*ooof*: Richard “Metallica” Armitage

When I started this post, I was in a black kind of mood and therefore wanted to look at something a bit gritty. Or should I put my offensive excuse of an American accent on and say “griddy”? It would fit today’s *ooof* preddy pretty well, too. Alas, the weather has turned and the sun is shining brightly, with a heatwave splitting the Irish trees. In any case, looking at a RARA image when feeling down is an instant mood lifter! Smile or not, how could you feel depressed when being faced with a double whammy of aesthetics?

Granted, b/w photography has that “image” of being serious, arty, (overly) aesthetic. That is due to the (subconscious? irrational?) association of b/w with a no-nonsense, undistracted concentration on the subject of an image. The subtlety of the tones in a b/w image demand the viewer’s attention, hence the perception of it as a “serious” medium of photography. The fact that we are surrounded by colour photography wherever we look (mostly advertising, but also reading materials and print media, our own holiday snaps etc.) has made b/w comparatively scarce and therefore given it that touch of artsy-fartsy-ness and thus made it a very deliberate, aesthetic choice. And yet, what a relief to look at an image that does not scream colours, attacking our cones with information!

Armitage has still got the grunge. Image by Robert Ascroft, 2012. Source.

B/w images instead scream “grittiness”. Well, not all, but this one sure does. Can you hear it? And the grittiness of the b/w tone is well matched by the composition and the styling. The most obvious is probably the location which itself communicates a feeling of gritty sharpness: The subject is placed beside a metal shutter (the “griddy grid”) through which we see nothing but black darkness. Behind the sitter is a flaky wall. Although the design of the metal shutter makes it clear that these are not prison bars and RA is no convict, there still is an air of isolation and disconnectedness in the image. Shutters obviously separate people from something. They keep people out or in. With the wall behind him, RA looks as if he is shut in, looking out through the shutter. The styling of the subject is appropriately pared-down as well: Armitage is dressed in a simple dark (grey) t-shirt. His chin sports stubble which seems to extend down along his throat, and he shows a tiny bit of chest hair.

The picture as it is composed is very much designed with b/w in mind. In order for b/w to work you need strong contrasts. Experienced photographers are able to visualise a scene in monochrome, they can imagine the tonal translations of the various colours into shades of grey and understand that a successful b/w image needs strong colour differences in order to create distinct tonal contrasts. Hence we have seen previous RARA b/w‘s only when Ascroft shot Armitage against a white, blown-out background from which the sitter very clearly stood out. (Sidenote: All other RARAs are shot against dark or busy backgrounds and are clearly not intended for b/w post-production. You can check that when you compare the Ascroft original with one of the many edits that you can find on fansites. They usually do not work very well – unless they have also been given a complete overhaul for contrast and pushed through a filter. Even my current favourite RARA of Armitage on a box is not ideal in b/w despite a neutral background: The light has been strongly and deliberately directed so as to give a vignetting effect (the darkened corners) which does not translate well into b/w.)

Here, the main contrast is created by the white metal links of the shutter against the black darkness behind it, and the light skin of Armitage’s skin against which his eyes, eyebrows, hair and stubble starkly stand out. I am willing to bet that the metal links of the shutter are not painted white at all even though that seems to be their colour value. Similarly, I am sure that the background was not as dark as it comes across in the image. The details of it were clearly visible to Armitage and Ascroft. The reason the contrast appears so stark is the harsh lighting that Ascroft uses. The strong light gets reflected off the metal shutters, appearing as highlights in the image. As a side-effect, all areas of the image that the light does not reach to appear completely blacked out. However, it could have been possible that the area behind the shutter was in fact lit in daylight – and it still appears like deepest darkest night…

Harsh lighting is not used that often by Ascroft. He seems to prefer the soft shadows of light diffused through a softbox as strong light can appear very unflattering on people. It makes white areas whiter, throws harsh shadows onto the subject or the background and thus draws a lot of attention. It emphasises edges and clearly demarks the lines – check the edges of the shutter links in the centre of the image, they are very sharp. (The edges of the links at the left edge of the image appear softer because of the large aperture Ascroft has chosen and which subsequently blurs the foreground out of focus.) The sharpness of lines also apply to lines on the face of a sitter. If any wrinkles are caught in strong side-light, you will see deep dark canyons of shadow. Not a good look!

