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Independent Study, Inspirations, Instruction, Preparation, Recording

My Inspiration / A New Camera

September 5, 2017 Jude Luce Leave a comment

When given the task to write up a short document covering and explaining one thing that inspires me, I became a bit muddled and did not have a clue where to start because I could not recall any moment during the summer where I was inspired due to the relaxation of the six weeks and my need that I felt to not do much work at all. Over the six weeks I became very lazy and didn’t really have much motivation or incentive to achieve something amazing, instead, spent it with a very chilled out mind-set, which looking in hindsight, now regret because I could have used it as opportunity to do something new and challenging as a personal achievement.

However, once I thought hard about a summer that now just seems like a blur because it went so quick, I have come to realise that in fact I did lots of little things that seem so ordinary but have in fact inspired with regards to photography an furthering my skills to improve myself as an artist.

I had been wanting an old, vintage and retro camera for ages so that I can shoot in a new way and experience something different in photography but have never known where to get a retro camera in full working order from. At the beginning of the summer, I discovered a website that sells these exact camera I have been after for so long, in all shapes and sizes with different functions. I decided I would get one because I didn’t want the opportunity to go to waste. I got myself a Canon A-1 Sure Shot from 1994 after reading many positive reviews about it. It is a point and shoot waterproof camera with an underwater macro function and I loved it as soon as I saw it.

The camera came in its original case and with the original strap and I was over the moon to shoot with it because it would be a new experience and I hope, now I am half way through my first film that shooting with retro cameras will become a hobby of mine because of the pure satisfaction I get from shooting with film due to the great results which exude nostalgia and good vibes due to the colours that come from film photography. I am yet to use it underwater yet but will look forward to the results once I do. Film photography is becoming much more popular again and is coming back in to fashion as way to shoot professionally. I have gathered many ideas for photoshoots with the camera, such as mini 5-shot fashion shoots on a film of 30 exposures to get 6 mini photoshoots out of one roll. I have seen the use of film photography in many online fashion, music and art sites such as Dazed, It’s Nice That and Wonderland – where I get my inspiration from most of time for new ideas!

Therefore, the addition of this little gem to my photography equipment goes perfectly alongside my DSLR as a contrast tool for new results and I hope to use this in my A2 course this year as well as my DSLR. I also hope to expand my collection by purchasing anther film camera off the same site which I have seen. It has a half-frame function which is perfect for different results.

The purchase of this camera lead me to delve deeper into photography in the summer by doing other activities that also inspired me to hopefully do something new and creative in the future. For example, I came across a site called Format where in which users can sign up and create their own website using templates from the websites catalogue to display and present their images or artwork or designs professionally and easily. I signed up for a 14 day free trail but this soon ran out and I now wish to, once I am in a strong position wit my work and I feel confident enough to display my own portfolio, upload my own images to my own website where I can control the content whether it be images or text. It is a great tool for any young and aspiring artists as a start-up mechanism as you can view other like-minded people’s work. As well, I was inspired further by watching YouTube videos of ‘It’s Nice That’s’ ‘Nicer Tuesdays’ series where they get a wide rage of creative people in whether the be photographers, illustrators, animators or film makers and they get to talk about their most recent works to an audience. This gives me an insight into inspiring artists who once in a similar to position to me right now where they want to do something with his special skill they are learning but don’t quite now where to go with it!

Also, I have recently subscribed to a contemporary phtooagrohy magazine called Hotshoe. It is the UKs leading contemporary photography magazine and I cannot wait to receive my first issue to give me some much needed background knowledge of the photography world.

Inspirations, Recording, Research and analysis

Reflection on Workshop w/ Jonny Briggs

July 19, 2017 Jude Luce Leave a comment

On 18/07/17, Jonny visited us at the school again to take a look at the edits we had produced from the task he set us on his last visit. He allowed us to go through each of our works and share them with the class whilst explaining or thought processes. This was a good opportunity for me share how I work and my style of work ans to get opinions from other people. So, overall the workshop was very useful and enjoyable – as well as beneficial to my self-confidence and ability to speak in a large group.

The session began with Jonny gathering us around the table with our images that we had produced prior to the workshop. He began to ask how we wished to go about presenting our images ot the class and asked if we would be happy sharing our thoughts willingly without any prompts. Most of us turned our noses up a this thought but I would have been happy to explain the thoughts and meanings behind my edits independently because I feel most comfortable doing it this way as my images always hold some meaning and narrative behind them, especially now I’m working with images that are a lot more personal to me. Jonny, however suggested the idea for the rest of our peers to prompt us to talk by asking us questions about our photos.

I really enjoyed talking about my images because it allowed me to explain rte meanings behind what I had produced to the class and to Jonny, a hugely influential photographer to my style at the moment. I felt like my edits showcased how I see my relationship with my dad and how I wished to present this through an edit. I think Jonny liked my images and could connect with them in the way I wanted my audience to and he seemed to be able to derive some sorts of meanings from each of the images who boosted my self-esteem. I have learnt form the process over these last six weeks that my work is my work only and it is bound to prove different thoughts from different people and not everyone is going to like or even understand my work but for one persons, even if it is just myself to get what I produce, then I know I have succeeded because if I know I that I have differentiated myself from everyone else then I can be proud.

