Garage Studios

The Cult of Lomography- Kevin Mason

Posted on September 1, 2010

This appeared on Kevin’s personal blog this morning, some of us at Garage thought it would be worth posting here to see what fellow photographers thought, as well as the many lomo enthusiasts out there.

“Don’t Think Just Shoot” -or why “All that glisters is not gold.”

Don't worship false idols

As a slice of marketing genius this is up there with putting advertising billboards in videogames, or fetishising smoking – as an ethos for photography its as sensible as teaching your kids the slogan Don’t Look Just Run when it comes to crossing the road.

Imagine for a second that you applied this Don’t Think Just…. marketing slogan to another aspect of life, something that requires some skill or judgement, say cooking, or fashion or god forbid architecture. Don’t Think Just Build… only then do you really see what a retarded piece of advice that is.

If you don’t think about photography, if you don’t make hundreds of instantaneous decisions before you set up, when you find your subject when you frame your image, then what are you going to show us that’s uniquely yours? If you don’t frame the world based on the years of visual references that you build up in your lifetime, and then try and filter or distil those into an image or set of images then you might as well put the camera down.

I own a studio where we used to run a course on Lomography- people enjoyed it, had a hell of a lot of fun- and that’s good, I’m not against fun, but I think the real satisfaction lies deeper than that. This Don’t Think or Look Just Shoot is the antitheses of Photography- it encourages people to all take the same photo over and over again. A uniquely homogenised view of the world, that rarely, and if so by accident, is capable of showing us something new about the world we live in everyday.

Don’t believe me- then try this, spend some time on the lomography website and once you get past the adverts, the gimmicks, the marketing slogans, you find galleries of thousands of images that look the same, sure the sickly colours are different, the subjects may vary, but an individual voice and more importantly individual eye is impossible to find. Convince a hundred monkeys to leave their typewriters and abandon their efforts to write Shakespeare and give them a lomo-lca and you’ll eventually get the gallery of the lomo site.

The urge to look and record is a very human thing, so is the urge to shout and scream- it feels good, but as we are somewhat advanced as a species, we have refined it into many forms of singing and expression. It’s the same with Photography, what started as a science has been refined and evolved, often through accident, innovation but also from people looking, and more importantly thinking. When I was a kid I loved throwing paint at the wall- it was endlessly satisfying, but to do that as adult- well that would be a release of sorts but I certainly wouldn’t want to admit to it in public.

This Don’t Think manifesto is pure bullshit, designed to tap in to your growing fear as a human of a loss of identity, of a homogenisation of life, but by adhering to it, you are collaborating, joining the mass of visual noise but contributing nothing. It’s a stroke of marketing genius, selling essentially joke cameras, in as many different forms as the ad team can come up with. Read through the Golden Rules a few times, its like some Religious Mantra, all the time urging you to buy into this cult, and each time someone joins in and shoots without looking its just taking us back to the beginning again, not raw and unflinching but indiscriminate, inarticulate and mute. Have a discussion with a Lomo photographer- one who has really bought in and its like talking to a Scientologist. “Who cares what you see, and know already, and have learnt about the world or yourself just buy our stuff its fun… “

If you want to see the world differently, if you want to experience the world through photography, then stop, don’t take hundreds of pictures every day, buy a film body, a 50mm lens, and get to know what the camera does, look through the viewfinder with more care than you look at your lover, frame and reframe and see how that changes your view. Do this without film even, don’t take any photos, just keep looking, and look at the light, how it shapes and how you respond to it, watch your subject and see how it responds to you.

See how the act of photography changes the world and more importantly see how it shapes your unique view. We all have one, a unique view isn’t lying on a floor shooting a pier for the 100th time this year, don’t join the noise and the shouting about nothing in flashy colours. If you want to understand ‘snapshot’ then look at Stephen Shore, if you want to understand colour look at Eggleston, if you want rawness pick up any of the early years of Vice, or go back and see what Nan Goldin did in the 80’s, if its landscape then go see Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas on a big screen. What’s different about all these names is that they contributed something unique, that life, and the experience, knowledge, logic and reasoning had lead them to. Eventually you will find this a lot more satisfying than taking the same picture for the next 5 years with your Lomo and some x-pro.

And if you think this is all too serious, well I confess I love the Ramones…. There is nothing wrong with stripping things back but please put some thought into it, and don’t fall in love with the Ad mans slogan, its puerile.

Some gems from the Lomo Golden Rules…

Don’t look through the viewfinder.

But you’ll understand your Lomographs even less! Don’t try to analyse them: look at them in a different way and let them tell you their story, which is also automatically your story. (kids it really really isn’t).

END

So do you agree/disagree, do you always keep a lomo on you, do you shoot it differently to any other camera, are you tired of the hype, or do you believe in a genuine movement created by Lomo, we’d love to know….

