Aim: My aim for this shoot is to create a series of tableux portraits which show the memory of my bestfriend where we first met and first became friends but now 14 years on looking back at the environment.
Photo Shoot Plan:
Genre
Location
subject
lighting
Composition
Settings
Colours
-tableaux photography
-environmental portraiture
– St Marys primary school
-explore locations around the nursery as there are stories here aswell.
-outside the school has the biggest significance.
-Friend Naomi to be the protagonist of the portraits (focal point)
-Background subject = the school and environment surrounding it
-message of the images is friendship and how growing up hasn’t stopped us from being friends
i am planning to go on this shoot on a cloudy day so that there isnt much bright harsh sunlight – im hoping that this will mean the colors of the image will be bolder and more dramatic because the light wont be taking attention away from the image
– main composition element that i want to focus on is breaking the rule of thirds
i want to have a running theme throughout this short series of the subject being directly in the centre of the image
No flash setting
wide angle lens
bold colours
colours that will contrast with the subjects purple hair.
Bold colours = to symbolise happy and big memories and events in or lives
Contact Sheets:
Shoot Evaluation: i think that altogether the shoot was successful. There were some outcomes which i really liked and captured the story that i wanted to tell. The bold colours of the Blue which symbolizes St Marys has a powerful message and i like the constant story which now runs throughout the images because they all contain the same blue shade in terms of the background and then linking the subject to the environment is the same shade of blue in her outfit as she is purposely wearing blue jeans to match this. i also thing that strong portraits have been captured. Another message i have tried to capture in these images is the differences between the person who used to go to this school when we were younger to the mature adult that the subject is now. This is highlighted in the stance and posture and sophisticated facial expressions in the images.
Over the last couple days after doing some research into different artists who specialise in tableaux style images, I decided to start planning for my own tableaux photoshoot inspired by tableaux in contemporary photography.
I started jotting down some ideas in the form of a mind-map to get my mind flowing and so I could write down anything that came to my min and I was commenting on the idea of re-creating my own childhood memories by looking at my own personal archive and to do this I would pay close attention to the use of costumes and props in order to tell a narrative. This was a great idea when I first cam up with it because I would take inspiration form artist such ass Irene Werning who looks at her own old childhood memories in the form of images her parents took when she was younger. This was something I was very keen to pursue but I the realised it would not show a very interesting narrative or let me explore the idea of memories and our relationship with our past and the memories we hold in our lives – the moments we cherish which has brought us happiness – I feel like this shoot would not allow me to explore this in the depth I wanted.
I also begun discussing the idea d using certain apps on my iPhone which allow users to take pictures in the effect of old and retro images – an analogue film effect that adds graininess and low quality to your photos to create a sense of nostalgia. The app I won called ‘8mm’ also alters the proportions of the frame/aspect ratio to add to the notion of creating a photo that looks like it was taken on an old film/disposable camera and this is something I still wish to explore but for the shoot I aim to complete this week, I want to look at something more contemporary – something inspired actually by an artist that I have not studied – being Rita Puig-Serra Costa – this is because I was not fully attached to either Almendros or Kapajeva’s images. I love Almendros’ contemporary, very polished style of his photos and I hope to transfer this over to my images but I will be mainly documenting on Costa’s work and in particular her series which focuses on portraits of family members and the objects they cherish themselves.
I hope to, this week compete this shoot once I have planned some more and I full understand what I wish to achieve and how I am going to go about it. I will need to contact several people who are close to me and ask them if I can photograph them individually and I will also ask them to collect an object whether that be a document, a teddy bear, a photo, a pencil – anything that has some meaning to them, preferably something which takes their mind back to when they were a child. I will then photograph this object against a black background in a mini studio set up and once both images of the person and the object which relates to them are done, I will then pair each corresponding one up. I hope to do this task with my mum, my step-dad, my girlfriend, my papa, my nan as well as myself and perhaps my dad and my sister.
Although I am not directly linking this tableaux shoot to my own childhood and re-creating my own childhood memory, I am doing it with my other family members and their own childhood memories so that I am linking the theme of family and archives. As well, I believe it will be nice effect to get each relative to write up a little passage, almost like a diary entry or a description of the object they have chosen and the relevance it has to them for me to then insert and quote this in the final production/sequence of images so it tells more of a narrative.
