As a final little experiment I have decided that I want to attempt to make a zoetrope and I think that I can do it well. I have chosen from my mini series Locked Up as I feel this one has jus the right amount of images to create a zoetrope with and it will look good. I don’t think that it will particularly be a working one but I feel that when I get the basis of it all it will be fairly straight forward. I feel that this could be a really great idea as this is something that the Victorians used before there was the invention of cinema and moving image. I feel that this could bring my work to the next level and add on to the whole idea of having my work look like it is from the late 1800s as well as the images being based in the same time period. I watched a few YouTube videos on how to actually make a zoetrope and think that I pretty much get how I could go about making my own one. This is just going to an experiment and see whether or not it looks good enough to make it into my little box filled with late 1800s inspired work.

How To | Make A Zoetrope

Here is how I made my mini zoetrope. Firstly, I got my images onto one A4 piece of paper, printed them out and split them in two. I then backed each of them on some black card using the spray mount. After this I made the slits at the top of the card using a standing knife, this took me about half an hour but has actually turned out better than I had expected.  I stuck the images to the card and then curved it round to create a circle, it didn’t turn out too perfect but I don’t really mind that. I have also painted a chop stick black to use as the twirling part of the zoetrope. I have cut another piece of card to use as the bottom of the zoetrope and need to cut it in a circle so that it fits on the inside of the whole thing. So far it has turned out better than expected. Something that I realised is that the images are possibly too low down and the slits aren’t long enough but that’s ok as it is supposed to be from the Victorian times and I don’t mind if it is perfect or not. I added a little bit of foam board and cut it into a small circle underneath the whole thing just so that the stick wouldn’t more around too much and painted it black, I also made another small one and put it onto the inside using a glue stick and a hot glue gun. This just made the stick more secure in the whole thing. Overall I am happy with how it has come out especially as it was a first attempt and I basically just went off of intuition for the whole thing. The end result is a bit rough around the edges but I really don’t mind as it was a last minute idea which turned out better than expected.

For this shoot I took inspiration from one of Tom Killick’s photographs that he made down at the abandoned Jersey asylum. There was one particular image of a drawing that a patient did of a tree and it really intrigued me and made me wonder what this person must have been doing through at their time in the asylum. I decided to interpret my own story as I would never be able to find out the real story. So I created a troubled persona, one that wants freedom. I know this shoot could come across as cliche but obviously this person had a troubled mind and their only way of expressing themselves in the asylum was to illustrate it, to draw pictures of things that they imaged. To me the tree symbolises freedom and hope as they are always out in the open. I created a story whereby my persona draws a picture of a tree to escape and to sit and look at when she feels lost or lonely. Something that I also found very interesting when looking at the actual image was that the drawing was unfinished which makes me think that this patient was one of the last to be living in the asylum before it was abandoned or that maybe this patient passed away before they could actually finish it. 

I am not too keen on this shoot. There is just something about it that I don’t like and I am unhappy with how it has turned out. As I am rubbish at drawing the tree didn’t turn out well at all and I just don’t think the chalk came out strong enough in the final images as well as it not really showing the state of mind that my character was in. I have no interest in this series as it is quite boring and basically just someone drawing a rubbish tree on the wall. I feel that I needed to get more into the character and to really show the state of mind that my character was in. I feel that this could have worked out better if I got someone else to be the subject and so I would have creative freedom to walk around and get better shots and different angles of the subject drawing. This shoot is a bit too simple for me and doesn’t really stand out as strong images to me. I’m not really feeling it with this shoot and know that I can do so much better than this but as an experiment it is fine. I just feel that there is a lack of expression and emotion in this series as the spectator isn’t really able to see much of the subjects face or how they are possibly feeling. I made this series from recording myself in the car park of my apartments. A man actually came in a couple of times and asked if we lived here but obviously I do and I explained that to him too. After making these photographs I went and got buckets of water to wash all of the chalk off and I actually cut my finger trying to scrub it all off. This is most likely the cleanest those walls have ever been as even when I was younger my friends and I used to draw along the walls with the dirt that covered the walls and the floor. Anyway, in the end I cleaned everything off the wall and it now looks as good as new.

