SEPTEMBER 2023: PHIL PENMAN
“MAKE A COMPLETE STORY WITH A SERIES OF MULTIPLE IMAGES”
This month celebrated street photographer Phil Penman sets an assignment where he challenges you to make a complete story with a multiple set of images, made if possible through different focal length lenses. No two pictures should feel the same. Think angles! This assignment was set initially in episode #397.
THE ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
From Phil: “Pick a subject, examples include a person of interest, a local sports team, or perhaps a fishing village that you are visiting, and make pictures to tell the story of that person, that team, or that place. The important thing here is that I’m not looking for a single picture, it can be as many as fifteen different images! The idea is that when someone sees your pictures, they can tell a story from them.
In the case of the fishing village, it’s not just one picture of a fisherman, it could be an establishing scene of a harbour, then a portrait of someone, followed by a tight shot of equipment perhaps, a photograph of signage and so on. Up to fifteen different angles and if possible, make them with different lenses, so that somebody who doesn’t know the place or the people in your story, can get a good understanding of the day, the person, the place from multiple views. This avoids making the same shot over and over.
Just finally, the pictures don’t have to include people, if you find a story that you want to tell about a different topic, that’s fine - just make sure you think multiple angles and approaches.”
HOW TO ENTER AND IMPORTANT NOTE ON FILE SIZE
Send your entries to stories@photowalk.show, pictures should be 2,500 pixels wide if possible. Feel free to provide text as well, if you think it will help explain the location etc.
Because this assignment involves multiple images and up to fifteen (although entries with less are completely acceptable), outgoing mail servers may limit you in file size. If you can therefore optimise your pictures using a tool like BlogStomp or JPEGmini that would be very helpful. Or if sending via WeTransfer or another/similar file transfer service, if possible, please add a reasonable time for downloads to be made, not just 48 hours.
Entries are shown below and good luck!
Neale
PHIL PENMAN
Phil Penman’s cycling story at Floyd Bennett Field, an airfield in the Marine Park neighborhood of southeast Brooklyn in New York City, along the shore of Jamaica Bay.
GERT JAN COLE - FLASK WINNER FOR SEPTEMBER
Please find my entry for the September assignment and I’ve also included some audio that brings a sound flavour to the project (above).
(The recording includes Gert’s own voice, explaining his thought process for this assignment. Worth a listen!)
The assignment Phil Penman set in episode 397 for the month of September tickled the creative side of my brain.
A subject was easily found: our friend Elise runs a workshop where she builds harps, or rather cooks harp-e kits to the desired level of 'done'. These Harp-E's are affordable electro-acoustic harps with stage-quality sound. The instrument comes in three flavours: 'Plug & Play' (fully assembled, strung and tuned), 'String & Go' (pre-assembled, you just need to string and fine-tune the harp yourself), and 'DIY' (an IKEA-style flat-package containing all parts, strings and a PDF manual) for those who want to build their own instrument. Elise prepares and assembles each online ordered instrument to the requested level and ships them worldwide. Documenting that process would be a nice chance to spend time with a friend, and the added challenge that I should use different lenses and shoot from multiple views made this assignment totally my cup of tea.
See, I suffer a bit from EGAS, a specific subcategory in the GAS spectrum. 35 years ago, when I started my career as a photographer, my patron Mr. Blanken told me: "1/60th of a second will always just be 1/60th of a second. Don't bother buying bodies - only invest in good glass."
He shot with a Leicaflex SL, a bare-bones body that was already ancient by then. I followed his advice and went for 'the poor men's Leica', Olympus. And I developed EGAS, eccentric glass acquisition syndrome.
So this challenge had me whip out five different Olympus lenses, the famous Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 100 mm 2.8 built in 1959, a razor-sharp but tiny 25 mm TV lens with massive vignetting that I bought for 20 bucks, a Lensbaby Controlfreak that allowed me to flip the focal plane, a Meike circular Fisheye - all of these lenses mounted on a microfourthirds Olympus body - and even a DJI drone for the overview shot. I would never have done this under normal conditions, for fear of losing consistency in the images, but it was fun and I think it worked out quite nicely.
These 15 pictures are a selection of the original 30 shots collection: if you'd like to see the full set, visit kole.photography/harp-e.
LARS HEGAARD
It is said that introverts need to use more words to get to the heart of the matter. To me, this is definitely the case regarding the September challenge. Fifteen pictures to tell a story! I would have liked to have had the option to use more - 32, to be exact :-)
My story is from Klitmøller, a sleepy fishing village that has become hip as part of the surf area known as Cold Hawaii.
On the day of my visit, the sea was completely flat, and the surf activity was correspondingly low. That's why I spent the time photographing the city and the beach, focusing on the transformation from a fishing village to a surf Camp. The result taps nicely into the September challenge, I hope.
JOHN KENNY
I have lived up in rural North Yorkshire for over 10 years, but have never attended any of the various country shows before. Since becoming a bit more serious about photography, however, I find myself more inclined to try things. No doubt it is that 'passport to curiosity' you have previously mentioned.
