The Documentary Photographer

This is an interesting set of images for me personally for several reason. These will become clear as you read the commentary with each photograph.

I've said before that parents are often the forgotten people on their childrens' wedding days. Despite the unfortunate positioning of the clothes line, I love this picture. (c) Roger Overall 2010

There was a strong smell of onions in the air. Hardly surprising when the groom had reversed a car over his father's freshly harvested onion crop. Here they survey the damage. A moment they'll both look back on with great humour in years to come. (c) Roger Overall 2010

A special photograph for so many reasons. It shows a small crisis involving some lost paperwork. It turned up in time, but this captures a little of the anxious moments. This is also a special photograph for a very personal reason. The priest you see here was at my father-in-law's side when he passed away and was of infinite comfort to my wife's family. He is also the man who christened my daughter. (c) Roger Overall 2010

(c) Roger Overall 2010

So you already know I'm the emotional sort and that I love my daughter (see previous post), so you imagine that I'm going to struggle a smidge on her wedding day. There is so much story here in the father of the bride's face as he watches the final preparations before he walks his daughter own the aisle. I see pride and I see love. (c) Roger Overall 2010

(c) Roger Overall 2010

(c) Roger Overall 2010

It’s good to be busy, so I’m not complaining. Here is a selection of photographs from five shoots in the past five days.

Corporate Assignment 1. (c) Roger Overall 2010

Corporate Assignment 2. (c) Roger Overall 2010

Corporate Assignment 3. (c) Roger Overall 2010

Wedding Assignment 1. (c) Roger Overall 2010

Wedding Assignment 2. (c) Roger Overall 2010

Being a documentary photographer is all about capturing the truth.

Kinda.

Sometimes the truth can be a bit slippery.

Take this photograph from a recent wedding for instance.

(c) Roger Overall 2010

What is going on here? Is this a slap or a caress? A gesture of anger or one of affection?

You can’t really tell.

As a documentary photograph, it’s a bit of a dud. Had I been less trigger happy and had I pressed the shutter a fraction of a second later, the story would have been clear. It is, in fact, a gesture of affection between the bride’s parents.

I thought I had something special, caught in the light of a summer’s day. When the shutter clicked, my heart lifted. I felt a real sizzle of excitement. When I saw the image on screen, my heart sank at the missed opportunity.

It happens. It’s part of being a documentary photographer. Problem is, what I do is important. Not heart-surgery important for sure, but I am given the privilege to photograph important moments in people’s lives and record them for posterity. So it really, really bugs me when I miss one – even by the slimmest sliver of a second.

What’s the secret to an arresting photograph? Hit play or click on the link below to find out.

(c) Roger Overall 2009

WeddingBoo #6 – Cutting Edge Photography

My wife came into the office earlier, wondering if I was all right. Apparently, I sound very glum in my John Hedgecoe Boo.

I’m happy to say I’m fine.

To prove it, here’s a picture from a wedding that’s going through the post-production cycle at the moment.

It made me smile. Children at weddings always do.

(c) Roger Overall 2010

Children are great at weddings. They really are. They get so bored. That means you never know what they’re likely to do at any given moment. That makes for great photographs.

There’s a problem, though.

It’s too easy.

If you watch a child long enough at a wedding they’ll so something remarkable.

Cute and remarkable is a powerful mix. Tons of documentary wedding photographs rely on this. Lots of mine do.

Worse still, these pictures end up being entered for awards, where they do very well. I should know. Photographs of children (mis)behaving at weddings have been at the heart of much of my award success in the past 12 months. My two winning panels at the 2010 National Photographic Awards featured children almost exclusively.

Nice, but in a wedding category, shouldn’t the focus be on the bride and groom?

Yes, it should.

Don’t think I’ll be handing any awards back, mind. I haven’t won nearly enough to start being dismissive of them.

Instead, I’ve set myself a rule for this year’s entries into the heats for the 2011 National Photographic Awards.

Absolutely, definitely, positively, NO children in any of the photographs whatsoever at all.

Except this one:

(c) Roger Overall 2010

Yesterday I revealed that this is the keystone of my photography:

“You are infinitely important to people you will never meet, including yourself.”

I’ve had quite a bit of feedback today. All of it good, especially when I’ve explained what I mean and how it could possibly relate to photography.

The best explanation I can give you is this photograph, which says it all:

My philosophy of photography. (c) Roger Overall 2010

I can’t explain it any clearer.

…

Okay, not everyone in the audience is getting it, so I’ll have to spell it out.

The concept works both for private individuals and for business clients.

Private individuals first. Answer me this question: Would you like to have great-great-great grandchildren?

Most of us would. I know I’d like to.

Thing is, you’ll never meet them. You’d like to think that your line will continue that far into the future, though. We’re talking around AD 2150-2200, give or take, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you are not going to live that long. I don’t care how much muesli you eat. You are never going to be invited round to their place.