This is my favourite still from the shoot as it shows some expression and emotion in it. I like how strange my subject looks in this photograph and her whole body language. She is slightly slumped over, holding the chalk in an odd manner while looking demonically over her shoulder. This part of the photograph shows the most emotion and the possible mind state that my character is in. I like the composition of this photograph too and how my subject is slightly off centred with the tree in the background. I wanted all of my images to be in black and white to represent the time period of the late 1800s in which it would be based as well as it being a bit more poetic than a basic coloured image. I don’t think that this image would look as good in colour as the light wasn’t very good and was more yellow because of the lighting of the car park.

https://youtu.be/EuppGzT-dzU

This project is based off of research that I have done into lunacy on the island. I got this story from an article I read on cases of people loosing their minds, lunatics, back in the late 1800s. One case particularly interested me and it was one where an apprentice jumped out in a white sheet at his boss who was so shocked that he never recovered. I found this story to be really strange as you would never think someone could go mad from another person walking up to them in a sheet but then I guess back in the late 1800s people scared easier and there was no CGI or special FX that could create fictional beings, monsters and ghosts which we seem to have become accustomed to in the modern world. I wanted to re-stage this scenario as it intrigued me so much and so I decided to take on a new persona and become this petrified man. I recorded myself reacting to the ghost as well as putting my friend under a sheet and recording her too. I found this shoot fun to do. I decided to add in the video I recorded as I feel it just adds a bit more depth to my project. I made it black and white as well as sped it up a lot so that it wasn’t too long to watch. I think that it has worked well and the stills I got from the video look good together.

Here is the final series that I have created for this project. I like how it has turned out as it is simple yet tells the story nicely. The one thing that I don’t like about this series is the location and the right side of the subject surroundings, it doesn’t look as good as I would have hoped but it looks fine for these photographs. I like them all together and think that they mesh well. I wanted to create a kind of story board as I wanted it to look like stills from a film and these particular images look best when they are together as one individual one on its own wouldn’t stand out as much and wouldn’t make much sense compared to the series as a whole. My favourite still is the medium shot of the person in the sheet as I like the detail that the black and white gives, adding shadows. I also like the expression on the subjects face as he sees the sheet come closer and he starts to get really freaked out. I like the simplicity of this shoot too as it is fairly obvious what is going on and why the subject was scared silly. The only thing about this project is that I wanted to title it ‘Scared Sh*tless’ but I feel that it may be slightly inappropriate to have as a series for my exam project. I do think that title flows a lot better but as it is for exam work, don’t think that it would be the best title to have. I will also be writing on the physical copy of this series and will add a caption underneath. I think that I want to caption it Ghosts Aren’t Real. I feel that this could be quite ironic as obviously this man sees what he thinks is a ghost before him when in fact it is just his apprentice. I quite like this caption as it does tie in quite well with the entire project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuuB9_CPtyY

Above is the short film that comes with the series of images. This is a behind the scenes look at how I make my images and how I stage them. I have put the video in black and white and sped it up so it isn’t as long to watch but I’ve ended up really liking it as it makes me think of an old black and white silent film comedy as the mannerisms of my subject resemble that of one of those over theatrical and dramatic characters. I also like how the sped up audio sounds as when the ghost (person under a white sheet) appears a high-pitched sound comes out making it seem more scary for the subject and adds a bit more context to the whole thing too. I like this mini series as it is simple to follow and easy to understand without my spectators having to know anything about local lunacy in the island or even without any background knowledge. I enjoyed making this video as it was quick and easy to do. I like that it is straight forward and easy for my spectators to be able to follow.

