Use a graphite stick

I had an art tutor called Deb – “oh its fabulous darling”, she was a very elegant, artsy, and fabulous woman. In fact, she encouraged me to take my photography further.

She was an illustrator by trade, a fabulous illustrator. I think you may be building up a picture of Deb now. Anyway, she was well versed and experienced in the field of the arts. She would believe in her students and push them where was needed. I very much admired her and always enjoyed my lessons with her.

As an artist (and I use that term extremely liberally for myself), actually scratch that, as a student of art I was always drawing inside the lines literally and figuratively speaking. Art to me at that time was a linier process and something that I tried to understand by quantifying it. Completely the wrong approach but I hadn’t learnt that lesson back then. I tried to be very precise with the work I was producing, and I didn’t want to do anything ‘wrong’. It was almost like I was afraid of making any kind of creative mess. Only now I understand that the creative process hides in that mess.

I was very happy to draw using a HB pencil with not quite a fine pint but pretty sharp. For those of you that draw, you know the type of line that will leave on some nice cartridge paper. I was confined by the desire to draw something that was perfect but could never achieve it. I’m not saying that to be modest, my drawings were bad!

One day I was in a class where we were doing a drawing exercise and copying some illustrations. I think mine was some kind of goblin type creature. I took out my HB and started to gingerly draw this messy-looking creature on my larger drawing pad. Deb (“fabulous darling”) walked past and watched me sketching for a moment, She told me to stop and give her my pencil and eraser. She handed me back a thick, smudgy, and dull graphite stick and told me to carry on with that instead, and then walked off.

I started to draw some lines and moved my hand, smudging graphite over what was a pristine paper. As you can imagine it made a mess and internally, I started to panic. The more I drew the messier it got and then I started making mistakes, lines going wrong in thick graphite and they were extremely obvious. I panicked more, I couldn’t erase them, I had to embrace the mess and chaos on my paper and just carry-on drawing. The more I drew the messier it got but then a character started to appear. It all started to come together, even the mistakes gave the drawing personality. I even started working with the mistakes as I drew more and didn’t care for the misdrawn lines. By the end I was liberated and couldn’t believe that out of that mess arose the best drawing I have ever produced. It really was amazing; you will have to believe me on this.

“Fabulous darling, I knew you could do it”

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Slow down?

Everywhere today I look there’s an article or YouTube video talking about slowing down. It’s like it’s the trending thing to do but does it work? I have several conversations every week with different people where they tell me that they are going to slow down and that its going to make them better as photographers.

I think sometimes people miss the point; I don’t think the message should be slow down as too many people take this too literal. Personally, I think the message should be ‘Think’. Think about what you’re doing and react in the way the situations dictate.

I feel you starting to judge me now for even thinking about flying in the face of something that’s been drilled into so many of us. Let me quantify this with an example, ok so let us look at the work of William Eggleston. Love him or hate him you must appreciate the fact that he’s been held up as on of the great photographers of our lifetime. Take a look at how he works, there’s a few video that I’m sure you can find that show him working and photographing scenes. Is he working slow? No, not really, I’d dare say he’s quite quickly snapping away. I think the difference is that he is seeing and reacting to what his eyes like. He is thinking and lining things up and when quickly capturing when it works.

I see so many people today missing the point of slowing down, if you slow down so much then I see people in danger of over thinking everything and still not producing the work they are capable of. It seems to be a case of extremes and possibly because of technology and abilities of todays cameras. Yes we have the ability to shoot a thousand frames but do you need to? Probably not and if you are then I think the problem lies with the fact you get back home with an overwhelming number of images and become lost at the endless possibilities and daunting task of trying to discover our voice in all that visual noise. I am talking from experience here, yes, I have been lost trying to figure out what I have shot and trying to make sense of it. Therefore, I think the statement should be ‘think about what your doing’.

