Kat Waters Photography

POST #71- Armistice

Note: please try to ignore whatever's happened to the font size; I'm working on it.

In my last post, I only skittered over some of the issues that surround a particular aspect of photography nowadays; that issue was the photography of children. This time I'm going to go over something particularly close to my heart at the minute, as I near the end of my first year studying photojournalism with some new thoughts on the matter. You see, when I'm not boring the living daylights out of my family, friends, boyfriend, lecturers, flatmates and Falmouth's stray cats and bus drivers with my latest reflections on documentary photography, I'm sulking into a mug of tea with the same questions on my mind.

In this series of photographs, I visited The Poppy Factory in Richmond, which is near to where I hail from originally and conveniently near to where my dad works (I love it when the transport works out, as it rarely does in Cornwall). Established in 1922, the Factory has been helping injured, sick and disabled ex-servicemen and women and their dependents by giving them employment that may be hard to find elsewhere. 

It's inevitable that a photographer attends a shoot with certain expectations, and hearing 'Moves Like Jagger' over the sound system on my arrival wasn't one of them. Not that I was necessarily expecting Vera Lynn's 'White Cliffs of Dover', or even 'Run Rabbit Run', but there was something jarring about the passive, businesslike way that the employees assembled the wreaths and posies with which we remember the dead.

Many of my ethical qualms with photography have been that the focus in ‘issues-based’ photography is so monotonous- we claim to shoot from the perspective of ‘raising awareness’ of our subjects but often the genuine empathy is conspicuous only in its absence. And yet I suspect that this is not deliberate; we simply don't know how to emphathise any more. Each day we're confronted with a different variety of misfortunes via the newspapers, morning TV shows, internet sites- dare I say it, Twitter- and it has become more and more usual to receive these bulletins accompanied with a photograph. The news is no longer a man or woman sat at a desk reading- we don't listen with our ears any more, we listen with our eyes. It's easier to look at a photograph and rely on our initial response than fully embrace the gravity of what's happening, or indeed to grasp our own relativity to the situation. I blame the rise in 'slacktivism' on this- slacktivism is the idea that by sharing a photograph or piece of text through social networks we are somehow feeding starving children in Africa, or stopping deforestation. From the comfortable platform of Western civilisation we can only despair at the sight of a child thinner than we could ever have imagined, but simultaneously we are so used to the adverts and poster appeals that we are no longer hit by the true meaning, and have become anaesthetised to seeing horrors. But it's not necessarily our fault; in evolutionary terms our minds are best suited to deal with small social groups, with problems that we have a greater degree of control over. If we are sad or angry, it is likely that the issue is within our grasp, not halfway across the world. Susan Sontag's essay Regarding the Pain of Others has some interesting points on this matter and I'd thoroughly recommend a read.

I digress (as per usual). At the Factory, I met a variety of characters from various backgrounds, most of whom were living with some kind of disability- auditory, visual, mobility, etc.- and settled comfortably into my habit of forgetting that I am in fact a photographer and chatting to the employees for countless hours. At some point I remembered I had a camera round my neck, and by this time many of the employees were used to my bumbling presence.

There's something about taking a portrait that comes alive when you have a connection with the subject. Certainly an hour long natter about the Isle of Wight would no doubt be considered a huge waste of expensive time in the industry, but when you're dealing with a subject who has been through any kind of ordeal, it's just too easy to take a black and white portrait and call it 'poignant', and claim that we understand the difficulties faced by an amputee, a terminally ill patient, an immigrant alone in a country that resents them. We may flatter ourselves that we can grasp the misfortunes that have befallen them, but at heart

This is why I have chosen to show these two photographs instead of one of the numerous portraits of the Factory's employees.

KW

POST #70- O Children

Ok, I don't want any funny comments about 'taking photos of children'; like most well-adjusted adults I will always put the safety of my subjects first and in this instance I will be keeping things as anonymous as possible.

However, if the media carries on the way it's going, there'll be a lot of very confused people looking back on old records of the past. Pixelated faces and scrubbed out eyes... when I was a wee'un, say, in the early 90s, I was considered somewhat adorable. Having my face in publications was the occupational hazard of being ruddy cute (and nothing at all to do with having a photographer for a father...). I also distinctly remember the turn of the millennium, pottering around with one of those awful bouncy headbands that were so popular in 'ye oldens', except instead of having polyester animals or streamers that were all kinds of flammable, I had a glittery pair of '2000's dancing over my head. Naturally this was kind of eyecatching, albeit kind of hideous, and caught the attention of two old French soldiers, who asked my parents if they could take a photo of me. At the age of six or seven, I naturally basked in the attention, the two old chaps took their photos, and we went our separate ways. Photographic magazines would run assignments on taking candid photos of children, something which would nowadays be considered sinister, voyeuristic, bordering on the obscene. It's any parent's instinct to protect their children, and yes, there are some unsavoury characters out there. But Robert Doisneau's photographs of children playing in Paris are surely proof that sometimes it's worth it to catch that joy and that innocence that we so miss when we're growing up.

