Street Markets of London in 1940s – Walter Joseph

Walter Joseph was Jewish and fled Germany during the war with his brothers staying in the Isle of Man.  After war he made his way to London where he was employed in newspaper photographic laboratories.  He remained a keen amateur/semi professional photographer throughout his life but was always very doubtful about his photographic skills.

The British Library has just acquired this collection which was presented as part of the London Street Photography Festival. 

The series of images are based on markets in the East End of London after the war. They capture a time where goods were limited due to rationing and the effects of the war.  The people in his images are carrying on with life regardless and seem to have a positive outlook.  They include:

·         Jewish stall holders

·         Clothing, fruit and vegetable and toy stands

·         Rabbits for sale

·         Goldfish seller with his jars of fish laid out on a broken brick wall

·         Puppy seller

·         One man band

·         Wireless salesman with his batteries and wireless on display

·         Escapologist

The most striking this for me in these images is the bombed out buildings in the background of most of the pictures.  This is a constant reminder of what has just happened – the war – but it is contrasted with the visual display of life in the market traders. 

I particularly like the series of images of the escapologist who could escape any situation but post war East End London.

Joseph’s work reminded me in ways of Maier’s as he focused on those less well off in life, elevating them from their broken down surroundings and breathing new life into them. 

More information

London Street Photography Festival

Vivian Maier: A Life Uncovered

Vivian Maier is one of the most talked about photographers in recent months and as part of the London Street Photography Festival, her work was exhibited for the first time in the UK. 

Maier was an amateur street photography who’s body of work is based in New York and Chicago from the 1950s up until 1970s. In Chicago she worked as a nanny for the Gensburg family where she had access to a dark room allowing her to develop her own black and white films.  It is said that she never left her house without her camera and was obsessive about taking pictures.

During those years she took about 100,000 photographs focusing on the marvels and peculiarities of American life. Her streetscapes elevated and dignified the characters she shot.  She was particularly drawn to those less well off in society and her work embraces the down and outs in society, the people living in the rough part of town and children with little in life.

In the 1970s Maier moved to using colour and with that move her focus moved slightly away from the people she was so obsessed with capturing in black and white.  In colour she shifts to shooting graffiti, newspapers and the artefacts of a modern city. 

It wasn’t until 2007 that her work was discovered with all her undeveloped films being sold off at auction.  John Maloof being the purchaser has since dedicated his time to bringing her work to life and reconstructing her archive.

This exhibition consists of forty eight framed images in black and white and colour together with a selection of her silent films.

I particularly liked the streetscapes in black and white and the portraits of the children, beggars and old people she took in Chicago and New York.  In her work I could see the elements of design I have been studying at work – the implied triangles, diagonals, rhythm and the relationships between points.  I also feel she made good use of contrasts – young and old, rich and poor, old and new and light and dark. 

The one drawback of this exhibition was the fact that the light was reflected on the glass frames making it difficult to see the actual pictures over your own reflection.  I first thought this was light coming from the windows of the German Gymnasium building but the building lights were also accountable. 

More information:

London Street Photography Festival

Vivian Maier

Rhythm & Pattern

This refers to large numbers of design elements massed together with repetition being the order to the grouping.

Repetition has a very strong appeal and visually it comes across in two ways: as rhythm and pattern. 

Rhythm is to do with movement across a picture - movement of the eye more specifically. 

Pattern is static and has to do with area. 

We could look at them as dynamic repetition and static repetition. 

Here are my examples of rhythm and pattern.



Rhythm
The viewer is able to see cars and more arches through the arches which creats a dynamic tension.



Pattern
The pattern fills the frame and gives the reader visual clues that there is more windows in this building

Shapes - Rectangles & Circles

Rectangles
These are more basic in terms of design as they relate to the shape of the picture frame. 

They occur more often as man-made than in nature eg buildings, windows and doorways.  They can be seen as less interesting than triangles as they require less imaginative effort.  The are static and there is less movement in shots that are simply divided by horizontal and vertical lines. 

They do, if you are using them, have to be precise as they won't look right if they are even slightly out. 

Here is an example of a rectangular shape in one of my images.

Circles
Depends on real circular objects which limits their use in photography.  It is the tightest and most compact shape of all though and imposes more structure on the image than any other shape.

Shapes - Triangles

Shapes are outlines and enclosures.  They can be regular or irregular.  Regular shapes you will find play a stronger role in composition than irregular ones as they are easily identifiable.

Shapes can also be implied like lines. 