Sometimes we need to shoot a lot of images and quite quickly too. This all depends on the scene we have in front of us. When something is unfolding then you need to work the scene and see where it takes you. Sometimes it is the first shot as that is the one you had the gut instinct about but other times it’s the end of a series of shots. It is a case of thinking about how you need to react to a scene and photographing what you want to show.

A couple of years ago I spent a week shooting the streets of New York city. I don’t think slow was even in my vocabulary for how I approached my working method there. I shot free, easy, and reacted with my gut. I loved every minute of it and produced images that were unexpected at times. Most of them were subpar but out of all the chaos there were images I still enjoy today, 2 years later. This can contrast some of the ways I work when I am producing my seaside photography but then again it can depend on the situations. The hight of summer with packed promenades often means I have to work very quickly but I can also take a slower approach. It all depends how I’m feeling and how I find the environment around me.

Maintain a high quality to your work and you can do that however it works for you. Only you know if what you are producing is honest and something of substance that really excites you. If slowing down enables you to think more, that is only a good thing but if you work in other ways and your process excites you then go with that. At the end of the day, you must do what is right for you. Take the advice that works for you and cast the other things to the side. I have tried the slower way of working in the past and even slowed my process down recently with a tripod and photographing at night. I was able to produce some images from this, but the process frustrated me. I knew if I carried on down that path then it would burn me out quite quickly just because of the slow process. This doesn’t work for me and I’m quite happy to say that.

As a personal insight, I don’t know if I work fast or slow. I haven’t shot with enough photographers to be able to judge the way I work, nor would I be interested. I work in the way that suits me, sometimes I think that is quickly reacting to a scene whereas other times I will spend a fair amount of time just looking and watching things. I take the first photo with my eye and then I react however I need with my camera, quick or slow it’s how every is needed.

The question should be, is the process that you follow working for you?

Yes – then that’s great go create some amazing work!

No, then let’s look at ways to make improvement but the best way to do that is by getting out there and putting the effort in to discover what works for you – now get out there and create some amazing work.

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The question; Why?

Question everything

 

When I first started my photographic journey, the same with everyone’s journey it was exciting and full of learning. It seemed like the creative outputs of endless possibilities was astonishing to think about. Then a little more time passed and I started to understand  more about the images that I liked to produce. These were the simple and ‘pretty’ pictures that everyone would look at and say “that’s nice” as they passed it by. They had no emotional impact and only offered skin deep vanity. At the time I thought this was amazing and couldn’t see any further than the limited sight I had at the time. Very much being in the dark, I was happy turning over this kind of work.

Needless to say, photography had hooked me and I was starting to explore more opportunities with the practice. Eventually this lead me to pursuing photography to degree level. What I didn’t expect from this next step was a new thought process. This was a simple, yet arresting questions; ‘why’. I started asking “why am I doing this?” It had a profound effect on my work and approach to the images I was taking. Ultimately it put a handbrake on my practice within a very short space of time. The question made me evaluate what I was doing, “why am I taking a photo of this generic sunset/landscape/etc?” This would be the same photo that everyone has taken and my images were just another echo of every single sunset photo out there. What was the point in me taking this photo as well? 

The answer to this question took some time for me to realise but a simple question requires a simple answer. Why am I taking this photo? Because I have something to say. At the time I didn’t have anything to say, I offered no comment because I didn’t understand my footing. Working through this problem took me a long time, there was no way around it so the only option was to go through it. I’m not going to lie, this was incredibly hard and full of frustration. As the only way to progress was by taking the photos and knowing that I was failing. But every so often there would be one image that would act as a signpost, one that would standout to me and give me a new perspective on where I was going. I eventually took enough photos to start and gain an understanding. It wasn’t perfect but the creative process is a messy one at best, so why fight it.

Another simple realisation on this path was if I see something and it stand out to me on some level then that would be worth making a photo of. it doesn’t have to be conventionally pretty or even make sense but if it connects on some level to me than I have something that requires a look. Applying these simple answers to the question ‘why?’ started to allow me to discover a voice somewhere inside of me. I wouldn’t say that I have grasped a full understand and I think that trying to understand it would be a waste of time but rather the path that illuminates this is the one that is worth understanding. It’s the journey that is rich after all, not the final destination.

