205dpi Issue May’15
Gina Shord Illustrator www.ginashord.co.uk
This issue May’15
Who are we? We are photographers. Journalistic ones. We document, record and capture anything we find interesting, beautiful or captivating. Sometimes our stories may seem strange or unusual, but we are the eye behind it all; and that’s what this magazine is all about. From cakes to paralympics, graffiti to kickboxing, our editorial documentary style takes us around Cornwall, the UK and the rest of the world. Follow us and our collective of photographers as we capture our adventures, our remarkable stories and our everyday
What’ve we been doing? As summer winds on, the team at 205DPI have officially finished University. Our time in education winds to an end, alongside many long-term photo stories. In this issue, we feature a glimpse of a few of these projects that our contributors have worked on in the last year.
p.s. keep updated: 4.
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36 Feature Story Roger Tooth Picture Editor of well respected newspaper, The Guardian, discusses his opinions on the industry.
Monthly Single Images: Beth Arkwright Rebecca Newbold
22 2. Annalise Taylor
Represents the struggles and gradual decline featured in the eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa.
30 3. John Liot
Recalls his life changing trip to New York to document the MMA champion Liam McGeary.
1. Briony
Dowson
Plays with our preceptions and assumptions with her project promoting strong women ‘Be A Girl’.
36 4. Ellie
Hetebrij
Documents the incredible journey of up-and-coming ParaCyclist athlete Craig Green.
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Real talk with Roger Tooth
“There is a constant joy in seeing photographers find new ways to capture familiar stories.” This months Real Talk feature moves away from professional photographers, but instead explores another vital cog of the photographic industry as we talk to Roger Tooth, Picture Editor at The Guardian Newspaper in the UK. With years of experience within the newspaper and magazine industry, in this interview Roger explains what it’s like to be working for one of the most well know and respected newspapers in the country, and how he finds constant joy in seeing stunning photographs appear on his picture desk. Photography (portrait) by Harry Lawlor
Hey Roger. Hello 205dpi. So, what it is like being the head of photography for the Guardian? Pretty busy: constantly being asked questions! Having done the job for many years not much takes me by surprise, but there is a constant joy in seeing photographers find new ways to capture familiar images or stories. That’s what makes all the juggling of budgets and managing continuous change worthwhile. How did you start out before being head of photography? I trained as a photographer on a local paper, graduated to a magazine group, then went freelance; I worked for the Guardian amongst
Feature - Real Talk with Roger Tooth
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Feature - Real Talk with Roger Tooth
other papers and mags for a few years before joining the Guardian picture desk as Assistant Picture Editor. I also began a degree in photography but gave it up for the local paper job! How do you edit down the photographs used in feature stories, what do you specifically look for to make a well-rounded story? Well you need a range of photographs. Overall scene-setting images, portraits of anybody important to the feature, then pictures of details that might add colour and interest to the pages. The Guardian’s centre page spread features more light hearted stand-alone images, how do you fit this in with the hard news stories that fill the rest of the paper? Sometimes this is slightly difficult on a day that has a tragic main story, for example an earthquake, but the eyewitness feature is often used deliberately to lighten the run of normally serious, heavy news. We do try to choose mix the eyewitness subjects: possibly an animal one day, some art the next, a news picture the day after. You probably have a lot of stories that you cannot publish due to ethics but how do you go about this? There is not much we don’t publish, but we have some guidelines about what pictures we will print. Mostly these are about privacy and images of children. But we have very few rules as such. Each image is judged on its merits, on the day. Do you feel that the website is more different from the newspaper and whether it will take over in the future?
Well physically it’s completely different and it’s taking over already in it’s international reach and huge readership. The paper along with the other nationals still plays a part in the life of the nation though and has an influence over and above the circulation, I think. More practically, we can publish much more on the website including of course galleries of pictures alongside video. The multi-media world online is at quite an early stage of development. How do you feel about publications using free content? I’m not that keen on it. The Guardian, although owned by a trust does operate as a commercial organisation and while someone might be pleased to see one of their images published by us one for free, the second time they might feel that some sort of recompense was due! Having said that we do run the Guardian Witness project for readers’ material and we print a weather picture everyday from that source, in the spirit of the publication being the reward. Do you have any tips for aspirational photographers that want to go into picture editing? Have a good knowledge of picture sources, perhaps go on a picture research course (BAPLA, www.bapla.org.uk, the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies would have advice on these), because a picture researcher is the normal starting job on a picture desk; look at or read as many publications as possible, so you know who publishes what style of picture; listen to the Today programme in the morning! Interview: Tom Sandberg Photography (portrait): Harry Lawlor
Feature - Real Talk with Roger Tooth 11.
Photograph from Roger Tooths days as a photographer: Police removing protesters from outside the gates of Greenham Common airbase who are blocking the path of a US Airforce bus, 13 December 1982.
Beth Arkwright Monthly single image www.facebook.com/BethArkwrightPhotography
Be A Girl
Briony Dowson continues a campaign encouraging healthy, strong and confident women.
