Assignment Five: Narrative and Illustration

Introduction

This was a difficult assignment in terms of generating a workable concept. I brainstormed many ideas, and settled on an idea I thought interesting. After attempting it in a practical sense, it transpired to be largely unworkable and not as inspiring as it looked on paper, so the idea was abandoned.

Then followed more brainstorming, but nothing particularly appealed. I then had an idea that I thought I could work with – street performers. I am in major cities fairly often, and see all manner of street performances, both musical and theatrical. The main ideas I wanted to convey in my assignment were the following:

• Different types of performers.
• The locations of performers.
• Differences in the amount of equipment used by performers.
• Public reactions
• The performer’s own experience at the moment.

The brief calls for between 6 and 12 images. Once I had my collection of images together taken at multiple locations, I found the required number quite limiting. I have selected the images that I think best represents variety, and thus contrast between the images.

 Front Cover

 

For the front cover image I wanted to juxtapose certain elements so that the average person would recognise it as an image of a ‘street performer’. An instrument or props/costume would be necessary, as would a container used to collect money, and a sense of the environment so it could be seen this was an informal public performance, not in a concert hall or theatre.

I ultimately chose the above image for the cover as it contains all of the above elements, but I also think the guitar is quite unusual and attractive, and I like the more exotic way of holding the guitar almost vertically when playing this fingerpicking style of guitar; I feel this creates a dynamic ‘diagonal’ in the image. The complimentary colours of blue and orange also add to the dynamism. The advertising board behind the guitarist gives away that this is a public space, and some coins can be seen in the open guitar bag. The guitarist is using his small amplifier as a makeshift stool, and a shopping trolley bag can be seen behind, which was evidently used to transport some of the equipment. 

  Pages 2-3

 

On opening the front cover, you are presented with a two-page spread. The left side is concerned with the same guitarist featured on the cover. The top image shows the same scene from a different angle and with a wider perspective. In contrast to the cover image, the audience (or rather lack of) can be ascertained here. This musician was producing an amazing sound, but there was hardly anyone there to hear it (which isn’t evident from the cover image). The woman nearer the escalators gives a cursory glance, but the woman in front takes no notice whatsoever. This image creates a contrast with some of the images latter in the magazine, with busy environments and bustling crowds.

The bottom-left image is one I initially wanted to use for the cover as I find it aesthetically pleasing, with an interesting perspective and the player’s eye-line which brings attention to the chord-playing hand, however I didn’t think there was enough environmental detail for it to be clear that it was an image of a busker.

The bottom-right image is an almost ‘behind-the-scenes’ view, and to me it really highlight’s this performer’s minimal setup; a guitar, amp, and a bottle of water. This sparseness feels reflected in the top image of an almost empty London Underground station.

I have placed these images side by side with the image on the right, another guitar player, but this scene already feels more overt and dramatic. There is colourful outdoor lighting instead of pale indoor fluorescents, lots more equipment and cables, and the Elizabeth Tower housing Big Ben creates an imposing backdrop. The performer’s strumming hand is blurred, showing fast motion, and passion is evident in the face.

Pages 4-5

The image on the left is another show of drama, this time a fire-eater outside Bath Abbey. I think a strong compositional element here is that of the fire-eater’s curved body, set against the straight line of the crowd which extends beyond each side of the frame. This contrast of shape attracts attention on a subconscious level before the actual content of the frame itself is perceived. Scanning the crowd behind the performer, there are many interesting faces to observe; the three adults a cross between excitement and bemusement, and the children showing a range of emotions, from shock to fear to amazement. Although the performer here is clearly the main subject, it is actually the crowd that is more interesting for a viewer looking at the still frame. That is one of the main threads that I tried to follow in this assignment; the crowd reaction to the performer’s antics.

The three images on the right depict an opposite experience to that of the fire-eater. There is a depiction of the ‘everyman’, but who has an extraordinary talent. This is a completely bare-bones display, with the most minimal equipment. My intention here was to show how this person stopped crowds of people on a cold winter’s day with beautiful melodies from Les Misérables. In the bottom left image people young and old are practically queuing up to drop coins into his bag. With his ordinary clothes and very minimal equipment, it gives the feeling he has stopped to give an impromptu performance.

Pages 6-7

The next two-page spread in the feature shows the more elaborate and vibrant side to busking. On the left is a rare glimpse of a costumed performer, Shakespeare’s Ghost, who is seen without his headwear, effectively breaking the illusion for this short period of time. The podium on which he stands evidently doubles as a storage box for some of his props.