Rita Puig-Serra CostaRita Puig-Serra CostaRita Puig-Serra Costa
https://vimeo.com/124694405
Chris Verene used handwritten text over his images to tell a storyChris Verene
On 12/09/17, we visited the recent exhibition of Jonny Briggs and Tanja Deman’s work. The exhibition consisted of the work they had produced during their residency in Jersey and they were hoping to show off the research and efforts they made in an attempt to impress the locals of Jersey by showing them a side to the island the hadn’t seen before in this exhibition that was great experience and it was very impressive to see the extent of their work, especially having the opportunity to look at two world-renowned photographers who have had their work displayed in art galleries such as Saatchi, I was honoured to have this amazing chance to speak to them on a personal level about their work and get an insight into the style and aims from the series of images they had put on display for us.
In the words of the Balliwick Express website from their publication and the very successful joint exhibition, “both artists were awarded £10,000 to work in the island and have both chosen different projects, Tania photographed underwater landscapes while Jonny focused on the island’s ancient landscape, monuments, institutions and archives through the motif of the mouth.” In my opinion, the contrast that showed two sides of Jersey rich in beauty and wonder was amazing.
Pictured: From left to right, Jonny Briggs, Tanja Deman, Sasha Gibb, Director of CCA Gallery International and Gareth Syvret, Société Jersiaise Photographic Archivist and Archisle Project Leader.
I had kindly received a private invitation to the opening night of this exhibition sent in the ail from Societe Jersiaise and I was very honoured to be given the opportunity personally to attend the opening night to be one of the first to see the amazing array of works produced by both artists. As well, on Tuesday 12th the following week, I attended the event again with my school and got another opportunity to speak to both photographers about what they had created on a more one-to-one, immersive basis and it was great to experience. As well, during both artists residency, I began to work with them both very closely on the workshops the set up for myself and other like-mind people and this was an opportunity to produce my own set of work influenced by both of them and the conversations I managed to have them throughout has benefitted my artistic mind and when I got to see the work they had been conjuring up behind the scene when I visited the exhibition, it was a amazing experience I that mad me feel very grateful.
Tanja’s exhibition, entitled ‘Sunken Garden’ focuses on the hidden wonders underneath the surface of the sea – the garden we don’t get to see in such great detail which we were given the opportunity to through the captivating series of works Tanja had produced looking at the types of seaweed that lie beneath the ocean which surrounds our island. There was something quite mesmerising and magical about her work which is what she stated her intentions were – to provoke a certain emotion out of her audience. She wasn’t intending to ell a particular message through the works which were consistent throughout to produce a very truthful series, but instead wanted to force a feeling out of her audience from the magic that was on display – very dream-like images which were underpinned by the very professional skills shown in the photographs with use of lighting to illuminate the texturized seaweeds and highlight their patterns often not noticed when going for a swim in shallow waters. For the project, Tanja had to plan thoroughly to determine the best bays of Jersey which would give her the chance to capture the different types of seaweeds. This wasn’t a very simple effort that required just a couple dips in the shore of St Brelade’s Bay and instead a much more conscious effort to locate perfect locations for the few shoots Tania created in between choosing final images and framing them ready for the exhibition. Tanja’s style and process through producing her images is very different to that of Jonny’s but the behaviour of both of them in terms of their work makes for very different results which both have tell a powerful story encapsulating the rich beauties of Jersey which is often not realised by the locals but the two artists forces the information through to us when exhibiting their work and articulating their intentions from it.
Tanja told Archisle at the beginning of her time in Jersey that she is concerned with ‘the perceptions of space and her relationship to nature’ and this was evident in the work she put on display because she as a photographer and to really make a effort to make a physical relationship between herself and her surroundings – what she was photographing as this would make for the best results.
Tanja wanted us to explore her exhibition and then after 5 minuets of observing the images, she wanted us to choose a photograph we liked and one we disliked and then show her our choices and tell her why we chose the images we did. When I was first handed this task, I felt a bit sceptical about the prospect of criticising a professional photographer on her work she has spent 6 months producing for the locals of Jersey but this was part of the experience I would go onto embrace to allow me understand more bout her work.
This (right) is the image I chose as the one I ‘disliked’ due to the fact that I wasn’t too sure what it was and it seemed very dislocated from the serirs as it wasn’t too similar to other images Tanja had produced as the others showed clear subjects in that you could tell what was in the frame. I showed this to her explain it was my least favourite and told her why this was and she then went on to explain that it was a seabed and I then understood and forced myself to understand that in every series of images, there is going to be an anomalous result that may not always fit in however, this is what makes it special and interesting.
