As I work at Government House I have the opportunity to take photographs of what I experience during my shifts. I worked at a lunch party yesterday and as we wait for the bell to ring to collect the plates the chefs prepare the next course, so I took a few images whilst waiting. I used my iPhone so the picture quality isn’t as good as my other photographs. It shows the life behind doors at government house which is an interesting topic.
A picture story is a group of images, roughly ranging from 6-8 pictures. For a picture story to be powerful, it contains 7 types of shots, including:
Person at Work – These photographs are very realistic and usually quite natural. These photographs makes you think about the types of things they do and why they are doing them. They make you think about the context more, and why the context is important.
Relationship Shot – A relationship shot doesn’t always have to be the stereotypical loving relationship. It can range from love to hate, abusive to affectionate etc. It can also be an emotional thing, such as the relationship between workers, or the relationship between two objects. It is important to notice the key aspect of the relationship, how it works and why are they apparent.
Establishing Shot – This is one of the most important aspect to the picture story. It portrays the main context of the story, giving out detail of where it is and what is happening. It describes key aspects of the story.
Detail Shot – These type of images range from doing close-ups of objects to images of people. Commonly, I did detailed shots for some of my portraiture work last year. I think this images are very effective and enabled the audience to focus on the foreground rather than everything that is going on in the picture.
Environment Portrait – An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience.
Formal portrait – A portrait is an image of a person’s face that clearly displays their likeness and may often display some aspect of their personality. A formal portrait is not a snapshot but a carefully arranged pose under effective lighting conditions.
Observed portrait – These images have more than one person in. The main focus to the image is the person getting a portrait taken, but there is always another person in the image ‘observing’, it doesn’t have to show their face just their presence.
I have played around with the arrangement of my picture story on Photoshop and have found an outcome that I am starting to like. I wanted to incorporate the archive photograph into the background of the image as it makes my pictures stand out and look more effective. The title is important as the Governor has to stand out the most as he is the most important individual in the story. The portraits look effective as a three, 2 in colour and my main character in black and white (my dad). I have left space for a couple more images in the bottom right corner, however, I like how there is space otherwise it will be too overwhelming. The colours in this picture story are very bright and I like how their is contrast between the black and white background with the coloured photographs. I am going to experiment with a few more designs to see which is the best outcome.
On Friday 2nd November, we went on a trip to the Jersey Museum to look at the exhibition of photographs from the Jersey archive. The photographs were all put in one red room. I like how they chose a bright colour to put as the background to these black and white images. However, I don’t like the way they have set out the images as it just looks like they haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about how to set out the images and captions effectively. It doesn’t represent Jersey as it should. The title is very misleading, “125 Years”, when really the photographs only have a range of 50 years. I would have preferred if they had put less writing about the images as it just looks like it has been chucked on under and above the image. The quality of the images are not at a high standard either and could have been displayed bigger. They also didn’t contrast black and white images with coloured images as they are look the same which didn’t catch my eye as much. It looked like a pin board with small paragraphs underneath, it could have been set out more artistically with more thought behind it.
I found an image that I really liked as I was instantly drawn to it. This image is of a class of children going on a field trip it looks like. I think I was drawn to at first as I love children and my career path has always been to teach children, and this image is really sweet of them in matching raincoats and wellington boots. I like how uniformed the picture is, the teachers in traditional clothing shows the vintage style to the image which is what I love. I also how it is in black and white as it makes it more powerful and shows that the picture is very old and sentimental.
For the JEP Exhibition, I have chosen 5 photographs from my previous photo-shoots that tell the story about Government House. I thought that including a photograph from the archive will help support the story from decades ago about the life at Government House and the importance of the people who work there. I have chosen portraiture shots of the main people in my story, such as my dad and the Governor. I like the image of Monica drinking a glass of wine during work as it shows something that no-one else could capture if they came to government house as it is a a behind the scenes type of picture which shows a story in itself. This has helped me start to think about what my picture story is going to look like. I am going to take more personal pictures of the Governor and then big events like his annual Christmas Party.
