When scanning in these images I forgot to change the sizes so they are all very small. Over the holidays I’ll be scanning more in (for general family use) and so will update these images to the bigger versions.
Family Album Research Continued
Daily Archives: July 9, 2015
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Photoshoots
This was one of the first photoshoots we did in St. Malo , however it was unplanned we came across this water fountain while we were deriving. I like this photoshoot because I think It fit’s in well the concept of pushing the boundaries of what is and isn’t accepted in society. There was a few spectators sitting on the benches behind the fountain it was interesting to see their reaction, some of them stared in disgust while others choose to ignore it.
This was the second photoshoot we did, while deriving. The concept behind this idea is similar to the first one as these ‘trunks’ were put there to be looked at and not to be climbed almost as a type of monument. However I don’t think this idea worked as well as the first one because there wasn’t many people on the beach therefore we weren’t able to get an audience reaction or participation.
For this photoshoot, the girls sat down next to the man on the bench and copied his movements although this photoshoot wasn’t pushing any boundaries I think it was a brave thing to do and isn’t in the norms of what society would expect you to do in public especially with a stranger. It was also interesting to see his reaction, I think he was embarrassed at the beginning but then understood what was going on and found it quite amusing.
When we were with Tom Pope we came up with the idea of carrying Holly around in a populated area. I think that this was a good idea however it was hard to keep a straight face and not laugh which at times made it look like we were just messing around between friends. There was also no participation from the audience which Tom Pope likes to incorporate into his work, it was more of an ‘closed’ photoshoot.
For this photoshoot we took it in turns to wonder up to the statue and copy the position in which the statue was standing we made a video out of this however this is just a snapshoot. In the video we were able to capture the audience walking by and looking at what we were doing. However I don’t think that this photoshoot was pushing the boundries very far and therefore we didn’t get a big reaction out of the public.
Surrealism Planning + Experimentation
For this shoot I took a lot of inspiration from Christopher Mckenney, a surrealist photographer. I really enjoy his work and find it visually interesting. I think that this really gives off a dream-like reality as a lot of his work shows clothing without the person’s bare skin ever being shown. I adopted this idea for my own work and in some photos did a similar thing and others I got some inspiration from his work and put my own little twist on it. I enjoyed editing these too. I thought this style was great as it isn’t something you see every day, its weird and unique, it makes for a really interesting photograph and I like how experimental it is.
I find much of Mckenney’s work very intense and with a deeper meaning but my photographs do not hold the same meaning. My photographs aren’t supposed to make sense, they allow people to broad their minds and to think more in-depth than they usually would to really try to understand what I am trying to portray to them but the real meaning of my surrealism photographs is simply what the spectator thinks of them. There is no right or wrong specific meaning behind them, I want to give room for people to bring their own meaning to my surrealist photographs. Although, if I had to portray meaning in these photographs I would say how in our society we often judge people by what they look like and how they dress. We as humans don’t tend to see someone for their individual personality but we first judge them on their physique and we don’t allow them to first talk to us as we have already got our first impression and opinion of them. I want to say that people are quick to judge and if we only ever saw someone for their physique then we would live in a very different world, an invisible one whereby everyone hides behind their clothing and objects instead of embracing their bodies and accepting others for what they look like and who they are.
http://www.christophermckenney.com
An image that particularly caught my eye was the one below.
I find this image very hard hitting. The American flag wrapped around the subjects head and the suit the subject is wearing makes me think of the American Dream and that if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. The gun, to me, represents the pressure of being successful has brought on the subject and that the dream isn’t all its made out to be. The fact that the subject is submerged in water makes me think that he possibly doesn’t want to be found when he does shoot himself and the dream. I think this is a great surrealism piece as it isn’t something you would ever expect to see in real life, especially the American flag wrapped tightly around the subjects face. The background looks very dull and gives more of a chilling atmosphere to add the the main prop of the gun in the image. I really enjoy this and think that it is a great visual representation of how people may actually feel and really embodies surrealism. I really enjoy the reflection of the subject in the water which adds more to the image. Overall I think that this is a really great image and can say a lot about the subject and is a great surrealist piece. I really want to explore this movement further and come up with some more ideas with a deeper meaning behind them.
Surrealism Plan/Ideas:
Images all in woods/forest
– Subjects legs and shoes only on a log with everything else rubbed out
– Image of subject holding balloon up on a long coil of string. Wearing black hat. Face rubbed out/or balloon covers it [experiment with swapping face of balloon with face of model]
– up close shot of subject with black hat on holding balloon in front of face, everything rubbed out accept balloon, hair and hat
– sheet covers certain parts of body all bare skin/clothing out of sheet is rubbed out
– image of subjects clothing but all bare skin is rubbed out
In this project I was able to imbed chance, change and challenge. It was a bit of a chance to guess how he managed to create him work. For this I took a photo of the background image and then got my subject to stand in front and I positioned them how I wanted them and then in Photoshop layered the images on top of one another and used the eraser tool to create a new image where the bare flesh of the subject isn’t there at all. It was also quite challenging as it isn’t something that I would usually do and a lot of people may not understand it but I did actually really enjoy it and thought that it was successful. The change is also the style of the photograph and my experimentation with surrealist photography which also ties into performance photography. My subject has to stand in various odd positions in order to create a good photograph and to make them as visually interesting as those of Christopher Mckenney.