The images on the right depict the extreme theatrical end of a street performance. Also, in contrast to all the other performers featured, the crowd plays an active as well as a passive role. Willing participants, in exchange for a cash donation, can pose for photographs with characters from Alice in Wonderland. This was a very popular ‘performance’, and had a prime location in busy Camden. Unlike the singer from Stratford-Upon-Avon, it is obvious that this was no impromptu performance, and it took a great deal of preparation. The attraction is not on what the performers do, but on what they represent to great effect. Their efforts then, in order to attract donations, are almost exclusively based before the performance, in terms of applying makeup and costume, and arranging props

Pages 8-9

With this final performer there is no pomp or glitz. He is in a rather bland underground passageway, with unattractive fluorescent lighting. His clothes are scruffy, and his basic and ordinary-looking equipment is barely holding together. Even the hat he has placed on the floor to collect donations has seen better days. The overview shot on the left gives this overall impression, but behind the performer can clearly be seen some kind of musical quotation, which although can’t be read in full, gives a sense of elegance to the untidy appearance of the performer. The images on the right more closely depict the state of disrepair that I am trying to emphasise on these pages. The poor condition of this performer’s clothes and equipment gives rise to the question of whether this person is busking to generate money literally in order to buy his next meal, or whether it is all part of the ‘street musician’ image.

Back Cover

This final image I envisioned as a full back cover for the magazine. It is uncaptioned, as my intention is for the reader to interpret this image in their own way. For me, the lonely guitar case, open to accept coins, signifies the often solitary existence of buskers, as seen in many of my images. The light on the case shows that buskers will often work into the hours of darkness, and in my mind is also a metaphor for this whole magazine article, which ‘shines a light’ on many facets of street performance.

Meeting the Assessment Criteria

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills

In this assignment I have attempted to pull together several elements learnt in previous parts of the course, such as shape, colour, focal lengths, light, and composition and to then inject them into my narrative. I can describe some of these elements below:

Page 5, Top Left: The cold winter’s day is complimented and emphasised by the ‘cool’ colours in the frame; the singer’s blue clothing, the blue shop signs and blue gazebo, and the green bag. The green also creates a ‘point’ of colour, highlighting this item’s importance: Getting donations into this bag is the overall objective for the performer.

Cover and Page 2, Top Left: Here the use of different focal lengths and frame orientation show two versions of the same event. In the first image it may be construed that the guitarist is performing to a large crowd. The second viewpoint proves otherwise.

Page 4: Here there are two contrasting elements of design; the static verticals of the Abbey windows and the crowd of people, upon which is superimposed the curved, dramatic form of the fire-eater. 

Page 7, Both Images: Letting the crowd extend past the limits of the frame reinforces and gives an infinite size to the crowd.

Page 9 Top: Using a shallow depth of field as well as a closer viewpoint brings further attention to the hands.

Overall, I also cover a range of lighting situations, such as colourful artificial outdoor lighting, daylight, and fluorescent lighting.

In terms of post-processing, there was just a little on various images in terms of noise-reduction, cropping, and black-and-white conversion.

Quality of Outcome

I think that my images work together as a set, both in a contrasting and complimentary way. The thematic thread of street performers provides the overall picture, within which I then explore sub-themes, such as the variety of performers, audience size, audience reaction, and the performer’s motives. I then group and reference certain images together to explain differences, similarities, or different views of the same scene. Examples would be the comparisons between those performers with minimal equipment and those with much, and differing locations between performers, and the impact of this on their potential audience. I also explore multi-perspective groups of images, such as those on pages 8-9 showing various aspects of a single performer, with the captions explaining why it was worth bringing attention to.

 

Demonstration of Creativity

I think my creativity has been allowed to flourish by using many of the concepts explored earlier in this course. My choice of a thematic narrative rather than one of timeline also gave more scope for variety in my images, than a simple record of a sequence of events would allow.

My idea of incorporating the audience into the analysis of a scene is also a departure from a more standard set of images which focus exclusively and predictably on the performer. Certain images especially have a second layer that can be ‘read’; an example would be the image of the fire-eater on page four – scanning the faces in the audience and noting their individual reactions provides much interest, and thinking about this further, there seems to be a clear distinction between the reactions of the adults and that of the children; although the adults are clearly enjoying the show, they are less ‘shocked’ by the spectacle, as they clearly have more years and thus experiences than the children. Another example would be the images on pages 8-9 of the keyboard player. At surface level these are photographs of a busker, but my zooming in on certain elements brings certain details forward that give rise to questions regarding the performer’s circumstances.

Context

Much of my inspiration for this assignment came from my own previous work, namely the street photography project from assignment three, and the narrative project in part five where I photographed the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham. The materials I researched for those exercises, especially that for assignment three, was also relevant here as it is essentially another street photography project.