For this mini series I decided to focus in on the research that I have done on local islander Colonel Victor Barker. For this I went back to basics and make my series as simple as possible and so in my images, as my own subject, I stood wearing a dress with my long hair and I then pretended to cut my hair and from there I changed into one of my dad’s suits. I thought that this would be the easiest way to show what I was trying to show and also made it more obvious that this was a transgender transition with the bandage going across my chest area to get rid of my feminine figure. I think that this shoot worked out really well and was successful. I decided to do it with the window in the background so that the spectator isn’t able to fully see my face as I wanted it to be more mysterious and not look obvious. I think that this has worked out well and the exposure of light is just how I wanted it to be. I also only had the side of a wardrobe showing as I wanted this added touch to show where the clothes came from and also just those there wasn’t any dead/empty space. I am unsure what to title this shoot but was thinking of making it a quote from Victor Barker himself as I did read a book all about him entitled Colonel Victor Barker and His Monstrous Regiment. In this book there are accounts from those that were there when Barker was arrested and they said he was saying ‘This is it, I’m done’. He was arrested because he owed money to a shut down restaurant and was only found out to be a woman when he went down to the police station. I think that this is a really amazing story and don’t want to ruin it or turn it into a cliche and so just stuck with the simple changing of the clothes.

To create these images I literally just set up my tripod in my parents room and had it positioned on their bed with my camera recording on top. I then got myself into a position that looked best in the photographs. After filming this I put the video into Adobe Premier Pro, made the entire thing black and white and took screen shots from there. I am now editing together in Photoshop a small series of images that tell the basic story so there will be one shot of each stage of getting changed into a man. I am pleased with how these images have turned out as I like the entire mise-en-scene of the images and how the silhouette looks. I like that the spectator is able to see part of the subjects face but only larger features and they are unable to completely see everything. I kind of used this as a metaphor as often we look at people but we can’t see everything about them and everyone, not only transgender people, have or have had something to hide. This particular series is a reflection of how Victor Barker was hiding his old identity as a woman to lead a better life as a man, he made up a lie that his bits/manhood was blown off during the war and that was the reason why he couldn’t have sexual relations with his wife. I think that this series of images reflects this idea of mystery and not really being able to see everything about a person.

For this mini series I decided to make 12 images as it needed just a few extra shots to add more context and detail to the entire project. I like how they have turned out and think that it works much better in black and white than if it was in colour. I like how the natural light isn’t too overpowering but also creates shadows adding more of a sense of mystery to the whole series. I thin that these images are interesting to look at and do look good together. Once I have printed this I need to write a caption/comment onto either the top or bottom half which I have left space for when editing in Photoshop. The caption that I want to add to this is ‘That’s it, I’m done’ as this is something that Barker actually said and I think that this could be a good way of intriguing my spectator into wanting to find out more about the story behind the mini series and possibly look further into the story itself as it is so captivating and interesting. I enjoyed doing this shoot and am happy with how it all turned out. I like the harsh lighting coming in from the window as it makes the images more dramatic and makes my spectators want to look deeper into the images and want to see every detail of them. 

https://youtu.be/jz2UeugFYKA

Here is another behind the scenes video of a shoot that I have done as part of my A2 photography exam. I wanted this shoot to make my spectators slightly uncomfortable and to really get them to wonder what is going on. This particular project is based off of a local case of lunacy. This shoot is based on a story I have read about in an article of a woman named Jane Le Maistre, who was living in the late 1800s. She was deemed insane and locked up in an outhouse where the people that, supposedly, cared for her neglected her. Here she was left tied up and naked with only a small coarse sheet to cover herself with. She was in a state where she was stuck positioned like a monkey and had no use of the bottom half of her body. This obviously meant that she was surrounded by her own faeces and the living conditions were awful and dirty. This particular lunatic became known by the community and so attention started to come her way and people found out about the inhumane conditions she was left in. Inspectors were sent to investigate but upon their arrival Jane had been washed, hair cut, floor cleaned, given blankets over her naked body, a bucket put by her side and her legs moved. Her carers knew that these inspectors were coming and so then they decided that they needed to cover up their acts of neglect. I find this story extraordinary and how someone battling with a mental illness was just locked up and left to rot. She couldn’t use her lower body and so she wouldn’t be able to go to the toilet and she seemed to be lost to the world. I feel that her mental and physical state would not have been as bad or as extreme as it was if she was given the proper care. When people don’t understand something they tend to just lock it up and pretend that it isn’t happening. This is something that I wanted to show in my images. As the spectator goes through the series they can see my subject slowly changing and looking in a better, more clean, condition. I wanted to make sure that there were no other people in the shots as I wanted it to look as if it was being done like magic as is similar to the actual story of how miraculously Jane Le Maistre was clean and in a much better state than people had speculated. It astonishes me that this happened in Jersey as I never really think much happens here but obviously in the late 1800s, and even today, a lot goes on behind closed doors that we may never find out about.

