'Salesman'

I am on a roll so I may as well keep posting... I just need to talk about these guys once more. Albert and David Maysles released the documentary 'Salesman' in 1969 and it follows the working lives of 4 bible salesman travelling across New England and Florida. It provides a fascinating insight into the stresses and struggles involved in this particular line of work.

I have loved watching documentaries since I was about 15/16. Some are better than others and it of course depends on the subject matter and how they are made, but the whole concept and idea behind documentaries themselves, fascinates me immensely.

At a time when cameras and video weren't as popular as they are now, watching these men behave and communicate amongst themselves and customers fills me with endless curiosity.
I feel comfort in hearing these men confide in each other and behave they way they do. The challenge and effort involved in negotiating with everyday people seems a task that requires the patience of a saint. These men sell bibles door to door all the while their boss is breathing down their neck wielding a no nonsense attitude and accepting no "excuses" or "alibis".

Personally, there's nothing I like more than spending hours sitting looking through piles of old photographs from my childhood and also members of my family's childhoods. Video footage of my mum and dads childhood doesn't exist due to lack of technology, but I find pleasure in viewing footage they both filmed during the 80s when they first met and up until their marriage. I love how I can experience life before I was born through these home videos.

I suppose this all ties in with my interest in documentaries. Especially documentaries as old as 'Salesman'. There are many factors about this particular documentary that I like: the fact it is in black and white, the mens clothes, the interaction between the men and potential customers, the ability to observe how life was like in that day and age (e.g. without advanced technology, TV, mobile phones etc.) and finally the connection the Maysles brothers have made with the salesmen and people on film.
Albert Maysles has a belief that whilst making a documentary, the person behind the camera, the person in charge of capturing moments on film - has this responsibility to record reality in it's purest form possible. As if the camera isn't even there. Trust has to be established. The bond between humans has to be there, otherwise the intent and purpose of the documentary begins to fade. The link I shared in my erstwhile post shows Albert Maysles explain why he makes documentaries, why he loves it and why his passion for it has remained since his first project in 1955, based around a mental institution in Russia. He talks of the trust and comforting energy he emits when meeting people he is going to later document. I spoke earlier of Maysles and his belief that the trust and bond between himself and his subject is the first step on the right path to a strong documentary.

I will post the link to 'Salesman' below.

Photo Editing with 'Afterlight'

Sat adding some graphics to photographs taken on my new phone just to play around with some features and I came up with these. It was fun working with the different colours and being able to choose the positions of the various shapes.
They're not based on any idea I had or on other photographers work, I just wanted to see what I could do with photographs I never had any initial plans for.

Photography experiments

I've been looking through some of the photographs I've taken over the last week and tried to fuse them together. Finding 2 photographs that blend together is tough. I'm not necessarily looking for two images with similar subject matter - but images that compositionally work together. 

Here is an example:

Because of the empty space on the left hand side of the photograph, this makes it perfect to combine with an image with perhaps an empty space on it's right hand side. 

Much like this one underneath:

As I said I'm not bothered about the two photographs being explicitly related. All I'm looking for are two images that would blend together and become connected like 2 pieces of a jigsaw (kind of).

In this case I felt there was enough free space to work with in both photographs. So I got to work bringing them together and manipulating things like colour, brightness, contrast etc. 

In the end I came out with 2 final images. Here they are below:

At this point I can't decide which one I prefer! But pleased at the result. I think the black and white version has more fuzz and blur ('noise' I think they call it?) in the background, which make the colour image more appealing.

For the black and white image I chose to crop out the wall on the right hand side. I feel it took away from the main subjects of the image. Saying that I don't mind it being in the colour version.

I guess if I was pushing to relate the two images I've combined, I could maybe make the point of saying the photograph of the person (Alice) pointing the camera towards the ground, is opposing the perspective in which the other image was taken (pointing upwards, from the ground). 

Nonetheless I enjoy fusing images together and will continue playing around with my photographs and posting the results!