Nevertheless, you could not be more important to them. Without you they will never exist. Just like you wouldn’t have been here were it not for your own great-great-great grandparents. Look at the cup cakes and the stand in the photograph above. Without each individual tier below it, the next tier up wouldn’t be able to stand. You’re the bottom tier, your descendants are the ones higher up.

And do you think that your distant descendants will want to know about you?

Of course they will. Unless you invade Poland or something, in which case they’re going to change their names and pretend they were hewn from pure amber by gypsy elves.

You get where I’m going with this?

More than any other form of photography, documentary photography is a wonderful way for you to connect with your unseen ancestors. For instance, the story of your wedding day told properly through photographs will reveal who you were, what you did, your history on that day, the emotions you felt. It is a window from the distant future all the way back to your past. It provides information that your great-great-great grandchildren will be so grateful for.

If you doubt this at all, just imagine having the kind of documentary photographs you’ve seen on this blog of your own great-great-great grandparents’ wedding. Tell me you wouldn’t cherish that.

That’s why it’s important to me that my private clients understand that their lives and their history have massive value, and because of that they are infinitely important to people they will never meet.

In part 3 I’ll explain why I added “including yourself”.

And in part 4 I’ll show how this works for businesses.

A lot of people think that documentary photography is about luck. Sure, sometimes luck plays a part, though as the saying goes: it often favours the prepared.

Anyway, here’s a photograph that looks lucky. In fact it wasn’t. It was anticipated.

(c) Roger Overall 2010

I took it at a wedding last weekend, while waiting for the bride to arrive.

The flower girl and pageboy were running in and out of the church – you’ve gotta do something to stave off boredom, right? I reckoned that if I could get somebody, preferably the bride with her dad, on the right of the frame and either of the children on the left we’d have an interesting photograph.

In Ireland, guests have a relaxed approach to turning up at the wedding ceremony. I’ve seen people, crowds of them, arrive half an hour late. Usually, things work out OK. Brides are, as is their prerogative, sometimes even later, which balances things out. So while I was anticipating the bride, four guests appeared instead.

Now all I needed was one of the children and I was in business.

Easy enough you’d think, but I was shooting with a Canon 5D II, which has the response of tortoise – a very lazy tortoise on Valium at that. I practically had to press the shutter release while the child was still in the building. I was a little late, as the girl’s bouquet is just nudging out of the frame. Nevertheless, her stance is good and I like the interaction between the outermost guests on the right.

Lucky? Hah!

I’ve been emailing Maurice O’Mahony, marketing manager at Karwig Wines, a lot these past couple of days. He hosted a private tasting of German dessert wines last week, to which I was invited.

It was a wonderful evening, and I offered to write a guest post for Karwig’s blog about it.

Turns out, my style of writing and Karwig’s house style don’t blend well. It’s a bit like mixing a Shiraz with a Chardonnay. Nothing inherently wrong with either, just not in the same bottle.

To be fair to Maurice, I can see his point. This was my opening to the post:

My mouth is quicker than my brain.

The words “I’m getting vomit” had passed my lips before my cognitive faculties had had a chance to apply a filter.

It went very quiet around the table.

We were, after all, talking about a half bottle of wine that goes for €14 retail.

Maurice didn’t bat an eyelid. “That’ll be the cheese,” he said.

The cheese, as the original post went on to explain, was an unctuous, gooey Brie de Melun provided by Paul O’Mahony, around whose dining room table the private tasting was taking place. While it was polluting my palette, delivering flavours akin to vomit, O’Mahonys Paul and Maurice (not related) were enjoying green apples, pineapple, a bit of lemon, that sort of thing, the erudite stuff.

Thing is, the Karwig Wines blog is a quality place. Not the kind of venue that’s going to let that sort of writing in. And who can blame them?

The whole thing got me thinking about voice – voice as in the distinctive voice of a writer or, more pertinently, a photographer.

My career as a photographer is starting to take off now that I have found a distinctive voice.

A distinctive voice means my photography speaks clearly.

A distinctive voice means my photography is heard.

A distinctive voice means it is heard by the right people.

A distinctive voice makes it easy for people to decide whether or not it is a good match for them.

Just as my photography isn’t a good fit for everyone, my writing isn’t either.

That’s a good thing.

It’s also a good thing that Maurice knows what is best for Karwig. He is also the consummate diplomat when it comes to telling guest contributors when the blend just doesn’t work.

A bit like chocolate and wine, as I learned the last week.

O'Mahonys Maurice (left) and Paul inspect one of the fabulous German dessert wines that Karwig stock. (c) Roger Overall 2010

[***UPDATE*** Maurice has blogged about our evening here: KarwigWines' Blog - Eiswein Tasting. It's a great piece. I'd forgotten about the Spike Milligan story. That's ironic. I told it.]

Back from Dublin, where I spent two days meeting with advertising and marketing agencies. It was a trip worthy of a blog post of its own. I’ll get round to that, just not today.

Today, I’m feeling in a wedding mood.

Spring must be in the air or something – or at least not too far away.

Here are some personal favourites from the last wedding I photographed in 2009. I remember it well. It hosed down. I got wet. Usual stuff. Fun couple to make up for it, though.