I do like this series as I have the contextual knowledge behind it and think that it does tell the story well. I wanted this series to stand out and be in a way slightly confusing for my spectators as it is odd. I feel that it looks like a bit of a spot the difference and I like that as I do want my spectators to think about what has changed in each image. I made it all black and white to go along with the theme of the late 1800s where there were only black and white cameras to capture images. I also chose to make myself the subject as this was easiest as I knew exactly how I wanted to position myself and the expression I wanted on my face. I also think it was a good to bring out a new persona in my photography work and become yet another person. The final image in the series is actually two images put together in Photoshop. When recording this I left the camera going, got changed and then went round the other side and stood looking down on the area that my subject had been pretending to be looking at her. The two sets of legs at the end represents the professional inspectors and how they only see her after her carers have changed and altered the reality of her living conditions. This blends in with the theme of truth as those people bent the truth and altered Jane Le Maistre’s reality. I wanted to look into how society treats people with mental illnesses and how lunacy was dealt with on the island before the creation of the Jersey asylum. Although all of my work is staged and as such becomes a form of fiction it is still based on a true story and how an islander was actually treated back in the late 1800s. I feel that this is an extraordinary story that not many people living on the island nowadays would know about. I want to bring the talk about mental illness into the main of society as we still tend to ignore it and not quite understand those struggling and dealing with it.

https://youtu.be/xxO1FINV17s

For this shoot I decided to move a chair into one of the corners of my living room as I found this area to to best the location that didn’t show too much of anything modern. I chose the corner as in the original Victorian portraits of hidden mothers they aren’t perfect and fairly obvious that the mother is there so I didn’t want to try to blend it in too much as the amateur approach jells much better with this project. When making these images I just pressed record to get more of a cinematic feel to them and thought that this would be much easier to edit from as I would be able to get more stills from this than if I had tried to take a load of photos. I enjoyed this experiment and it only took me a couple of minutes and we did it for as long as my niece wanted to stay in my mum’s lap. I think that these worked out well and I much prefer this experiment to the one that I had previously done before this one. There are shots of my sister putting my niece on my mum’s lap as well as a couple of shots of me putting the sheet over my mum’s head. I wanted this shoot and series to act as a kind of behind the scenes of what goes on in making a hidden mothers portrait. I do like this idea and think that it has worked out well.

I first put my video footage into Adobe Premier Pro and took screenshots from this and decided to edit my photos in Photoshop. I made them all black and white as for my entire project I have decided to make all of my images black and white as it makes my spectators focus in on the subject and what they are doing rather than being distracted by anything else. I cropped each of the images a little bit as I feel that they were too panoramic looking. I do like this experiment and want to have it printed as an A5 photo and I also want to write on top of it but I am unsure what to caption it as of now. I also want to age the image so I think that I will soak it in coffee or tea overnight and see how that works out, otherwise I will just caption it and have it looking new. This is my final series for the hidden mother’s shoot. I do really like this series as the main part of this shoot was so that the spectator is unable to see the bare face of the mother. I thought that this added a sense of mystery as well as no one’s faces being shown accept from the babies face (my niece) as this is what it would have been like in all of those Victorian images. I feel that I could do much more with this and want to work on it. I will be adding a caption to the physical copy of this series and write on it myself as well as attempting to age the series in coffee overnight. I think that this series does work well as it is simple and very straight forward.I want to add the caption Mother Where Are You underneath the series image as I think that this could work really well. I think that this could be interpreted well as it is obvious where the mother is but maybe not so much to the baby in the photograph.