The advertising campaign ‘Like A Girl’ by Always is a wave of thinking to encourage female confidence. When tasked with a University project based around Fashion, I felt it an opportunity to extend the Always campaign further, in honour of it’s inspirtation. The campaign fights against the idea of doing something ‘like a girl’, and it becoming an insult. It aims to redefine the predetermined idea of doing things like a girl, and instead encourages women to feel strong and confident about themselves. I loved the idea of changing peoples perceptions of ‘being a girl’ or ‘girly’ and wanted to stop
18. Briony Dowson
people using those terms in a derogative way. We are all well aware that the fashion market is saturated with western ideals of beauty and the ever increasignly thin models, especially within advertising. Using healthy real women in my photographs provided me a chance to break that, and show beauty in a less expected style within fashion photography. My images are bold in colour, light, movement and shapes, to really emphasise the female empowerment. Femininely isn’t defined by stereotypes, being sporty is both strong and beautiful, and I
Retinitis Pigmentosa Annalise explores and represents a progressive eye disease through her metephorical imagery.
A progressive disease of degeneration and impairment. Retinitis Pigmentosa is visual impairment that develops from a degeneration which involves the photoreceptors and then the retinal pigment epithelium. It’s a tragic family of diseases resulting in the death of photoreceptors; the rods are more vulnerable and the cones survive longer but are eventually lost in both eyes. There is not yet a cure or treatment to halt the inexorable progress towards blindness. This photographic project explores visual impairments, in particular the eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). The project is informed
by scientific imagery, as I created visual metaphors to communicate the incurable deterioration of the eye condition. I have always been interested in sight and how we see, especially as working as a visual artist. I have considered the viewer of the work and how they may experience the images that I create. This project primarily stems from a gallery visit with my cousin Robert, who suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa where I witnessed first hand the difficulty that he endured
24. Annalise Taylor
to look at the artwork. I want to raise awareness of the of impairment because it is incurable and leads to blindness. It is a disease not well known, but it’s estimated that 1 in 3,000 to 4,000 people suffer from it. The disease often features reduced field of vision - described like seeing through a straw. Although this may seem a lesser example of the condition, it will usually progress to complete blindness.
“Your mind is like a live camera that is constantly taking pictures of every single moment that comes onto you�
- David Acuna
Liam McGeary: The Fight John Liot documents the journey of now MMA Bellator champion Liam McGeary’s rise to victory.
Within 5 minutes of the opening round, Liam McGeary had done what so many thought impossible; he had won the Bellator MMA lightheavyweight tournament. Along with a giant novelty cheque for $100,000, the victory had earned Liam a shot at the organization’s light-heavyweight champion, Emanuel Newton. My name is John Liot, and I’m a photographer. I’ve been following Liam’s fighting career closely, from his professional combat origins in Jersey to performing in front of a television audience of over one million in the United States. I had wanted to travel to America to document his pursuit of becoming Bellator tournament champion, but submitted that it wasn’t the right time for me. I had made a promise to myself though that should Liam claim victory in the tournament final then I would be there, (wherever ‘there’ was) to document his attempt at the world title. A date hadn’t been set yet, but Liam informed me that after taking some time off he would be ready to go for his title shot in early 2015. This was it for me, I’d entered a period where speaking figuratively about the future was no longer applicable; the future was here and I either made it what I said it’d be, or I’d be just another person with hot-air ambitions. Knowing that my student bank balance wasn’t facilitating any long-stay trips to America, I needed to source money another way, I needed to appeal to an audience. My subsequent foray into the world of crowd-funding was one of ups and downs, successes and regrets, self-doubt and a little bit of ego-inflation. In many ways, without the positive growth that crowd-funding had given my ‘brand’, I would’ve found the difficult parts of this project even more so. Because the truth is, this project wasn’t easy. I was in America for just under a month, shooting every day within the Arctic tundra that is New York City in February. Of course, I should preface what I want to talk about with how incredible this project was, what a life-affirming trip it was for me. I learnt so much about myself, my relationship to photography, my desire to explore the world, to
32. John Liot
create things for people, to be a ‘nice guy’. The project was devised to be a fly-on-the-wall style photodocumentary. I aspired to capture the build-up to a world title fight, to create memories of the intense training sessions, of the light-hearted in-between moments, all the drama, the elation and fallout of victory. Mostly, I wanted to do it for Liam. I had established my reasoning for shooting this project was like how a wedding photographer documents a wedding. It was photography for the sake of preserving memories, in the way that only the silent, still-moment medium can. To be alone with an image that means something to you, to have your brain explore and search for those memories and emotions attached. It’s quite a romantic view to have, I suppose. I feel like photography asks more from the viewer than other formats, but for those willing to put the effort in to digesting an image’s meanings and story, the pay-out is greater. I craved to do something special and definitive with my final year of University and this project had lined up perfectly. Though I felt like my reasoning for wanting to take on this project was selfless, I didn’t want this project to look like something anyone present with a camera could shoot. It mattered to me to make it as much a ‘John Liot’ story about Liam than just a recounting of an event. Since primary school I’ve always had a strong association with telling stories and creative writing, and through my development at Falmouth University I feel like photojournalism has given me a format to continue telling stories. What I wanted to show in my work were the elements