Believe it or not, there's nothing wrong with this photo. Or the original of it, anyway. However, this has got a distinctly aged and- dare I say- hipsterish look that I hope you will excuse, and if you don't, then that's up to you. This is actually a digital image of a classically produced work print. I wanted to find a way of reducing the quality of the image to make it less, ahem, informative, but what could I do? Scribble over the eyes? Pixelate the face? No, no. Too crude. So I shone a light at a slight angle, a la Olivia Arthur, and set the shutter speed to slow, just to give an impression of blur. The result- I HOPE- has a sort of daguerreotype look to it that I actually think worked out rather well! I do surprise myself sometimes, you know.

KW

POST #69- Details in the Fabric

Forgive the dubious Jason Mraz reference. And yes, I really feel that an apology is necessary. I very nearly called this post 'The Needle and the Damage Done' after the astronomically cooler Neil Young, before I realised that this could potentially come across as rather insulting to the very talented lady in the photographs. Not to mention imply some kind of drug use, which isn't what I'm getting at at all. This is Nicola, from Lyrebird, which is a small dressmaking business a couple of miles out from Falmouth.

She was my second shoot under the brief 'The Person At Work'. By this time, most of my classmates were turning in shoots of the most weird and wonderful subjects, and there's a kind of unspoken rule in the Press Gang that you don't shoot the same as someone else. Even if it's a photographer's natural instinct to approach things differently anyway. But it just seems kind of respectful to the photographer who got in first, I suppose. But sometimes it's bloody annoying.

So I had the idea to photograph a seamstress, and a quick Google showed that there were several in the area. I rang a few, and found Nicola (a former Falmouth student herself) was perfectly up for the shoot, so the next day I hopped on the bus with three rolls of film not really sure what to expect.

As a photographer, you always approach shoots with some expectation of what you'll snap. It's just human nature to try to plan ahead, but in the end it does very little good. In fact it can be detrimental, because the minute I turned up at Lyrebird my first thought was 'Oh cripes', or perhaps something a little less pre-watershed.

Nicola herself is extremely photogenic, and the lighting was soft and delicate. However, her studio also doubles as her shop (which sells all kinds of delightful homemade knick-knacks) so the setting was a little tricky to photograph- plus the cutting table took up most of the shop area, so there were very few angles to be had. Without physically climbing on things, that is, and I doubt I have the cat-like agility that this would require.  

This last image is my favourite, probably because I've been shooting in 35mm for so long I miss the freedom of a square crop. Cropping is blasphemy on my course, but hey- this is my blog. My blog, my rules, boy.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to my sub-London home, and my room is looking like your typical journo-nest, littered with books, energy drink cans and coffee dregs, so I'll love you and leave you for now.

KW

POST #68- Shield Your Eyes

These photos are from their show at London Scala last year, and were shot using the apple of my eye, the Hasselblad XPan. I've missed this camera terribly since moving down to Cornwall, despite its rib-bruising bulk and dubious amount of parallax. However, it was perfect for this gig, as it has the option to switch between normal 35mm and panoramic settings. So if I wanted a fuller frame that showed more of the stage, I flipped it onto panoramic, and could easily click it back to normal if I wanted a more traditional framing. It was terrific fun. The best part was probably sitting in the pit, which, for a fairly short lass like myself (not to mention a lazy one...), was a godsend.

Peter, Matt, Will, Scott and Jon, and of course, manager Stephen, here's to you. And of course, a big shout out to my dad, who's been nagging me to post these since forever.

Now let's all listen to the album.

KW

POST #67- Cars

This is the slightly awkward moment when I finally start posting the images I've actually been shooting since becoming a photography student. The most important message I gained from my experience on the YPA Mentoring scheme from photographer Justin Sutcliffe was that, to be a photographer, communication is essential. Retaining a web presence comes under this umbrella- keeping my work visible, that is- hence why it's slightly embarrassing to be posting shots from last October... in March.