This is my favourite image from the series as the expression on the subjects face is perfect and quite like that of the Victorian children. I also like the outfit of my subject as she is wearing a cute little dress with bows on the front that also slightly reminds me of the Victorian children’s images. On the day I just decided to make these images and hadn’t planned it but it all worked out really well with my subject already wearing this outfit and her being in a better mood than she was in the first time I attempted to photographer her. I do think that this is a good image as the spectator is able to clearly see the mother underneath the sheet with her legs and feet being exposed in the photograph as well as the mother holding the subject in place that the spectator is able to see. I think that this experiment has worked out a lot better than the original one as filming has helped a lot and I have managed to get a lot more stills from this. I think that the composition of these images are good as I decided just to center it all and made everything black and white to ensure the focus is maintained on the subject and what they are doing.

I have decided to make a flip book as part of this experiment as I think that it could work really well and look great if I do it right. In the stills the spectator would be able to see my mum’s face and so I have taken on another idea from the Victorian hidden mother’s photographs and just put a blob of paint over the top of her face. I think that this could work really well and add a sense of mystery to the images. For this experiment I will have to make a short video of the finished flip book itself that I will add to this post. I have put all 312 images into 13 A3 sized Photoshop images and will be printing these, cutting them out and putting them all together with a clip. I feel that this could work out really well and stand out as a final piece, I want it to be strange and different as I feel that this particular project is very much like that. I feel that the flip book will really bring the whole project together and add more detail to the time period it is based on in the late 1800s.

https://youtu.be/Nse7nVrDZ84

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to make a short film to contextualize the ideas behind my work. Last night I sat down and came up with a short little speech on mental illness that I decided would be good as a voice over on top of the films that I have made for each of my projects. I wanted to do something with my short films and not just have them as behind the scenes looks on how I create my stills so this was the perfect opportunity to do so. It may come out as a bit cheesy but I don’t mind that as I like what I have written and think that all the shots blend well into it bringing the visual aspects to what I am saying. This was just a quick little add on that I have decided to do but I do like it. I also filmed some extra shots of myself in front of the camera just so I have some shots that really correspond to the audio and so my audience aren’t just seeing the same repeated shots over and over again. Something that really intrigued me into basing my project on lunacy was how society tends to outcast them and banish them almost. I started off my project looking on outsiders and those that don’t fit in with the norm of society so I looked into local transgender cases from back in the late 1800s as well as witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries. I wanted to look into lunacy as I found so many cases in the late 1800s of neglect and how poorly treated these people were. It really interests me on how people can’t understand mental illness and seem reluctant to find out as I say in the video they can’t see anything physically wrong and so assume everything is ok when obviously it is not. The message that I wrote is quite short and is only about a minute long but that’s long enough as I want to keep it to the point that I am trying to make and I don’t want to drag it out too long as that will bore the audience. I want to use this as a way for my audience to be able to actively engage with my work and get more of an understanding of what my different series of images means.

Audio: 
Mental health. It’s something we don’t tend to talk about and when we do it always seems to be at the expense of those struggling with it. Something that mainstream society doesn’t understand automatically makes you an outsider. We tear a part mental illness and brush it off because we can see no physical scars. We don’t understand what we can’t see. People we don’t understand seem to get shut out, taken away and left to let their sanity consume them. We choose to ignore them because it’s easier than helping. How can you help fix someones mind? Their bones aren’t broken, they aren’t bleeding but the pain is still there. It’s just not as easy to access. 

https://youtu.be/-kFyc4erTMI

Here is a short video of the six flip books that I have created. Originally I wanted to make one flip book but this would have been way too big and wouldn’t really work considering the size of my photos and that it would be too difficult to flip through. When filming I only went through the first flip book and the fifth as these were the most important ones showing the process of the mother sitting in the chair to when the child is sat in her lap and she has been hidden by the white sheet. This process took a while to make and in the end I stitched all of the books together, this took longer but I feel that it made the final outcomes look a lot better and they flow more with the whole theme of it being based around the Victorian period. I am happy with how they have turned out and think that the black and white works really well.

https://youtu.be/H41Y3PdBPlY

This photo specifically caught my eye because i felt like it had the Matt Crump feel to it with the simplistic colour and use of reflection, much like the one i have taken off his website below.

