Assignment 1

I have finalised the set of 10 photographs, but still awaiting the delivery of the ink supply. I have also decided to buy more suitable paper, Pictorico Pro is just beautiful, but it does not do the justice to b&w. I have managed to successfully remove the reddish cast from my printed photos and have decided to print from Lightroom, which actually seems to give me enough control over the printing. I have given up Photoshop printing ages ago, as it never really made much sense with my setup, taking into account that I cannot use custom ICC profiles with my printer.

Urszula Jakubowicz

Documentary Photography

Student Number 501113

Assignment One – Local Communities

Produce a small photo essay of 10 images that demonstrates your engagement with the lives, experiences and histories of your local community and its people.

To meet the brief of this assignment I decided to photograph the Alderney Animal Welfare Society Jumble Sale, which aims at raising funds for this charity based organisation. Although I usually do not get myself heavily involved with the lives and events of the Island, this subject was the nearest to my heart and certainly it is the most honest account of my involvement with the community.

The local Jumble Sale in itself is quite an exotic event, it is the most bizarre 30 minutes one can experience, usually involving people fighting for second hand bargains. The event attracts all ages, all classes, people in need of something to wear, something to read or simply something to do on a Saturday afternoon. With this set of the photographs I wanted to showcase more than I ever experienced before during the Jumble Sale, my personal involvement (i.e. providing a cake for the cake sale), the preparations, the people helping to run the day, the gossiping, the variety of the characters the event seems to attract and the general atmosphere of the day. My day started at 10 am and finished at 16 pm, meaning that I was able to get to know the people involved with the event and therefore the process of the photographing was a pleasant experience for both, myself and my subjects.

For the project I used 23mm f1.4 Fujinon lens on my Fuji X Pro 1 and on camera bounced Nikon flash to just slightly lift the darker scenes. I chose to use higher ISO ranging between 1250 and 2500, as the lighting was tricky inside the very large room. I wanted to keep a larger depth of field and freeze the scenes with minimal blurring. I aimed to keep my aperture at no larger than f5, f5.6. The final b&w format was chosen in order to create more cohesive set, allowing the photographs to flow better.