I have been trying to decide what to do with the black and white pictures I shot with my Rolleiflex of George Norris, a rag and bone man from Hull. Using the vintage camera, I felt like I’d stepped away from the safety net of 35mm digital raw files, the ability to shoot multiple frames, and checking the back of the camera to see if it all looked okay.
As well as being square format and black and white, the ‘pace’ of image was slower, with everything shot on a 75mm lens (that’s a 45mm lens in 35mm format). I was acutely aware that there was less action and fewer ‘caught’ moments in my pictures as I struggled with focus and ergonomics. I was also concentrating on shooting digital colour 35mm, which you can see here, and didn’t want to miss pictures using that format. It was a sort of a fun visual experiment as I try to get better with the Rolleiflex. I felt like an overweight trapeze artiste hanging upside down in badly fitting tights, a lot of glitter and no visual safety net, but putting on a big smile as I hoped that everything would be okay.
I processed the film and put it to one side while I struggled with the other issues that were worrying me with the colour pictures: whether I was guilty of just looking back and getting trapped in all my yesterdays - please see previous post.
Just under a month has passed since this shoot and I’ve been able to immerse myself in other pictures. Vivian Maier: Anthology, ‘Grown Up in Britain – 100 Years of Teenage Kicks, Gustav Klimt at the Schloss Belvedere, and Egon Schiele and Koloman Moser at the Leopold Museum - all in Vienna - to name a few. Thrown in for good measure: a Covid hangover to muddy my thinking.
I found Maier’s work inspirational and intimidating. Although using the same camera, I would never be able to match her ability to capture moment after moment. Using my Covid infection as a boxing ring, I spent a week beating myself up over this brutal realisation.
Vivian Maier – Chicago 1957
Coming to, my self-loathing fug cleared and I vowed to review my film processing to improve technical quality. The gelatin silver prints at the Maier exhibition at the MK Gallery are of amazing quality. And secondly, as a photographer I have never sought to capture that defining moment like Maier. My interest has been in telling the story through a sequence of pictures. I accept that some of my pictures will be more beautiful than others and could stand alone, while a few remain merely visual story-telling tools. I am aware that for the story to be understood, the pictures need to be seen in the context of one another, and with text.
I looked again at my negatives and decided to use what I had and apply my own mantra: ‘You only need six pictures to tell a story but if you don’t have all six the story can’t be told.’
So, what are these six pictures?
A General View - Sets the scene.
A Portrait – Shows what the person, or people, look like.
The Action – Shows what the story is about, what does the person, or people, do?
Why or Impact – Shows why they do what they do.
A Detail – Reveals a small but important detail that if not looked at carefully would be missed.
Wow Factor – The hero image that captures the eye and makes the viewer want to know more.
Different stories have different visual priorities and you can have more than one of each of the six basic pictures. If the story is about a person who paints miniature portraits, you’d probably need several ‘detail’ pictures. If the story is about free solo climbing, you’d want more action or general views.
So, as I swing out over the abyss on my trapeze, here are my six pictures from the George Norris shoot. I’ll let you decide if I crash to the sawdust on the big top floor or not.
General View
Rag and bone man George Norris takes a sink out of mixed scrap tipped off his pick-up truck at Griffiths Group Metal & Waste Recycling yard in Hull, May 6, 2022.
Portrait
Rag and bone man George Norris waits for lunch in Neise’s cafe in Hull, May 6, 2022.
Action
Rag and bone man George Norris lifts a tumble dryer onto his pick-up truck as he collects scrap in Hull, May 10, 2022.
Impact
Rag and bone man George Norris stands in front of a ‘mountain’ of scrap at Griffiths Waste and Recycling Yard in Hull, May 6, 2022.
Detail
Rag and Bone man George Norris Snr reaches out for scrap metal left on a wall for collection in Hull, May 12, 2022.
Wow or lead image
Rag and bone man George Norris walks up an alleyway as he searches for scrap in Hull, May 10, 2022.
Thankfully, life’s decisions are not linear and rules can be stretched and broken. So once you have the six basic images why not include a few more? You can even play with the notion of what it is, and what is not, one of of six pictures. Can a general view be an action picture? I think so. Or, how tight does a portrait need to be to get a sense of the person or what they look like? How about an alternative, wider edit? Or does a detail shot need to be a close up? Maybe the detail that’s revealed can be a closer look at an incident? Or maybe I could simply swap one image for another, keeping the edit tight for a basic six picture story? Below are some more choices to my original set of six.
General View
(Left) Rag and bone man George Norris takes a sink out of mixed scrap tipped off his pick-up truck at Griffiths Group Metal & Waste Recycling yard in Hull, May 6, 2022.
(Right) Rag and bone man George Norris calls ‘Scrap Iron! Rag Bone!’ along Wakefield Avenue as he looks for scrap in Hull, May 12, 2022.
Portrait
(Left) Rag and Bone man George Norris waits for lunch in Neise’s cafe in Hull, May 6, 2022.
(Right) Rag and bone man George Norris enjoys a cigarette in his back garden after a day collecting scrap in Hull, May 9, 2022.
Action
(Left) Rag and bone man George Norris lifts a tumble dryer onto the back of his pick-up truck as he collects scrap in Hull, May 10. 2022.
(Right) Rag and bone man George Norris is offered a shovel as scrap by a one-legged man in a wheelchair in Hull, May 10, 2022.
(Left) Rag and bone man George Norris peers through a garden fence along a back passageway as he searches for scrap in Hull, May 6, 2022.
(Right) Rag and bone man George Norris wheels a scrap washing machine from a house on Woodland Avenue in Hull, May 7, 2022.
Impact
Rag and Bone man George Norris stands in front of a ‘mountain’ of scrap at Griffiths Waste and Recycling Yard in Hull, May 6, 2022.
Detail
(Left) Rag and bone man George Norris Snr reaches for scrap metal left on a wall for collection in Hull. May 12, 2022.
(Right) Rag and bone man George Norris waits at a tyre repair shop as his father, George Norris Snr, sits in their pick-up truck while a puncture is being repaired in Hull, May 10, 2022. A nail was probably picked up in the scrapyard, their first port of call.
Wow or lead image
Rag and bone man George Norris walks up an alleyway as he searches for scrap in Hull, May 10, 2022.
And of course, there is always the impact of design on the use of image on the page. The use of scale, or cropping, can change the emphasis of an image on the story-telling. For example, George spends most of his time walking the streets of Hull calling ‘Scrap Iron! Rag Bone!’ so why not use the symmetrical shape of the square format and make something a bit striking in terms of graphic shape? But then one has to consider: Is this a one story-telling wow image or a combination of 9 portrait images? Or maybe even both?
Finally, there is the cutting room floor: images that might be good enough on their own but don’t add more to the story. These are edited out and consigned to the spike. It’s these pictures that often cause the biggest disagreements between photographers and editors. This problem is magnified tenfold if you are both photographer and editor. Editing your own images is tough as you are emotionally attached to each picture. The easiest way to deal with this dilemma is to reduce the problem to numbers. I think if you use the rule that most people won’t look at more than 12 images in a story you have your guideline. Now you need to make the cruel cuts.
Here's my cutting room floor and your chance to get subjective on the edit.
Russell Boyce, 2022
