LECTURE - EDWARD SWINDEN

I attended a lecture at Burton College today given by Ed Swinden a young photographer, based in Manchester, who has recently won the first  'Shoot the Street' competion run by British Journal of Photography and the Format Photography Festival in Derby.  He has a solo exhibition of his work running till April 2011.

He is exhibiting a series of photographs featuring a single person, going about their daily lives, caught in a strip of illumination, creating an almost abstract image. 

Using the strong contast between light and dark as a metaphor for our daily lives, often oppressed by the system, as in the towering surroundings.

Ed came to photography after dropping out as a physcology student and going into journalism, writing for various newspapers and the BBC.  He soon found out he preferred photography and went freelance about 6 years ago.  He has worked as a photographer for the BBC on Doctor Who, NME magazine photographing various bands and Haymarket magazine photographing celebrities and various work for University  of Manchester.

Ed enjoys street photography because it is fast, discreet and interacts with people, which I find a bit difficult to understand, since if you are fast and discreet you do not have much time to interact with the subject, surely the purpose is to capture the image before it changes, unless of course you have set up the shot, you would then have to interact with the subject to get them to repeat their actions.  He says he does not use image manipulation in his photography, for example he has not inserted the figures, however, he used one photo to show how a mundane shot was turned into something more graphic and exciting, by underexposing a large part of the image, giving it a large black area.

However, I do agree that street photography is a good way to train your eye as a photographer, searching out the juxtaposition of objects and illustrating the comedy of everyday life.  Ed wanted to capture the in between times, when nothing much was happening, which is often most of the time, and looking at this series of shots, I agree, this is what he has achieved.

I admire the technical expertise and discipline needed to achieve a set of images in this vein, but for myself I prefer more information in my pictures.  I could benefit from being more concentrated and training myself to be more disciplined and paring things down somewhat, but I just find everything so inspiring, especially when I am travelling, that I just want to capture it all.

Ed offered some good advice for people wanting to make a career of photography;

- look at lots of good and rubbish work and remember the names of the great photographers,

- practice, so that technical stuff is automatic,

- know what is current and 'in' but don't copy everyone else,

- try every technique and genre to see what you are good at and enjoy,

- use yourself as a model to practice lighting techniques,

- learn how light works,

- have projects going forwards,

- network, make the most of your contacts.

SOURCES - Lecture by Edward Swinden at Burton College 20/10/10
                   - web sites, photo.net
                                     edswinden.co.uk
                                     formatfestival.com
                                     bjp-magazine.com