I chose these two images (above) which were displayed in a paring at the exhibition as my favourite because I thought they worked really well together and their wondrous nature is what attracted me to them because they look so fairy-tale-like. I love the haziness which is present in the images. The streak of seaweed which takes its place in the centre of each of image stands out beautifully from the clouded background of the sea and the lighting is what accentuates the detail of seaweed. It is as though the seaweed is so lonesome and it’s dream-like beauty is seen through the effect that the seaweed is floating in this clouded seascape but the effort to pair the two images together makes them much less lonely as opposed to hanging them separately. I explained my reasoning for these two being my favourite to Tanja and she understood why I liked them so much. Tanja’s other works were much bigger in sixe but the smaller size of them both and simplicity of it is what drew my attention to the photographs.
Jonny Briggs exhibition, although within very close proximity, being in the same building with Tanjas’ was actually very different in the type of work produced. Tanja’s was landscape based and Jonny’s was based around photo collaging and using other objects to create images which encouraged much more talk and thoughts from the viewer, in my experience because they ate not as self-explanatory as Tanja’s due to the very contemporary and untraditional techniques used to produce the images.
Jonny found himself during his time on the exploring the idea of censorship and controversy which comes with the motif of the human mouth and the relationship between the eyes and mouth – speaking and seeing. His works were much more muddled and there was no real sense of cohesion but they all worked together to complement each other even though the narrative was not fully direct to the audience however this is what I enjoyed about looking at Jonny’s work. The chance to see the exhibition twice gave me the opportunity to see images twice and therefore conjure up two different meanings which I thought the exhibition was intending to show. The first night was a chance for me to view the array of works but because of the busyness of the night, I could not speak to either Tanja or Jonny which was very frustrating but going back on the following Tuesday allowed me to speak to both artists one-to-one to allow me to get a better understanding of the purposes of the images and Jonny’s work really resonated with me due to the sole message he wanted to tell and hoe actually did this through the unusual and contemporary style of his 6 month project but also the way he articulated his intentions made me very grateful to be in his presence so he could, with much passion, tell us about each and every image.
Jonny’s passion for photography originally came from his failure at architecture at university where he realised he found himself immersing more so into other media where je could find more freedom to do whatever – this is evident in what he produced on the island where you could see works which would put some people off because of the pure unusuality of it. He displayed works such as a pair of shoes with a second pair of feet branching off the end it which walked up the wall of the building. As well, a portrait the size of a credit card with a piece of used chewing gum spread across the two faces of the subjects hanging from the wall. Something I found particular unusual yet satisfying and intriguing was the candle which stood lonesome on pedestal; something I first thought was a normal candle used to freshen the air but in my second return, Jonny explained to us that it was a candle he had produced when working with specialists that burns the smell of burning human flesh. This was inspired by the concentration camps at war times where people inside would find themselves feasting in human flesh as cannibals.
The exhibition overall held this unnerving and disconcerting sense of invasion into the human comfort zone. It was a series of works which played with the human need to be neat and for things to be directly explanatory. In Jonny’s work, he forced a sense of irritation from the audience by creating candles that exuded a pungent whiff of burning human flesh. He sticks chewing gum over images – something we would see as damaging. He takes the time out to create a set where everything within is sliced in half and then moved by one millimetre to create a sense of annoyance for the viewers.
Here, you can see the effort Jonny has made to show the relationship between the mouth and eyes and what is not seen is heard or vice versa. Again. it all about censorship and in his time in Jersey he visited the old police station. During his time here, he would attempt to cover objects in the dark room in red lipstick – a very repetitive and irritating process I can imagine but something that paid off to be very effective to show the relationship between the mouth and lipsticks and beauty and red lipstick and how it can, when applied in large amounts become something of disgust and unattraction. The sue of red lipstick was something that showed in Jonny work throughout and it is again reiterating the idea of purposely getting on the nerves of the viewers by ruffling their feathers with regards to OCD but how, in the end, it creates a beautiful and powerful catalogue of works.
For my family Environmental portraits I chose to shoot two very different people doing two very different things of what they like to do within my family. My first shoot consisted of looking at exploring what my brother does mostly when at home. He is quite secluded, often not leaving his room very much at all, and I wanted to show very much how he really is on the inside on is own turf. When not on his own turf, he is particularly uncomfortable and shy. However when he is in his own environment he is much more comfortable and is somewhat protective of this. I chose to document how through his appearance such as his style, body language and clothes and also the environment in which inhabits, he is very messy and so to us the room appears quite a hostile and unwelcome place to be in quite. However the fact he looks comfortable and is clearly showing ownership in this environment through his facial expression, it suggests the mess despite appearing messy and unorganized, is organised in a way that satisfies him. There is a strong sense of arrogance depicted in these photographs of my brother, almost appearing that the attitude is somewhat dis-respectful and an exaggeration of over importance to my Brother’s beliefs.