of professional fighting that you rarely see within the glossy promotional videos of top-level shows. This was my first time, as well as Liam’s, doing anything like this, so a certain amount of space was afforded. I didn’t want to overstep my limits early on in the project and mess up the rest of my time. I also didn’t know how close I needed to get to tell the story. This was my project for Liam after-all, he wasn’t paying for me to be there, so I needed to respect his space, yet still appease my creative appetite for telling a great story. This project wasn’t Tim Hetherington’s ‘Sleeping Soldiers’, but I still aspired to bring in a certain amount of emotion and connection between the audience and Liam’s story from seeing moments of vulnerability and humility. From my perspective I felt that my focus wasn’t even so much about the actual fight itself, not about showing it at least. I felt that the fight was the easiest and most transparent aspect of this project to view. Within the confides of the steel cage there would be multiple cameras filming multiple angles of the action, as well as an army of sports photographers capturing the fight in technically superior ways to me. I almost conceded that I would give up the money shots of the fight, but focus my attention and ability to the areas they wouldn’t be at. After all, these guys didn’t get photos of Liam in deep concentration as his girlfriend nearly beat him at an MMA video game…
34. John Liot
“I had established my reasoning for shooting this project was like how a wedding photographer documents a wedding. It was photography for the sake of preserving memories, in the way that only the silent, still-moment medium can.�
John Liot
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The Extrordinary Tale of Craig Green Ellie covers the inspirational story of the up-and-coming paralympian Craig Green.
I first came across Craig Green through Charity Scope, who had published an article about him as a part of their ‘100 days 100 stories’, Real Life campaigns. Upon reading it I couldn’t help being inspired by him. He had risen above the obstacles that life had thrown at him, and was determined to better himself. In all inspiring peoples stories there is always an event where the main character lands himself in trouble, but this is where Craig’s story really begins. Although it may seem hard to believe, it would seem that the day Craig went to Jail is the day his life changed for the better. Craig was born with Poland Syndrome - a condition affecting his right hand and pectoral muscles. Despite originally being born with a webbed hand, with thanks to Great Ormond Street Hospital at age eleven they opened up his hand making his thumb accessible. Even as a child Craig never let his disability get him down and described himself as one of the ‘lucky ones’. However, unlike most of his peers, Craig was told that his hand would stop him from getting into any physical careers
such as bricklaying or the Army. In need of money, Craig found himself working on a Cannabis farm and In June 2010 was sentenced to four years in Prison for conspiracy to cultivate a Class B Drug. This monumental event proved to be the turning point in his life; a place where he could remove himself from negativity and rewire his thoughts. Craig spent his free time getting fit and volunteering in the Prison gym, and then at the Peterborough YMCA community gym. Released in July 2012, Craig carried on volunteering at the community gym of which he now manages. He later attended the 2013 annual festival ‘Sportfest’ in Sheffield, which showcases a range of Paralympic sports, where he got talking to the British Cycling team, and after a successful trial found that he had got hooked on the sport. Now training six days a week, in a variety of different methods including endurance, speed and recovery races, Craig is a C5 ParaCyclist hoping to compete in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio.
Ellie Hetebrij
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Rebecca Newbold Monthly single images www. rebeccanewbold.com
This issue’s stars 1. 2. 3.
Beth Arkwright
www.facebook.com/betharkwrightphotography
Briony Dowson
‘Be A Girl’ brionydowson@btinternet.com www.brionydowsonphotographer.wordpress.com
Annalise Taylor
‘Retinitis Pigmentosa’ annalisesheriephotography@gmail.com www.annalisesherie.com
John Liot
4. 5. 6. 44.
‘Liam McGeary: The Fight’ 07752 832068 johnliot@gmail.co.uk www.flickr.com/photos/leofacephotography
Ellie Hetebrij
‘The Extraordinary Tale of Craig Green’ elliehetebrij@googlemail.com www.elliehetebrij.com
Rebecca Newbold
www.rebeccanewbold.com
With thanks to.. Lois Golding
Editor-in-chief www.loisgolding.carbonmade.com
Production team Tom Sandberg Manager
Paige Harrison Editor & Writer
Sophie Sear
Assistant Manager
Matt Cox
Brand designer & sign writing god Instagram - mattcox904
Roger Tooth
Special feature picture editor. www.theguardian.com/profile/rogertooth
John Liot & Harry Lawlor
General assistance and special feature portrait.
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Gina Shord Illustrator www.ginashord.co.uk
To contact for requests, questions or more information: team@205dpi.com All images and text published in 205dpi are the sole propertry of the featured authors and the subject copyright. 2015 Š 205dpi