 I then experimented in Photoshop with the use of different layouts and colour schemes, this is what i came out with below, i like the pattern that the mirrored photo gives however it changes colour when it crosses each border, it makes it look like one big photo.

This collage i thought went well together as the colours mix well and the way that the roof of the building flows helps you follow the 4 pictures with your eyes and compliments the photo in a nice manner .

The idea behind these photos is that Jersey can be a gloomy place and when i look at Matt Crumps photos they are so eye catching yet so simple, almost like a fantasy world, which made me want to recreate a fantasy feeling in Jersey. The majority of this shoot was taken in cloudy weather which made it a lot harder to edit however they have came out okay.

These are my photos that i have experimented with and tried to give the candy coloured feel that Matt Crump does in all his photos, his photos are very minimal and the composition feels very empty and simple. I have tried in some photos to give the minimal feel to it but others i have given my own twist and tried to experiment with filling some things with bright colours and leaving certain parts such as the road.

This photo above in particular i feel looks a lot like the work of  Matt Crump, he usually frames his photos into a square to make them look more minimal. Just like his i have tried to colour the sky and because the windows reflect the windows have been made pink as well, it is a very minimal photo but catches the eye well.

Here are some others that i experimented with, some have worked better than others but they all have the candy coloured effect:

This shoot was quite interesting to conduct as this series represents a situation (I was told about) in which this woman would frequently receive beatings from her fiance. On most occasions, she said  it would normally be on the weekend as that was the time he would go out to the pub and come back drunk. When he was drunk, she said that it was always worse because  he would be more ruthless and it was harder to get him to stop because he was just so angry. She said at least when he was sober, he knew when he was going to far and would just walk away, but when he was drunk, he would go to far and this was when she would end up with bruises and marks all over her body. On one occasion (the situation I am representing), her fiance came home, they argued, he hit her a couple of times and walked out, but only to come back hours later completely drunk and “ready for round two”. She said she was asleep on the sofa, and was dragged into the corner of the room by her hair, and he started to smack and pinch her skin, which then led to punching and kicking  her. She would scream for help, but realised too late that it was a bad idea in the long run as instead of using her body as a punching bag, he would use and beat her face to ‘shut her up’ so to speak. This incident, she said was the worst one and she dragged herself into the bathroom – after he passed out on the floor – to clean herself up. She was horrified at the reflection staring back at her. She said the bruise was already evident on her eye and her lip swollen and chin bleeding. When discussing this situation together, I asked her whether she had ever thought about leaving him, to which she responded that she already tried to, but when he figured out what she was doing; he forced her into their bedroom, and explained how if she ever leaved, he would ‘make her pay’. Also, she explained how he had grown quite close to her family and she feared that he would go after them or make them suffer in her place. She said that no matter what, she was not going to marry him and she stuck to her word. In the end, she fortunately got away and moved here to Jersey (her parents where moving house so she didn’t have to worry about her ex-fiance doing anything to them). From old friends, she found out that he had actually got another girlfriend, so that definitely eased her mind and sort of assured herself that he would never go looking for her.

The model I used for this shoot was not the actual person who had been in the abusive situation and I applied make-up in order to replicate a bruise (similarly to how she had described it to be). It was very convenient that she already had a bruise on her arm from an accident at work, thus I used that to my advantage and used it it quite a few of my shots. A way that I could have improved these images was to perhaps include more of the environment around her, she (the victim) explained to me how messy the place would get and how she would spend hours cleaning up. I could have incorporated this to create more of an authentic feel throughout this body of work.

I think these two photographs are the best ones from my photo shoot, which are of my dad and the company delivery van and the building where he used work. Unfortunately, the focus on these photographs weren’t very good so in Lightroom I used the clarity option to make the photograph more defined and more in focus. I also lowered the exposure and highlights on the photograph because it was a sunny day it gave the photographs a lighter almost white look. I then also experimented with the different levels of contrast until I was happy with them. I have only picked two photographs from the shoot because although it was an important part of my dads life it doesn’t reflect where he is now.