Shooting for the first time with a new to me 24 - 70 lens courtesy of MPB rather than a prime, I tried to take advantage of the full range of focal lengths when walking around the show. I wanted to portray the different attractions that were present as well as the range of people attending. My hope is that the sequence of 15 images gives the feeling of attending a traditional country show.
In a sort of side benefit to having attended the show, and sharing the portrait of the eagle and handler (Tzar and Mike) with the Falconers, I have been offered the opportunity to document preparing the eagle for hunting over winter. Tzar is from a lineage of eagles from Kazakhstan that are trained to hunt and provide for the family. He is 19 years old (Mike is 74). He has hunted in previous winters and, I was somewhat surprised to learn, brought down at least 7 deer last Winter.
PETER MADDERN
A few days ago I was down at Sennen Harbour in West Cornwall with my camera. I had gone there originally to make images of the waves washing over the rocks and the patterns this creates.
Completely out of the blue the inshore lifeboat suddenly appeared in front of me making off at top speed towards Lands End. This was followed by the siren to warn of the imminent launch of the big lifeboat. Luckily I was not far from the slipway and managed to get into position to capture images of the boat coming down the slipway and heading off following the inshore boat.
As the lifeboat was leaving one of the Sennen fishing boats, laden with lobster pots, came into the harbour. I had a chat when they landed and discovered they were bringing in all their gear for winter before the first of the autumnal gales arrives next week. Will Richards, seen sitting on the front of the boat, informed me that the lifeboats had been called out to rescue two swimmers at Nanjizal.
Nanjizal is a small secluded beach just east of Lands End favoured by locals but with dangerous sandbars and no lifeguard cover.
An hour or more later the lifeboats were back having successfully rescued the swimmers, one of whom had been really struggling and had been brought back to Sennen. There then followed the complicated task of getting the big lifeboat back up the slipway and into the house.
Meanwhile, the fishermen were all working as a team to get their gear stored safely while the drama went on around them as by now quite a crowd of visitors had gathered taking images on their phones and then hopefully putting money in the donations box. Without these boats, two people would most likely now be dead!
See more of Peter’s work on his website.
TONY LORENZO
As an introduction, I could say that I don't make a living as a photographer, although photography is my language. I live in Oxford, England, but I'm originally from southern Spain.
My first camera was a Nikon Fm2 with a 28mm lens. I still use it every time I shoot film. For this collection, I'm using a Canon G9 X. When I photograph people, my reflex camera has always felt like a gun to me. When the mirror clicks, people's attitudes change slightly, and my camera, which looks like a mobile phone in the palm of my hand, makes conversations easier.
This small excerpt is from a diary chapter. I've sent the most recent entries (so I don't feel guilty about sending photos taken weeks ago).
When I was a child, I used to spend my afternoons at my grandmother's house. I would always rummage through the drawers, looking for old photographs. Whenever I asked her about the people in the pictures, she rarely told me who they were, and if she did, it always seemed like she had made it up.
This is my diary. Every three weeks, I sit down and edit what I've been photographing. The people I portray were there when I needed to talk about them. They are individuals who have crossed paths with me in this phase of my life. I intermingle them with images I've connected to these people, creating a narrative that speaks of the passage of time and how I need to remember it in the future.
I've always had a lot of trouble with writing. When the first camera came into my hands, I found my language and managed to express with images what I couldn't say with words. In this phase of the diary, I talk about that. I've photographed people from my environment and intertwined these moments with reflections on the passage of time, everyday life, and what I want to be remembered about each of the people I've portrayed. In a way, it's about how I want to be remembered.
See more of Tony’s work on his Instagram.
NEALE JAMES
The title for this story came not from me, but from the subjects themselves.
“Why don’t we call this, The Collection Plate?”
An air of seriousness, mixed with a light musing of what might be flashed across the Father’s face as he took aim, just above the end of the barrel as another clay whizzed from the ‘flingy thing’ as I’d incorrectly named it, much to the bemusement of the coaches.
Priests with guns; it was a photographic event too good to turn down, though I wondered initially whether they would be comfortable being photographed taking aim - it could so easily end up as a caption contest in the parish magazine after all? Fears allayed, it turned out one of my subjects had been a dab hand in his youth when he’d provided pastoral care to a cadet unit, though the juxtaposition still amused me, enough to make a short storyline of photographs.
A mix of focal lengths as requested by Mr. Penman, though I felt a sense of disappointment that I hadn’t achieved the money shot; a smoking barrel.
Hitting the clay is apparently all about your body positioning and breathing. As the clay exits the ‘flingy thing’ (yes I know it’s officially called a trap), move confidently in and with the direction of your target, allowing the barrels to follow your line of sight, the clay just above the end of those barrels. Just as the clay starts to sink, squeeze the trigger. Easy really. Well, for some more than others. It’s about rise and fall apparently, that’s what I gleaned from the coaching I heard.
Five clays a time, one of the Fathers managed to hit four on his ‘first attempt’, only missing the fifth because he called ‘pull’ before he’d truly brought his head to the shotgun. He looked disappointed. Competition was strong.
Though I couldn’t help thinking, that the collection plate was clearly destined to be well stuffed in his Church on Sunday, when this news got out.