Lighting plays an important role in the way shapes are defined.  It strengthens shapes and silhouettes through backlighting hide details of the subject making the outline more dominant.

Triangles occur more frequently than any other shape.  They always have at least 2 diagonals which gives movement to your images. 

Two sides is enough sometimes to show/form a triangle. 

Perspective also plays a big role in triangles in photography.  The tendency of linear perspective is for the lines to converge on a vanishing point in the distance. 

We can look at real and implied triangles.  Real triangles being things that are actually triangular in shape and implied things that form a triangular shape.

In this exercise I was asked to take a series of real and implied triangles. 

Real

Triangular subject



Triangle by perspective converging at top of frame



Triangle by perspective converging at bottom of frame

Implied

Triangular still life with apex at top

Triangular still life with apex at bottom

London Street Photography Festival - Nick Turpin & Nils Jorgensen

Last week I went to Entente Cordial - Images from France and England an exhibition by Nick Turpin and Nils Jorgensen which is part of the London Street Photography festival. 

The exhibition was held in part of the main concourse of St Pancras International Station, the station being the gateway to France and Europe.  It was a very apt place to hold it. 

Nick Turpin although based in France has very much a love/hate relationship with the country.  As founder member of In-Public - the street photographers' group, Turpin is a highly acclaimed street photographer.  The focus of this body of work explores the contrasts of modern France, a country which is balanced precariously between tradition and Americanisation. 

The work also challenges the French privacy laws which prohibit the publication in France of street photographs taken in France.

Whilst the images explore some of the traditional aspects of French society, for example the image of a boy waving the French flag outside a building and scenery shots from aerial angle, they tend to have a quirky side to them. In Lyon there is a car at an intersection which looks pretty normal until you notice that there are feet haging out of the boot.  Likewise there is the image of an escaped cow in the middle of Lyon bringing the traditional country into the modern city.  

Nils Jorgensen is also a member of In-Public.  His work in this exhibition focuses on English street photography encapsulating the eccentricities of the English themselves.  He has adopted a gentle humourous approach to his work that is laced with witty observations.  

My favourite was an image of a balding man viewing a painting in a gallery, the painting being a landscape with a tree.  The leaves on the tree  provide the man with the perfect toupe and cover up his bald patch. 

The is also the image of an autumnal tree with a man walking behind it.  His legs are all that is visible and they in essence give legs to the tree making it look like it is walking. 

I found this work really enlightening as I have lately being discovering how to enhance my street images by including people and humour.  I also found it useful because I am studying the aspects of design and could see many implied triangles and lines in their work.  This something I wouldn't have looked for without studying design. 

I also found that the contrasts of the two countries made for an interesting exhibition. 

The exhibition layout was interesting too.  It was made up of 6 large free standing devices and one side was dedicated to France and the other to England.  This further enhanced the contrasts between the photographers style, the subject matter and the cultures of two neighbouring countries.

More information:
London Street Photography Festival 2011
Nick Turpin
Nils Jorgensen
In-Public

Lines: Implied lines

The eye follows lines in composition.  Clear lines (like those we have looked at in the earlier exercises) provide the eye with a natural path to view. 

The eye also looks for imaginary lines when no obvious or clear lines are visible.  To do this the eye looks for visual clues:

• a row of points
• the extension of a line, or lines that seem to point in a certain direction allowing the eye to move ahead
• the extension of visible movement, like a person walking or running this makes the eye move ahead
• the direction a person in a picture is looking.  The viewer's eye tends to go to the same place.

These lines are called implied lines.  One of the uses of design in photography is organising a composition in a way that you want someone to look at it. Implied lines allow you to give clues to achieve this.

The implied lines are highligted in the 2 photographs below as per the workbook. 
The lines in these images are implied from the movement of the animals and the people in the shots.

I have identified implied lines in the following pictures I have taken in the past myself.

The last part of this exercise asked me to take a couple of shots with the following implied lines to lead the eye:

• an eye line
• the extension of a line, or lines that point

Eye lines

The extension of a line/lines that point



Lines: Curves

Curves also have a sense of movement and direction.  They draw the eye in and are therefore useful in planned composition. 

Curves have a sense of elegance and smoothness and can add these feelings to our images. They are commonly seen in buildings but there are also less obviously curves too. For example, trees and flowers. 

Below are some images which use curves to emphasise movement and direction.




Water feature curves
This water feature shoots water a short distance into the air which provides little curve shapes. Because these curves are made of water they are ever moving. 



Curved building

 



Curved steps



Arches