Posted in News | Tagged cross processing, essay, kevin mason, Lomo camera, Lomo course, lomo lca, lomography, Lomography course, point and shoot, xpro | 2 Comments

New Exhibition : Brighton Photo Bienniale

Posted on August 31, 2010

Here at Garage Studios we have picked the photographer that we’d like to showcase during the Photo Biennial 2010 , he is fairly new to Brighton, and relatively young but a real talent.

We have chosen him not just for the overall strength of his work but because of the DIY aesthetic and the method/process that he embraces, something that is very important to both Kevin and Matt. He has produced numerous zines and short publications as well as taking off for long trips into unknown territories in the search of both new work and also new photographers. He has been keen to promote the work of others, as equally, if not more than his own, a very rare thing in todays world of commercial photography. He is a photographer with ‘soul’ and has a desire to push himself to find the next picture in both the mundane and the ordinary- whilst also swiftly adopting subcultures and representing them with a raw authenticity.

We will reveal dates soon and details of the artist’s site, bio etc… but we are very excited about this, and it will hopefully showcase the direction that our creative studio is going. If you feel stuck in your work, or produce the same image over and over again, then come to this show and prepare to have your eyes opened.

Posted in News | Tagged brighton, brighton photography, compact, diy, exhibition, garage studios. garage-studios, garage-studios.co.uk, martin parr, new documents, new york, photo-biennial, photography, skate, yashica | 1 Comment

Spindle Shoot at Garage Studios

Posted on August 10, 2010

It’s all go here at Garage – we have Spindle magazine in for a Menswear shoot and we’re streaming everything live on ustream.

We first trialled streaming a photoshoot on Kevin’s recent 90s swimwear shoot and you can see some of the final images from that on Kevin’s website and the videos from the day are on our ustream channel.

Spindle launched in May this year and is a quarterly free magazine showcasing emerging talent across the fields of fashion, music, art and design. Although it was launched in Brighton Spindle is a national magazine that goes against the grain and refuses listings, press images and reviews; if you didn’t see the first issue you really should have a look.

Keep checking throughout the day to see the whole thing unfold live and we’ll keep you updated via twitter.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/garage-studios-photo-shoot

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Shotopop and Skin at Garage Studios

Posted on August 5, 2010

Earlier this year, in deepest darkest January, we hired out Garage Studios to Shotopop who wanted some killer shots of Skin for her website.

To build the 5 sets Shotopop used no less then 80 sheets of 40-inch foam board and 60 tubes of superglue and they were also in charge of the photography. The in-house team here at Garage helped to bring the images alive with M. Halls and Tash in charge of the lighting of the intricate sets.

Shotopop are a creative company working just off the river Thames (that’s in London you know) and offer tactile and digital illustration, design for print and interactive media, motion graphics and everything before, in-between and after. Have a look at their website here.

The final pictures are amazing and we loved the chance to work with such lovely people, beautiful sets and an incredibly cool model in Skin.

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Introducing the team-Part 3

Posted on July 29, 2010

So as you may have realised Garage Studios is rapidly expanding at the minute- far beyond what we predicted even a few months back and this is our newest recruit, Beth. Beth graduated from Brighton University in 2007, after studying the renowned Editorial Photography course and first came to us for work experience. We run a fairly constant work experience/intern program and everything really clicked with us and Beth. She worked extensively on the scanning of the Vanity Project and Kevins Polaroids as well as assisting on numerous shoots.

She is now in the somewhat unfortunate position of handling the admin work of Kev, Matt and Tash (we aren’t good at paperwork) but has made massive inroads already- but more importantly she is also the ‘face’ of Garage Studios. If you call, visit, have a course enquiry or even receive an invoice or attend a networking event then its very likely that you will meet or speak to Beth and then you’ll see exactly why we hired her. The paperwork chaos left behind by the previous Studio Managers walk-out has now been rectified and we are a smooth running system- (we don’t even keep the money in shoe boxes out the back anymore).

So if you have any questions about what we do, how we can help you, what courses we run, tailored 1:1 training, or even just want the inside word on what its like to work with the mysterious M.Halls (she won’t say a word about me) then drop beth a mail Beth@garage-studios.co.uk

Beth- The newest Garage recruit

Up next- our web Guru- the manlike Delarge. Paul Burgess.

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Introducing some more of the Garage Team

Posted on July 28, 2010

So we started of with two of the founders of Garage Studios, the creative team behind the name, Kev and Matt, and now we have part 2 of introducing the team. I will post more fully later as its late and I am hungry, but this is Natasha and Jonjo.

Natasha really deserves a full blog post of her own as not only is she a super talent but she has been here 2 years now, she teaches, she shoots, she lights, and she’s just about the best damn assistant I could ever ask for… so that post will follow.