On the other hand I shot my sister who is very much more open and less reclusive than my brother. She feels comfortable in not so much her own environment, but an environment which is shared by so many other people which is why she is being shot in an open grassy/sandy area. In a sense, it’s not directly her environment, but its everyone’s environment in which that makes her feel comfortable and happy doing so therefore everyone’s environment is her environment. I believe this reflects the very sociable and excitable character in who she is. The particular environment however isn’t necessarily the location in this particular instance, but can arguably be what my sister is doing and engaging in. For example, she is playing and in doing so engaging ith the environment, something that has been impacted by man for generations and this shows how from a young age, humans are constantly changing and impacting the environment. However where some people’s impact on the environment is negative and to hurt it, I wanted to show my sister engaging with it and sort of show her personal relationship with the Environment. In saying this, the environment is essentially like a friend to my sister who brings her as much fun as a human friend might.
For the photoshoot I carried, I looked at the role of the women of the house in my own circumstance – being my mum. I looked at this through documenting in a staged style, almost tableaux and it also has environmental aspects within it because the shoot is executed in the subjects usual environment and this either the home or the workplace, however, for my mum, it is both as she works from home so it is often you find her slaving away in the kitchen or her workroom and I aimed to encapsulate this lifestyle which can get quite repetitive as she said when I was photographing her by staging different scenes in which she is posing doing different household jobs. In each shot she is also looking directly at the camera – making the viewer feel quite intimidated or uncomfortable. I wanted to show her as though she stating her authority within her own home – with pride and confidence but I also wanted her to look quite vulnerable to the audience as she could be looking into the camera as to say “help, look at me, look at what I do”.
Evaluation of the Shoot
I found that the shoot and its end products turned out to be very successful and I think I will use this experience as a learning curve in order for me to improve for next time. I treated the photoshoot as an experiment of to try out different ways of photographing documentary images and it is evident in this first attempt that I focused on low angles, body positioning, facial expressions and a different camera aspect ratio to the usual 4:3 – the square for,at is not achieved through cropping on Photoshop – I achieved this through altering the settings on my camera to shoot in 1:1 in order to achieve a more vintage effect. This limited the amount of the surroundings I was able to include in each shot but I attempted to focus on the main objects in the frame, being my mum and the event she is doing and the object needed for this – for example, the sink, the work unit, the stair case and the armchair.
The first room in which I photographed my mum was the kitchen. I already had the idea for the action being performed to be her washing the dishes.
Before the shoot, I took some reccee shots to decipher and terminate which position I wished to have my camera in for the best results. I was aware that I wanted a low angle shot but this was difficult to achieve due to the small sized of the room. I found a spot where I could get a good frame which included the main areas of the kitchen, including my mum in the middle. I first started out using a tripod as I thought this would be easier to capture good quality shots at a low angle – which is quite awkward to photograph hand-held, however, this is the technique that prevailed in the end. As the shoot went on, I found that mounting my camera on a tripod in a tight corner was quite difficult especially when I had to direct my subject to change her position. Therefore, for the most part, I ended up not using a tripod and instead myself. I would lie on the ground on my front and point my camera up to the subject manually. This proved to be much more effective to achieve the drastic low angle I wanted.
However, what I found most difficult during the shoot was being able to focus the subjects face as I was in a rather awkward position in order rot get a full clear view of the camera’s screen as I could not use the viewfinder feature in this instance.
As well, I struggled to choose a pose which my mum would attempt to act out for me as I did not know what would look best nut I already had this image in my mind of how I wanted ach shot to look – vey serious, quite uncomfortable for the viewer but telling a story of a mum who rarely leaves which rarely leaves the house during the day and has the work-load of providing for the other occupants within the house. I wanted to get this across through the documentary style I took.
For example, the image above was the first image I took during the shoot and it was mainly an experimental sot to see whether I liked the look of this style. However, I opted not to proceed with this style of the rest of the shot because for me, the image looked to overloaded and it did not have the clean and polished affect I wanted due to the foregrounded object obstructing most of the frame. Even though this was intended, I did not like it at all.