Here are the images I made as a response to Surrealism photography, specifically Christopher Mckenney.
Invisibility Cloak
For this shoot I went with the theme of not being able to see any bare skin. I like the idea of this as I wanted to portray people as invisible and can only be seen for their clothing. I wondered what it would be like to live in a world where everyone is invisible and whereby instead of hiding behind clothes to cover ourselves we use them as a way to be identified, to express ourselves and to make our presence known.
Tom Pope Inspirations
Tom Pope spoke of a couple of things when we first met him which have inspired his work, for example Dadaism, Situation-ism and Psycho-geography were a couple he mentioned.
Dadaism was a revolt by certain 20th Century painters and writers in France, Germany and Switzerland against traditional art and Western Society.
The artists affiliated with Dada did not share a common style or practice so much as the wish, as expressed by French artist Jean (Hans) Arp, “to destroy the hoaxes of reason and to discover an unreasoned order.”
Their works illustrated absurdity through paintings of purposeless machines and collages of discarded materials, which expressed their cynicism about conventional ideas of form and their rejection of traditional concepts of beauty.
‘Dadaism’ is a nonsense word which the creators used to protest against the First World War.
Participants claimed various, often humorous definitions of “Dada”—“Dada is irony,” “Dada is anti-art,” “Dada will kick you in the behind”—though the word itself is a nonsense utterance. As the story goes, the name Dada was either chosen at random by stabbing a knife into a dictionary, or consciously selected for a variety of connotations in different languages—French for “hobbyhorse” or Russian for “yes, yes.”
A group of situationists, called the Space Hijackers, were also mentioned by Tom.
The Space Hijackers is an inventive and subversive group of London ‘Anarchitects’ who specialize in reclaiming public spaces – usually without permission. Projects have ranged from ‘guerrilla benching’ (taking benches to sites where they had recently been removed and bolting them to the pavements) to organising a midnight game of cricket in the middle of the City.
The group do these projects to try and change the way people view public and private spaces with these unexpected events.
They point out issues that people may or may not notice and make them really obvious. For example, the ‘rules’ of being in certain spaces.
“If you’re a local council, selling off land to private developers is an easy way to raise capital. But the undermining of social liberties that comes with these sales is unprecedented. Take the construction of the Olympic village in Stratford for example. It’s an entirely privately owned complex. Although there will be public space, shops and entertainment, there will also be robotic CCTV drones monitoring everyone coming and going – thousands of cameras watching your every move, a ban on begging, busking, skateboarding, hoodies, public assembly, protest, loitering and much much more. Everything that makes our city so vibrant is drained out of the space and replaced with a 2D image of a city. Unless you’re shopping you’re not welcome.”
Analysing Dynamo’s Performance: Walking on Water
In this performance, Dynamo is filmed walking down the steps of the river Thames, and without trying to direct any attention to himself, begins to walk on water. This performance by Dynamo is a good example of surrealism in Dynamo’s artistic mindset. The idea of walking on water, as claimed Jesus did in the bible is seen as a legendary symbolization related to achieving a miraculous feat, something considered to be physically impossible. The way in which Dynamo casually walks on the water as it was no big deal, is connected to Dadism in art because there is a sense that, despite being as impressive as it is, there is no real meaning or point to it. Dynamo, in this example is taking this concept to the extreme by relating it to such an unusual and extraordinary situation. Dynamo is also in this performance, using the influence of subversion. This is because he is creating an extraordinary illusion, which questions human rationality and social boundaries. On a deeper level, this means that Dynamo is pushing the audience to question there own view of reality and social expectations.
The reaction of the crowd in this piece is very interesting, there is a mixture of responses, ranging from shock, denial, awe, fascination and wonder. Regardless of the type of reaction, the fact that such and event has caused a conscious reaction from an audience is testament to Dynamo’s ability to stop people in their tracks, forced to process the outstanding nature of his masterful illusions. Literally speaking, Dynamo by stepping on the Thames had broken the trespassing law. When the police boat comes to detain him, a sense of comedy is created through the ridiculous situation of a policeman arresting a man for breaking the law, seemingly unaffected by fact that a man is walking on water! This, somewhat intended by Dynamo, is a direct challenge and protest against society, because through is majestic achievement which is representative of possibility and hope, Dynamo has subsequently characterized himself as a champion of the people, who is being brutally suppressed by the limitations of authority.
This piece has inspired me to in the direction my own performances to be more expressive and try to create situations which are out of the ordinary, instead of something which is relatively average and excepted. The influence of surrealism, had made me interested to study the aesthetic nature of my pieces. It is all good and well having a concept, and deeper dead, but these concepts will never be properly expressed or have an effect on the audience, if they are not visually poweful.