For this shoot, I wanted to go and visit boats down on the beach on a sunny day, when the tide was low so I was able to walk around the boats and take my images. I wanted to see how boats can have different effects of light and darkness due to their positioning on the beach, which is where the sun shines onto heavily.
For this shoot, I wanted to capture the natural light of the sun and how this can create different tones of light and darkness along the beach, including shadows and dark toned objects.
For this shoot, I wanted to create a series of images that included multi-coloured lights from a bundle of glowsticks, as well as an experimentation of using slow shutter speed and waving an iPhone torch and glow sticks around in a dark room. Additionally, in my darkroom shoot, I used fairy lights around a model to see the effect of light and darkness on the models face.
Book in hand: How does it feel?
The book’s cover and sleeve are created from card giving it a textures surface which feels dry to the touch, however the book itself is a more matte card surface giving it a smoother feel whilst adding a slight tint to the cover. This card texture is carried on throughout the layout of the book. The textured surface of the sleeve and book covers are repeated on each book.
Paper and ink: Use of different paper/textures/colour or B&W or both.
All of the paper inside the book are glossy matte textured being about the same thickness of ordinary photography paper. Within the book there are a few blank pages so that it adds breathing space when working your way through which adds to the overall effect of the photographers decisions. The only text is the ink which is in a small font in each corner of the pages to highlight what the title of each image is. The book overall is very consistent as there is a strong theme regarding composition and focus of the photographer throughout.
Format, size and orientation. Portraiture/landscape/square/A5, A4, A3/ number of pages.
The book itself it is a A3 size, slightly smaller than an A4 sheet of paper with an effective use of negative space throughout due to there being borders to each image boxing them in a result. This compliments his photography as the photos become easier to focus on especially as there are more dominant portraits within. Its hard to say how many pages there are due to there being no page numbers, but I would guess there are about 50 pages per book.
Binding, soft/hard cover. Image wrap/dust jacket. Saddle stitch/swiss binding/Japanese stab-binding/leperello.
The books use a paper card cover without any dust cover on due to there being no need through the use of sleeves. This as a result makes the book more visually pleasing as when opening it it directly links the cover page into the photography.
Title: Literal or poetic/relevant or intriguing?
Overall the titles seem to be more poetic rather than literal due to how the content inside each hardly reflects what the title suggests, instead being more around a different theme of family or location life in specific locations.
Narrative: What is the story/subject matter: How is it told?
There seems to be no narrative in the books but rather small sub sections where a few page spreads will be portraits with the next ones maybe be landscape shots or images about home life. This theme continues throughout the three individual books.
Design and layout: Image size on pages/single page, double-spread/images/grid, fold-outs/inserts:
Each photo inside the book tends to be the same size regarding whether it is landscape or portrait, with portraits tending to take up the entire page and the landscapes taking up about half of a page.
Editing and sequencing: Selection of images/juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process:
The images inside each book seem to have little editing done to them as each seems like they have come straight from the camera with in-camera editing techniques like low or high exposures. As a result of this the results seem to be more literal, portraying the photographers vision literally.
Images and text: Are they Linked? Introduction/essay/statement by artists or others. Use of captions (If any).
The books lack text as there are no page numbers or information about where the photographs are taken. However in each bottom corner of every page there are the titles of the photos present on each spread, this is complimented by the very occasional use of speech dialogue which can be seen on some pages which seem to depict a conversation between two random people.
My planned photoshoot for St Helier did not go to plan due to the Jersey Boat Show taking place at the time. This affected my ability to shoot certain places and areas. Therefore I moved to Gorey and shot there as well to get some extra imagery. I spent 3 hours walking around town and also Gorey village looking for circles and exploring them through photography.
Below is the contact sheet of that afternoon;
This shoot was completely ground based, no drone today however I did take the drone up with my dad the day before and I will upload this in a separate post.
For this shoot, I wanted to concentrate on capturing light and darkness within architecture. This included taking my images in the day time on a sunny day with strong rays of sun light. Shadows were a bold factor in this shoot which helped me to create a sense of darkness in my images. I was inspired by a few photographers to create this shoot, which I discuss further down in this blog post.
Using custom “wet ink” paintbrushes that I found online, I created Rorschach Ink Blots. I changed the colour of the background to beige (R:245, G:245, B:220) to resemble that of the original prints. I painted in symmetry mode so that the shapes were the same on both sides.
These are the brushes I used: 1 & 2
After completing the 12 ink blots, I asked a selection of people to respond to what they perceive the shapes as. I received a variety of responses as different people have interpretations, however there was also some common responses.
Popular Responses:
Inkblot 1: Skull, Uterus, Bull, Elephant, Two people looking at each other
Inkblot 2: Clown, Carrot
Inkblot 3: Two people holding two babies
Inkblot 4: Spider, Two cupid angels, Two shaggy dogs
Inkblot 5: Frog under a rainbow, Lake with arch, Angry dog
Inkblot 6: Dog, Gorilla, Tarantula, Muscular person
Inkblot 7: Two women back to back
Inkblot 8: Moth, Diseased lungs
Inkblot 9: Two rabbits
Inkblot 10: Skull, Shouting man, Beetle, Bird, Frog
Inkblot 11: Two people kissing, face, Two statues, Gloves, Two Japanese women
Inkblot 12: Butterfly, Heart
I would present these images physically in a grid or I would digitally present them in a gif, so that the movement of the water was captured.
Grid:
Gif:
Edits:
All images were taken with an aperture of around f/4.0 and a shutter speed of around 1/50 sec. One image I decided to change the colour hue to red as I felt it would make the image more dramatic.
These are the tidal times, and the times of first and last light, sunrise and sunset for the day that I am planning to take photographs.
What I would change/improve on for my next photoshoot.
I feel this photoshoot worked well, because it does clearly show the high tide surrounding the lighthouse and covering the rocks. However, I didn’t focus the image aorund the subject enough. There are too many objects within the foreground, and so for my next photoshoot I need to ensure that there is less cliff edge in the foreground and instead just focus on the tide.