#347 ASSIGNMENT: KARAH MEW #3
Documenter of life, Karah Mew sets the third and final assignment in her first series for us and asks you to break the popular photographic rules - in fact, break them all! The assignment is a challenge set for the next seven days; a way to think differently about how you approach making your pictures. I'll be fascinated to see what you come up with, so email what you make to the show via the contact page.
My thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show; the number one company in the UK, the US and Europe when it comes to buying, selling, and trading quality used camera kit online – it’s a safe place to do business, with guarantees upon what you buy and a sustainable way to trade in the circular economy.
Also my sincere thanks to our wonderful patrons, our ‘Extra Milers’ who help to support this show.
Karah Mew invites you to break the rules for today’s assignment.
BY WILLIAM HENNAH
While on holiday in Lynmouth I was sitting on the cliff’s edge at the Valley of the Rocks one clear evening, waiting for the sun to dip below the horizon with my younger sister. Being new to photography, I was doing some experiments with the sunset's reflection on the sea when she stuck her head in front of the lens! Usually I would have deleted the photo, however, I decided to keep it as it did make us all laugh, and it wasn't until I got back home and saw the photowalk assignment that I thought it might be of worth contributing. After some work in Lightroom, I think it perfectly fits in with the theme of 'Breaking the Rules'.
BY MIKE MILLER
I was listening to a photographer this past week talk about using the multiple exposure feature in-camera to produce some very interesting impressionistic painterly images much like Monet painted. I did some further research and decided to give it a go today. Attached are four images that I made the morning and afternoon. They are in-camera composites of five multiple exposures. They are offset slightly in an "X" pattern by either pushing on the camera while it's on a tripod or by doing it hand-held. The RAW files were post-processed in Lightroom as I would any other photograph.
The images didn't look all that great on the back of the camera. It wasn't until I viewed the larger version on my laptop that I knew I had something that was half-decent. I think that these images qualify as "breaking the rules" as Karah suggested we do, especially, since these are my first attempts at doing this kind of photography.
BY GEOFF DUNHAM
As always, thanks for the podcast - it helps keep my spirit up and always gives me something to think about. More than that though, they seem to build on each other because they are so different in their approaches - the personal reflections in the diaries on the Extra Mile and the gentle but rather thorough interviews of the walk editions capped off with a challenge. Seems to add up to more than the sum of its parts if you get my drift.
One of the things that always piques my interest is when you talk about and introduce, sound to the pods. I was in London on Tuesday, taking pictures of the Elizabeth Line with a stop off at the Barbican Estate for a fix of brutalism. Travelling east from Farringdon to Canary Wharf via Whitechapel, the completely unexpected and eerie sound the train was making as it careened headlong through the tunnels brought the podcast to mind. I made a decision not to record it, just let the experience happen but if you ever are passing that way, listen out for it.
As a potential guest, Christopher Herwig might prove interesting. He and Fuel publishing have just concluded a successful Kickstarter campaign (£24k+ of a £6,250 goal!) to press up a vinyl soundtrack for their Soviet Bus Stops film by Zodiac, the Russian Kraftwerk. The film is about the photography behind a couple of great books which fired my ongoing interest in making photographs of architecture as socio-political/cultural statements. I'm sure he'd love to talk about it!
Finally, the rule breaking challenge. Attached is what happens when you set your trusty EOS R to silent shutter mode and ignore the warning about the rolling shutter causing distortion at slow speeds. An RF 35mm, 1/30th of a second at f8, ISO 1600 may only be a little bit rebellious, but it’s a start!
