Mike Brodie is an American photographer who began hopping trains at 17 and spent five years crisscrossing the US, photographing his journey which he later made into a book entitled 'A Period of Juvenile Prosperity'.
One reason why his photographs for this project are so encapulating is because Brodie lived the lives of the train hoppers that he captured. I think to document anything to the fullest extent you need to become part of the community your photographing, I think for my project photographing the EDL I
should try to talk to the subjects before and during the event and become part of them. This should firstly allow the portraits to properly show the personality of the people I photograph and also give the viewer a deeper insight into the group which is portrayed in the media. I'm hoping my photographs will proved the viewer with something more than the medias photographs, because they document the group from the side and never get fully involved so their photographs will always be from the point of view of an outsider looking in. This means that their images will never portray the real feelings of the group, like Brodie did for this project I want to become part of the group for the day to photograph them properly.
Like Zed Nelson did, Brodie took a range of different styles for his images. Like the top image shows, he took some documentary/ portraiture images which capture the subject with their knowledge in the natural surroundings that their in.
On the other hand he also caught more candid images which suggest that the subjects present in the image had no idea that he was taking the photograph, so the moment captured is exactly the same as how it happened in real life. This gives the idea to the viewer that they are being shown images from a group they wouldn't get accessed to in real life, and makes them feel apart of whats happening. Specifically in the image shown above, the point of view is as if the viewer was a person who is on the train looking at one of their fellow travellers, which makes them feel very involved in the images.
Another type of image he took was candid action, which is the same type as the image above but it just involves more movement. This works really well for his project but its taken on a moving train, which the viewer could forget from looking at some of his other images that look very static. For the EDL, if any fast action takes place I will try to capture it, but I will also try and capture the general walking action of the march that will be taking place. If things kick off with the police though it will give my documentary project a different feel, one of a much more fast pace event.
His images are richly toned which make the images portray quite moody scenes of hard times and disparity, and also a struggle to be free from the normality of the everyday which they are trying to escape.
Something I can from Brodie's work is getting within the community you want to photograph, because it's the only way to represent to the world what they are actually like. I wont be able to do this as much as Brodie did for my project on the EDL, but on the day I can at least talk to the supporters and photograph people from inside the group instead of just shooting at them. Furthermore, Brodie knows really well what kind of images he needs to produce to best represent the events that he witnessed, which meant taking photographs from multiple different angles of different things to give the viewer the a little snippet into each part of the journey and what they got up to.
Another type of image he took was candid action, which is the same type as the image above but it just involves more movement. This works really well for his project but its taken on a moving train, which the viewer could forget from looking at some of his other images that look very static. For the EDL, if any fast action takes place I will try to capture it, but I will also try and capture the general walking action of the march that will be taking place. If things kick off with the police though it will give my documentary project a different feel, one of a much more fast pace event.His images are richly toned which make the images portray quite moody scenes of hard times and disparity, and also a struggle to be free from the normality of the everyday which they are trying to escape.
Something I can from Brodie's work is getting within the community you want to photograph, because it's the only way to represent to the world what they are actually like. I wont be able to do this as much as Brodie did for my project on the EDL, but on the day I can at least talk to the supporters and photograph people from inside the group instead of just shooting at them. Furthermore, Brodie knows really well what kind of images he needs to produce to best represent the events that he witnessed, which meant taking photographs from multiple different angles of different things to give the viewer the a little snippet into each part of the journey and what they got up to.