 

Here’s a little takeaway thought -

What do I know that you don’t? Nothing is the answer. We are all the same and one day I picked up a camera. I started taking a few photos and I haven’t put that camera down. The only thing this has taught me is there are things I like to see and others that don’t interest me so much. I just try to apply that learning to the things I put inside of the frames I make.

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Shooting a scene

I’m very aware that I have pretty much neglected my blog much to the despair of some of you out there (you know who you are). So I thought it might be nice to add some little mini blog posts rather than long articles. I think this is the sticking point for me, finding the time to put something down in writing. I’m thinking if I approach this like I would do my photography – which often to just do little bits here and there and keeping myself active, then I can perhaps keep on top of some posts! (Well this is the plan at the moment anyway).

(Well this is the plan at the moment anyway).

So today on Instagram I asked what people might like to see for me in 2021, A few people had suggested things they might like to see me photograph. As interesting as it is to hear what people might like to see I’m not really able to follow what others want as I am very driven by what works for myself. Especially as my photography is my personal practice. Other people had suggested they would like to see more interaction from me regarding techniques and help. This is something I’m very interested in and I know how hard it is when you are first starting out to take the right steps to build your photographic voice.

I often try to help as many people as I can but little snippets here and there can only go so far. A few months ago I did a live session to a small group about seeing colour and editing/producing colour tones. This was great to do but as I stressed at the time this wasn’t a copy and paste workshop of how to produce a similar images. I think it’s important for people to be able to have this right tools to be able to help them on their own path.
anyway, I’m starting to waffle here so what is the little blog post supposed to be about? Well this one is spotting a scene and photographing it.
this is sometimes the way that I will work when I find a scene on moment happening in front of me, when I have a little more time with a situation I will try and work out what the best frame will be. If I have some time I will compose and shoot a few frames to work out how the frame best it fits together. Obviously this doesn’t work every time but you get the idea of the process. So I start by finding something that sort of lines up and in this case it was the helter-skelter from the beach and a ship at sea in the background.
this lined up nicely and the colours in the foreground led to a slightly abstract looking image, I used the lines that intersected the frame to create something a little more visually impacting and then just shot a few frames as I slightly composed the scene differently.

The first few frames are the ones that (in my opinion) work best, This is what I first saw and was what caught my eye. I then recomposed to try and see if I could build on it. Sometimes this can work and I can add more layers to a simple frame, other times it doesn't . In this case the stronger images for me are the first few where I just slightly loved the intersections of the lines in the frame.

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Seaside street photo meet up

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Welcome to the great British seaside town of Cleethorpes.

I know it is late and I have been meaning to put this blog post together for months now but i’m going to blame this on COVID, it is probably not COVID but you know, its been a strange time. Last year (2020) I organised a street meet up from a small group of photographers, we all met here at the seaside town of Cleethorpes. I’d imagine most of you reading this will recognise this place from all of my own photos - it is pretty much the place I exclusively shoot, because this is my home.

It was great to meet other like minded individuals from different backgrounds and all with a passion for photography. It is always great to be around individuals like this, I rarely get chance to spend any time with other creatives, let alone a whole day with a bunch of them! This opportunity was as much for my benefit as it was for the others to make connections with one and other.

It was such a great day and I certainly had a fantastic time shooting and witnessing how others worked my stretch of the beach. Something that I don’t often get to do as Cleethorpes is somewhat nestled away on the north east coast of the uk (for those of you that don’t venture to the north of England). It is always very interesting for me to see how others interact with the environment and what catches their eyes. I have become somewhat of a solitary photographer and as such find my own ways to photograph and make the most of situations. shooting with others and bouncing ideas was great and gives me a sense of what is going in my photographic peers.

A big thanks for those that came along and join in durrig the day, we did have a few others join us at various points through the day to take a few shots and to just say Hi. Below are the images form the guys that spend the full day shooting and sent me their favourite photographs.

