Assignment 5 TAOP Review

8/2/2019 Assignment 5 TAOP Review

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Entroido Entrimo 2012

Carn iva l i s a very remarkab le t rad i t iona l ce lebrat ion in thenor thwest of Spa in . I t i s a very old feast rooted in the nights

( some peop le say i t has ce l t i c or ig ins ) . There i s even a word inlocal language (ga l ic ian) fo r carn iva l , i t i s ca l led "entro ido".Long t ime ago when I was a ch i ld , I never missed the oppor tun i ty

j o in the ce lebrat ions of "ent ro ido" together with my parents , anl a ter with f r iends. I t used to be a very spec ia l event i n the yethere were fami l ies prepar ing i t fo r months in advance .

Th ings have changed a lo t (when I was a ch i ld there was somet rad i t iona l dresses that are now lo s t ) , but in my l i t t le v i l lagest i l l ce lebrate "ent ro ido" , and there i s even a contest to the b

group and ind iv idua l ch i ld d isgu ise organ ized by the munic ipa l i t

Preparat ion: Last time I was present for the "entroido" was more


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than 20 years ago, so I was not complete ly su re of what I was goto f ind .

Given the s t rong cr i s i s i n Spa in I even expected no ce lebrat iona l l . As a matter o f f ac t the munic ipal i ty of Ent r imo i s smal l ,

h igh ra te o f unemployed peop le and an even h igher ra te o f qu i teold pensioners.

Many peop le here have s t i l l an domest ic economy based in smal lfa rmlands , some an imals , and few of them l i ve f rom commerce .

Never the less I c leaned my equ ipment the day befo re and I had mycamera and th ree lenses (cover ing var ious foca l d is tances f rom17mm t i l l 200mm), I knew the day was going to be sunny, and myidea was to record the event as i f i t was fo r a l oca l newspaper ,the f i r s t gather ings and preparat ions, then the parade ( i f i t caca l led l i ke that ) t i l l the " toural " ( the square i n the middle ofv i l lage , where the fa i r s and markets and fes t iv i t ies are he ld) ,l as t ly the contest with the ju ry and the end of the ce lebrat ion .

Execut ion: The event started around 16:00 and finished around19:00 hours (more or less).

I felt quite free to photograph because everybody here know each


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other , and many people i ndeed know me or my fami l y. I hadnever the less a coup le of parents ask ing me what was the purposeof the (ch i ld ren) photographs, to which I a lways repl ied that Is tudy ing photography, and I my in tent ion was to photograph theevent as the las t pro jec t fo r my course , and there fo re the

photographs were fo r my own use .

One impor tant remark : I NEVER asked anyone to pose fo r the

camera. The reason be ing that I was search ing fo r natura l andcand id shots on one s ide , and that I wanted to be as disc rete anunremarkab le as poss ib le on the other s ide . I a lways t r ied to m


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around the sub jec ts (when that was poss ib le ) to f ind the best an( fo r some photographs where the act ion was happen ing in a sp l i tsecond, that was not even poss ib le ) . In other words , thephotographs were peop le are l ook ing at the camera were notp lanned or d i rected in any manner.

Dur ing the event I t r ied to move myse l f qu i te a l o t and haved i f fe rent perspect ives and v iews , but I focused i n ch i ld ren becathey are the rea l sou l and goa l o f the ce lebrat ion .

Select ion:I made a few hundred photographs and I went toseveral filtering and refinement iterations, together with croppings,to come to the final set, which I believe reflects the whole eventquite well, and tell not one, but many linked stories.

From the last set I picked up a first and last shot for the begin andend of the story, and I also re-sorted part of the group.

The selection was the most difficult problem not only because of thebig number of initial shots (even discarding the ones with severeblur or focusing problems), but also because of the emotional

attachment with the people and the subject.


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Postprocessing just to control levels, in some cases I also croppedthe photographs to remove unnecessary or annoying things out.Other remarks: I have processed this photographs with music inthe background. I am even getting used to photograph with music,

and although I might be wrong (most likely), I believe there is astrong connection between photography and music (and I would liketo further investigate that (I am sure that there must be books onthis subject). At least this relation works for me.

For this sequence, and providedthat I am great fan of Brazilianmusic it would be (no doubt)"Vai Passar" of Chico Buarque

de Holanda.

This is a story of people(mainly chi ldren) , colour andfr iendship in the context ofa renewed tradit ion.

Corol lary. -After severalfailures I was becoming tiredand frustrated. This set issatisfactory to me, both interms of execution and finalresult. Of course it can always

be better. In particular for the cover shot I would have preferredsome kind of view including some representative element of thevillage (something like the square seen from above or similar).

The cover shot chosen has to me nice properties (the colour, thecombination of children and disguises which leads to the carnival,etc...), but misses other things (in particular something thatunmistakably linked to the village).

The final shot is a little bit dark, but I find it fantastic, because ofthe child expression, and also because of the mountains and housesin the background that anyone in the whole region would link to thevillage of Entrimo.It could be argued that someone with the knowledge would link thewalls in the cover shot, and the trees in the background to the mainsquare of Entrimo, but I reckon it is a difficult argument to hold on


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to .

Relat ion with the previous parts of the course:In my opinionsome of the shots also show some nice compositional elementsboth in terms of contrasts (e.g. child vs. adult, light vs. dark, one vs.many; red vs yellow) and elements of design (the vertical lines ofthe trees in some of the photographs of the main square, theimplicit lines of the eyesights, etc...).

