St Malo Photo’s

During the St Malo trip my small group completed a number of activities that we photographed and filmed. These photo’s are very happy photo’s that include a lot of energy and are a good representative of our activities from the day.

Here is a contact sheet contacting the photo’s I took from the day. The majority of these photo’s are from the afternoon session which we spent on the beach. On the beach we met two boy’s who had set up a tightrope, I asked if i could take some photo’s of what they were doing and them performing some tricks. I also had a go on the rope myself- which fits in with the theme of ‘Chance, change & Challenge’. We also played a big game of bulldog on the beach with some American people we met, whilst playing this game I also took photo’s   throughout the game.

The rest of the photo’s are from around the street’s of St Malo and photo’s captured during our experiments.

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Psychogeography

When talking to Tom Pope he mentioned the word ‘Psychogeography’, as he used it in one of his shoots. He used it as a way of travelling around the Tate Modern. He made a paper aeroplane and flew it through the gallery, and where ever the paper aeroplane landed would be what piece of art he would look at. As well as experimenting with psychogeography, he was also doing this experiment to see what people’s reactions would be- as he was going against the social norms of how to travel round an art exhibition.

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This is the map of the paper aeroplanes route from Tom Pope’s work ‘Flight Fancy’

 

Psychogeography was created in 1955 by Guy Debord as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” Psychogeography is an approach to geography that emphasises playfulness and “drifting” around urban environments. It has links to the Situationist International.

One way of achieving psychogeorgraphy is using the wrong map to navigate your way around an area. I think the idea behind this method of geography, is to lead yourselves to places you may have never of been before, which may be someplace wonderful. It also gives the person an element of freedom and leaving the route to chance. I really like this idea of travelling around an area.

Meeting Tom Pope

The first time we met Tom Pope was at the Jersey Societe, This is when he talked about  his work and his interests. His interests that he injects into his work is; Humor, chance, repetition ect… After talking about this he took us to an outdoor space where we completed three task.

The Orange Task

We were paired up and were told to get an orange. We had to throw these oranges to one another, whilst holding the camera in the other hand and capturing the orange in the air. The steps to setting up for this task, was firstly setting the camera to the appropriate parameters. We also turned the flash on. Secondly we placed the orange on the floor and focused our camera onto the orange- we did this so the orange would be in focus in the photograph. Then finally we rapped the strap of the camera around the opposite hand to our throwing hand. These are the photos I got from this activity.

 

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The Selfie Task

This task was also a pairs task and the aim of the game was to take picture of your partner but not let them take pictures of you. Here are my photographs from this task.

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Choreographing

The third task we were asked to complete was where we gathered into groups of fives, and each one of us write down an action of a piece of paper. For example a cartwheel. We all had to complete all of these actions whilst taking a photograph at the same time. Here are some of the photo’s from this shoot.

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I think that these three photoshoots were really helpful for me to have an insight into the type of photography we were needing to achieve on the St Malo trip. Even though the photographs were not of great quality, the purpose behind them shows the element of fun, and chance. I think that these shoots helped encourage my idea’s for the France trip, and helped make the France trip as successful as it was.