David Barnes

'David Barnes is a photographer working with a mix of documentary, editorial and advertising approaches and is widely exhibited in the UK and Europe. David studied documentary photography at Newport College in Wales in the late nineties and has been a regular contributor to publications such as the Guardian Weekend Magazine, Observer Magazine, and Telegraph Saturday Magazine. In this film David talks about his personal practice in conjunction with a more commercial one and about his journey through education. David talks about his ‘King Tide’ series, which is a personal reflection on Wales, time and memory and also shares some of his influences and some of the decisions he’s made pursuing photography as a career and lifestyle.'

David Barnes is a Cardiff based documentary photographer. Within my research, I wanted to focus on his early works, particularly a project called 'extended family' dated between 1998-2001. This series documents different family relationships in different ways. The project is slightly fragmented with the use of both colour and black and white. I'm not sure if I like this method because it almost makes the project look as though it's actually several different ones, with my project, I kept it all in colour to emphasise the beauty of their surroundings. I feel with Barnes' images, the black and white enhances the gritty feel, applying slightly negative connotations to the images.

Pam Spaulding- An American Family

'Pam Spaulding started at the Louisville Courier-Journal & Times in 1972, a year after her internship at those newspapers. For over 30 years she has photographed one upper-middle class family as they raised three children and then as those children left home for lives of their own. All three of the children are now older than she was when she started this project. The family has never let her go. The book is called An American Family: Three Decades with the McGarveys.'

Pam Spaulding's photography has really intrigued me ever since I bought her photo book out the back of a book shop for 2 pounds. I was unaware of the photographer before I found this book but her photography resonates well with me, particularly with regard to this current project. I wanted to delve into family life and almost experience it for myself. Spaulding's project is known best for the fact that she practically lived with the family she photographed for the years that she lived with them. The children within the photography are now older than her but she spent her time photographing them grow until they were old enough to graduate and then continued. She got to see the milestones, the good times and the bad. Although I only had months to propose, travel and then develop on my project, Living with the family, even if only for a small amount of time, let me see their entire way of life. I made informed decisions based on how they lived whether or not what they did was fair on the children and whether it was an enjoyable and fulfilling way of living. However, I decided not to make this too bias within my project. I want the viewer to make their own mind up about this.

Chris Killip

I wanted to include an analysis of Chris Killip’s work in my research and supporting material because I want to document similarly the gritty realness of the situation at hand. Killip doesn’t steer away from the dirty faces, grubby clothes or the location itself, he doesn’t paint a pretty picture but at the same time doesn’t lay lots of emphasis on the arguably negatives parts of the image either. He observes and allows a viewer to make their judgement. Similarly with my images, I have photographed children that have spent everyday for 6 days wearing the same clothes, not even running a brush through their hair but I photographed them playing and having a nice time. They aren’t aesthetically pleasing with regards to the childrens looks, but they aren’t part of a society that has to conform to social norms. If they want to go to bed in their clothes and wake up and start the day in those very same clothes they can without judgement.

Killip photographs both portraits and action shots comprising in a final series of different layouts, I have also tried to include both portraits and action shots so you get a true reflection of facial features to take in and then an understanding of what they do on a day to day basis.

third edit

playing with layouts

 Now I am so very proud of all that I have achieved throughout this photo project, however, the output is what determines the final look, no matter how good the photos have come out, if I produce a rubbish book layout they won't be received as well as I want them to. I'd say my main downside is I am not good at making good photo layouts because I make things too busy, wanting to show off everything i've done at once.  Here I have decided to screen shot different ways of creating book layouts. to start, I decided an establishing shot was necessary. I chose one of my many landscapes for this to open the audience up to the location in which I was shooting. i have also played with merging one image over one and a half pages, this creates an eyeful look as well as a good use of space as the left over white space can be filled with text.

I've also tried to single out the shots of interiors by making them smaller with a little outside space surrounding them so they stand out as a different form of photograph. You're given a wide full page spread to immerse yourself in the location, as well as single page spreads of the family and then smaller white space surrounded interior images to make them stand out separately.

I will be having a phone call tonight to discuss the layouts with Anthony to see what works and what doesn't so I can get the ball rolling with creating the book and getting it printed as soon as possible.

second edit

for my second edit, I focused on gaining interiors of other parts of scoraig as well as more landscape shots and into the action shots with the kids. It was great being part of the fun and games. I contributed in the mud fights and the tyre races and splashing in the loch.