Urban Photographer Of The Year (2007!)
Follow the arrows! A compositional triumph.
I was looking through some of my photography books today. I was doing this to examine their printing methods in minute detail as I have inadvertently become an expert on these matters as my new book, Glas, enters the printing stage. It is really interesting to look at how these books are printed. Some use litho methods, and others are digital offset printed, and others use inkjet.
I am somewhat obsessed by these things at the moment. However, as I looked at books like “Magnum Magnum”, a compendium of amazing images from the Magnum agency, “Shaped By War” by Don McCullin, “Iceland Above & Below” by Hans Strand and “From The Land Comes The Cloth” by Ian Lawson, I realised that when I bought these books I paid no attention whatsoever to the printing method that had been used. I simply absorbed and appreciated the amazing photography within. My conclusion is that I have gone too deep down a rabbit-hole with Glas printing, and I should be confident that the end result will indeed be awesome and epic.
Getting back to the subject of this post. While I was digging out these books I found a copy of Digital Photographer Magazine from 2007 (you remember actual magazines that you bought in shops?). Why did I keep this I wondered to myself. Lo-and-behold the answer was in the “Photographer Of The Year” awards, where I had won Urban Photographer Of The Year from the shot above.
I had totally forgotten about this, and thought it was worthy enough to bring to everyone’s attention 18 years later through a blog post here. It is my trumpet and I’ll blow it if I want to. So what is the back-story behind this shot?
At the time I was a member of the erstwhile Guildford Photographic Society. I was trying desperately to win some sort of competition, or really just score more than a “7” (a “10” was a miracle shot, a “7” was average” and anything below was terrible. I got a “4” once). I thought I’d create an urban-style gritty image for the theme of “Out Of Place”. What more out of place than someone carrying out a commonplace task like ironing in a multi-storey car park? OK, I did briefly consider an inflatable Bart Simpson balloon in a war cemetery but thankfully rejected that idea.
I chose said car park, a crappy place in Guildford, and did a detailed reconnaissance. I thought I could use some of the arrows on the floor as a compositional aid. The big ceiling beams could also help with creating a dynamic-looking image. All I needed then was a subject and suitable props.
I recruited my daughter Charlotte. I was delighted that she was keen to join in. She thoroughly “got” the assignment, and thought her father was tremendously clever and creative. We grabbed the ironing board, an iron, and a basket of washing and headed off at about 10pm when the car park would hopefully be empty.
I was using a crop-sensor Canon 30D at the time, and had a Sigma 10-20mm very wide angle lens on to emphasise the lines in the composition. We tried quite a few different angles and nothing was really working until I put the ironing board right at the point of the huge directional arrow on the floor. Some more tweaking of positions resulted in aligning the arrow on the sign and the other arrow on the floor to join in, pointing towards Charlotte and the ironing board.
Photographically I ended up at f/4, 1/3rd sec and ISO 100. This was enough to keep everything sharp on the crop-sensor camera with the ultra wide angle, and Charlotte kept still enough for 1/3rd sec to work nicely. Bosh! Shot done. It’s funny how sometimes you just know you’ve got the shot as soon as you press the shutter release.
Some “gritty” post production later and you have the shot above. After I had submitted it to Digital Photographer and won the Urban Photographer Of The Year, I put it into the competition at Guildford Photographic Society. The external judge seemed unimpressed until someone let slip that it had won this Digital Photographer award. The judge then, somewhat reluctantly, gave is a “10”. My first and only ever “10”. Well worth it.