I feel like the task has set up other opportunities for me develop mys skills and progress with my work through the A2 course. I hope that the work I have produced and the influence of Jonny over the last six weeks will rub off on how I go about conjuring up ideas for my own personal study. I have definitely begun to see the world in new perspectives and the concept of telling stories and narratives through my photography will be a heavy aspect of the A2 course because I feel photography is a very powerful tool of expressing emotion and creating new stories for people close to you to connect with.

Analysis, Experimentation, Inspirations, Personal Study, Preparation, Recording, Research and analysis

Jonny Briggs’ Task (Destroy an Image 5 Different Ways) – Archival Imagery Task Response

July 13, 2017 Jude Luce 1 Comment

When Jonny Briggs visited the school on 04/07/17 for his workshop he held for us, he set us a task to complete for the next time he visits the school on 18/07/17.

“find five different ways to destroy an image”…

I have chosen to destroy one image form my own personal archive. It is an image I have already experimented with – this being the image of myself and my dad sitting at the breakfast able on a holiday in France wearing similar raglan tops and with identical haircuts! I find this one very amusing because of the obvious similarities between myself and my dad when I younger, but still now that I’m grown up I get told I look lots like my dad.

I have already experimented with the image on Photoshop to attempt to alter its look digitally. I do enjoy this method because it allows me to play around with the Photoshop tools and find a weird way to make an image look different. When editing on Photoshop, I found it difficult to let my creativity run wild and my freedom seemed limited because I didn’t really know what I wanted to achieve. I am hoping that when I have the image in front of me physically, I will start gathering ideas as to what I can do to essentially “destroy” it. Therefore, as well as the digital edits, I have printed out around seven copies of the image so I can manually destroy it. I will upload the outcomes from this experiment once complete and explain my thought processes so it is easy to understand why I did it.

Here are the products from my session on Photoshop:

With each edit, I used the same page size and same sized image to show consistency and make a pleasing series of five of the same images it just edited differently. I also chose the same background colour being a faded out black because I felt like this allowed the image to stand out best.

For this edit, I extracted just the eyes from the original image. I wanted to show my understanding of Jonny’s work and attempt to replicate in my own way but following similar styles to what he does. Jonny makes a habit out of using and focusing on the eyes of some his images frequently and he often takes out just the eyes and makes this feature of the subject within the image the focal point which I love because it is so small and can be so easily ignored yet the eyes can hold so much narrative in themselves because emotions are told through your eyes an the way you look at something. However, what Jonny does not do is make an image or a montage out of just the eyes of people. This is what I have done and attempted to make it personal. I taken the eyes of myself in a picture and the eyes of my dad from an image and merged them into one edit. I wanted to create the idea that my dad’s constant gaze down on me from when I was a baby up until I was a young child, to when I became teenager and still now has been a significant part of my upbringing and is for moist children if you have a dominant male figure in your upbringing. His effort to look out for me non-stop is a huge influence for how I have grown up and what I have become and I wanted to show this in my edit yet a gaze can sometimes become very confused and hazed and I wanted to play a trick on the mind – by pixelating the cut-out eyes, the viewers own look becomes confused. I wanted to show that my dad’s gaze has progressively and gradually morphed into mine and as I become older, I begin to look at things the way my dad does. Especially now with a younger sister, my own look has matured as I have to monitor, as a guardian essentially, someone who is so young and innocent, as I used to be.

With this edit, again focusing on the eyes, I have taken this particular feature out this time. With this edit, I decided to make it more simple and not edit the photo in any way apart from to take the eyes of both myself and my dad out of the frame. This is something Jonny does in his photos and was something I was really drawn to because of its simplicity but complex meaning behind it. I decided to remove the eyes of both subjects because although eyes can tell a million words through the way you look at something or someone – whether it be love or passion or anger etc. I wanted to address the idea that emotions can be so easily ignored and although you may look at someone with love, other gestures, such as your body gestures and your words can play a part in getting across your message. I also anted to see the effect of removing the eyes in this image because they actually play a big part in the story told because my dad is looking down at me, with what I now is love and happiness, however, I am looking away. But we both have a smile on our faces and this is what can show the sense of love.