Jonjo joined us on a placement scheme that we are taking part with via Wired Sussex, he has been responsible for many of the blog posts, keeping the twitter active but also researching and working on some large pitches and the general marketing of our courses, making sure we fit the right course to the right person. You’ll also hear a lot more from him soon too, but for now, here they both are, shot by kev.

Tash and Jonjo- Part of the Garage Studios Team

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Laura Pannack

Posted on July 26, 2010

Brighton University graduate Laura Pannack has recently won the award of ‘Best in Show’ in this year’s foto8 exhibition, with this image titled Shay. Judges said that they were won over by the emotion of the image and its power as a stand-alone portrait.

Laura focuses on the complex emotions of her subjects, and especially on vulnerability in projects like the untitled where she took pictures of teenagers from various backgrounds and the ongoing images of members of the Young British Naturists which she regularly updates in her blog.

She has also won the prestigious 2010 World Press Photo award in the portrait singles category. Her photo of Graham who suffers from anorexia beat over 100,000 other entries from 128 different countries. We have been particularly impressed by the directness and quality of her work, as well as her ability to perfectly capture the complexity the people she encounters.

The foto8 Summer Show will be displayed until 4th September at the Host gallery in London so drop by if your in the area, she’s destined for big things.

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Runner on a Fashion Shoot in Brighton- position filled- thanks

Posted on

I have just had a call from a Producer for a Fashion Shoot that is happening in Brighton tomorrow. For obvious reasons I cant give away all the specifics but its for a very high-end fashion magazine, with a very respected photographer. The producer is looking for a spare pair of hands to act as a runner, help with gear etc on the shoot which is location based.

This isn’t anything to do with Garage- but we are just helping put the word out so that if you are free and have some kind of interest in photography you may be able to take up this opportunity. It is a an early call time, morning and will be a full day- but its a real chance to watch a shoot, help out, plus also get a free workout by carrying a lot of kit…..

FILLED

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Pocket Wizards- Overpriced and Badly Built?

Posted on July 22, 2010

At Garage we use Pocket Wizard Plus 11 for all our triggering studio needs. In terms of effectiveness of the individual units, they are the most reliable that we have used so far, but why is their build quality so appalling? The radio technology inside the unit is, I would imagine very cheap to put together, so what is the extortionate cost price spent on, it doesn’t appear to be the manufacturing.

If, as we are led to believe by the pro’s and the magazines, Pocket Wizards are the industry standard then why do they have a hot-shoe connector made of very flimsy plastic, with an often badly sealed join over the hot shoe pin. Through normal everyday use we have now had 2 of these hot shoe plates snap in half- the cheap plastic and spring contraption inside didn’t exactly inspire confidence in build quality.

Why is the body such cheap quality, and why at a unit price of approx £180 does the receiver require what is essentially a 50p Maplins/Radio Shack connector to plug into the back of the studio flash head? Surely a sealed one piece connector supplied with the unit wouldn’t raise the cost price and would provide a far more reliable system. A cable into a larger Jack cable is not an efficient system of firing, especially as when hanging from the Studio Light it often pulls the connector apart. Gaffer-taping the trigger to the Flash unit is not a good enough solution for a radio trigger in cheap plastic that retails at this price. It wouldn’t take much work to have a base station or similar, like say an ipod dock, that the receiver fits into which would then plug directly into the Studio Light jack.

Its about time that PW really thought about how there products are used, and dropped the price and also created a much more sturdy unit- that can deal robustly with adverse weather conditions when outside, and has the build quality that a studio in constant use requires.

Has anyone else had issues with these units in general , or have any better value alternatives? We’d love to know. I never want to miss a shot again due to a dodgy cable, or a unit sending itself to sleep at the wrong time…

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Male Model Test Shoots

Posted on July 21, 2010

Natasha has been testing male models all week, we like to keep things fair after all, and we don’t have enough Male Model shots in our portfolio at the minute so Tash has been street casting, asking on FB and contacting local talent. None of the models below have, as of yet, done any editorial modelling but most have some catwalk experience and have been scouted by a few agencies.

The purpose of these tests is to get some natural images of the model, see how they work in the studio, their ability to work with a photographer, and in return they get to use the shots in their portfolio. We are looking to find a collection of male models to work with for both personal and commercial editorials, and this is also an opportunity for guys that are interested in expanding their modeling experience.

If you are interested in coming in for a test shoot- either Male or Female models- then please contact us info@garage-studios.co.uk . We’ll probably ask for a simple headshot to be mailed over and then contact you to book in a time and date. There is no guarantee it will lead to further work but not only do clients often want to go through our book to pick models, but also a lot of local photographers contact us asking for model recommendations. We normally like to allow and 1hr 1/2 for each test.

Natasha has some really good lighting going on here, and hopefully we will add a lighting blog about this later on in the week.

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