Monthly Archives: September 2018

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AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Coursework, Develop, Developing, Final Outcomes

My Edits Of My Response To Political Landscapes

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I have chosen to use the technique of pasting and cropping photographs over a base photographs and placing them in different places in order to align with the base photographs in order to create an interesting and contrasting composition. This allows me to be creative with the selection and placement of the photographs in order to emphasise as much as possible the differences and similarities between the past and present uses of the land. I will also be incorporating technique 3 into this by using natural frames such as mirrors and windows around the house in order to provide a more personal and interesting touch by showing how the fashion and style of property design has changed through time.

In order to provide myself with more photographs/frames to work with I have conducted an additional mini photoshoot within my household in which I photographed more frames and decorations within the house. I can use these photographs to broaden the variety of edits in my final outcome and to further show the current fashion and style within households.

In the edits I have used photoshop to alter/crop the montage photographs or archival photographs to fit within the natural framings that I photographed around my household and then placed the montages within the frame. I have done this to create a sense of personalisation within the edits as well as delving deeper into the theme of political landscape by showing how the inner decoration of the land changes over time, as well as the buildings themselves. The mixture of new and old photographs along with the modern decorations allows for the changes and developments over time to be shown as clearly as possible.

The majority of the photographs show the different sections of the houses and their developments through the use of montages but I have devoted one of the photograph edits to only the archival images within the frame in order for these photographs to be appreciated as they are without the contrast with the new photographs distracting the viewer from it. I have also included an edit which shows an archival photograph of me and my dad on the property in order to show that political landscape includes how the people involved in the change of land develop.

Analysis

In this photograph natural lighting was used in all aspects from the photograph of the frame to the photograph of the house from 1873. This use of natural lighting has allowed for the natural shadows of the structure to be shown which helps to create contrast between the different shapes and angles in the structure of the house. There is a very wide tonal range in this photograph due to its montage nature – the bright white paint of the newly refurbished house contrasts against the black hole that is the window being renovated, this helps to create multiple viewpoints and areas of interest of which all contrast with eachother. A deep depth of field is used for all of the photographs involved in this montage as the whole of the photograph is in focus which allows for all the small details of the contrasts between the old and new to be seen. A shutter speed of 1/50 was used to capture the mirror frame along with an ISO of 200 as I wanted the frame to be of as high a quality as possible in order for it to compliment the photographs within it. For the photographs within the frame a slightly quicker shutter speed along with a lower ISO will have been used as the photograph was taken outside so the shutter did not need as much time to allow the light to enter the lens. The photographs are all correctly exposed but the exposures between the different photographs in  the montage contrast with eachother to show the differences between them.

The colours in this photograph vary greatly due to the nature of the montage – the frame shows a dark gold and brown to contrast with the predominantly black and white montage. In the predominantly black and white montage there are splashes of colour through the inclusion of the photographs showing the current state of the house. These splashes of colour create a more interesting viewing and reminds the viewer how much technology has changed overtime to go from black and white to colour photography as well as the landscapes. There is a slight 3D effect to the montage as the closer corner of the house enters the background with the far corner being pushed towards the background – this 3D effect is further added to by the frame surrounding the montage, which creates a much more interesting and intriguing photograph. The frame is positioned directly around the centre of the photograph to allow the viewer clear viewing into what the frame is showing. This centralisation of the frame looks very orderly and neat which contrasts with the chaotic structure of the montage that it contains. The montage is placed within the frame in a way that shows as much of it as possible in order to convey my ideas within political landscape further. There are lots of viewpoints within the photograph as there is so much going on – which is possibly a bad thing – but I feel that there is a lot being said through this photograph so that fits the busyness of it.

This photograph is made from a collection of archival photographs and new photographs of my house. This collection of photographs represent the history of the house and the changes that it has gone through. I have incorporated both archival and new photographs to demonstrate how the genre of political landscape links to these photographs. The house has many similarities to cod houses through the shape and style – these cod houses were built in the 18th and 19th century from people who made their wealth through the North Atlantic cod trade which can be seen as one of the initial sources of wealth within Jersey. After research on the house I could not find any evidence that this is a cod house but the similarities and shapes are very close. This photograph has strong links to political landscapes and Guillame Bression and Carlos Ayesta’s work due to exploring what humans can do to a landscape and how drastically landscapes can change over a time period.