The look I wished to achieve form the image above was a fly-on-the-wall effect; as if the viewer is discreetly watching the subjects movements through a peep hole. I placed the camera within the washing basket which has holes in and I pointed the lens through one of the gaps and focused on the subject to allow the basket to become out of focus, in order to make my mum the focal point. I realised that the image would look something like this but when I reviewed my efforts, I was not attracted to the way it looked and I decided it would be in my best interests to continue with a more traditional approach to photographing but with my own personal touches. I don’t feel like you ca et the same feeling towards the image when there is foregrounded objects obstructing the view because I feel as though you, as the audience are not connected with the subject and are not building that relationship enough with them because of the fly-on-the-wall effect. However, with the tableaux style, the audience can really begin to build a relationship with the subject within, especially as she is looking directly at the camera – breaking the normal conventions of documentary photography where the subject is seemingly unaware of the presence of the photographer. However, I wanted my mum to attempt to represent her role in the house and for her to do this in a way which shows her as vulnerable and this is aided by the style I adopted.
In David Bates book, Art Photography, in chapter three which cover the topic of Documentary and Story-Telling, he writes “documentary drew on the idea of information as a creative education”. The way I interpret this is that: providing a visual story or visual element to physically view is another way, if photographed in the right way, to educate people and inform people of relevant issues, just form that ne image or “photo essay”. I do believe that a photograph has the contextual and technical power to achieve this education – a creative education and this is what I am aiming to do in the shoot and edits which follow.
Again, this image above was another experimentation that I attempted to do to give a different perspective however, it did not work. I also want the photoshoot to be consistent in the way each shot was photographed, just in different rooms of my house. However, I would not be able to do this in each room that we shot in so this would not be appropriate to show as part of the final images but was useful as an experimentation but the reflection of the window is too over-powering and it fades out the subject.
The Edits - Final Images
Image taken in the kitchen, mum doing the dishesImage taken in the dining room, mum sitting downImage taken on the landing, mum looking downImage taken in the lounge, mum relaxingImage taken on the staircase, mum polishingImage taken in the workroom, mum at the sewing machine
Theory
Something I found quite interesting came not from the post photoshoot stages but the post editing stages when I decided to actually show my mum the images I had produced form the shoot she had no idea about until I called upon her to help me out with it at the last minute – something I do often if I need some assistance with models.
During the shoot, I had given very little details to my mum about the aim of the photoshoot and what is what for, as well as what I wanted to achieve from it and way I was even doing it. I gave enough information to her in order for her to know what she needed to do however. As well, throughout the shoot, I had snapped about 55 images and not one of them did she see. I also do this with any other portraiture shoot I carry out due to the inner worry of being judged if I was to show the subject what I was actually producing. I only enjoy showing people my products once fully completed – which would usually be after the photoshoot, after I had gone through them and defined which ones I would work with and then the final stages of editing. Only then would I show others because I feel I would get satisfaction out of showing something I feel proud of as I know my family would appreciate this too and would recognise the hard work I have put in. Yet, there is something disconcerting and worrying to me about showing my subjects the images I have taken of them due to the potential inner damage it could cause to me if they don’t “get” it or understand it. However, I have previously experienced the issue where when showing the model the images I have taken halfway through the shoot, they begin to doubt themselves and their attractiveness in front of the camera – this mostly being females. For example, when I worked with my girlfriend on previous projects she would comment on how “ugly” she looked and I experienced this for the first time with my mum after the point which I had shown her the edits from the documentary shoot.
What I find interesting however, is that for this shoot, I was not particularly aiming to show glamour or beauty, I was concentring more so on the message I could present but as soon as I showed my mum the images, the first thing she comment on was the way she looked and her exact words, as I flicked through the images were “oh, no, I look so gross”, however laughing as she said in a comedic way. She then went on to state how from the low angle I had adopted, you could see her double chins. To me, she was more focused on how she looked and how herself was being presented, not the character I wanted to portray. This is what contributes to the worry I have of showing others my work because of the reaction I may get where the focus of their comments is leant more towards how they look for the camera and they are often not pleased with it. It is at this point where I begin to question my own work and whether it holds any quality to it.
From my own view and perspective on the outcomes of the photoshoot I have now named ‘This Is Your House, Mum’ for obvious reasons relating to authority, I am pleased with the results because I feel I have ben consistent in the way I approached each shot and this has paid off for the overall look of the final selection of images which I believe would work nicely as a selection of four or six together.