I have selected my favorite photographs from my third photo shoot which was a mixture of objects that represent my dad and photographs of him. I have experimented with them in lightroom. Below are my outcomes. I experimented with different techniques such as the contrast exposure and saturation to find what looks best. I also experimented with the colors on each of the photographs individually to make sure they stood out. I then also changed the photograph of my dad in his car to black and white because I think it works better and makes him the main subject of attention where as before the blue from the car was distracting. Finally, I also had to crop some photographs to get rid of too much background. I am happy with these photograph and intend to use them in my photobook.

As part of my photo-book, I want to create a section which is directly linked to challenging the idea of the ‘advertising language’ used to advertise products, locally and also in a wider, more general sense. Whilst I have touched upon this idea through photographing somewhat in the style of Martin Parr. I wanted to take this a step further by copying the more controlled, studio style images seen regularly to advertise food in the most attractive and enticing way as possible.

In order to achieve this I will firstly have to create a mini-studio set up at home. I will do this by using pieces of cardboard paper to create a plain base to then place the product on. If I am taking a photograph of a box of eggs for example, I will place the box so that it can only be seen in the context of the background. I am going to experiment with different background colours along with shooting in different ways: experimenting with angles, composition, form and lighting.

This process will very much be an experiment because I have had no previous experience setting up this a studio environment to take images. Furthermore, I believe that this process will be in many ways challenging because it is pushing me out of my comfort zone in terms of the sort of images I usually produce, based more on instinct and what I see. I will instead however be required to take a step back and carefully consider composition.

My main focus will be however to make best use of lighting. I am considering using chiaroscuro lighting to create strong images with a high level of contrast, a feature I admire in the work of British photographer David Bailey. However at the same time I will need to be careful in the fact I am trying to create bright and colourful images, and using such a lighting may in fact be too strong, cancelling out the power I believe colour will deliver. I will therefore experiment with this chiaroscuro lighting to create black-and-white images, it I believe this is effective I will inclue some of these images in my edits, before attempting the same lighting with the colour images, and if this is not successful, then I will consider another form of lighting which would better suit colour images.

I hope to create images which are done so exactly in the style of an advertising product that it serves to mock it. It  order to distinguish my opinion with the images, I will need to include in the images a clear barrier which makes the sense of parody and mimicry I am trying to evoke more obvious. One way I may be able to do so is through taking the packaging off my images, for example including a raw steak on its own rather than being either in it’s packaging or cooked and on a plate. This, I believe will simplify my concept and make what I am showing visually, more raw. It will also show local Jersey produce in a way which is in many ways is more revealing by the simple act of not including any advertising in the images. This will give the viewer the opportunity to access the product without the distraction of any manipulating factor.

Therefore I believe that such a style can be considered in many ways a mockery because I am effectively satirising the role of advertising images by showing seemingly ‘normal’ and ‘uninspiring’ images in a way which is usually considered to achieve the exact opposite. This sense of conflict I am trying to create will invite the viewer to consider the deceptive nature of advertising images, which I believe will link very well to the entire theme of the project.

I will take a series of 30-50 images before producing a contact sheet and editing. After viewing my images I may consider evaluating what went well and perhaps what didn’t go so well, and if I need to – produce another shoot to make these corrections.

Simplicity will be the key to this shoot. There will also need to be a sense of control to the images, showing the same background all of the time. One influence I have taken from this is the extremely interesting series entitles “No Seconds” series by American photographer Henry Hargreaves. In this controversial series he captures the haunting images of death row inmates’ last meal requests. He believes food preferences speak volumes about a person’s character and personality in any setting. Death row choices are an extremely powerful example of that theory. This story shows this sense of ‘rawness’ in perhaps its greatest detail. Although I would simply not be able to create a mood in such an effect, it is this sort of concept of simplicity speaking great volumes which I am trying to get across.