The idea behind this photograph is to show how even though fashion and trends come and go, they always come back around. This photograph shows sections of the house through photographs that are taken nearly 150 years apart – even though they are taken so many years apart the structure and shape of the building has remained. In the 1870 period only the people who could afford to would plaster their houses, but then later on it came into fashion for houses to have granite showing (as seen in the photograph) so the house was stripped of its plaster to reveal the granite structure. In the current state the house has been re-plastered in order to meet fashion trends and in order to show some inspiration from the original style of the property. This loop of fashion and trend shows how political landscapes often take inspiration from the past whilst putting a modern spin on them.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Developing, Experimentation, Experimenting

Experimenting With My Response To Political Landscape

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I have collected an variety of archival photographs on my house and its history and well as creating a response to these photographs by taking inspiration from these archival images. I will be experimenting with different ways to demonstrate the changes and development within the house as well as how political landscape links to the set of photographs.

Technique 1

For this technique I will be placing the new photographs over the archival photographs and vice versa in order to create a contrast between the photographs as well as drawing similarities between them. I am going through with this by using photoshop. I start off by placing both photographs in the same photoshop tab.

I then choose an area of one of the photographs to crop in order to place over the other photograph. This area can be any detail of the property that shows similarity/contrasts between the now and then.

Once a section is cropped I will then focus on aligning this cropped part of the photograph with the other photograph in order to create a collage type photograph. I will do this with multiple photographs that match/line-up with the archival photograph to show as much contrast as possible. If I go through with this technique I will edit features such as the brightness of the photographs before hand to ensure that the photographs fit together well. I will also spend more time aligning the photographs to create the most accurate collage possible. I will also look at cropping and inserting smaller parts of photographs in order to provide more detail.

I think that this technique allows me to creatively place the different photographs in different combinations to create different photographs and interesting perspectives. One worry that I have with this technique is that the archive photographs may not fit in with the new photographs but I will overcome this problem by readjusting properties of the photographs when it comes to final editing.

Technique 2

For this technique I will look at splitting the two photographs half and half or into thirds or quarters if there is more photographs to compare.

I will do this by first choosing a photograph to be the base photograph that the other photographs will be pasted over. I will then crop the other photographs to be roughly a half/third of the whole compostion. I will then paste the photographs onto the base photograph and look at altering them slightly to realign them in order to create a more accurate composition. As with technique 1, if I go through with this technique I will edit features such as the brightness of the photographs before hand to ensure that the photographs fit together well as well as spending more time aligning the photographs to create the most accurate collage possible.

I like this technique as it allows me to create clearly set out the contrasts and similarities over time but I feel as though this technique has a similar approach to technique 1 except that it slightly restricts what I can do with the compositions and where I can place the photographs.

Technique 3

For this technique I will look at incorporating a more personal factor to the composition through the inclusion of how the property is being used meaning the way in which it is decorated. This gives a further insight into how the use and appearance of the property has changed throughout time. I will be taking natural frames, such as a mirror for example, and placing both archival and new photographs within the frame to give another element of how the land use has changed.

I will do this by first choosing the base photograph containing the natural framing. I will then paste the photographs chosen over the top of the base photograph and crop/alter the photographs so that they sit well in the natural frame. This will create further contrast between the old and new by showing a personal aspect of the decorations within the property.

I like this technique as it allows me to delve deeper into the use of the property and how the fashion and style of property design has changed over time. This technique can also be mixed with technique 1 as I can place the results from technique 1 into the natural frames to again add another sense of personalisation and to further show the similarities and differences that occur over time. This technique allows me to be as creative as I like with my compositions, as does technique 1, as I can place the photographs in any sequence that I choose but still create a feeling of organisation through the natural framing.

 

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Specification and planning

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In response to the title ‘political landscapes’ I have decided to explore the politics within my family, my intention if to explore things such as illness, culture and origins within my family, I want to explore my relationship with different members of my family and how harsh circumstances have effected the structure of my family and the individuals. I plan to do a variety of shoots in a variety of different locations, for my first shoot I am planning to gather a variety of items that have cultural meaning to my family and photograph them in the setting of a studio, my plan is to create very similar images with each item by placing them all the same way on a stool or platform and using the same angles and lighting for all the images .I plan to do my second shoot in the almost empty home of my grandparents who recently passed away, I would like to try and capture the emptiness of losing two close family members and the remains of what the left behind. For my third shoot I am planing on taking a variety of images when I visit my grandparents in France, I want to capture the joy of the house but also the sadness, I want to capture how beautiful the house is and all the memories in it but also how it is a struggle for my grandfather and the rest of my family to deal with my grandmother who is in the last stages of Alzheimer’s, I want to try and portray what it is like to lose a family member, even though they are still there the people around them feel like they are gone and that is what it want to portray in my photos.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas

My Response To Political Landscapes

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Original/Archive Photographs

The below contact sheets contain photographs taken during the development of my house. The development within the photographs looks at how the land has changed over time through human intervention. The photographs show the houses at different stages including before development and the style that they were decorated in in the late 1800’s. This has strong links to political landscapes and Guillame Bression and Carlos Ayesta’s work due to exploring what man can do to a landscape and how drastically it can be changed over a period of time.

