Research - Chris Burkard

Chris Burkard is a photographer who's images are mainly representative of outdoor, lifestyle photography. I find this photographer inspiring not only because of the skills behind his images, but because of the lifestyle he leads in order to find what he wants to photograph. It is clear that one of his main objectives is not just to produce stunning images and to 'fill magazine pages'. He seeks adventure.

http://www.chrisburkard.com/Stills/Adventure/

BUCS Surf Championships, Newquay. Oct 2015

BUCS - British Universities & Colleges sport.

This October I travelled down to Newquay to work for BUCS, as a volunteer photographer. The event I photographed was the surf championships on Fistral Beach.  This was my first time photographing a sporting event, and it was a great experience. The constantly changing weather and conditions in the water made the job challenging, but interesting. Unfortunately the competition was called off after the first day of heats on Friday, due to lack of waves. This meant that I only had the chance to shoot for one day, rather than 3. For the following two days I photographed anything else that was going on at Fistral, which included the award ceremony.

The environment in which I was shooting was comfortable and familiar to me, and made the job so easy. The weather was cold, and I was above my knees in the cold water trying to get closer to the surfers to photograph them, but nothing made the experience unpleasant, it added to the atmosphere of the day and made me feel closer to the situation of the people I was photographing. It was difficult to keep my camera away from the splashes from the waves, but luckily I managed to keep it mostly dry and free of sand. The entire time I wanted to be in the water with the surfers, getting as close as I could to capture the photographs. In the future i'd like to invest in an underwater housing for my camera which will give me much more opportunity for photographing in situations like this, and allow me to be a lot more creative as I wont have to worry about damaging my camera. Also an underwater housing will be useful when photographing in the snow.

I tried to capture most aspects of the competition, I didn't jut want shots of the surfers competing, I wanted shots of them preparing, coming in and out of the water, spectators on the beach, how the competitors interacted with each other and so on...

I decided to see what the images looked like in black and white, as I have been looking at a few black and white images of extreme sport and thought they had an unusual quality that I liked.  I like how the atmosphere of the image completely changes when it is in black and white. In a visual practice seminar group, one of the other students in the group mentioned that when in black and white the images look much less 'baywatch', which I agree with.. I think in colour the photographs look rather typical to what you imaging surfing to be. The black and white images I think allow you to focus on the people in the photographs rather than being immediately drawn to the colours. I think you get much more of a sense of what the subject is feeling at the time the photograph was taken. 

Varial, Paved With Gold exhibition. 24th October 2015

24th October was the launch night of the skateboard photography exhibition 'Paved with Gold', in which one of my photographs from the afternoon at DIY was featured. The exhibition was organised by the owner of Varial magazine, Tom Quigley.

This is the image that was chosen to be featured in the exhibition. I personally did not like this photograph at first and didn't even chose it to go into my sketchbook, as I thought it was way too dark and the skateboarder did not stand out enough. However I like it a little more after seeing it in print. 

I also worked at the exhibition on the launch night to help out sorting and selling prints. 

The exhibition night was also to celebrate the launch of issue 4 of Varial magazine. Throughout the next year I am aiming to have submitted a good amount of images to be considered for issue 5 of the magazine which will be released at some point next year.

Varial Magazine

As part of our professional practice module, we are required to look for work experience within our areas of interest. My main interests within photography are extreme sports. I am also interested slightly with lifestyle/documentary photography surrounding extreme sports, and at this stage, sports in general. 

My first point of contact was with Varial magazine, an east midlands skateboard photography magazine. I firstly sent an email to Tom Quigley, who runs the magazine. I inquired about any available placements, however was told that as it is only Tom who runs the magazine on his own,  there wasn't specifically opportunity for a placement, but he was happy to help me out. 

Tom showed me a skating spot in Nottingham called DIY and helped me out with a few tips on skateboard photography.

These are a few of the images I took at DIY

Some of the tips I was given in regards to skateboard photography, was to include in the shot the whole feature that the skateboarder is hitting, in this case it was the wall. Also I was advised not to use auto focus, and to focus manually on the feature and keep the focus until the skateboarder performed the trick, which would result in the skateboarder being in focus as well as the feature. These tips both worked really well when put into practice as I came out with clear, in focus images. If I was to do this shoot again I would get much closer to the feature and explore more creative angles and viewpoints.