With all this in mind, Ascroft decides to use the angular lines of the shutter as perspective lines in the image. The sightlines are easy to define in this picture. By shooting more or less alongside the shutter, Ascroft creates strong diagonals. This is a great and often used device to create a natural focus point in an image. Normally, we would expect the subject of an image to sit in the centre of the frame. This is not the case here – Armitage has been squeezed into the right-hand third. And yet our gaze is immediately drawn to his face. By shooting exactly at eye-level of the subject and by placing himself aligned with the shutter’s horizontal lines, the photographer makes it look as if the lines all converge on RA’s face. All roads lead to Rome…  There are also strong verticals in the image – the shutter links, high-lit by the harsh light, stand out brightly. More diagonals are created by the shadow of the shutter. They are completely at odds with their source and appear (almost) only on the subject’s skin. But observe how cleverly the subject and the light have been arranged respectively: The shadow diagonals do not obstruct the camera’s view of the subject’s eyes. This is extremely important because we need to see the subject’s eyes in a portrait. Ascroft undoubtedly gave RA minute instructions on how to pose in this image. Does that account for the stare on Armitage’s face? Posing is hard work!

This is a very busy composition, plus, one that obscures Armitage’s handsome face quite a bit, and therefore I can easily see how many of you might not consider this as a favourite RA image. It goes along a similar vein as Paula Parrish’s images for Fault Magazine which were “controversial” among fans. Grittiness, it seems, is an acquired taste. And b/w, with its propensity to obscure parts of the sitter due to shadow, seems to be perceived as a tool for hiding and deceiving. Imho it does exactly the opposite: It exposes facets of the sitter that can easily be glossed over in colour photography. It focuses on essentials and distils the essence of the subject in visual representation. Put on deliberately or only as a fleeting expression, Armitage’s facial expression speaks of fortitude and resolution, much the same as what “grittiness” implies. His gaze is a stare, he fixedly gazes off-camera, determinedly. He displays the usual mystery of the smiling eyes and the non-smiling mouth. The effect is the open interpretation of his facial expression – some of us may see him smile, others may find him rather grim-looking. It could be up to your sunny or cloudy personality or your individual disposition.

Personally, this shot reminds me of an album cover. With Thorin “Metallica” Oakenshield in mind, this image has an altogether brazen, brash, resolute feel than other portraits. That is an interesting interpretation of RA. As connoisseurs of l’Armitage we know that he is a classical musician. However, he apparently is a multi-instrumentalist – the cello, the flute and the guitar. Boom! RA hits me right into the feels again. I just love music and I adore musicians. The image has echoes of hard-edged rock photography. I am thinking of Anton Corbijn‘s fantastic work, possibly also because of the use of strong perspective lines in this image. Corbijn has got many examples of that in his oeuvre – Nick Cave, Martin Gore, Herbert Grönemeyer, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, to name but a few (click on name to see the images).

Richard Armitage’s debut album as a rock musician. I can’t *quite* see him as a solo-guitarist, although the wonderful picture of a rocking RA by Liza Frank gives us a hint of music fiend RA. The man can rock, undoubtedly, and in Frank’s image we see him doing the air guitar, too, complete with the determined mouth. No tongue of concentration, though – awwww. Yes – that’s the proper way of playing the air guitar! We know he likes rock music with excursions into slightly heavier material – after all he attended the Tenacious D concert in Wellington and looked suitably tired and rocked-out after it. I imagine him more of a collaborative artist, what with his tendency to slip into the background in group shots. But here is Richard “Metallica” Armitage on the cover of his debut album. It’s called “Still Got The Grunge” and features an innovative mix of guitar-based rock with accents of strings and flute. The contrast of romantic flute and hard-edged, guitar-wanking solos has the fangirls in ecstasy and the critics in rapture. He’s put his grittiest look on, fixing the groupies who are queuing outside the backdoor of his concert venue with a fierce stare. “I am a dangerous rock man, primeval, ladies, back off! You may love the sensitive fingers of a cellist, and the sensual mouth of a flautist but beware, guitarists are ANIMALS. Anything is possible, when I’m set loose. One strum of my fingers, and I have you SING!” *ooof*

All text © Guylty at me + richard armitage, 2013. Please credit when using excerpts and links. Images and video copyrights accrue to their owners.

~ by Guylty on July 9, 2013.