On the Page Book Research and Inspiration
Urban Dirt Bikers: Spencer Murphy
I began my research for the book by looking at a few websites, such as hoxton mini press, the story institute and gost books. On these sites I was able to see stories and fully published books from other photographers.
I came across this book called Urban Dirt Bikers by Spencer Murphy. It features a series of photographs that document the street riding subculture in London. I really like Spencer's style and how he has used action shots and portraits to represent this subculture and the people involved in it.
I researched Spencer more after reading that he won the taylor wessing portrait prize in 2013. He has done a few different comissions including one with channel 4 but has managed to maintain his style throughout all of his work which is what I think makes his work so powerful.
East London Swimmer: Madeleine Waller
I also looked at this book by Madeleine Waller about swimmers in East London. This book was also printed by Hoxton mini press. The layout was very simple. There was a title page and preface then a portrait of the swimmer in normal clothes and in swimming gear with a quote from an interview with them in between. There were then large double page spread images placed throughout the book, most of which were action shots.
I think this books works really well for the photo series as it helps to focus on the people in the photos who are the important part of the story. I like the size of the book as it isn't huge but is still big enough to clearly display the photos and a book this size wouldn't be too expensive. I also like how the colour scheme links to the colour of the photos, which is something I will consider for my book. I don't like the coloured line along the margin. I would prefer to have a full bleed photo on the front cover of my book.
Mountains Epic Cycling Climbs: Michael Blann
I spotted this book by Michael Blann in a coffee shop. I researched Michael Blann and discovered that he is a London based advertising photographer shooting mainly sports and landscape photography.
Michael has a very impressive client list including Nike, Trek, Sony and many more. He has even done a photo shoot with Sir Bradley Wiggins.
I plan to contact Michael to see if he would be able to give me some advice.
This book was a large high quality coffee table book. The images were very impressive and Michael's skill in both sports and landscape photography was clear. The photos were taken over a 3 year period and features the most famous European climbs in cycling history.
Quite a few different page layouts were used, as shown above. This worked well as it meant there wasn't a repetition with every page which kept you engaged when looking at it.
Cycle Chic: Mikael Colville-Andersen
This book looks at cycling from much more of a fashion perspective. The images in this book are said to 'document the return of the bicycle to the urban landscape.' I like the way the images capture how people's bikes are often an extension of their style. I hope to include some photos of people dressed more extravagantly while riding their bike.
Mikael used images taken by multiple photographers in this book but is also a photographer himself. Cycle Chic is also a blog which is run by Mikael. This blog began when, in 2007, Mikael took a photo of a girl riding her bike in Copenhagen which has now been given the name 'the photo that launched a million bicycles.' You can see it below:
Mikael also has multiple other books such as 'Copenhagenize - the definitive guide to global bicycle urbanism' and 'A Short Introduction to Bicycle Urbanism - for people who don’t give a fuck'. Although most of the photography in these books is quite basic, I like the way they portray the cycling community in a very original way and that makes them interesting to look at/read.
Zhao Huasen
One of my ideas for the book is photos of bike riders without their bikes to make it look like they're floating. The only person I could find who has produced a series from this idea is the Chinese photographer Zhao Huasen.
Zhao produced a series called 'Floating' in which he took photos of people in china riding bikes then retouched the photos to remove the bikes and make it look like they're floating. This had some hilarious results, some of which are shown above. Zhao has retouched the images very well to not make it obvious that where he has retouched the image. He also chose to leave the shadows from the bikes to give context which works really well.
First Attempts at Removing Bikes from Images
These are my first attempts at removing the bike from images. It proved very difficult and time consuming.
I used a background image without a rider then placed the image with the rider over the top and aligned the 2 images. This meant I was able to erase the bike from the top image so that it was just background, making it look 'invisible'.
However, it was very hard to remove the bike from places where it overlapped with the rider. I had to use the clone stamp tool to try and make it look normal but under close inspection it becomes quite obvious. For example, in the image on the left the riders shoe was covered up by the bike so I copy and pasted the left shoe to cover the right foot but it looks quite unnatural as it's not how the shoe would actually look.
The time and difficulty of the retouching required for this series would make the book a big project as it would take a long time to produce 20 of these images. I am also unsure of how these kind of images would come out when printed in a book as the retouching may be a lot more obvious on the page than on the screen.
Treatments
This is the treatment for my main idea. I used Zhao Huasen's images to show an example of a similar photo series as well as my first attempts at it.
This was definitely the more popular of my ideas. Most people hadn't seen something like this before so appreciated the originality and people also found the images quite funny which is good as I would like it to be a light hearted and comedic book.
This is the treatment for my second idea. This is definitely a backup idea as I would much prefer to use my first idea however, the images I shoot for that idea could also be used for this idea if necessary.
I got lots of useful feedback from my treatments. It definitely confirmed that I should use my first idea as it was far more popular.
Most people mentioned the amount of retouching that will be necessary for this project, which is something I will definitely need to bear in mind throughout the process in order to have enough time to produce the book in the time frame.
It was also suggested that I should get a photo of a group of cyclists as a way to take this idea to another level. I would like to get at least one image like this, whether it be commuters or a group of racers.
I was also recommended some photographers and similar projects to look at:
- Wendy McMurdo
- Bicycles Locked to Poles - John Glassie
- Photographic project on bike lane symbols
Wendy McMurdo
Wendy McMurdo is a Scottish photographer who was initially trained as a painter before turning to photography.
One of her main photography projects focused on the influence of computers on early years education. In order to represent this, Wendy took portraits of school children using tablets but then removed the tablets from the images. Doing this makes a much more powerful statement about the subject and allows encourages the viewer to look at the images for a lot longer in order to figure out what is going on.
This is a much more serious topic than my project but I'm hoping my images will also encourage people to look at them more closely in order to figure out what's happening in the images.
Bicycles Locked to Poles - John Glassie
This is an interesting project. It is a very simple idea but the way John Glassie has done it makes a powerful point.
New York Magazine described the book as "oddly haunting." I agree that these images are somewhat haunting but I think that is one of the aspects that makes them so interesting. The National Post in Canada almost made an interesting statement about John's book, "Page after page, the carnage worsens … but Glassie has a sense of humour about documenting the disabled bikes in his neighbourhood." I think they have correctly picked up the impact that John's sense of humour has had on this project.
It's really interesting that such a simple can become such a great photo book. I think it's John's hard work and time, as well as his sense of humour, that made this book what it is.
