During the easter holiday I decided to start my wabi sabi film project. It was difficult to find a good time to take the film clips and images because the weather wasn’t that good. I needed a day where the sky was clear so I could capture the different colours and the sunset. I decided to base my film during the evening when the sun is setting because that’s when the light is at its best because of the colours that are created.
All posts by Anna Houiellebecq
Filters
wabi sabi film // ideas
As well as a photo book I also plan to create a short cinematic film capturing scenes of everyday life and nature. The film The tree of life is my main source of inspiration for this project as well as the photographer Rinko Kawauchi with her Sublime imagery. To create the film I need to capture a lot of imagery of a few second shots of different things such as light, the sea and everyday events. An idea for the film is to use a subject, a model, as the focus of the film. The film would be about the different things that occur throughout their day while interspersing scenes of nature throughout. I also want to focus on light and how it effects nature throughout the day by capturing different shadows and angles.
My whole project is about the insignificant things and the spiritual elements of everyday so this is also what I plan to capture throughout the film. Like the film The Tree of Life I want to capture immensely beautiful things and scenes. The mood board above contains images of different things and aesthetics that I want to use as ideas for my film.
research // the tree of life
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jul/07/the-tree-of-life-
reviewhttps://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-tree-of-life-2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0
The link above is a link to the trailer for the film, The Tree of Life.
The tree of life is an American film created in 2011 by the director Terrence Malik. It was described as an “experimental epic drama film”. The film is about the origins and meaning of life through the view point of a middle-aged man and the memory of his childhood. His
family lived in 1950’s Texas. The film contains clips from his memory, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and life on earth. The film was named the 7th greatest film since 2000 in BBC poll of 177 critics. The main story line throughout the film is the lessons that the oldest son, Jack learns whilst growing up alongside his two other brothers. The clips of his memories are interspersed with amazing images of nature and life. Some of the lessons and emotions that Jack learns about is jealousy, loss, lust and anger.
In a review by Robert Elbert he’s describes the film as “a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives.” The film contains so much human emotion and feeling. When watching the film you immediately connect with it through your own experiences which is what makes the film so powerful.
Malik captures some of the most simplest events in life and portray them in an immensely impacting way. He uses his own memories of his home town and childhood to create portraits of everyday life. The film was inspired by two things, space and time, and spirituality. Malik is a christian and believes in the viewpoint of God creating the world. The film contains visuals suggesting the birth and expansion of the universe, the appearance of life and the evolution of species. The film contains elements of time ; one of the children dying. We also witness the oldest son grown into a middle aged man.The film also contains spiritual elements because Malik includes a scene of an afterlife , a desolate landscape where peopler seen recognising and greeting each other.
wabi sabi // photobook ideas 2
Here is a further development of my photo book to display most of my final images from my project. I tried to display images that link together so that a story is created. I also linked images based on colour and tone. I really like how my book is developing and am very happy with the layout so far.
wabi sabi // plant shoot
I needed to get more images of specific things such as flowers and nature so I decided to use the natural light to capture some image of flowers in my garden. I used a macro lens to capture these because It highlights much more detail and I can get a lot closer to the object. My aim was to capture different shapes and textures within nature, and I think Ive managed to so this within the shoot. I used a very small focal point because I wanted the background to be blurry so that the main focus was the flower.
I used Photoshop to edit the images…
wabi sabi // body 2 shoot
On the 27th after school I conducted my second photoshoot using the body as the subject. I used the same model as the first body photoshoot because I wanted to keep a theme going. I also choose to stick with this model because its my mum and therefore could have deeper connotations relating to the theme of spiritual images and growth and decay. I used a micro lens so that I could zoom closer into certain details I wanted to highlight such as the creases in the skin. I photographed the models hands and face because I believe them to be the most important aspects of the human body. The shoot was done at day time so I used the daylight from outside to revel most of the details. However for some of the images I also used a flash because I wanted to illuminate the image more. I focused on particular shapes and textures in the skin because my project is about the insignificant things. Overall I am very happy with the result of this shoot.
I used photoshop to edit the images because I only wanted to edit them very simply because I had already used the camera settings to capture the image I wanted. I improved the image slightly by changing the brightness, the contrast and the vibrance of the image.
research // sublime
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/what-is-the-sublime-r1109449
The word Sublime means ” of very great excellence or beauty.” The History of ideas of Sublime has a deeper meaning that leads to something truly extraordinary. For artists throughout History the sublime is an expression. The Sublime can be many things: a judgement, a feeling a state of mind and a response to art and nature. The word Sublime comes originates from two Latin terms, the preposition sub, meaning below or up to and the noun for lintel, which is the heavy wooden or stone beam that holds the weight of a wall above a doorway. Therefore the word is a connotation to push towards something above you. In the seventeenth century the word Sublime was used was referred to as something that is raised, set high up and exalted, such as buildings or people. In 1700, an additional definition rose which was the sublime in writing, nature, art and human contact. It was an exalted status that goes beyond normal experience, or beyond the reach of human understanding. The Sublime was generally regarded as beyond comprehension and beyond measurement.