My project is going to be based around the life at Government House. My dad is the Butler and House manager for the governor, so he will be my main character in the story. I also live on the grounds and have been privileged to meet many important people such as members from the Royal family such as the Queen. My dad has a very important because he ensures that government house runs smoothly. Manages all functions within the house and gardens, such as dinner parties and other functions. He meets and greets all visiting house guests ensuring that all requirements are made during their stay, these guests range from members from the royal family, visiting ambassadors and VIPS and also local dignitaries. As I know the Governor well, he has allowed me to get an insight into his life at government house and the staff have also allowed me access to their daily activities. I want to tell a story with my images by following my dad around taking pictures of what he does on a day-to-day basis.
Invitation to Buckingham palace:
Mum and Dad outside the gates of Buckingham Palace
Earl and Countess of Wessex (Edward and Sophie)
In the half term I visited Southampton due to a university test that I had to do. I was there for 2 days. I only really visited the town where the shopping centres were so didn’t experience much of what there society is like. It was a very dull town so I wasn’t inspired as much as I thought I was going to be. I didn’t take many photographs as I didn’t feel very inspired. I have taken a couple of images from the train station that I liked. A lot of my pictures have motion blur as I like the idea of having motion in a photograph. I took these images on my phone and added the iPhone effect ‘noir’. I like the pictures of the train station as they look very gloomy which perfectly represents the place.
Vernacular photography is the creation of photographs, usually by amateur or unknown photographers both professional and amateur, who take everyday life and common things as subjects. This type of photography links to my project as I am focusing on capturing very natural everyday life images of my friends and different types of people. I like the idea of making my photographs very relate-able and realistic, I don’t like very staged photographs. These types of photographs relate to documentary photography as they document everyday life/what my life is like. I think it is important for the photographer to have that personal connection with their photographs, therefore, doing something that portrays your life with your friends/what type of people are in the society that you live in are like. Vernacular photography allows the photographer to spontaneously take photographs whenever they feel.
This also relates to the theme of family as family portraits can be categorized as Vernacular photography as they are pictures of people you generally with most of your time and love. They can be everyday images or just annual things. Vivian Maier is a photographer who did a project focusing on Vernacular photography, her images are all in black and white and are simplistic yet still effective. This has inspired me to experiment with black and white vernacular photography. I want to experiment with different types of photography to see which one best fits with my project.
What is a community?
A community is a social unit of any size that shares common values. Although embodied or face-to-face communities are usually small, larger or more extended communities such as a national community, international community and virtual community are also studied. The main realistic meaning of a community is a group of people who connect well together socially, mentally or sometimes economically. Examples of communities are: clubs, such as swimming, hockey, religious community, friendship etc.
This topic interests me the most as I feel like I can relate to this theme as I am part of two communities, one with my dancing and one with my close group of friends. I do everything with my friends and I put my full trust in them as I tell them everything, so to capture beautiful images of them is exciting, and I want to base my project around them. I am going to take my disposable camera with me when we go out together just in case a good opportunities comes up, I have my camera to take a picture. This continuous shooting relates to documentary photography as the photos will be over a long period of time, summer to winter, recording specific events etc. I am going to base mostly all my projects around using a disposable camera as I love the effect they have when printed and it makes it more unique to me as they aren’t used often. They present past tense with the vintage type style that they are printed with but then represent present tense as the document is in present tense. I also have a vintage camera which is similar to a disposable camera as it requires film, I love the old fashioned tinge it has the photographs, so I am going to experiment with both cameras and see which result is better. However, I do want to have some well focused photographs so when I go to England at Christmas with all my family I will take some with a professional camera and some with a disposable. I feel like not every photograph can be taken with a disposable as some need definition with clear focused parts and blurred backgrounds to make an effective picture.
