As an initial shoot, in the attempt to explore my concept of environment, I decided to photograph a friend of mine, Zac, who skates. In the process of photographing Zac, I would ultimately be investigating an area of my past which was once highly significant, my skateboarding environment. Skateboarding to me, as well as my friends, was more than just a sport, it was a lifestyle. Something that became routine, as we did it everyday.

Within this shoot, my intention was to recreate the type of day I would’ve once lived, as a skateboarder. I have used Zac as an example of this. We used to venture to a location, suitable for skating and spend the day fluctuating between skating around and doing tricks, to sitting about and going to the shop etc.

I think this period of time, within my life, was where I believe I became my most independent, as well where I found myself and something that I fell in love with. Therefore my environment and my perception of it had changed, from when I was younger.

As well as being a photographer, Ben Gore is also the videographer, for skate company Megenta. He films using the Sony VX1000 VCR camera, which creates an almost homemade feel to the video’s this company creates. Ben films with a loose style, very few tricks are filmed stationary and everything is focussed on motion and the relaxed style that this skate team contains.

What invites me to focus on Ben’s video’s specifically is his ability to create a mood, through his filming of both his surroundings and the people within them. Not only do we see a skate video, we see a great documentation of the area, people and architecture of each city. For example in the linked video entitled La Capsule Suisse – 242, we see a perfect example of this in the city of Geneva.

Ben Gore is a professional skateboarder/photographer/filmmaker, who bases himself in primarily in San Francisco and Bordeaux. Two cities where he most commonly creates his work, these consist of specifically skateboarding and as well the lifestyle that revolves around the culture.

Ben Gore uses both film cameras and tape recorder to capture his work, this adds to the classic skate style that is associated with coverage of the sport. Within skateboarding new technology isn’t widely accepted, people prefer the original aesthetic of a 4:3 aspect radio that condenses the skateboarding into the middle of the screen. As well as the slightly motion blurred or in crisp appearance of a photograph taken on film.

I chose to study Ben Gore as skateboarding was skate a large part of my life growing up and it was something I spent every day doing for many years. The people I grew up skating with, of all ages, became like family and I feel this is something very unique to the sport and something I wish to incorporate within my project. As at one point in time skateboarding was all that I saw and it was my environment.

This photograph by Ben Gore, to me as a former skater, perfectly captures the perspective of a skateboarder in terms of their surroundings. From this high point of view, to an average civilian, they would see a simple concrete landscape, featuring a cyclist and some others seated, the people would most probably become their focus. To a skateboarder, architecture becomes a playground, somewhere that they can express themselves and their art form in a unique and individual form. Skateboarders appreciate such landmarks much more than the average person, who would simply see a ledge for sitting.

It becomes an obstacle to tackle and from experience you really do becomes part of the landscape, we see to the right of the image that the tail of skateboard fits perfectly onto the ledge. A satisfaction that can only be experienced through skateboarding and I feel this is very unique to the sport.

In the photograph below, I was trying to focus on the whole meaning of my photographs, like a journey of my life showing the environments I surround myself in.  This is represented by the fact they were taken in a mirror in the car. One can also faintly make out that the beach is what’s in the foreground, meaning we’ve stopped to take time at the beach, however I didn’t want to capture it that simply so I thought I’d try and experiment with things such as reflection and composition.

The photographs below were inspired mainly by the photographer Ivan Troyanovsky. This shoot was different for me as I used the natural lighting of the sun, rather than using artificial flash lighting, which I tended to use on my last project looking back at Helmut Newton. This makes the way you photograph completely different, as with flash you can photograph wherever as it’s going to be well lighten with high contrasts, however with natural lighting you must think about the positioning of the model before shooting, whether you will get a silhouette or too much shadow etc.

An example of the use of lighting is shown below, where the photograph is being shot towards the light, whereas in all the others i’ve shot with my back to the sun, this is because after taking this photograph, I didn’t think the high exposure on the right hand side worked that well.

In this photograph I tried to capture the emotions behind the subject. I wanted to try and and create a natural image where in which the facial expressions of the model involved were not forced or provoked by the camera. The photograph features split organic lighting, which enhances and emphasizes the facial features consequently bringing out the smile.

I have attempted to capture the two images below as a set as they work effectively as a pair.  Both photographs tell a natural narrative, as the subject can be seen identifying the presence of a camera and producing a reaction. The composition is reliant upon a low-angle perspective which works successfully due the way it captures the subjects relaxed body language whilst simultaneously incorporating the background and landscape. This enables the viewer to establish a connection between the model and surrounding environment, hence generating an atmospheric aesthetic.

The most visually pleasing component of this image is the distortion of color tones which produces a vintage, relaxed aesthetic. This is very similar to the way Jeurgen Teller edits her photographs.

In the triptych below the composition works well, as the rock-face and the chem-trail are parallel to one another which creates a frame around the model and the landscape.

I then edited the photographs in black&white, for experimentation purposes. Personally I think distortion of color tones which produced a vintage feel were better than just the black and white, as the black and white took away from the landscape aspect of the photograph, which I believe is an important component for the images from this shoot.

Typically in portraits having ones eyes closed doesn’t work, however I believe the eyes being closed links nicely with this image, as he looks very relaxed and to say he is hanging off a cliff face shows the attitude he has to the environment he is surrounding himself in.

As a small starting point to my Environment project, I initially begin to go through a selection of baby photographs, of myself. This was not so much to use the imagery but more to gather an understanding into myself at this age and what my family life and environment was like. From birth, I only had my mother to look after me full time. I was born in Gloucester, England, where I lived with my grandmother (Dad’s side) for six months until my mum decided she would move back to Jersey to stay with her mother.

After A few years of moving back her mother had passed away, making my mum the only family member I had over here. Therefore I grew up with just her as a baby and up until I was much older. This meant that I had to heavily rely on friends as I grew up as other family members were never close to home.

As a fourth and final plan for my project, I will capture my friends, my two closest friends. As a three, as well as one to one, I believe that we share a very unique friendship that I am very dependent on. Therefore I feel that it is essential to include this element of my life within a project that I am attempting to make personal to my upbringing.

Despite the fact that my family play a huge role within my life, my friends are my immediate go to if a problem or issue phases me. In terms of my environment and change within this, my friendships formed have helped me to overcomes my greatest of problems and in turn have reconstructed how I view and perceive various things.

Within this shoot, I plan to simply photograph our routine, which consists of driving around, visiting each others houses and sitting around talking about everything and anything. This may sound boring to most, or nothing different from what any other teenagers would do, but to us it is something we all need and takes our mind on anything else we may have going on at the time.

As a third inclusion to my project, I plan to incorporate the relationship I share with my girlfriend. In order to replicate this through photography, I intent to venture on a walk, photographing the process and how she acts around me.

Of course being with someone means that a large proportion of my time is devoted to this one person, therefore my world and environment is altered drastically. My routine has become much more different, from when I was younger and completely uninterested in girls, all I wanted to do was skate and see my friends. Whereas more recently I would be happy to simply go on a walk and take some photos.

My second area of exploration within my project is my previous involvement with skateboarding. In order to explore this, I again want to retrieve archival content, although create my own new images and shoots in the process.

I used to spend countless hours filming skateboarding in order to create videos, as well as being filmed for others personal projects. This was such an important part of my life for many years and I wish to involve this in my project by recreating some old footage of myself into new video.

Alongside this I plan to photograph one or two of the guys I used to skate with in an up to date shoot. I will focus less on the skateboarding itself, but more so the lifestyle that comes with it and the passion we all once shared. I would also like to create a short video of the day itself, maybe of a trick attempted.