. Of the images that somehow made the cull, I now look back and think, OK, I'm not model material, but, hey, I wasn’t that bad.

I'm a parent now, and parental stuff and extensive sitting on my backside working and studying for a degree have taken their toll. Of course, now more than ever I’m the one to be taking the shots rather than appearing in them. I realise, however, things have got to change. It's not just a matter of next time it’ll be different anymore; I will simply never get another chance to be in the photos with my boys whilst they are this age. And, truth be told, I don't have  enough of me with them as babies and toddlers to carry on waiting for tomorrow. 

So, if you recognise yourself in my tale, let’s not wait for next time. Take your selfies, be in the picture, and have something to look back on. 

Making up for lost time.

Making up for lost time.

Till next time...

Matt Peers


 

Guardian Review

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 I received a porfolio review published  last week on the Guardian website. Photography critic David Sillitoe chose the images from thousands of entries to the Guardian’s Flickr group, favourably reviewing the urban abstract themed images. By the wonders of social media, this may not be breaking news, so in case you’ve seen all this before, I’ve added some new urban abstract images as a DVD style extra.

Till next time.

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Matt Peers