The colour comes together with the carnival and it is certainly also arelevant element for most of the shots (e.g. the cover one).

The chosen photographs also show some quite different lightings(backlight, axislight, crosslight, and also some more diffuse light inthe last shots under the trees).


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Number of photographs : I t cou ld be argued whether theor ig ina l ly se lec ted 23 shots are too many fo r the ass ignment . It r ied to se lec t photographs f rom d i f fe rent moments o f the day anpart icu lar ly photographs that DO te l l a s tory (even i f a t r iv ia l

Fo l lowing the tu to r advise the number has been dramat ica l l y

.......and pass the catwalk in front of the members of the jury......

Children participating in the contest receive a number.....


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reduced, which by the way does not mean 'be t te r ' to me, j us t' th inner ' . But aga in th i s i s j us t an op in ion, and most probab lywrong.I have t r ied ( fo l lowing my i n terpretat ion of a tu tor adv ise in trepor t ) to reduce the l abe ls to the min imum ( fo r most of them I

have dec ided there was even no need fo r a tex t ) and to l e t thephotographs a lone to te l l the sto ry. I have asked some fe l lowamateur photographers i f the sequence made sense fo r them andwith some d i f fe rent opin ions i t made sense to a l l of them. That ,course , doesn ' t mean anyth ing, and i t i s fo r the tutor and theassessors to dec ide i f th i s i s the case or not , but at leas t I hto seek for other points of view.

Th is document has been draf ted as a poss ib le l ayout of the image

Reasons for the select ion of th is set :The main reason is that I

see this carnival sequence as having more variety in the type ofphotographs than any of the other sequences before, and on top ofthat the light conditions were much better allowing a more visually

The day is coming to an end, some had won some others not, but everybody had fun. The end is seenwith a mixture of tiredness, satisfaction and melancholy. More to come in 2013.


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at t ract ive set ( in te rms of co lour and qual i ty ) .

These were the prev ious at tempts :

Walk on a remote village:

http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/01/failure-1-of-assignment-5-applying.html

Kings' Day:

http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/01/failure-2-for-assignment-5-kings-day.html

A fencing training:

http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/failure-3-for-assignment-5-fencing.html

The flower auction with children:

http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/bloemenveiling-with-school.html

The story of the shell:

http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-failure-for-assignment-5fake.html

An Aikido trip to Antwerp, Yamashida sensei:

http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/aikido-training-in-antwerp.html

The fenc ing and a ik ido sets were made under very di f f i cu l t l i ght

cond i t ions f o rc ing me to use a h igh ISO wi th the consequence ofhigh level of noise.

The k ing 's day had s imi la r problems and a l though the s to ry cou ldhave been nice , much more t ime and f reedom of movement wouldhave been needed to produce a decent set .

Aga in the f lower auct ion was made under appa l l ing l i ght ingcond i t ions . . . . . . . . .had I been al lowed to use my wire less f lash,would have been bet te r .

Al l o f those sets cou ld have been poss ib ly OK fo r the ass ignmentbut they are not so v isua l ly at t ract ive as th i s l as t one.

Add i t iona l ly I made th i s l as t one without any const ra in ts ( l i kech i ld ren around, or a t ime to f in i sh or peop le superv is ing i f Iusing f l ash or not , or peop le check ing that I was not tak ing toomany photographs of the i r ch i ld ren , e tc , etc , etc . . . . . ) and I thref lec ts on the resu l t (or at l eas t so I want to bel ieve) .

The she l l s tory was a fa i lu re f o r many reasons , the more impor ta(because i t was a l esson to me about myse l f ) i s that I had thefee l ing that I was creat ing a fake, art i f ic ia l , fa lse, forced st
http://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/01/failure-1-of-assignment-5-applying.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/01/failure-2-for-assignment-5-kings-day.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/failure-3-for-assignment-5-fencing.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/bloemenveiling-with-school.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-failure-for-assignment-5fake.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/aikido-training-in-antwerp.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/01/failure-1-of-assignment-5-applying.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/01/failure-2-for-assignment-5-kings-day.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/failure-3-for-assignment-5-fencing.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/bloemenveiling-with-school.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-failure-for-assignment-5fake.htmlhttp://leopin-socalcos.blogspot.com/2012/02/aikido-training-in-antwerp.html


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didn ' t fee l i dent i f ied at al l with what I was doing, i t was a l iimpor tant ly I d idn ' t en joy i t . I t had an advantage with regard tof the other ones however , I cou ld have bu i l t i t progress ive lywithout any window of oppor tun i ty const ra in ts .

Books and other mater ia l s :

Three Tips to Help Your Photos Tell A Story by Michael Freeman, September 2011

http://photo.net/columns/michael-freeman/three-tips-to-help-your-photos-tell-

a-story/

Maria Short, "Context and Narrative", Basics Creative photography 02, AVA

publishing, 2011

Photography and narrative: What is involved in telling a story? by David

Campbell

http://www.david-campbell.org/2010/11/18/photography-and-narrative/
http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=6779425http://photo.net/columns/michael-freeman/three-tips-to-help-your-photos-tell-a-story/http://photo.net/columns/michael-freeman/three-tips-to-help-your-photos-tell-a-story/http://www.david-campbell.org/2010/11/18/photography-and-narrative/http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=6779425http://photo.net/columns/michael-freeman/three-tips-to-help-your-photos-tell-a-story/http://photo.net/columns/michael-freeman/three-tips-to-help-your-photos-tell-a-story/http://www.david-campbell.org/2010/11/18/photography-and-narrative/

Assignment 5 TAOP Review

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