In my (rather pitiable) defence, time has flown. It seems like only days ago I was out on the beach in the October sunshine with my flatmates, when in fact it was only days ago that I was out on the beach in the March sunshine. Not that university is all fun and games- I'm currently getting WAY too into the two historical and critical research projects that we've been set (I found a deeply interesting book on the Black Power movement in the library as a result of research, as well as some really interesting literature on gender theory) as well as organising shoots for our latest projects. As well as that, there's the workbooks and printing to be getting along with- oh, and I'm knitting a patchwork quilt.

So, these are photos from the very first shoot I did down in Falmouth (which is in Cornwall, for anyone who's had the misfortune not to have heard of Falifornia), a project entitled 'The Person at Work'. After the initial thrill of researching photographers such as Sebastiao Salgado and Lewis W Hine, there came a sense of desperation- how was I to produce images with half of the impact of the work of these masters? But one can grow old comparing oneself to others, and so I got my arse in gear and phoned up the local garage.

My 'simple' idea, then, of photographing the mechanics, actually turned into an enjoyable shoot- I turned up as they were opening and spent a while chatting, having a cup of tea, and playing with their dog. I spent around two hours shooting four rolls of films. 

The images I feel work the best are the ones that capture subtle emotion or communication in the mechanics; the actual 'working' could have been shown more explicitly. There were images from this shoot that fitted the actual brief much better, but these weren't necessarily the ones I liked most. 

So, that was my first shoot in Falmouth.

KW

POST #66- I Will Remain

From time to time, everyone has a motivational crisis. You start wondering if you're doing the right thing, wondering why you don't feel as passionate as you did before. Or maybe this is just me.

Anywho, before you start to despair that I'm signing off as a photographer, I'm here to say I'm slowly clawing back my mojo, whatever a mojo is. That's not me saying that my photography has improved massively, but that I haven't been feeling particularly inspired recently. I found myself enjoying my writing a lot more than my photography, and discovered I was flicking through newspapers in the flat kitchen, wondering if I'd turn out to be just another photographer for a smalltown newspaper with more spelling and grammatical errors than actual news. This was also coupled with the realisation that most of the photographs on the 'real news' are shot in warzones, when I know I work best on an intimate story where I can spend time getting to know individuals. The stories that draw me in are the quirky ones- not to say that they are whimsical or light-hearted, but the ones that aren't necessarily all over the headlines.

This is all said with no disrespect to conflict photographers; I've met a fair few and they're extremely passionate and courageous people. But I reject the idea that there's any pinnacle of photojournalism, and that conflict photography sits at the top.

It was during a lecture on Monday morning that the spark reappeared. I looked over my knitting (I'm making a patchwork quilt, FYI) as one of our course leaders began to speak. He spoke about his own life as a photographer, and how you can find a hook into a story through reading other news, from talking to people down the pub, from discovering interesting statistics. I started remembering tims when I'd been reading the news, or talking to friends, and had paused for a moment to wonder how I would photograph a certain topic that had captured my imagination.

Of course, it's all easier said than done, and living in the outback of British civilisation doesn't exactly help when there are projects that I'd like to follow up in Costa Rica or Japan. You need an idea, yes, but you need research, funding, background knowledge... I mean, there's no way I'm going to Japan when the extent of my language skills are 'Good Afternoon'. But my point is that I'm remembering what I love about photography- the curiosity.

I've named this post 'I Will Remain' after the song by Matthew and the Atlas for two reasons, the first and foremost being an attempt at persuading myself and my readers that this blog will start to be updated much more regularly. And the second being that it was the song that was playing on my iPod when I drove over the border to Cornwall to start university for the first time, full of ideas and motivation.

Oh, and the image is of the South Bank in London.

K

POST #65- Weights and Measures (Part 2)

Let's just not mention how much time has elapsed since the last post. But I should probably say Happy Chinese New Year. And Happy Generic New Year too, because it's been that long.

So my last post was all about the Young Photographer's Alliance Mentoring Project, a superb scheme that transformed me from a layabout student with a full-time job to a layabout student with a full-time job and a full-time passion, neither of which I had time for in the run-up to university. But the combination of my nutty job and the Mentoring scheme, which led me to produce some of the best photography I've ever churned out, made the summer of 2011 a rather incredible time for me. So I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone at work, and the folks who are responsible for my place on the YPA scheme- Chris and Karen Coe, Erin Moronay, and of course my wonderful mentors, Justin Sutcliffe and Sophie Batterbury.

The brief- energy. How do you encapsulate something so broad in four photographs? I initially had a plan to do something involving dance, and my brother's girlfriend and I passed many commutes thinking about various interpretations of this. However, as I realised the true extent of how screwed I was for time, my mentors and I knew that I needed to step down the ambition. I'd need to focus on one subject that showed energy. The end subject arose from a conversation with my good old dad, and that subject was female weightlifters.

