The Scot who Shot the Civil War.

The BBC showed a 1 hour documentary on Alexander Gardner, a Scot from Paisley, who moved to New York and worked as a camera operator. Gardner’s technical skill was so good that he was tasked with photographing the Union Army during the Civil War. Gardner first spent an amount of time in his studio taking portraits of young men in uniform going off to fight what they thought was going to be a short war. Gardner’s portraits were hand tinted and the gold braiding on the uniforms was painstakingly hand-painted in. Gardner followed the men into war and his first images of the civil war were post battlefield images of bodies lying where they fell. Gardner followed the war both on the battlefield and off, taking four portraits of the new president of the Union Abraham Lincoln. The four images are startling as they mark the time between Lincoln’s first rise to presidency, through the bloody civil war to the final portrait which was taken practically on the day the civil war ended. Gardner’s technique in portraiture is outstanding in that you can see in the last portrait what the weariness and struggle of war and trying to unite the nation had done to Lincoln.

The programme proposed that Gardner was the first War Photojournalist – photographers whose images of the dead on the battlefield and the damage that it did to the cities were unique in style. The programme, however, skirted over the work of Roger Fenton who five years before the start of the civil war had been photographing the Crimean war. Fenton had taken one of the first, if not the first, post battlefield image from the valley of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Fenton also photographed landmarks and images of fortifications mainly for propaganda images. Fenton’s work is also closely matched by the work of Gustav Le Gray who was photographing French troops during the Crimean war.

While not the first War journalist in the civil war, Forbes Weekly had commissioned the artist William “Alfred” Waud and Winslow Homer to draw and paint images from the front line which were then filled in and etched onto publishing plates for the printer. Gardner was in the unique position of having support from the Generals for the use of his roving darkroom to replicate maps during the war. Gardner’s printing skills came into use again after the assassination of President Lincoln where he was able to print images for handbills calling for the capture of the perpetrators.

Upon their capture Gardner was given access to the prisoners and he photographed their portraits both straight on and to the side, possible making these the first “mug shots” of prisoners. Gardner was given almost free access to the prisoners and his images are clear and well defined, considering that they were taken aboardship during the period of time when the prisoners were held. Gardner’s single access also took him to the prison here he and an assistant were the first people to photograph an execution. Gardner’s skill is shown in the image where he caught the figures dropping after the trapdoors were sprung for their hanging.

Most of Gardner’s images were never published in newspapers during the war but his images were displayed during and after the war and a selection was published in a book.

Certainly Gardner was in the right place at the right time; his knowledge and skills are shown in his images and his portraiture still stands today as wonderful images showing the soul of his subjects. He was almost certainly the first photographer to embed himself into a military unit and to share his images not only with the military but with the public as well.

Assignment 1

What: The main brief of this assignment was to take a number of portrait photographs where the portraits differed in style.

Where: At home, Outdoors and Indoors

When: Various times of the day.
How: Before I started I cast a wide net for ideas including; photography magazines, a number of books on film, National Geographic and some calendar shots.

The ideas we decided to try were:-

Sitting

• Face on, head and shoulders
• Reverse chair, dark background
• Against a wall with knees drawn up

Standing

• Face and fiddle
• In darkness, looking at a laptop

 

First Fiddle Shoot

For the first shoot I referred back to the basic lighting shots exercise, but this time switched off the room lights. I used a single, remotely-fired flash and moved in and out with the framing, adjusting the power of the flash accordingly so that it did not overexpose the image. I wanted to get a get an image of Lindsay with her fiddle. At first the images were too dark and I had to start all over again. This time I used a cloth backdrop to prevent the flash being reflected from the white cupboard doors in the background and kept the room lights on. I had to move the flash around a bit until I obtained the lighting and expression that I wanted.

Wrong Lighting on First Shoot – DSC_005

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens.

Snoot Not Working – DSC_001

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,

 

Simple Face Portrait in Monochrome

After that I decided to try an outside shoot. I started by having Lindsay just sitting on a chair and after positioning the camera slightly higher than her head height, I used the natural light to capture the image. I turned the image to monochrome as it looked better.

DSC_0068

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), aperture f/3.2, speed 1/90 second, ISO 320, Shade white balance, Multi Segment metering, tripod mounted camera, 105mm  lens,

 

 

We went back inside for two shoots, inspired by the painted portraits I had seen in the National Portrait Gallery. In this session I wanted to try several shots, with a 50’s, 60’s and 80’s spin. The lighting set up ‘worked’, so I used it for all of the following.

Red Glove

While working on this image I went from landscape to portrait and back to landscape. I wanted to be able to capture just part of Lindsay’s head and hand against the dark background. I used a dark grey muslin cloth to cover the background to prevent reflection, allowing me to position the camera as I wanted and have the flash fire from beside me pointing over her left shoulder. This prevented her face from being over exposed and bleaching the glove.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4, speed 1/180 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

 

Black Hat

Lindsay and I had discussed this idea while working on the red glove portrait. Initially I wanted to produce a close-up of her face in the style of a ‘club’ banner. However during a discussion on the fabric of the gloves, we ended up getting sidetracked onto the idea of the hat and having her lean on her gloved hand. I used a lighter background, which was slightly reflective as I did not want to over-expose the back of the image and I wanted a slight reflection from the background to stand in for a back light.

DSC_0040

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4, speed 1/20 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

 

Fiddle

In the last set of images; I incorporated one of Lindsay’s hobbies. She is quite a musical person, so I wanted to get at least one image of her with her fiddle. When I first shot this, the images were a complete disaster and I lost a bit of heart with the assignment.

Not wanting to be thwarted, however, I returned to the challenge, this time deciding to keep the image full of light rather than just using one flash. We worked in two sessions on this. The first session was beside a window where there was a lot of natural light. While she was sitting down, I raised the camera to quite a high height and shot down towards her face as she looked up into the lens. I was pleased with the final result as she was not too underexposed compared to the background.

 

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/30 second, ISO 320, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

DSC_0078

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 44mm (35mm equivalent 66mm), aperture f4.3, speed 1/8 second, ISO 1250, Auto white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,

 

For the second shoot, we returned to the room with the background and shot a few images there. Lindsay stood against the background, playing her fiddle while I positioned the camera directly in front of her and photographed her down the length of the instrument.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f8, speed 1/8 second, ISO 3200, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

 

Laptop

I wanted to produce one image with completely artificial light, but not using a flash or a torch. I hit upon the idea usually used in sci-fi or action films were the person’s face is lit up with the light from the screen. We waited until it was dark and then closed and sealed the curtains to keep out any light. I had Lindsay wear a dark wool jumper, sit on a low stool and open her netbook. I then had her look at a blue background screen and then a white word document to obtain differing colours of light. I took two images; one from a distance where her body is slightly defined by the light from the screen, the second image a close up of her face being lit by the white light from the screen.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/20 second, ISO 1250, Flash white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens,

DSC_0103

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/20 second, ISO 1250, Flash white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens.

I did find this assignment quite difficult as every time I hit a problem, I would lose a bit of momentum and hope; partially due to my ongoing illness. In the end however I believe I have managed to produce a number of good images that I am personally pleased with.