Spitalfields Market Record Fair 30th March

  

 

For this shoot I stuck with the aperture of 2.5 that I had utilised in my last, I plan to use it consistently for all my pictures from now on. Whilst I am mostly happy with the picture, my framing was a little unfortunate. Firstly, despite moving them so I thought the would not be in the way, my microphone and its case are visible on the table. I will probably manipulate this out of the image using Photoshop. Secondly, the subject is slightly closer to the camera, causing their head to be higher in the frame than my previous images. I will try to shoot consistently like this from now on and crop in any of my other pictures that I plan to use.

Kensington Olympia 2 Record Fair 24th March

As with my previous shoot, these pictures were taken using my Canon 5D mk1 with a Canon Speedlite Flash  which I aimed so that it bounced off the ceiling. However, learning from my previous mistakes, I used a wider aperture of 2.5 for these pictures as well as photographing them holding purchases, something which I feel adds a little more identity to the subject.

This fair was in a much rather room than the first day of shooting. Olympia 2, the basement of the Olympia building, in Kensington. I am hoping that by the end of this project, having visited fairs in several locations, I will have enough interesting pictures of record buyers at different fairs with their own distinctive backgrounds.

During a review of my pictures thus far in a lecture it was pointed out that the second picture of my edit from this shoot, the record is being held further forward and the subject's presentation of it is far less casual. This, combined with her eyes being closed, I feel are reasons it is unlikely to be included in the final portfolio.

Uxbridge Record Fair 17th March

This was my first shoot, I approached this couple after briefly talking to them on the way in. The location of the fair was in a small, classroom sized, room. This left me little room to manoeuvre round the tables and left me with the corner as my only background. I had hoped to use a wide aperture to create a shallow depth of field with which to draw focus onto the subjects. The lack of distance behind them and the wall combined with 5.6 as my choice of aperture did not have desired effect.

I had originally intended to photograph all my subjects with their purchases. However for these pictures I decided to take them without any records as props, and was going to pair each picture with seperate photographs of  records they had bought. In retrospect this was a bad idea, as it removes a distinctive visual element from the original idea of my pictures. From now on I will revert back to that original plan.

Presentation of Initial Idea

 

My initial idea for my portfolio for this project was to document the goings on of a student radio station using a mixture of environmental portraiture and fly on the wall style images. Thus hoping to make a record the different styles of presenting and with the proposed copy to be consisting of interviews with the subjects on the variety of reasons that lead them to student radio and what they enjoyed most about it.

However my idea evolved during the presentation - in which, incidentally, I did not end up showing the above Powerpoint file - and is now focused on environmental portraits of record collectors at fairs and shops, either holding their purchase or with it scanned in and paired up with the picture of them. The aim being to show that record purchase is not limited to middle aged and older men with bald patches, scarves and money to burn.