After seven years at an all girls' school that was both feminist and counter-feminist (i.e. 'don't be held back by the fact that you're a woman*... look at these amazing women who succeeded DESPITE the obvious impairment of being a woman'), it seemed a bit hypocritical to choose something specific to my own gender, but the further I delved into weightlifting as a sport, the more I realised how well it encompassed the theme of energy, and how opposite the girls were to the stereotypes.

I visited Sutton and Epsom Weightlifting Club on four separate occasions, with a variety of cameras. There was no doubt from the start that I'd be using film; they called us the 'Reportage' team, and reportage was exactly what I wanted to produce. Classic, scrummy, grainy, black and white reportage. Mmmm. So, armed with my Baby Rollei, Olympus OM1, Hasselblad XPan II and some kind of Pentax beast with the most sensitive shutter I've ever wasted two rolls of film using, I produced a shedload of images that was edited down to these four.

Although there were fellas at the weightlifting club, I edited the final four to include the girls for the simple reason that they look so strong, so energetic, and so... good. Be honest, when I said 'female weightlifters' you probably imagined a spandex clad hulk of a girl who looked as though she'd been carved from a block of Spam. Wrong.

Sue

Sam

Sam

Sunny

The panoramics were shot with the Hasselblad XPan, a camera that I despised at first but grew to adore. I chose to use this format for the shots of the girls lifting as the length echoed the weights themselves, acting to kind of draw attention to them. The squares were shot on 127 film in my Rolleiflex, using a handheld flash to create a sort of 'flash and blur' effect that was supposed to capture movement and give a vivid look to the images.

The images have been on display in the Calumet Gallery in New York, and will hopefully be coming to London sometime soon (I'll keep you posted). Once again, thanks to Chris, Karen, Erin, Justin, Sophie, and of course Phil Nourse and the other good folks of Sutton and Epsom Weightlifting Club.

KW

*it was just a little bit transphobic, to say the least...

POST #64- Weights and Measures (Part 1)

So, after many moons, here are my photographs from the Young Photographer's Alliance Mentoring Scheme 2011.

These photographs are long, long overdue. They're partially responsible for the meltdown of time-management that I experienced over the summer (which culminated in my leaving for university with only one mug and no duvet) that initially caused the regrettable abandonment of this blog; however, I shan't hold that against them, because they're some of my favourite images to date. And by that, I mean images that I've taken. I don't really talk in depth about many other photographers, but if I had to have five top favourite images, I'd say that it currently stands at

1. Portrait of Space by Lee Miller
2. Untitled (Marcella Matthaei) by Diane Arbus
3. Un Regard Oblique by Robert Doisneau
4. Ken Moody (1983) by Robert Mapplethorpe
5. A photo of two punk girls on the King's Road, Chelsea, that my dad took in the '80s

So I like black and white photography, mainly featuring people, either presented as a formal portrait, or something a bit more quirky and voyeuristic.

My own photography genre-hops so much that I never really know what I do and don't like; as I look back on what the past three years have brought to me photographically, I realise that the days when I was crouched in the undergrowth with a kit lens and a D-SLR are terrifyingly recent. I'm over generic colour photographs of leaves. But at the time, I thought that shallow depth of field and a mildly interesting sybject made for a great photo.

I'll drag myself back on topic, but these genuinely are some of my favourite images. So, if you're going to comment, in the words of William Butler Yeats, tread softly because you tread on my dreams. Actually, screw that- this is the harsh world of press photography and shit gets real from here on in. If you can't take criticism, you'd better get off the train.

I'm presenting this post in two halves because, 1, I ramble far too much for my own good, and, 2,  there are two definite phases to this project, from initial shooting to the thinking behind the final edit.  

... my seemingly innate tendency to procrastinate by making elaborate workbooks...

... and the inevitable ballache of gaining shooting permission in a location full of scantily clad people.

All this coming soon. I can hardly wait!

KW

POST #63- The City

I've now been living in the West Country for 10 weeks; I've had flu symptoms for at least two of those weeks, and I've learned a few things:

1. Jam can in fact go mouldy;
2. My immune system is much weaker than I thought it was;
3. I really miss writing essays;
4. The adverts on Spotify make me want to punch through my laptop screen;
5. Cornwall might be slightly warmer than London in the winter, but it makes up for this by raining sideways and often.

Well, I've learned other things too. I am doing research, is what I mean to say. I've also been skimming through an interesting book I found in the library about the growth of documentary journalism and photography in America in the 1930s. I also did my back in on Tuesday after spending 5 hours sitting on the floor of the photography gallery sticking things in my workbook. What else have I been up to? A shoot on Wednesday. And the Press Gang Christmas Boat Party on Thursday night, which was lethally cold and would have been unbearable if it weren't for a few good conversations.