I have selected my favorite photographs from the photo shoot and I have begun to edit them in Lightroom. I edited them by changing the saturation and exposure of most of the photographs because they seemed to look a bit yellow or blue. I then used lenses correction and cropped some photographs to make sure the photographs were all straight. Finally, I also experimented with different levels of contrast to find which one looks best on each photograph. From this photo shoot I think I have a few strong photographs, however I found that some photographs were a bit blurry this could be due to the shutter speed being too slow. For my next photo shoot I am going to make sure I increase the shutter speed.

This week I plan to start getting some shoots together and start producing some work towards my photo book. I definitely want to create a photo book as I have a strong idea of what kind of images that I want to produce for it as well as a front and back cover. I have begun some experimentation and have brainstormed most of my key ideas. I feel that I have enough ideas currently to make an effective book and want to add to the book as I go to see whether or not I need to make anymore images or whether some need to change to fit in with the aesthetic of the rest of the images. I have decided to focus in on surrealism within photography as I have, in the past, really enjoyed this topic and found it more fun and exciting with outcomes looking more unique. I want to be able to put my own stamp on my images and make them stand out so experimentation with surrealism will really benefit my project. As previously stated in a blog post I am going to focus my work on the environment and how we as a society treat our natural world. I really feel passionate about the environment and the way that it is treated and want to enlighten people, to get my spectator to think more carefully about how they treat that environment. I’ve come up with a few interesting ideas that I need to do some more figuring out about as I want to make them as good as they can be. I have decided to make all of my images portrait as I want to make my photo book portrait and make everything look complete and together. I am also thinking of making some landscape images that can be used as double page spreads just to add more dimensions to my work and to make it more appealing visually for my spectator to look at.

Shoot 1 | Ideas

For this shoot I want to go around the streets of Jersey and take extreme close up photographs of rubbish that has been left around. I want to make the images more abstract and close up to make them more interesting and to add in layers to my photo book. I want to add a few of these images into my photo book as extras to bring in the more real and truthful side of our society. I came up with this idea a few weeks ago as I looked outside my window and just saw an abundance of rubbish all around my area. I was so frustrated that I went down and picked up all the rubbish and threw it in a bin that was about 5 steps away from where the rubbish had been left. I just don’t understand how people can be so lazy that they are unable to walk over to a bin to get rid of their waste. I want to bring this to light in this shoot and make those close up photographs purely to make the images more abstract and interesting rather than just photographing a boring piece of rubbish left on the ground. This is quite experimental as it might not work out as well as I am hoping that it will but I want to try it out and see whether or not it does work out.

For this shoot I want to make surrealist images similar to the ones that I have previously made in the past. I really like this style and want to experiment with it further. For these images I will take a photograph of the plain background of the woods and then another with the subject stood in front of the camera to make it easier when editing and rubbing out any bare flesh that is on show. This time when editing I want to make my images very sharp and spend more time on getting the edges sharp and making it look as professional as it can be. I also want to make images like this in town and again have a plain background image with the next one being one filled with people with their faces and any bare flesh being rubbed out. I really want to experiment with this idea as I find it so interesting and unique, making the spectator wonder what is going on and why they can only see their clothing. I think that these images will work well and I want to use some of them as double page spreads in my photo book. This is something I really enjoy doing as it is different and strange making it more interesting for the spectators to look at and interpret.

Shoot 3 | Ideas

I have an idea for this third shoot but I am unsure whether or not it is going to work out. I want to try it and experiment and to just try it out and if it doesn’t work out it isn’t a big deal. Basically I want to use the woods to create a sort of thrown for Mother Nature. I want to dress my subject up as Mother Nature and have a strong image of her looking into the camera. This is just to add another layer to my photo book to make it more intriguing as well as adding in the fantasy aspect of the exam theme to my work. I think that this experimentation could work out really well if I organise it and plan everything well. I really want to make this particular image/set of images mystical and really interesting to look at. I think that this is going to be one of the most challenging shoots for me to do but I if I organise everything and plan it all out before hand I think that I will be able to do it successfully.