Shoot Four- Graffiti Work Diary

Within this shoot, I intended to capture a series of photographs of graffiti edited to be black and white presenting a grunge/ gritty affect. Overall, I am rather happy with this shoot. It was taken at Leake Street in London and I managed to shoot every image through documentary photography- I didn't stage any images, I used what I was presented with so it was a raw in sight of youth culture. Within this shoot, I believe I have been able to use the work influenced by photographer Dan Boulton and Richard Sandler. Both of these photographers have inspired this shoot through both the framing of my photos and also the editing.

The techniques I managed to use within this shoot were blur- in showing movement of someone skateboarding, depth of field and more importantly documentary. For the equipment I used wasn't a lot, I just had my camera, location and subjects, as I was in London, I didn't have a tripod with me, yet I believe this worked really well because all my photos don't appear staged- if I were to have framed my photos straight when looking at the lines, I do not think it would have had the same feel on the youth culture which I was hoping for; the whole reason for this shoot was to show the darker and messier side of youth, if I were to have used a tripod I do not think this would have came across to my audience.

My favourite image from this shoot:

This was in the middle of Leake Street tunnel and it appeared to be a club/ gig entrance called The Vault which I found really intriguing because the entrance seemed really small and I personally thought the other side of the tunnel was Waterloo train station yet really it wasn't. Therefore there was this one person waiting outside the doors, I'm guessing she was working there managing who enters the gig/club. But it appears it was late after the start of this event, so this subject appeared quite bored which I really wanted to capture, with my subjects slouched body language combined with the graffiti covered walls and dim lighting (other than one light between the doors) can be used as symbolism when talking/ researching youth culture. This is because it seems my subject is lost within the graffiti, she isn't as clear as she is when it is in colour. Therefore this is one of my favourite images from this shoot because I believe it clearly displays my intentions of youth- she looks like she'd rather be somewhere else but because she is probably earning money for it, she stays, but it shows shows how my research before going out for this shoot helped me achieve this image because as this was a very orange lit location, I didn't think it would work so well, yet when I though back to the work of both Sandler and Boulton, the use of black and white enabled the effect of youth culture to be much clearer.

My Least Favourite image for this shoot:

As you can see from the image above, this was takne at the same part of Leake Street Tunnel. For this image I had hope to capture my friends together when they well all talking in front of The Vault but when I went to take this photo they had turned around and therefore I have captured movement of them instead. Furthermore, I don't really think this image shows youth really well and it doesn't looked very well framed. Even though when researching I found many photos which looked badly framed- they worked with the theme of youth, however with this image I believe there is too much going on for the audience to understanding the representation of youth which I had intended.