Branding, Sudo names and Alias.

Now I'm increasing my exposure digitally through the projects ran by Jonathan Worth and my own attempts to get noticed I find myself looking to build my own identity. It's an important issue to be tackled rapidly as the time for launching my website is fast approaching. I already own my domain name (pauljhogan.co.uk) and have started to assemble a basic style and frame work of how the website will look really to pass of to someone with design ability and less hatred for flash and dreamweaver, but i still question my choice of name...

My major problem is what to call myself. Domain names are inexpensive and whilst I now own one it does not yet bare any weight tot he decision I'm struggling to make. My birth name whilst not as common as John Smith, is shared my with a quite famous Australian actor.

From a very young age I became an expert in crocodile jokes and knife identification and whilst I don't mind my namesake's crocodile wrestling ability I am starting to find his domination of search engines a major hindrance. But am I making an Air's rock out of a Rugby brick? One of my tutors names is Paul Smith and I can tell you immediately he's not very good at designing coats and the thought of him on a Vespa scooter tickles me inside.

Building the Paul Hogan brand, or whatever name I go under is a very important issue. It will define me as a photographer and be a reflection of the trust and confidence I build up with potential and repeat clients. My business background understands what it means for a company to have a bad reputation and how quickly bad spreads compared to good. So media interfaces such as this blog and my website should be created to accurately reflect me and my work. Does this mean the end of 4am drunk Facebook updates? well... no. But it does mean I will be very careful on who can see my Facebook as that media outlet will stay personal, whilst twitter, the bloggersphere and whatever 'My-face' networking site becomes popular next will bare the brunt of my professional image.

Whatever decision I make in regards to my public name, I need to make it soon. My Flickr account has received a nice 3,277 views in the last 3 months. The sooner i can stick to one name, the sooner I can build a brand and monetise it. Student loans don't last forever.

#Picbod returns No.1

Hectic week. I'm all too aware that this project only lasts 10 weeks and the pressure to get this right first time is, while self inflicted at this point, remains strong. For the first time in 7 months I have decided to use film for this project. Having got used to the ease of processing digital images in software such as Adobe's Lightroom package, handling film and the processing and scanning time seems so inefficient. However I want the highest quality results in printing at the end of this project and the best way i can find to do this on a budget, is to do it myself on fibre based paper.

To limit the stress on the scanners I'm continuing to use my mk 2 5d as much as possible for the supporting images and for week two JW has asked us to focus on 'our own tribe', by this he means people that we know well or personally, family members or close friends. I found week ones task especially difficult as I am one of those photographers who up until very recently had never approached someone on the street to ask them to take their picture. I'm also not a person who shoots his own tribe, I prefer to go un-noticed in the background and to work quietly there. But change is good so I have embraced the task with open arms.

My images of strangers are due to hit the scanners on monday morning, but while I wait for the opportunity to process them I have at hand my week two responses, or at least the first part of them.

Rosie was kind enough to be one of my test subjects for this project. It is a role she has done well for me previously but I have never 'followed through' with my execution in sessions with her before. This image was one of around 90 taken over the space of an hour. The intention was not to work through a series of poses, but to work through a dialogue. The set starts with her eating lunch and ends with this quite blank reaction to the simple question of 'can you think of something you don't want to tell me?' Im really going out of my way to loose my flash dependancy.

Im quite fond of my lighting rigs and use them even when the natural/available light is good enough to ensure proper exposure to all areas. So these experiments where large parts of the capture are under or over-exposed are new to me.

This image isn't quite as crisp as I'd like but it has captured my mother's character quite well (sorry mum).  The only time I was able to make her sit down long enough was well into the evening so this set of images (this is one of 40) was taken quite late at night with a regular lamp for lighting. Again, this was more of an exercise in capturing personality than flattery. I will be taking those highly polished, staged images towards the latter weeks so it was important for me to start raw. My mother hates the camera so this was a new experience for us both. I have previously only managed to ever get one other picture of her, which I have entered into some competitions this year and that only happened because I took it without her knowledge.

Breaking down years of well placed barriers and boundaries to really capture a family member or friend is definitely one of the hardest things I've attempted. I will spend some time this weekend with the Mamiya I have out on loan currently for taking some portraits of longstanding friends. If I can break down these barriers I should be able to get some really nice images. I need to work on my view-finding skills in the next batch of images I take, and start to bring together all the aspects of good light,  comfortable but personal interaction with the model and a professionally executed exposure. I will be working more on all of this over the weekend and will post the results after tuesdays lecture. Until then it's time to hit the books and the internet in search of some inspiration for my final piece and some serious writing to define where I feel I stand in regards to portraiture theory. No sleep for the wicked.....

Picturing the body. The module and the response

This term see's me taught for the first time by jonathan Worth who is fast becoming the rising star of the photographic industry. The module, 'picturing the body' will set me weekly tasks which I will be required to respond to here on this blog and in picture form.

The first weeks challenge is to respond to intimate and private portraits, tackling the breakdown of the relationship between photographer and subject. It required us to find complete strangers and take their portraits in an attempt to break into there personalities a little and break down the walls of misconception, fear and ego to record something meaningful. Once this was completed we were free to capture a picture from people we knew and encouraged to draw from many sources to return next week with an overview and wide reaching response to the brief.

I travel daily to Coventry from my home in Northampton and decided very early on that I wanted to focus on the trains I catch and the people on them. I think there is an additional barrier on trains, induced by people just waking up or turning off after a long shift and on my first attempt I was flatly refused by every single person I tried to strike up a conversation with. We all I'm sure know the situation. Your tired, the seats are far too small and it's a strategy to place your luggage around you to construct a cocoon. This forms a bubble of personal space in a very impersonal location. Anyone attempting to breach this bubble will surely be met by hostilities?

Once I break this barrier down I have been told I'm on a quest for a defining moment. A moment that changes the relationship between photographer and subject or the point in which the floodgates of emotion peer open and an eye appears through the crack. But previously in my work I have gone out of my way not to be noticed so how will I know when I find it? My usual first point of research is the internet and a google search on that statement will provide you with hundreds of clips of a japanese TV show and the occasional Barack Obama speech.

Between now and then I have lined up my family in front of the tripod for a different take on personal v's private. If forming a working relationship with a stranger is difficult, then surely stripping the layers of well built barricades between family members must be even more difficult? Getting my girlfriend to relax in front of the camera on holiday is difficult enough, how difficult will it be this time when my sole focus is on her? I shall find out at the weekend.