This is my favourite image out of the six because of the successful composition and framing. I feel my mum is positioned in a great way here in order for her to, through the image, connect with viewers through her looks and her body positioning as she stands vulnerably yet statefully on the stairs with her hand on the banister as she polishes it.
Make one environmental portrait using a family member.
When considering capturing a family portrait, i think about the members of my family and what represents them. To me, other than my mum and sister who i live with, My grandparents are my closest family. As documentary photography captures portrait style images in individuals natural environment, i am going to take images of my grandparents at their home because neither of them work anymore and spend most of their time at home. I plan to tell a story with my images as i want to show the relationship i have with my grandparents through natural image, i go around to their house on Tuesdays and Thursdays nearly every week and just spend time with them, not particularly doing anything special. Therefore through myimages i want to use creative and innovative camera angles aswell as natural lighting which turn there everyday lives into somewhat beautiful images.
Genre
Location
subject
lighting
Composition
Settings
– Documentary photography
Portraiture
shots that show my grandparents natural environment but including them
– Grandparents house as it is what reminds me of them the most because i go to there house a couple times a week to spend time with them so its the location which reminds me most of them but also tells the best story about who they are
– grandparents
try to get portraits of them from a front angle so you can see facial features as this tells a lot about their age
however subject to also be their home in the background of the images
– strong lighting, creating dramatic portraits
-experiment with lighting coming from behind the images
– experime nt with breaking rule of thirds: grandma in the centre of the image
follow rule by having grandparents in the sides of the image with home as background for the rest of the image
no flash
fast shutter speed
medium aperture
auto white balance(adjust when editing if it needs)
I think that the shoot went well as i managed to capture a couple of good portrait images of my Grandma which tells us a bit about her and what she likes to do. However i think that the shoot could have gone better if i had planned more and considered the small rooms and where i needed to position myself in relation to where my grandparents where to get a good angle as i was trying to capture the most natural images of them possible. Therefore in my next shoots i will focus on taking more images focusing on capturing the same image but from a variety of angles, changing the lighting so i can get the best image possible. Nonetheless the images did capture my grandparents in their natural environment and show from start to finish what a normal visit to their house would be like and how spending time with them is what family means to me. Here are a few of my favourite images:
This is my favourite image from my documentary shoot because it captured the documentation of my grandma which i had planned and i would also considered the image a strong portrait as she is looking directly at the camera so we can see her face clearly. However it is also a good documentary portrait as it contains a lot of the environment and this gives a greater clue to the activities and the type of character that my grandma might be. The image is of my grandmother doing a puzzle. i think that the rule of thirds in this image has been followed, the subject is in the top axis of the image and sticking to one particular side (right) of the image. This helps to keep the image spaced out and allow for the puzzle to be included in the image which is the main documentation part of the image because the photograph is capturing her doing one of her hobbies in her own home. I also think it is crucial to highlight the use of lighting in this image. The strong direction of lighting onto the face makes the portrait almost bold and over dramatic for what is actually being captured but this was the effect i was going for. The harsh lighting created from a sunny day through the blinds adds a really interesting look to the image. But i also feel like the blinds and lighting may highlight a further message which has a deeper meaning. The blinds which are not allowing much light in and are covering the outside world could symbolize that the older generation are more limited in their movement and may feel like they are trapped inside there homes as they are unable to walk around as much as they used to be able to
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.
Canon A-1 Sure Shot
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This (right) is the image I chose as the one I ‘disliked’ due to the fact that I wasn’t too sure what it was and it seemed very dislocated from the serirs as it wasn’t too similar to other images Tanja had produced as the others showed clear subjects in that you could tell what was in the frame. I showed this to her explain it was my least favourite and told her why this was and she then went on to explain that it was a seabed and I then understood and forced myself to understand that in every series of images, there is going to be an anomalous result that may not always fit in however, this is what makes it special and interesting.
For example, the image above was the first image I took during the shoot and it was mainly an experimental sot to see whether I liked the look of this style. However, I opted not to proceed with this style of the rest of the shot because for me, the image looked to overloaded and it did not have the clean and polished affect I wanted due to the foregrounded object obstructing most of the frame. Even though this was intended, I did not like it at all.
Again, this image above was another experimentation that I attempted to do to give a different perspective however, it did not work. I also want the photoshoot to be consistent in the way each shot was photographed, just in different rooms of my house. However, I would not be able to do this in each room that we shot in so this would not be appropriate to show as part of the final images but was useful as an experimentation but the reflection of the window is too over-powering and it fades out the subject.
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.
