Showing My Workings

In the study of Mathematics, it's expected that one will show one's workings, to demonstrate the method by which the result was obtained and to allow the validity of that result to be checked.  The photographic equivalent is the contact sheet. 
It's been pointed out to me that my previous post suggested that I'd followed Winogrand and Parr and had deliberately set out to emulate their work.  I was previously aware of their photographs and had already remarked the similarity between their two images and my attraction to them.  In taking my photograph I was certainly informed by this, but its genesis was the seeing of the opportunity, not the setting up of the shot.
Frankie Lynn, burlesque performer and proprietrix of Franki Lynn's Emporium, was using natural light coming through the window to make up the models she'd brought to display the range of clothing and accessories she sells.  I thought there this was opportunity to take some useful shots, though the strong light that was helping Frankie gave me a big range of light levels to cope with.  I decided that I could afford to lose what was going on outside. 
As is my practice, I took a couple of photographs and then requested permission to take more.  I asked the models to carry on with what they were doing.  They were aware of the camera, and in some shots are looking at it.  I decided it would be intrusive if I tried to tidy the table in front, so the handbag, spare lens and water bottle remain.  The lens isn't mine; the owner put it there in the course of my little 'shoot' and it didn't register with me at the time.
Here are some of the photographs I took:

 

Here two of the models are concentrating on the make-up of a third, while the model on the right is checking her own make-up in a very stylised way. 

 

A crop removes the ugly chairs:

But I liked the image mainly because of the model on the right; her focus and self-absorption seem total. I rejected a similar shot because she was obscuring her face with her hand.

Here she is on her own, cropped from the above.

 

The focus changed as Frankie checked another model's make-up:

 Here two models are looking at the camera; the one on the right is consciously posing.  I rejected a similar shot where one model had her eyes shut.  Incidentally, the [160] photographs I took in the day show very low incidence of shut-eye, which I attribute to the confidence of the models and the fact that most of the images were unposed.  However, I didn't like this photograph; with the mixture of posed and unposed, aware and unaware, it doesn't seem balanced. 

 

Here's the photograph I like best.  The burlesque artist Mysti Vine had joined the group, and was talking, apparently to Frankie, though she's distracted, looking off left.

Everyone is animated, yet unconnected with each other.  I like that a lot.

Maybe there's a philosophical point to be made.  It's certainly something to consider when composing my artist's statement!

 

And here it is, with a little more post-production work, to increase contrast and remove distracting lettering from the bottle and the otherwise attractive lamp shade.

 

 

Garry Winogrand, Martin Parr

Garry Winogrand

There is article in Aesthetica #51, pp58-71 about the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) exhibition of photographs by Garry Winogrand.  I was very interested in the photographs reproduced in the magazine; they seemed to be my kind of picture: street, unposed, capturing people doing odd, interesting, revealing things.  One in particular stood out, New York World's Fair 1964, which showed a row of six young women, sitting on a bench.  They're very active and animated, which is attractive in itself, and doing different things. There's a man at each end of the row, providing static, calm, bookends to the excited girls.  There's the sense of an overall story of this group of girls enjoying themselves (though one is crying) together with the individual stories of what's happening to each.  That one of the men is black, and being talked to by a (white) girl, is interesting, given the 1964 date.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=53834
I don't intend to visit this exhibition, but I have bought the catalogue.

Martin Parr

I attended a lecture From Late Modernism to Post-Modernism, given by Fergus Reid, lecturer at Shrewsbury School, on 13th April.  Among the Post-Modernists he mentioned Martin Parr.  I remarked on the similarities between the Winogrand above, and Badminton Horse Trials, Gloucestershire, England, from 'The Cost of Living'.  Here again the women are young, active, and doing different things.  They're even book-ended by a serious young man and a person of whom only the drab coat is visible.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8723045/The-foibles-of-the-world.html

At Dr Sketchy's

Here's my own photograph, taken at Dr Sketchy's at The Victoria, Birmingham, on 25th May.  The young women are all doing different things, but there's no connection between them.  I liked this; they could be having a conversation, but they're all distracted.  The girl on the right is lost in her thoughts, connecting to no one.  The image is book-ended by the women left and right, who both look towards the centre.
Only a fraction can be seen of the sixth girl, but she's the only one responding to the camera.  I thought that this part-image was a fault, but find that the eye continually returns to her smiling teeth.

The subjects are: Mysti Vine (burlesque artist), Frankie Lynn (burlesque artist and emporium proprietrist), and M/s Lynn's four models.  That's not my 50mm f1.4 lens on the table, BTW.