Concept
For my Independent Project I have chosen to focus on the word “Entropy”. The photo’s I have taken relating to this are band photo’s from two different bands in different practice rooms around Lincolnshire. The first two of the collection are taken of the band Project Redshift who are classed as hard rock and the remaining shots are taken of the band Mosaics, a local indie band.
The definition of the word “Entropy” relates to chaos and disorder, these things are underlining of bands and the rock/metal genres in general and thereby showing passion and anger in the band photos, I felt I could demonstrate this quite well, this is why I have used band images that show full energy and sometimes aggression in the style of playing.
Influences
The primary influence on my Independent Project work is work by well known British Rock n’ Roll photographer Ross Halfin and his approach to live black and white photography, mainly of individual members but also of full band imagery. I was particularly influenced by the work displayed at his Exhibition at the Indulgence show at the Festival of Sound, of the images which was associated with that can be seen above. The thing that separates Ross’s work from others is his ability to capture sheer energy from the performers while they play live on stage, this was again demonstrated in the photo above as well as other work from his career such as the Angus Young (AC/DC) photo below:
Another photographer I was influenced by was British photographer Jill Furmanovsky who is famous for working with such as acts as Oasis, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. She is similar to Ross Halfin in that she is well known for documenting rock concerts and bands. In terms of her live photography she is commonly associated with individual member shots in black and white. One way that her work influenced me was the way that she makes the performer fill the frame of the image which allows it to demonstrate power and dominance of which the performer would have over the crowd while live, but the sense of power I felt could easily be beneficial in expressing the chaos and disorder relating to “Entropy”, therefore I tried a similar approach in my final images.
I was also inspired the modernist movement which I feel concert photography in general can be classed under. Terry Barrett describes Modernism as:
“a small part of a much larger era known as modernity temporally ranging from the Enlightenment (about 1687 to 1789) to the present. Early modernity is characterized intellectually by a belief that science could save the world and that, through reason, a foundation of universal truths could be established”. (Barrett, 1990, p85)
I wanted my photos to replicate previous works by well known gig photographer, following the same approaches they used and so on, due to those images being classed as modernist, It can be said that I was influenced by the Modernist movement.
Alternatives
Reflection
In terms of the final images I used, I decided to choose the best photos I captured that expressed the passion and energy in the performance the best to really demonstrate the aggression underlying the music and the genre. I feel the first 4 images I chose definitely express the aggression of the music and chaos behind it as its clear to see both performers screaming into their microphones. Although I feel the other 2 images do also demonstrate the passion behind it quite well, embracing the chaos behind the genre, at first, I was sceptical about including the final 2 as it does stretch the boundaries of the meaning, however I do feel it works with inclusion of the remaining 4 as a good collection.
Considering the post production element of the images, I think that as individual photo’s they would work and look aesthetically pleasing, however I feel I could have done more to get a consistent theme of the imagery and the post production editing to ensure a more fluent sequence.
Although, I feel the way I edited the photos did help me demonstrate the vibe of each bands music. The first images are of hard rock band Project Redshift and I feel the darker tones in the images do help express the dark themes of the music. The other 4 images I used were of the Indie Band Mosaics and in these photos, photos numbered 4 and 5, I edited into a warmer visual which is commonly done with many indie bands to express the more lighthearted musical tone especially in comparison to Project Redshift. In photos numbered 3 and 4, I used a pure black and white tone, this is again commonly done for many indie bands to add to the aesthetic, again commonly done with many indie bands, most notably Oasis.
Bibliography
Terry Barrett (1990), Criticising Photographs, an Introduction to Understanding Images, 1990
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