As well as the action shots, I also took some more general, documentary style shots of the people at the skate park and what they were doing other than skateboarding, in order to try and represent their lifestyle. Most shots included people sat around, drinking beer on hand made furniture. One person was picking tomatoes out of a bush that was growing at the side of the skate park. 

Research - Red Bull Illume

It was interesting to see how some photographers produce their images. I was also interested to find out that certain aspects of images like these are set up, when they always look so spontaneous 

                                             http://www.redbullillume.com/stories.html


Researching for competitions to enter, I cam across Red Bull Illume, which is a competition for action and adventure sports. Whilst looking through previous entrants, I have picked out a few images that have inspired me to be much more creative with sports photography.

Photographer: David Lehl, Monument Valley USA
2013 Entry to Red Bull Illume
Category: Spirit

I find this image so inspiring as it highlights the reality of skateboarding, that it goes wrong, a lot. I also like how the image is funny, and the contrast between the beautiful setting in the background, and the messy fall happening right in the foreground. 

Photographer: George Karbus
2013 Entry to Red Bull Illume
Category: Close up

I like that this image is taken from such an unusual angle, something that people will very rarely be able to see. The rarity of this image is what makes it so interesting, I would like to explore things within sports that aren't usually seen.

Photograpgher: Lorenz Holder

2013 Entry to Red Bull Illume 

Winner of category 'Playground' and overall winner

I love that in this image, the snowboarder is not the dominating feature. It shows the creativity of this sport, that it's not 100% about sticking to the mountains. The image is stunning and the colors are dark and have a very eerie quality.

Photographer: Morgan Maassen
2013 Red Bull Illume Entry

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Photographer: Stuart Gibson
2013 Red Bull Illume Entry

The two images above, I like for similar reasons to the other surf image above, they are things that you would not normally see. I also like the images in black and white, as I am mostly interested in black and white photography for the project I am currently doing, as i think that they create a completely different atmosphere than if they were in colour.

Photographer: Rami Hanafi
2013 Red Bull Illume enrty

I love the simplicity of this image, how it is more about the composure and the formality of the image than the snowboarder, it is still a sports photograph, with a much different quality. The image feels isolated and very quiet, and perfectly represents what is feels like to be in the mountains, in such a daunting place with very few people around, which is a very big aspect of the sport that isn't usually represented in photography. 

Photographer: Zakary Noyle
Red Bull Illume 2013 entry

I am very interested in the technical skill within this image, I would love to learn how to create series images such as the one above, as I think this type of image is very useful within sport photography to show the stages of a performance, whilst at the same time being very visually interesting. 

Swadlincote Dry Slopes October 2015

 This was the first of 3 dry slope sessions with Trent Snowsports. Having been to the slope last year, I was already aware of what the area looked like, and the best places to be to get shots. The slope itself does not look fantastic for photographs, there are lots of large patches of mud and moss on the slope, and the surrounding area is fairly industrial looking and dull. To avoid catching most of the background and the muddy slopes, I decided to take very low angle shots, as the sky was mostly clear, and made a much more interesting back drop for these images. 

These two images are my two most successful from the shoot. in the image above I like how the pose/position of the snowboarder is not a typical representation of snowboard photography. My main aim within this project is not to only photograph when people perform perfectly, I want to record every aspect, including the things that go wrong, and the lifestyle surrounding the sports. 

In this image I like the height of the snowboarder, as he is directly against the blue sky and stands out very well. However I don't like the grass in the foreground as I think this makes the image look slightly messy.

At first I was generally happy with the composure and the colour of these images. However after presenting them in a Visual Practice seminar, I was advised to crop the images closer around the snowboarders to make them more visually interesting and to make the composure better.

After cropping these two images I agree that they are more interesting, as the snowboarders are much clearer and most of the unattractive background is no longer visible. I also decided to change the images into black and white, as I believe that the details in the images stand out much more in black and white, and they have much more of a documentary feel to them.

In the image below, after being advised to crop it, is my favorite image of the shoot, I like how the snowboard splits the image in half and is the dominating feature in the image now, as before the dominating feature was the sky, which was plain and uninteresting.