Lomo kev

It was great to spend an entire day with Kevin Meredith, known as Lomo Kev. He introduced himself with a presentation. In the presentation was some of the shots that have been most popular online. He talked about construction of composition. How that you should consider golden ratio when constructng your compositions and when you show movement the object that is in motion should be on the side of the image that it is moving towards etc. But then he also said that these rules can be broken. Composition rules are not concrete and some of the best photography breaks them. He also went into great detail about the background that you are photographing on. It must be carefully considered in the shot set up. If the background is overly busy or it blends in with the subject of the photograph then it will not stand out and have little dynamism (unless this is the effect you intended). I must carefully consider the composition of my shots and the environment in which I shoot my subject matter in.

I really love the high contrast in a lot of Lomokev's photography. The colours are always bright and vivid. His portfolio consists of mainly portrait photography. He stressed that people are one of the hardest things to photograph. Before he takes a photo of somebody he gets to know them. This way he can accurately reflect their personality through photography. Kevin said that you should not be affraid of speaking to somebody and asking for a photo as the worst that they can say is no. He shoots a lot of his photography on film. Some of his photos use cross processing film which creates a very heavily contrasted, saturated image. I want to experiment with this process in this project.

I am really inspired by this photo by Lomokev. I think that it is such a great idea to play around with perspective like this.
This is Lomokev's description of the image:

"I have discovered though my time in the park with my daughter is that Sea Gulls don't like to get to close to humans, not as close as some pidgins and squirrels do. But occasionally there are one of two gulls that are little more adventures, this one is clearly one of the gulls that will steal food out of tourists hands.

This is one of the photos from a shoot where I shot Brighton, pretty much none stop for 36 hours to produce this montage. The whole thing was filmed by a film crew for O2's YouTube channel. You can watch the film and read more about this on my blog here. You can see some of the other images I shot for the montage in this Flickr set."

He described this project in detail in his talk. He said that he took out both digital and analogue cameras and shot continuously for 36 hours. He did not want to miss anything. The result was a great reflection of Brighton that shows the lively atmosphere and the culture of the place. His passion is photography and you can see that he has fun when he is shooting. He stressed the importance of emerging yourself in the subject that you are photographing. You need to fully get involved and understand the subject before you can truely represent it through a photograph. His photos are entertaining but also tell a story. They are true to the representation of what he is photographing. This is something that I want to take away from researching lomokev. The idea of documenting a place through photography and being completely honest about it.

These photo montages are great and make a typically dull and uninteresting photo really lively and exciting. I like the change in hue and contrast on each of the photos. It is subtle but it really works. Also, I like the way that the montage of photos create an image that is chopped and disjointed. This is a style of post editing in photography that I am going to experiment with when documenting Bath through photography. 

This is an interesting way to document food. All of the photos are high in saturation and contrast, some Lomokev says use cross processing. Layout of the food items and background pattern have been considered carefully. I had breakfast with Lomokev and he took a photo of his food whilst with me. He  positioned his plate, cutlery and glass carefully, but he was also really concerned with what was going on in the background of the image. He took the image from a low point of view and so another plate of food was visible. He said that he wanted to focus on the strong horizontal line that ran through the composition shot. We were also walking with lomokev in the streets of Bath and he saw a person that inspired him. He sprinted around a building to get a better shot and hastily lay on the ground to get a better shooting angle so that he could use perspective in his photo. It is this dedication to photography and quick thinking that I need to explore when documenting Bath. If I see something that inspires me or I think is interesting, I have to be prepared to do anything to get the best possible composition for the shot. 

This photo montage is truely amazing. It is the final outcome of his O2 project. I love the use of photography of sky that is around the edge of the composition.Also, the heavier contrast images in the center draw your eye inwards to the main content of the montage. It is a lively, fun way of documenting a place or experience. The photographs have been carefully selected through theirThis has given me inspiration to do something similar in Bath.