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News: New Photography project-hidden city

A

Andrew Brooks

New member
Hi there, I posted here a while back and said I'd keep this forum updated on my work, I've just finished a project all about hidden Manchester,

Here's a couple of shots, to find out more info and see them bigger visit this page on my site


I've also just put a Blog all about my work online which you can get to by clicking here

BigH.jpg





TownH.jpg
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Andrew,

I'm fascinated by your work which takes advantage of you, the photographer, not only having the skill to use the camera, but more importantly the acknowledgment that

"The creative mind gives us authority and pressure to deliver much more than a camera can possibly see." A.K

Still, it's necessary to add from your website:

"The images that emerge depict starkly beautiful urban scenes, empty but for the hollowed-out shells of buildings; cities suspended in the stars, imagined urban environments and serene pastoral scenes of the British countryside, seemingly real and at the same time untruthful in their vivid beauty."

That provides some minimal helpful context for viewing the photographic works, above!

I'd love you to write more on these first two pictures. Also if there are small sections that you would like us to know about, you might show these as a cutout.

Probably your pictures are best seen at at least 1200 pixels wide or with sections at 100%.

Thanks so much for updating us. Let's see more of these two images so we can explore better the impressive detail.
 
A

Andrew Brooks

New member
Hi Asher,
Thanks for the feedback, glad you like the images, been sitting on the project for some time now, so it's great to start showing them to people, there are 4 more on the website, the link is above, unfortunatly the gallery(URBIS)have asked me to limit the shots avalible for now, I will post more when they give me the go ahead.

Thanks again

Andrew
 
K

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Hello Andrew,

If I may offer one matter that seems a bit unsettling about this project's title.

"Hidden Manchester" strongly suggests a photojournalism project that pokes a lens into unseen places and offers a degree of visual and perhaps textual exposition about them. What I think most people would expect to see under such a title would be relatively straight, skillful photographs of Manchester's shadows and underbelly. (We have several such books of works about Chicago.)

Yet what you're presenting is something completely different. These are not documentary images and there's absolutely no evidence of exposition. Rather, you're presenting highly color-cooked ad-style scenes that have about as much relation to Manchester as to Paris, New York, or Warsaw. The scenes seem to have been selected primarily for their pliability in Photoshop rather than for their obscurity or interest to viewers.

I see that in your self-statement you state:
“The crucial element to my work is atmosphere…. No matter how much digital application is going on, the atmosphere and feel of a picture is always the most important thing.”
Click to expand...
These images certainly follow suit with your philosophy.

So here's my point and suggestion: Be honest and be frank. If you want to present highly styled and manipulated images, consistent with your existing oeuvre, by all means do so. But lead thematically with the fact that these are principally works of digital artistry based on photographs which, oh by the way, happen to be of places on the planet that you'll probably never see.

Just my immediate thoughts and opinion for whatever they may be worth.
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ken Tanaka said:
Hello Andrew,

If I may offer one matter that seems a bit unsettling about this project's title.

"Hidden Manchester" strongly suggests a photojournalism project that pokes a lens into unseen places and offers a degree of visual and perhaps textual exposition about them. What I think most people would expect to see under such a title would be relatively straight, skillful photographs of Manchester's shadows and underbelly. (We have several such books of works about Chicago.)

Yet what you're presenting is something completely different. These are not documentary images and there's absolutely no evidence of exposition. Rather, you're presenting highly color-cooked ad-style scenes that have about as much relation to Manchester as to Paris, New York, or Warsaw. The scenes seem to have been selected primarily for their pliability in Photoshop rather than for their obscurity or interest to viewers.
Click to expand...

Andrew,

I must say that I also felt this way, but I am seduced by the pictures and by those in the University of Saltford Series including the cube, views of the campus from up high and other unusual pictures. I really was taken back by you not delivering on your promise to lead me to the places you have found in parts of Manchester others might not know. I remember feeling a little cheated. However, I got so involved in your pictures that I forgot what led me there in the first place!

So I must agree with Ken that the orientation of your presentation might be directed to what your pictures really are, fantasies you create from your library of pictures.

The idea of having a compound window to the underside of Manchester is intriguing. I'd like to see it.

Asher
 
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