It was at this time that artist became interested in the word Sublime. Visual artists tried to represent it, and they tried to paint the sensation that we experience when words fail or when we find ourselves beyond the limits of reason. Some examples of these painters were William Hogarth who painted Satan, Sin and Death (A Scene from Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’)c.1735–40, and Henry Fuseli who painted Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers ?exhibited 1812.
Sublime artist could not simply follow the rules but instead needed to experience what existed above and beyond rules on the realm of artistic imagination. Many critics said “that the sublime is not only desirable but is indeed the highest level of artistic attainment” In a book called The Sublime by Simon Morley, he talks about the word Sublime and the technical aspects behind it. The book begins with a quote from Thomas Weiskel from the book The Romantic Sublime. He says “The essential claim of the Sublime is that man can, in feeling and speech, transcend the human. What, if anything, lies beyond the human – God or the gods, the daemon or Nature – is matter for great disagreement.” He is giving his interpretation of what he believes the Sublime to be. It is about going beyond human understanding, reaching new heights of astounding beauty. The concept of Sublime has been edited throughout history and within the book The Sublime, Morley discuses what the definition is now. He talks about how the word Sublime was used in the 18th century when it was created in relation to the arts to describe aspects of nature that install wonder, such as mountains, waterfalls and stormy seas. He then goes on to discuss how this use of Sublime is now being used to to express the power of technology and raw material. This can be characterized as contemporary sublime. Contemporary artists haves re-created and extended what the term sublime means. They have looked at and combined earlier traditions as well as engaging in more modern aspects in our society. They no longer look at the word Sublime as an expression of nature but also as a representation in modern science. A new and more complex way of using Sublime is to describe the scale and complexity of the capitalist-industrial system and also in terms of technology.
Anish Kapoor is a contemporary artist born 12 March 1954. He was born in Bombay, but lives and works in London. Kappor became known for his geometric or biomorphic sculptures using simple materials such as granite, limestone, marble, pigment and plaster. His sculptures are simple, curved forms that usually brightly coloured. Within his work he explores the relationship between matter and non-matter. He does this by experimenting with both free-standing sculptural works and ambitious installations. In 2002, Anish Kapoor created an installation in Tate Modern in London. The installation was 150 meters long and ten storeys high. The sculpture is called Marsyas. The title is inspired by the Greek myth captured in Titian’s 1576 painting. Within the painting the satyr is being flayed alive by Apollo for playing the flute better than the God. Here is the painting below replicating the scene that inspired Kapoor. 
Th sculpture by Kapoor consists of three huge steel rings joined together by a single span of PVC membrane. Two of the rings are positioned vertically at either end of the Turbine Hall, while the third is suspended parallel to the bridge running through the center of it. The PVC coats have a deep red colour that connects like a skin, recreating the myth and symbolizing it in a physical bodily like presence.
I have used Anish Kapoor as an example of a contemporary artist because he is exploring the relationship between certain concepts of Sublime. He is using the traditional representations of the word through the painting of Marsyas as the inspiration for his sculpture. He is combining this with the more modern, contemporary connotations of the word by creating this huge sculpture using modern technology and materials. These two very different examples of one event shows how much art has progressed and extended its ways of representing things through technology and with more complexity.
This same thing has happened with the term Sublime through the different periods. The modern day definition of the term Sublime is something of “great excellence or beauty”. 
When you are describing a situation or scene as Sublime it is more then something that is beautiful, it also contains a sense of fear, something so unique and powerful that you become fearful of it. An example of this is when you are face to face with a lion. This situation is Sublime because its powerful witnessing something you’ve never experienced before, but at the same time its daunting because its a dangerous situation to be in.
The Photographer Rinko Kawauchi’s series contains a sense of Sublime within them. In particular a series called Ametsuchi created in 2013. The title, Amersuchi is created of two Japanese charcters meaning “heaven and earth”. Within the series, Kawauchi combines iomages of distant constellations and tiny figures lost within landscapes, as well photographs of a traditional style of controlled-burn farming. In this the cycle of cultivation and recovery span decades and generations. This series in particular contains a grasp of Sublime because the event of burning a dry grass field is extraordinary to witness, yet at the same time extremely daunting because its a dangerous event and could easily become out of control. In my opinion this is the best use of the term Sublime. It is a vast change of representation of the term from the Barouque Sublime.
research // interview with Rinko Kawauchi
https://www.sfmoma.org/rinko-kawauchi-contemplates-small-mysteries-life/
In an interview by The San Francisco museum of art with Rinko Kawauchi, she discuses the concept and inspiration behind her work. She talks about her interests in the small mysteries of everyday life which she explores in detail in the series Utatane in 2001. She also talks about Sublime beauty which she also explores in her work. Kawauchi reflects on how her photography comes from a state between “dreams and waking.”