I'm going to start attempting to cut down the length of the next few posts in order to clear my back-catalogue a bit; this will mean I can finally start posting the things I've been shooting at university. I don't like to think of this as 'getting things out of the way', because if I hadn't been so snowed-under with work, photography projects and getting ready fo uni this summer, I would have posted them already.

I'll kick off with a little bit of good old-fashioned street photography, single-shot, completely spontaneous and very London.

This first one makes me chuckle a bit, because after I'd taken it, this bloke asked me 'Are you allowed to do that?!' and was completely serious. I think I spouted some cocky half-baked response like 'I'm a photographer, I can do what I like,' but think about how topsy turvy this world is: we're followed by CCTV cameras pretty much everywhere we go, watched by unseen eyes, and never question his. Yet the more voyeuristic our society becomes, the greater the suspicion grows surrounding photographers.

I found these ladies just beside the London Eye. Fairground stuff always looks great in photographs (in my opinion), but the added interest of people in the image makes it a bit different from my old shots taken using my Diana.

These were all shot on my Rolleiflex, by the way. In case you couldn't tell from the blatant 'shot from the hip' angle...

KW

POST #62- Proud

It was really tempting to go all out and call this post 'Glad To Be Gay' after the song by Tom Robinson Band but I've gone for the slightly subtler 'Proud' by Heather Small, despite the damage it may have to my street cred. If you're new to this blog, I probably should mention that I name all of my posts after songs. This is a habit that probably started with 'Purple Haze' in 2009 and I haven't been able to shake it since.

So this is a pretty ancient image from a magical time of year- London Gay Pride. Manned with my Baby Rolleiflex, Frankie, and my silver glittery stetson, and flanked by several hot lesbian, gay and transgender friends, we descended upon Trafalgar Square for the festivities.

Pride is all about... well, showing that you're proud, and some of our Londoners really came into their own with some awesome outfits. So I was pretty much in my element, ready to capture plenty of spontaneous moments with my sexy little TLR and maybe snaffle a few portraits.

Every bash in Trafalgar Square seems to end up with people in the fountain and this day was no exception- sadly I wasn't able to capture the wonderful moment that 30 or so people started to scale the fountains and do the YMCA as I was on the other side of the square at this point, moaning that my back was killing me, which it was. However, a little earlier in the day, I found this gorgeous fellow putting on his own one-man show beside the fountain, and BOY did he have moves! 

My friends thought it was pretty funny how I would spot potential subjects and basically drop everything else I was doing like that sh*t was hot to take a photograph: one of the reasons I rarely photograph on days out with my friends, because I can either become completely unsociable and do my thing, or I feel bad and put my energies into being sociable and fun (which takes a lot of energy if you're a moody, misanthropic b*tch) in which case I take very few photographs, and the ones I do are somewhat half-hearted attempts. We saw these guys coming up the stairs as we were going down; what caught my eye first was the Guy Fawkes from the comic-turned-movie V for Vendetta. Not only do I have something of a soft spot for that film, these folks also caught my eye due to the mask being used by the hacking group Anonymous.  

This last image is a little better at showing the full applications of a TLR- these kind of subtle child's-eye view shots are really well suited to crowd photography, where it can be hard to get something different to everyone else, and where you can't really drop down on one knee to take a shot with your SLR or rangefinder for fear of being trampled and lost forever in a debris of glitter and Stonewall stickers. 

I talk about pretty much everything and everyone in these posts, but someone I don't mention particularly often is my big brother Rob, who's a film student specialising in claymation-style animation. But as I typed out the words 'child's-eye view' it reminded me of a photo he took when he was a very small child, and I was probably a gurning, slow-witted infant, as opposed to a gurning, slow-witted teenager. Rob gave up on photography many a year ago, but he once won a small photographic competition with a shot that he took without even getting out of his pushchair, and I've always been horrendously jealous, because the photo is AWESOME. It's of a clown at a town event or something, hell, I don't even know, but whenever I see that image I kind of wish Rob had carried on taking photos like that one. That's a lie, actually, I don't, because I'm not very pleasant when I'm being competitive, and jealousy is not attractive.

Well, I could sit here for years, burning incense, listening to 'A Larum' and chilling, but instead I'm off to the Photography Centre to do work and make something of myself, even if it means braving the Cornish rain, which falls sideways instead of downwards. As we say in the Press Gang, 'yea boi'.

KW