Matt Feeney

Lewis Andrews

Mark Sugden

Michael Murray

Nina Weatherburn

Just to end…

Heres a few portraits if the guys that I quickly took whilst we stopped from some lunch.



By lanes of your city - Interview

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Recently I was interviewed by Anshul Raj Khurana of By Lanes Of Your City, on my photography.

Anshul- Street photography is going through a lot of definitional changes nowadays. How do you define street photography?

Dan- To be honest, when I'm out shooting, I tend not to think of the definition or any parameters for that matter, as I find that would inhibit my work. I believe photography is an art form, and trying to place it into neat little boxes often puts too much restraint on the creative process. I think I throw a very loose terminology around what street photography is for myself, images that are taken out in public that are of natural moments as they occur. I see so many artists and photographers today working in so many ways, and a lot of these are falling under the category of street photography but, at the same time, help redefine it into something new and dynamic.

I think sometimes it comes down to the honesty of the photograph that you are taking. I try to make images that are uninterrupted and as natural as possible. But not all of these images are what possibly a purist street photographer would classify as 'street photography.' I often venture into the realms of abstract and pull on many influences to produce the work that I do.

Christmas Challenge

After the success of the last challenge that I set on instagram, I decided to set another challenge over the Christmas period. This time fairly relaxed but like the last one with the intention of producing a series of images. The idea is to tell your Christmas story, what ever that may be. This could be Christmas day, the days running up to December 25th or anything else you have been up to over this period.

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Dean Scutt

@dean_scutt

Adam Hinton

@_adam_hinton

Pol Martin

@polrep

Dan Baker

@danbaker88

New York in black & white

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I always end up being back to projects that I’ve shot. Although New York wasn’t really a project it was more of me just reacting to the sights and sounds of the city. Nonetheless I always head back from time to time to revisit the photos that I captured. I think it’s such an important process to revisit those images as time passes on they take on new meanings with more impact. As much as I love shooting in colour I started my photography practice in black-and-white. I am very fond of looking at black-and-white images and I think New York lends itself beautifully to the monochromatic look.
for me it’s such a therapeutic process to revisit these photographs and rediscover those moments I had forgotten. Reworking them into black-and-white images adds a new dimension and timeless aesthetic to these forgotten moments. So I thought I would share my recent re-discoveries of some forgotten images with you and also my rekindling with monochrome work.
these are just a few of the images that I have cherry picked and processed to black-and-white, I hope you enjoy them.

Shooting in London

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I have just been to see an image from my latest series exhibited as part of the Photography on a postcard, being shown at The Print Space – London.

Obviously the rest of the time was either spent drinking or street shooting, or my favourite – combining both drinks and photography. This always leads to some interesting / creative images (I’m not saying that they are all in focus but still interesting for me to look at later)

After arriving in London we soon met up with a friend and fellow street photographer; Dave ( @david_lindsley_street ) and spent some time catching up and walking the south bank snapping as we walked.

The rest of the time was spent mooching around the city and exploring the different little boroughs. I hadn’t really gone with anything in mind to shoot so just reacted to what I saw while I was there, like I normally do.. here’s the photos:

Dubrovnik - Croatia

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Street photography and travel complement each other, it gives me the chance to experience a whole new place and react to it in my own way. I’m not saying that to produce ‘street photography’ you need to travel, in fact producing images around your own environment I believe speaks more about your experience than traveling to a new place to speak from your own voice. On the other hand it’s always nice to get away and experience new things plus immerse yourself into a new situation and react to it with a creative process. And let’s not forget that if I travel to somewhere as beautiful as Croatia I’m defiantly going to react to it photographically.

I didn’t know what to expect from Dubrovnik other than a few people that had previously visited the region had expressed just how beautiful that they had found the city. I don’t tend to do too much research on a place like this before visiting as I don’t want to taint my view (photographically speaking) or take influence from what other photographers have produced, as then I start looking at a place from their perspective instead of my own. So having arrived on the shores of Dubrovnik I was first struck by the intensity of the light and then by the beauty of the historic walled old town that decorated the cliffs above the blue shimmering Mediterranean waters.

