Documentary photography website.

Having spent many years developing my skills with documentary photography I've reached the point where

I'm asking...what now?

 

In an attempt to give some justification to all the images I've produced I've created a website displaying

the highlights that my adventures have taken me on.

 

As this is the first time I've created a website I'd be really pleased to hear your feedback.

 

The site contains a wide range of documentary subject matter with supporting information as to how and

why I took the images. I hope this will be of benefit to those interested in the same field.

 

The site is:

 

www.eyeswitching.com

 

All comments would be very welcome.

 

I really appreciate you going and having a look and hope you get something out of the site.<div></div>

Took a look at your site. The site itself I like: easy to navigate, clean and simple. No fancy or overdone and distracting flash work there. The images however are truly impressive in my opinion. Documentary style photography has my great interest and I'm still intending to get into it myself. Hoewever you seem to have the talent to create an image which is ,like real life, crowded with visual elements (unlike good landscape or fine art images) but yet all the elements together make a good compositin and truly tell a story. It seems simple but from my past brief experience in documentary style I have learned it is real heard to compose and create in a splitt second all those elements into a well balanced images. Well done hope to see more in the future

 

cheers,

 

Marc

Thanks for sharing your images and advise. I've bookmarked it and will go back now and

then.

Solid work on a solid site. You should be proud and send the link all over.

Duncan , I too like the layout of the website,and how fast it loads.Your photographs show a keen eye and a real sense of design. I really like the fact that you have the location, camera,lens,film-digital information at the bottom of each photo. I think that is important to include when It photographers looking at your portfolio, I do it in mine here at PN.

I also am very impressed with your site and work. You have what many photojournalists and us street shooters and wannabe street shooters (that's me in the latter category, not a personal put down, just honest humility) often lack -- the ability to catch interesting and dramatic composition along with a meaningful and edgy main subject. Would you mind a question or two. First, most of your shots seem to be of the variety where you're back a bit, not up close mixing the people environment. Much of what I read from photogs with seemingly impressive credentials (and good work to back them up) tells me to swallow my anxieties and get in there up close and personal, use short lenses (50s to avoid close-up facial distortion and maybe 35s and 24s where a wider scene with interesting foreground elements permit), and to strike conversations and cut right to the chase with a things like "really good looking hat, makes you really stand out, do you mind if I take your picture?" or "I'm enrolled in a photo workshop and generally am scared to death asking people I don't know if I can photograph them, and that's what I'm trying to do so would you mind?", etc. These same readings seem universally to say that using longer lenses to stand-out of the scene and shoot-in loses the personality and grit street shooting generally is all about. Yet here I look at your work and find a great deal to emulate, and it seems largely to fall in that latter category, standing back and shooting in. Would you mind saying a little about that (or if already in your site, sorry, didn't have the time at the moment to look through anything but the gallery)? Also, much of what I read and discuss on various forums speaks to using faster lenser for greater bokeh to pop the main subject (with examples to make the point, and often impressively so) as opposed to the highlight burning you seem to use so effective in achieving the same thing. Would you mind commenting on that? To me, your work truly is a model, and I thank you so much for sharing it.

Thanks for the very encouraging words that you've all given.

 

Yesterday thanks to following Orville's advice of sending the link all over the site had 1751

visits; I'm really pleased that so many people have taken an interest and given me some

really great feedback. I've already got lots more ideas for articles based on what people

have said.

 

Jim: to answer your specific points...

 

Firstly about standing back. This is an interesting observation that I'd not really picked up

on myself and I don't have a convenient answer so I'll try my best to speculate why this

might appear to be the case.

 

In the last ten years that I've been developing my documentary style I've built up a large

number of images (some tens of thousands) and as my confidence has grown I've

photographed a lot of people, the vast majority of which have been aware of my presence

and often working very close in with subjects in constructing the site I've cherry picked

around eighty images to display to get the site up and running. I'll add more in the future,

both new material as I shoot it and past shots that I consider worthy of note - over time I

think the balance will readdress and you will see a reasonable proportion of images shot

close in - I certainly love working this way.

 

Looking back at the current crop of images on my site though I think you have a point - I

think the reason is a combination of these factors:

 

I'm very keen on uncluttered composition and backgrounds that are simple and similarly

don't include too many distracting background elements - consequently by selecting a

slightly longer focal length and compressing the perspective I often eliminate background

clutter that would otherwise draw attention away from the main subject.

 

Also the subjects that I like to concentrate on for my documentary style are almost never

posed (by that I mean standing still posing for me specifically), there are a few exceptions

- such as the hedge layer in my 'work' gallery. As the people are actively engaged in what

their doing I've often found it better to stand back a little so as not to disturb their

movement and natural flow - in this way they're going to be less encumbered by my

presence, feel less inhibited and allow me more to work with.

 

I also tend to prefer not to have too many important background elements coming into the

frame from an unknown source (like tree branches creeping in where you cant see the

trunk) or likewise elements that creep out of the frame like feet, or hands etc. Backing off

a little helps somewhat with containing the subject.

 

Also sometimes it's too dangerous to get in close - not necessarily for me, sometimes for

the subject - that last thing I want to do for instance is spook a galloping horse and cause

an accident.

 

To a lesser extent there's also the sad fact that since I started using my Nikon D200 I've

lost the wide end of my 17-35 zoom due to the 1.5 x crop factor of the sensor so I've not

been able to get in as close as I used to and still maintain that sense of wide perspective.

I'd love to get the 12-24 mm but there would be too much overlap with my 17-35 given

that I also have the 28-70 mm AFS.

 

Your second point about bokeh is very interesting indeed - I try to use selective focus

wherever possible in just the way you describe; with film I exploited this greatly. Since

moving to a DSLR with the greater depth of field that results from a DX sized sensor

compared to an equivalent frame shot on 35 mm I've found it harder to narrow the DOF

and throw the background out of focus in the same way. Also as is typical with a smaller

digital sensors I've noticed a lot of coma fringing when shooting at f/2.8 and consequently

have been stopping down far more to f/4 or f/5.6. With these factors acting against me

achieving nice out of focus background blur I've had to look at different ways to achieve

the same ends in making the main subject stand out. I think that's the best explanation I

can give.

 

Hope this makes sense and hope you're getting on well with the 5D.

 

Regards

 

Duncan<div></div>

Hey Duncan,

 

Thanks very much for taking the time. Your answers are both insightful and well expressed, and show a real understanding of the art. I'll be a regular follower of your site, and hope eventually to become a sharer when I reach a point of personal satisfaction with my work.

 

Again, thanks.