Within the interview Kawauchi talks about her dreams in much detail and describes the them in their vast beauty. She said her dream contained “scenery so amazingly beautiful it made me almost scared.” This is what the definition of sublime is, it means very great excellence or beauty that almost creates fear. Kawauchi uses one particular dream as a concept for one of her series Within her dream she witnessed the burning of a grass field. She describes it as “amazingly beautiful“. She wanted to know if the place in her dream was a real place. She later discovered the place again while watching the news. The place she had dreamed about was called Noyaki where the burn grass fields once a year so that they don’t become forests. She creates a series using this practice called Ametsuchi, which is a Japanese word meaning heaven and earth. After this discovery she starts to become interested in the cycle of human practices such as the one she witnessed in her dream. She uses this interest as a foundation for all of her work as well as people’s daily lives. Here is an image from the series Ametsuchi.
Within the interview Kawuachi also talks about her fascination in small things. She says that small things use to save her as a child, “I was saved by small things as a child”. She describes about how she values small things because of her childhood, “I value small voices and things.”She uses her fascination as a concept in her work and she focuses on the details of smaller objects and subjects in her series. The main series where she uses this idea is Utante. She uses this name because it’s a way to “express the state of being between sleep and wakefulness.” The project explores liminal states which means the transition from one thing to another. Liminal State is the place from the beginning to the end of the transition. She is fascinated by the mysteries of the world and this is what she is primarily focusing on when taking her images. The image below is from the series Utante.
Dreams are Kawauchi’s main focus because she likes capturing things no one can explain. Her work is inspired by her own dreams. Although dreams are her primary concept she is also fascinated by the material that makes the world. Within the interview she talks about how there are so many theories about how the world is made but no one has any material proof. She likes the mystery behind it and explores this in her images. She says she “thinks about different theories and mysteries in the world.” She sees the world and everyday event as beautiful but at the same time she fears them because no one truly knows what they are. This is what Sublime beauty is.
wabi sabi // sea shoot
After school in the evening when the light was fading, I drove too St Aubins bay to do a photo shoot focusing on the movement of the sea. The light was good for the shoot because it was cool and bright which enabled me to easily capture the details of the sea. The light was also reflecting off the water which created a really nice effect. I used a canon camera for the shoot and focused in on the shapes and movement of the current. I used a medium focal point to capture the images because it was easier to get all the detail I wanted because of the constant movement of the tide. I had to use a very fast shutter speed to be able to capture the images in a good quality.
When editing the images I choose the best quality and range of scenes and objects. I edited the images using Photoshop because I wanted to do simple edits to each image rather then do them all as one block edit. When editing the image I simply changed the contrast, brightness and added more vibrancy to the images to make them more visually interesting.
As well as abstract close ups of the sea and the movement of the waves, I also captured different things that I noticed during the shoot. I captured these because I wanted to contain a variation within the series. I also edited these images in Photo shop to changed the brightness and contrast, and also to add more vibrancy to the images. I wanted the images to be bright and pure because this was the type of effect I was trying to create throughout my whole series.
wabi sabi // sky shoot inspired by William Eggleston
After researching about William Eggleston and learning about why he took his sky images, I decided to do a shoot of my own of the sky and clouds during the sunset. I choose this time of day because the sun effects the sky by creating different colours which is a beautiful thing to capture on a camera. There are many different abstract shapes and textures that are created.
I edited the images using photoshop because I wanted to bring out the natural colours that were created. I am very happy with my result and believe it goes very well with my project because I am capturing something that happens everyday, but we tend to ignore or not notice. I have managed to capture something insignificant in a beautiful way.
COMPARISON
The image below is one of the edits from my photo shoot of the sky during evening time. Its an image of a cluster of clouds captured in front of the dark blue sky behind. There is little going on in the image which is what makes it beautiful because its simple yet powerful at the same time. I really like the colours in the image because they have a subtle warmth within them created by the sun setting. This is the main difference between mine and Egglestons. My image is darker and more atmospheric because of the time of day the image was taken. The clouds contain a yellow and pink tinge which makes the image more visually interesting for the viewer. Eggleston’s image has less contrast of tones between dark and light. It also has contains less of a range of colours.
