Relevant Photographers to Surfboard Shaper - Person At Work

 
Ocean Driven Media is a company made up of two individuals, Wade Howard and Mike van Heerden. They often take on large projects such as large events or weddings including smaller ones such as shooting Derek a surfboard shaper they had known for many years.


The picture I have chosen out of this project uses very similar techniques to mine to show a person at work. For example, the perfect symmetry of the image is replicated in this image shot by Ocean Driven Media which is very similar to my photo (below) of Seabase. We have both used a shallow depth of field to drop the foreground out of the point of focus and draw the viewer's attention to the shaper. Also, they both show the shapers doing the same job, sanding down the boards. The composition is clearly the most important part of both of these photos and it looks like Ocean Driven Media have chosen to do this for the same reasons as I did; to make the job of the shaper as clear as possible. Doing this could make an uninteresting photograph but by adding in the shallow depth of field and carefully framed composition, they both make interesting and informative images.
















 

Alexandre Adel Musso is a designer/photographer from Morocco who took this image of a surfboard shaper. I love the detail that is shown in the image which is due to the tight framing and also how he has frozen the action of the belt sander. Freezing the action makes the image more interesting because it is a detail that you would not normally be able to see. As I mentioned about the images above, the depth of field in this image is used in the foreground to draw attention to the action in the photograph to clearly show a 'person at work'.

Also, Musso chose to convert to black and white as I did in my photographs. The contrast in this photo is probably my favorite aspect comparing the pitch black background to the white foam of the board.

Not showing the actual person at work and just showing their hand also makes the image more interesting to me. It could be seen as less personal due to not being able to see their face; but I find the detail and precision of the work and how close the camera is to the action gives it a unique feel that would not be possible if the image was shot wider.



Peter Politanoff is a professional freelance photographer from Los Angeles, USA. He took this picture of a surfboard shaper. This image is of Mike Geib shaping a surfboard.

This picture is very similar to mine which can be seen below. The shapers are both using the same sanding tool at a similar part of the shaping process. We also both made our images black and white. I did this because I felt the contrast looked stronger this way and it improve the looks of the image due to their being flat and 'boring' colours in the colour version.

I have found that having a persons head in an image can be distracting if it is not the main subject of the image. This may be the reason Politanoff decided to crop this part of the scene out to ensure the focus was on the sanding process. This is the same reason I decided to only show what I felt was the important parts of the room to show a person at work in the most informative way.

The only part of this photograph I don't like is the distracting hand/arm in the foreground. Although it does not cover the subject of the image; the extremely strong contrast draws your eye towards it when it does not give us any more information about the profession.