As we started exploring Dubrovnik I was drawn towards the historic charm of the place and much of the region had retained its roots without subsiding into today’s commercialism. I very much started to see the art of the city and allowed myself to become absorbed by the light has it ornamented the people and stone.

 

The Pink (Black and White) Pig

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It's rare that I share many personal images (outside of the confines of my personal street photography) but I'm obviously still shooting the everyday things that go on around me. It's a compulsion as many photographers reading this post will understand and you simply don't just shoot one subject matter, it seems to saturate your life and before you know it, the people around you become a rich part of that documentary tapestry. 

So heres a behind the scene look into the everyday family fun that goes on around me. 

 

All images shot on Leica M10 + 50mm f1.4 Summilux-M ASPH

 

Too Hot

The weekend landed and so did the nice weather. It’s rare in the UK for the weekend to come along and also hit really nice weather but it’s happened and the temperature sored to a scorching 28°C. Too hot for some but for the others the beach was calling and I was also heading in the same direction. I would like to say that it was rich pickings for a street photographer shooting around a beach on a weekend like this but the truth was zeroing in on unique moments and details that caught my eye became a lot harder. Sometimes it can be nicer to shoot when there’s less going on to distract, other times I thrive on the hectic environment. I think it just depends on what mood I find myself in when shooting and possibly how much coffee I have drank!

Cleethorpes Seafront

Cleethorpes Seafront

Walking Clee

Working on a project requires dedication to the cause but that shouldn’t be seen as a laborious task, in fact if it’s something that you’re truly interested in then it’s part of what is enjoyable in your life. That’s not saying that there won’t be frustration but the pleasure will massively outweigh the pain. I find the joys and attraction to street photography are you never know what you are going to find. It’s a little like panning for gold at times; heading out to find something, having the drive and resilience to keep an open eye to situations. I find that images or scenes tend to happen in a very sporadic manor, they all seem to appear all at once or sometimes not at all. I don’t just say this because of my own experiences but also talking to many other photographers and looking at their working process. I also found looking at the Magnum Photos – Contact sheets book was also extremely insightful to the working process of those whom are considered the masters of photography. So I continue to walk the streets or in this case the seafront of my chosen location; Cleethorpes, in search of what is interesting.

I offer a handful of images that I have weeded out from my latest shoot and continue to pick out the successful photos from these visits to become part of my ongoing project – By the Sea.    

 

Another dash to the seaside - Scarborough

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As the English summer has started to dawn (and by that I mean a few nice days in a row before it clouds back over) I have made the most of it and headed to the coast with my girlfriend. Yes the coast is on our doorstep but we decided to travel a couple of hours further north to Scarborough for the change of scene.

As always I carry my Leica and take any opportunity to shoot whatever interests me and the English coast always provides a plethora of visual feasts to be had. So I have continued to shoot and I am starting to build a small collection of seaside images of surrounding coastal towns, like I have said in a previous blog post I am drawn towards the coast so it’s obvious that I am going to collect scenes from these places. Now at the same time I am shooting a project called by the sea ( www.danbaker.me/by-the-sea ) and was intending on producing images of the Cleethorpes seaside but after sharing these images with a friend and fellow street photography, he had suggested that they should be a part of my current project. I hadn’t really considered expanding the project to surround coastal towns but after thought it made sense.  

This is what I love about street photography and the creative process; having the opportunity to share and talk about images with others. I’m not only talking about my work but having the opportunity to see and discuss others work too. It’s always great to reach out and see what other photographers are doing and have going on in their lives. so thanks to those who have already got in touch!

I feel at this point I need to say that if anyone would like to talk about any work or ideas, or even just say hi, then feel free to reach out and get in touch, I would love to hear from you and I find the creative process really comes alive when you start exploring these new avenues with others.