Forward Slashes, Altered family photograph, 10 x 28cm, 2013 <br/> <br/>Jareh Das; In some of these altered family photographs, you have removed <br/>the eyes. I'm reminded of Peggy Phelan's observations that the formation of 'I' <br/>cannot be witnessed by the 'Eye'. In other we don't recognise our 'self' <br/>through our eyes. Do you think that your works through the camera's 'eye' <br/>somehow communicate or capture some of how the self is formed?<br/> <br/>The gaze is an important aspect in the work – beyond myself as a <br/>photographer looking through the lens, there is often a wish for the works to <br/>look back at the viewer, to return the gaze. The work could be seen as a <br/>rebellion against my father’s gaze from behind the lens when taking our <br/>family photographs. Whenever I take photographs of him or my mother, I <br/>suddenly feel in control, like there has been a power flip, that now it’s about <br/>the way that I see, unveiling an alternative family story. <br/> <br/>I’m reminded of times in public, when I realize that someone is looking at me; <br/>or even worse, our gaze meets. In that moment my mind splits into my <br/>fears and desires – that they are either attracted to me, or that they want to <br/>start a fight with me. That they think that I am attracted to them, or that I want <br/>to start a fight with them. It’s no wonder that so many people find it hard to <br/>look others in the eye, that when we look at an image we gravitate towards <br/>the eyes of the subject, and that fights so often start with the phrase ‘What <br/>are you looking at?’ <br/> <br/>I often entertain the thought that what our parents, Grandparents, and all <br/>those around us say to us – and even words and language in themselves, <br/>can categorize and shape the way we see the world around us. Our <br/>memories can cloud the way we see, and it is these artificial perceptions I <br/>wish to think beyond; to detach myself from my adulthood assumptions and <br/>see the world afresh like a child again. Because what we perceive can be a <br/>projection of our own fears and desires or tainted by our memories, <br/>I identify with Peggy Phelan’s observations. In this sense the work could be <br/>interpreted as how the conditioned self is formed, which reminds me of <br/>Narcissus, upon tearing out his own eyes exclaiming ‘Once I could not see, <br/>but now I can see.’ — Jonny’s image

This is the same edit as the one above, however told in a different perspective to get across a different meaning. Where the space was that the eyes originally filled, I have filled this with a red block. The reason I have done this is very simple and was just an addition tot he original edit to show a different narrative. I chose to colour the negative space red because red is an iconic symbol of love and we, most of the time use our eyes as a way of telling someone we love them if it isn’t verbally. This isn’t my favorite edit but I do like it and I have focused on the effect of love and showing this through all my edits – the love that is shown between myself and my dad and how strong and powerful it is – that a relationship can provide happiness – also shown in the photo. The concept of happiness is evident to someone who hasn’t seen the photo but for me, it has a stronger meaning and I connect more so with it which I like. For this edit, I simply cut the photo in half in using the ‘rectangular marquee’ tool to select what area of the image I wanted to adjust. I selected the area then copied it, deleted the original and pasted the area I copied so that I could move it about as I wished.

I chose to move the copied area of myself and my dads head closer into the original image so that it overlapped. I wanted to do this so that the arms of my dad which are wrapped around me as I laugh in his grasp were closer together so that it portrayed the idea that he was holding me very tightly – crating a stronger bond and a cohesion between us two. Although, this was occurring in the original, I wanted to emphasise this further, therefore moved the copied area so that I was closer into my dads abdominal and so there wasn’t as much of assistance between us as before. I also moved the image up a little bit once repositioned so that the table edges were in line with one another. And as you can see, here, I have again opted for the concept of love and creating strong bonds.

Schisms 3, Sister's head upon my body, Adapted family photograph, 2011 — Jonny’s image

This is my final edit that I produced and is one of my favourites because of the addition of text. I have again focused on what the eyes of each of us – myself and my dad can say and what they tell the audience. I cropped out the head of myself and replicated this four times and did the same with my dad also. This forces the viewers to look at the face’s of us only and derive some menaings and thoughts just by what we look like and what the orginal image may have looked like if they hadn’t seen it.

I wanted to confuse the audience again so flipped my head once cropped to face the other way to the original and I also moved my dad’s presence to the right of me instead of to the left – which is what the original was. However, to provide a clue that I have cropped the image, in the photos of my head, you can see the mouth and chin of my dad in the upper right corner – hinting that that he was originally looking down on me, however, now looking down at nothing. The emotions are still the same and it can be viewed that we are both smiling at nothing – perhaps there wasn’t actually anything funny in the original image and I am therefore making a new narrative for myself to interpret because I was so young at the time, I cannot remember the time the image was taken.

Adding to the idea of nostalgia and creating new stories and memories – I have arranged both sets of images in the style of a series of images from a photo booth. I really like this effect because each image is the same and it hasn’t changed as the series progresses which is usually what happens when having a mini shoot in a phtobooth. I wanted to show the idea of repetition in our lives – maybe going to the same holiday destination every time because it was what I liked and what my parents knew was safe (in the image we were in France).

As well, I have added in some type this time because I felt ike it would add an extra layer of narrative and give the overall work some more character. I chose to use the words ‘those loving eyes’ as I wished to narrow down the image to the focus of eyes and how they pay an important part in this image to tell a story and show emotion. I decided to replicate the word ‘loving’ several times as it works its way down the page fading gradually to black – showing that love is so easily lost at times in terms of romantic reltionships and I wanted to show that love is such a delicate thing.

Here are my manually made edits: