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Recording

Significant Objects///Photoshoot 1/// Baby’s First Bible

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These photos are of my old Bible that was given to me when I was really young. This really surprised me when looking at the bible as it was very difficult for me to read, even now never mind when I was a young boy. However, I wanted to use this bible as it has always stood out to me. I think this is due to it having this fairly plain look to it as well as it being so complex and hard to understand. I picked certain pages for different reasons.  I also chose to take photos of the bible from side and front angles to give a real sense of what it looks like. I also wanted to capture that it’s called a “Baby’s First Bible” and it’s that intense. In a way it’s fairly comical. The bible itself is very old and was given to me when I was a part of my old church. This church was very traditional and was very different to the church we go to now. I used a white background as I wanted to capture that cream tint that shows how old the book is. It almost shows the old fashioned look, I used have on faith and outlook many people often have about God and faith. However, throughout this project I want to show how real and captivating having a relationship with God can be. Showing how I don’t belong to a religion, a set of rules, I belong to the living God.

I really wanted to show the bible itself before taking photos of the inside. This is why I took photos of the front and side angle of the book just to get a sense of what it is like. As I said before I wanted to capture the slight cream tint it has. I also wanted to another angle rather than just photography the front, this is why I photographed the bible from a side angle. Another reason I took it from this angle is because I wanted to capture the “Baby’s First Bible”. When I took photos of the inside I focused on pages and chapters that meant a lot to my mum. One of them (the one without red) was from the chapter Lamentations. This book is full of stories of people crying out to God through the hardest times in their life. To lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. This book meant a lot to my family. The 3rd chapter particularly as (in some versions) it calls God their defender and lawyer. This was very significant. Another page I decided to picture was in Mark. This is due to the chapter being about the transfiguration which has some relevance but mainly because I wanted to capture the red writing as that color will play a significant role in my project. The reason it is red is because every time Jesus spoken it was written in red to show the importance of what he is saying. In previous shoots I have used red for the color of the crucifixes and want to use more often throughout my product.

Experimentation, Recording

Archival Photos///Edited

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Here is a selection of old family photos I have manipulated by using different mediums such as pastels, pencils and other objects such as plastic. Each photograph has different meaning usually relating to faith or something else I felt was relevant. I then chose the three I liked the most and put them large below. Making these photos I was trying to showing a spiritual aspect to the world we live in that we can’t always see. The shadow people represent the devil and/or demons. The red crucifix represents Jesus and/or the word (bible) basically the thing that protects us from the things that are trying to bring the worst out of us. The reason I made it red to represent the blood spilled by Jesus that we, as Christians believe that he did. This is all very metaphorical which is what I was trying to achieve. I could tell you what it means to me however I would also like the viewer to take their meanings away from it. This is why I am not going into too much detail when describing these photos. All these are meant to look as if a child has drawn them as I feature in each photo as a young child. It’s showing a darkness contrast with an innocence of a child.

This photo is showing myself being dragged away from my mum (arm in the bottom right corner) by this shadow like figure. This was meant to represent how the devil is trying to split up families, trying to make them feel separate and alone. The devil hates unity because there is strength in the that. When the accident happened, that’s exactly what could have taken place.

For the photo above I drew a red crucifix over my great grandmother. My great grandmother is such a strong women of God and has such a unrelenting faith that has been tested throughout the years but has become stronger throughout that time. My great grandmother now has dementia and throughout the situation with my mum she still knew exactly what to say. I think is because she has such a strong faith in God, he is almost telling her what to say even when her brain can’t. She gets up everyday 5 o clock in the morning and reads her Bible. She can quote scripture off the top of her head, as well as sing hymns she hasn’t listened to in almost 10 years. She has such a deep-rooted faith. In this photo she is the only one to be seen giving thanks for her food. This is why I drew a red cross over her as it’s almost as if she is has it protecting her from anything that gets thrown at her.

This is a photo of myself and my brother standing next a sunflower. Using pastels I put a shadow figure in the background off in the distance, I also used red pencil to turn that sunflower into a red crucifix. This is showing that darkness or devil waiting to strike almost haunting us. However, we are protected by the red cross that our parents helped us plant. In other words our parents brought us to church from an early age planted a seed that later was up to us if we want to carry on with church and if we believed in God. Those little things like reading bible stories and taking us to Sunday school allowed us to understand and protect us from other things that may not have been helpful to us. It also gave us enough knowledge to make our own decision. The shadow figure is there to show that there is always something trying to drag us away from our faith.

These archival photos that capture my attention. Some of them captured my attention as some of them look as if a mistake was taken. However, this is why I like those kinds of photos as because of the “mistake” it makes the photo more interesting, I also was able to put a meaning with those images. The other image do not have mistakes however they are significant. I like this image, personally I know that the people in the photo are myself and my father. However, due to what seems to be a thumb over the lens the main thing that makes a persons identity and allows to be identified in a photo (the face) has been taken away. This made me think of how since the accident a parts of our identity has changed.

This image does not have a mistake however it is significant. As it is showing my mum, myself and my brother a long time ago before anything happened. I like this photo a lot.

Preparation

Photoshoot Plan///Significant objects

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For my next photo shoot I will focus Significant Objects. Such as my Mothers journal and my old Bible. This shoot will be a very important shoot as it will act as a narrative for the rest of my photos. It also clearly show where I wanted to go with my project showing how it’s been a painful journey however with this journal is clearly shows God has been through it all. I am going to read through this journal and take photos of anything that I find significant. I will do the same with the bible. I will find any significant chapters that helped my Mum and photograph them.  The Bible I will be taking photos of is an old bible, one of my first bibles I was given. This holds a lot of sentimental value for me as I have had it since I was a young child. I also like then plain cream colour it holds as it looks fairly used and old which is what I want it to look like. I will waking photos of my bible with a white background. This will show off that worn look. After this shoot I will move onto the journal. Where I will also take photos of the journal on a white background. I like the idea of the journal as it’s showing the journey and it also shows my mums handwriting making it personal. I think this will be a very important shoot. I also want to take photos of a burning JEP (newspaper). I want to do this to show how wrong the press can get stories, reporting fake made up facts, sensationalism and showing complete bias to one side. Buildings stories instead of collecting facts. To show that frustration I want to burn their newspaper.

Recording

Photoshoot 1///Brother

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When taking these photos I focused on mainly exploring the idea of isolation. As this was already a large part of Davids personality before the accident. However when the accident happened he did not want to talk to anyone didn’t want to know anyone just wanted to be alone. The David we knew before was no longer there he had changed dramatically. The lone part to his personality had taken over completely.  I wanted to capture this change in the photos I took. This is also why I like the photo of him sitting on the bench so much, as it already shows what I was trying to capture. Also by having those words ‘miss me’ on the back of the bench makes it even more prominent. As it’s almost saying he’s a different person to who he was before.

There are photos on this that I will not include in my final product as they do not fit the story I am telling. However, I did like the photos themselves. This is why I included them in this section. The photos I am including in my finals is the one of my brothers eye and the “miss me” photo I talked about previously. I liked the photo of my brothers eye, as its looking away from the camera. It shows a loneliness, this is also captured through the fact that there is only one eye shown.

Analysis, Inspirations, Research and analysis

Inspiration//Carolle Benitah//Matthew Knapman//Planning

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Carolle Benitah

Initially Carolle Benitah work for ten years as a fashion designer she then moved on from this to photography and some would say she incorporated this in her photography. The French Moroccan photographer focused on themes around family, memories and the passage of time. Her work is very metaphorical and focus’ on manipulating old images using embroidery, beading and ink drawings. I like this idea of physically editing the photo to create a new meaning or give a photo meaning. This is something I would be interested in using in my project as I have done similar things in the past and would like to further explore it.

Image result for Carolle Benitah

My favorite photo by Carolle Benitah is the one above. I like this photo as just like other photos she has manipulated this one in a particular way, that has a real haunting quality to it. This is most probably due to it being a photo of children with their mouths sown shut. The photos show violence as to sow a mouth shut is very violent. This what gives it this haunting, shocking quality. The only boy in the photo has his face covered by what seems to be pills, this could symbolize that he has been blinded by drugs, however this is just a guess. Yet again these  pills are red. The use of red throughout of all her photos is very clever and makes her photos distinctive. There is a use of red throughout her work often shown with red thread in this case it has been used to sow the mouths shut. Benitah explains the significance of the red in the statement below.

“I use a red thread, which is my connecting thread. It leads me through the maze of my past. Red is the color of violent emotions, the color of blood, of bad blood, it is also a color of sexuality. The beads chosen for their shininess and their delicacy accentuate the decorative element and create a discontinuity. I reintroduce the gestures of handiwork in this series and renew my connection with my previous work as a clothing designer.”

Embroidery in these photos where used out of protest as it was commonly seen for women to do this sort of thing waiting for the man to come back from work. She wants to denounce this and show it did not turn her into the “perfect wife” she was expected to be. She is using it to protest these sexist ideologies. There is phrase she uses that I really like when taking about putting the needle through the paper; “To embroider my photograph, I make holes in the paper. With each stitch, I stick the needle through the paper. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It is like an exorcism. I stab the paper until I don’t hurt anymore.” This is a powerful statement and one I will remember throughout my project as I have discovered in the past this kind of work can be very therapeutic, setting free any built up emotion.  It allows you to deal with things may not be able to deal with in the “real world”.

Another artist I taken inspiration from is also actually an ex Student. Matthew Knapman created a book all about his mothers life. His mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 that then spread to the rest of the body. This must have been a very difficult subject to do his project on. This has inspired me to cover a subject that is very difficult for me to cover. He also took inspiration from the artist above (Carolle Benitah). This is shown clearly throughout his book as he has changed these photos physically by burning, cutting and drawing over these photos. Again this is also something I’d like to continue from my exam project as I find this much more interesting and effective when conveying a meaning. When creating my book I want it to be full of emotion really showing the affect its had on my family and myself. I don’t want my work or photos to be shallow and have no meaning. If i come to the end of my project and I have no emotional connection with book and photos I have created, no matter what grade I achieved I have personally failed. I need this to have more meaning than achieving some grade and if I achieve a good grade that would be a plus yet that is not my primary goal.

Preparation

FAMILY project: Planning/// Mind Map

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On this mind map I have just placed the main thoughts I have about this up coming projects and the different paths I could take. The main ideas that I could explore are my families FAITH or my grandmothers DEMENTIA and how the roles have changed between family members. I took inspiration from my exam project as I really enjoyed that project. I also want to incorporate that into my project. Through difficult and upsetting times our families faith has kept us together and given us hope, its such a large part to our family. Less so but my great grandmothers dementia is also a large part of the family as my Nan has to work around this and look after her mother like shes her child. The roles in my family have somewhat changed.

Contextual Study

Photography and Truth

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Truth or Fiction

Photography can lie we see this constantly in online media and newspapers whether that’d be an image that has been cropped a certain way or an object that has been removed from the image completely giving the photograph a completely new meaning. As most individuals now days have access to editing software photographs have somewhat become unreliable. However, most people do still see a photo record as something reliable. When a photo is released in a newspaper or news channel people take it for granted that the photo has not been tampered with or edited in anyway. Yet when we look through the past news photos often been edited to convey a certain way, showing bias towards one point of view or dramatizing a certain event. Most of the time these little subtle changes go unnoticed however there are many cases the audience have picked up on the changes.

Photos can change the way people view certain situations and literally change the worlds decisions. A good example of this is the photo below. The photo is of the a Vietnam soldier mercilessly  executing what looks like an innocent civilian in the streets. In the this photo the man with gun is clearly portrayed as the bad guy in this situation. This photo was recorded from the violence of the Vietnam war in 1968. This photo was taken back to america for millions of people to witness. This caused peoples attitudes towards the war to change as this photo captured the graphic, raw, brutal and violent side of war. The name of the man with the gun is called General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Nguyen Ngoc Loan was denied medical attention at an Australian hospital after being shot in the leg. He was then sent to America where there was a campaign to have him deported all due to this photo below. People didn’t want a stone cold killer in their country. For the rest of his life he was hated by anyone who recognized him. The photographer himself said

“Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.”

It was later discovered that the man getting shot in the photo wasn’t as innocent as people thought. The man on the right was a Vietcong officer Nguyen Van Lem who was captured at the site of a mass grave that included the bodies of at least seven police family members. This man was a killer. Yet because people only saw photographic evidence of him being killed they saw the General as the bad guy. This is a clear example of how photography can misdirect people to believe something that never happened. A photograph with no words or explanation can be as dangerous as a gun. This is the point the photographer has now released after this photo was so misunderstood. Photographer said he had a lot of sympathy for the shooter and wished he had never published the picture. The article below explains how the officer had done the correct thing yet he was persecuted for the rest of his life.

South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the national police, shoots Vietcong officer Nguyen Van Lem, also known as Bay Lop, on a Saigon street on Feb. 1, 1968.

