Most serious of the edits…Before and after

All in all for most of my photographs all i had to do was convert to black and white, up the contrast and clarity slightly and they were done. for me this just shows how much of an improvement I have made in my photographic skill as Im doing less editing in post production and getting it right in camera first.

Out of my final images these are the more serious edits. mostly in terms of cropping and slight rotations due to the 80-200m lens being heavy and me not holding the camera straight but I still think that these edits are still very minimal compared to some of the things I used to have to do.

CROP CROP BABY

Much better portrait crop, too much going on in the initial photo and detracts attention away from the DEACON AT THE FRONT.

WORST OF THE EDITS!

I didn’t realise my wide angle lens filter was slightly dirty and the exposure wasn’t long enough. i had a lot of spot removal and I turned the exposure up. Thanks to shooting raw i was able to save a nice image.

Slightly better crop… Slight angle straightening..

Again straightening…

Contact sheets for Mount Beulah

Roland Barthes Camera Lucida

“When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means that they do not (i)emerge(i), do not (i)leave(i): they are anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies.”
― Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

The describes the way I feel about my final images, and I suppose all my images. It  rings true with some of the things I have heard or read before.

Because of the nature of my photographs as in the subject is something that is slowly dying out. This particular style of church is viewed as overly traditional and out of date. The women in hats, dressed in white is not something that is always followed by all churches. the lines between tradition and religion are blurred and as the ‘church’ has already begun to evolve and change this one stays the same.

 These are images from El Shaddai church website. It is a local church in the area and Its here to highlight the point that the particular church I chose follows what may be seen as outdated practises.

What i learnt from Sara?…

We spoke about the different traditions of the sub categories i’d be exploring.

Dancehall is not something that I understood greatly. To me it promoted the negative and through my study i wanted to understand more about it. I aimed to be neutral and present the facts.

(google search for Jamaican Dancehall just to give an idea for those who don’t know)

We basically discussed the possible routes and how dancing in general has been a major part of Black culture. She sent me a link to this video about African Tribes Dances.

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/intl_tv-shows/2015/03/24/spc-inside-africa-kenya-dancing-c.cnnS

Religion- Christianity

I mentioned some of the traditions of the church in terms of the Lord’s Supper ceremony I would be photographing and She mentioned the Umanga Tribe in africa also wore white when taking part in Ancestral Ceremonies. The ceremonies were usually for calling upon Ancestral Spirits and I found this related to the belief in speaking in tongues aswell. I searched and searched and couldn’t find anything on the manga tribes.

What do I mean by religion?

So for those that don’t know my intention is to photograph a specific religion in the black culture. This would be Pentecostal/Apostolic christians.

Does it make a difference?

Yes as for me I feel the traditions of these beliefs are quite unusual to that of those who don’t understand it.

Ok…

Also I have a specific church in mind for this as the church is very traditional and old fashioned in some of its beliefs. I feel the images will work because their praises are seen as ‘alien’ not only to those outside the culture but also to some of the more modern people within it.

Why is that important?

The intentions of the brief are to produce images that are ‘exotic’. For me my images will need to be exotic in nature and this subject will be something unusual.