Saigon execution: Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief, 1968

This is a clear example of how photography can actually lie without there being any sort of editing. This was all due to the fact people were not exposed to the story behind the photo. However, the photo below clearly shows how editing can take place not to change the story necessarily but instead make it clear. The photo of an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University, Ohio, May 4, 1970. Four students were killed when Ohio National Guard troops fired at 600 anti-war demonstrators. As you can see the first photo hasn’t been edited and some would say that the more reliable, less bias version of the photo however, it looks like the pole is coming out of the women’s head so the photographer removed this. Personally I think this was ok as it is not change the story the photo is trying to tell it is only making it clear for the view what has happened.

To record and share an event has become so easy now day as almost every person has access to a camera and some form social media. This given everyone the opportunity to share their stories and experiences they have had around the world that main media such as the news may have not cover if it wasn’t for the amateurs using their device to record this. We see this a lot with terror attacks as often people use their camera to record the aftermath and even when its happening. This can be used as evidence and to give awareness of the brutality that may have taken place. Due to the internet and these recording devices information has never been so easy to access.

Analysis

Review and Reflection

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When looking back at the previous projects certain ones really stand out for me. The majority of the ones I enjoyed the most were portrait projects as I enjoyed manipulating peoples faces and distorting them in different ways as well as bringing out certain important and striking features. I enjoyed doing staged photo shoots, shoots that were different and interesting. These often caused problems however I enjoyed work around those problems and working on them. Just like the shoot that is displayed on the left above. Here I had to work round the drum kits but also incorporate it. I also enjoyed Johnny Briggs task as I found it enabled me to have an even more creative stance in photography giving me more freedom to not get everything perfect and encouraged to make mistakes. Like the previous projects I have talked about I also enjoyed working on the identity project as I found an artist that produced creative and striking work. I wanted to recreate this in my own way but still doing the original artist justice.

I also really enjoyed my exam project as I was able to tear and rip my work. This felt much more creative than just taking photos. I also liked taking good photos with good lighting then ripping them up. For some reason I felt a sense of freedom in this project. Throughout all these projects there is a sense of creativity and something different. I’d like to incorporate this in my next project as this will encourage me to actually get work done as I will enjoy want I am doing.

Photo-Assignment

Childhood memories///Tableaux///Photoshoot

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When taking these I wanted them to seem natural however it was clearly staged. I wanted my grandmother to pose like this as when our family used to live with her and my grandfather, one of the main things I noticed was that my gran would always make herself look nice before leaving the house. When she did this she always sit there chatting, joking and laughing with me. This was one of the happy memories of my childhood.

I wanted to re-create this in an almost cinematic tone just like Hannah Starkeys work however also a vintage tone. One of the main things I remember when looking at old photos of my grandmother was that orange tint to photos she was in when she was young. I did this by using a orange filter. The photos themselves remind me of how the movie stars would get ready in front on the mirrors with all the lights however obviously my gran does not have this so a handheld mirror will do.

My favorite photo is the first one as she looks as if she is staring at herself rather than posing. Almost as if she is staring at herself and analysis every feature. Just as an actress would. I also like how the photo is framed.

Photo-Assignment

Alec Dawson///Hannah Starkey///Tableaux///Photoshoot

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I enjoyed this shoot as it allowed me to get a message across very easily. This wasn’t a childhood memory however when I researched tableaux photography I found this photographer named Alec  Dawson. Part of his photography focused on how technology can distract us from the way we are living. You can find out more on my previous post. I have also done a separate post on childhood memories however I think this also links to memories. Its showing how these people in the frame could be making memories however they are too busy doing their own thing on their devices. I see this on a daily basis whether that be my own family or other people I see when i’m out.

When taking these photos I wanted to make them look almost cinematic like Hannah Starkey. I went around this a different way to Starkey as I conveyed this looked by cropped the photo in a cinematic looking frame. I also wanted the people on their devices to look lifeless almost ghost like I did this by selecting them only and decreasing the saturation. Also when taking the photos the lighting was very warm however I changed this as I wanted it to seem cold. I did this by places the a filter over the top of the photo and lowering the opacity.

My favorite photo is the photo in this selection as its frames perfectly for what I was trying to achieve and the lighting is also exactly how I wanted. It emotion on the subjects is also the right kind of facial expression I going for. I also like the last photo as it seem very eerie as we do not know what the female subject is staring at.