I plan on merging these photographs with my response photographs in different ways through experimentation in order to find the best way to show the contrast between the different stages in the development of the property and how it changes over time. A couple ways of which I am thinking of trying to do this is:

  • Layering the photographs on top of eachother
  • Cutting and pasting different parts of different stages into one montage
  • Splitting the images half and half

My Response Photographs

In these photographs I have tried to recreate some of the original archival photographs in order to be able to create contrasting photographs to show the development and changes over time. I have also looked at how the use of the land has changed by including photographs of furniture and decorations around the house. I have chosen a sunny day to take this shoot as I believe the blue skies and lighting creates a positive atmosphere due to the project being used for a good cause being a family home rather than a project such as the finance buildings.

Comparison of Photographs

Below are some comparison images of the different stages of development that the land has gone through over time. These images are only examples of how the land has developed and changed. I will be editing photographs by layering new photographs over archival photographs and vice versa in order to show the contrast and changes.

These changes date back to 1873 and show a variety of trends in the sense of property, for example in the below photographs the top right image is the oldest even those the style of house is almost exactly the same as the new modern development. This is because in the 1870 period only the people who could afford to would plaster their houses, but then later on it came into fashion for houses to have granite showing (top left) so the house was stripped of its plaster to reveal the granite structure. In the current state the house has been re-plastered in order to meet fashion trends and in order to show some inspiration from the original style of the property.

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Initial Ideas and Examples of Political Landscapes

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Documentary Approach

Through a documentary approach to this theme I would be interested to tell realist stories significant and relevant to history and historical events that affect us now as well as everyday life. I would mainly focus in on the contemporary issues surrounding a particular area and portray this to the audience. Documentary photography generally relates to longer term projects with a more complex story line which intend to explore with possible such projects as the human destruction to our earth while photojournalism concerns more breaking news stories. I will also use this approach which can often overlap with documentary photography with its close relationship to the news media and therefore political landscapes too.

Despite the fact that documentary and photo journalist approaches often will focus mainly on the narrative as a pose to an aesthetically pleasing image, I will ensure to incorporate the most interesting images as well as conveying these stories. My style of photography is more focused on producing aesthetically pleasing images and therefore i intend on  carrying this on through the different approaches to photography that I explore. This will mean that my personal photography style is portrayed through my work although i may be exploring other styles and photographers.

Creative Approach

Through a creative approach I would explore photo manipulation to exaggerate political issues and make the viewer clearly aware of them. I think this approach could work with any theme but in particular I have the idea of exploring environmental issues. As well as creating images powerful within its composition, lighting and coloring  I want to explore using Photoshop to create more abstract and interesting images which cannot be seen in real life.  Using photo manipulation will help to present my conceptual ideas a lot stronger.

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A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Coursework

First shoot plan and mind map: physcological theme of emotion caused by politics 

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For my first shoot I am going to expand on the theme of how a persons upbringing and political influences on their emotions effect how they feel about a location which is reflected through the emotion of the landscape scene itself. In order to pick this to pieces and explain what I mean more: As said previous politics is about decision making decided by a group of people who’s class is usually higher than those who’s decisions they are controlling. Because of this they do not have an understanding of what it is like to be in poverty or when people need social help for them and their families. This consequently leads to these people being mistreated ignored or given the wrong treatment or help by the government. The inflicted consequence of this makes these affected people negative towards their surrounding and physiologically because they are sad and angry what they see around them too if full fo anger and sorrow. This could be a personal response to the community around them or landscapes locally where they live. I want to visit many different locations which mean something to the person in which I am taking a photo, I want them to choose by how it evokes emotion within them being in this environment. I want to convey a clear emotion through each location mimicked by the position and position of the person too. I can explain emotion through, positing, angles colour and I want a clear strength within the image. I haven’t seen an artist who has tried to explore this physiological theme of emotion caused by politics and so this first shoot will be a very experimental in order to see what is effective and if i should expand to my other themes of fashion and narrative documentary photography. If this perhaps tabloid approach first doesn’t work out I will try and make a narrative story about the effective of these deceptions on the persons and landscape, making loads of images along the way to mirror more of an experience of the person themselves. The more physiological part of how when people are annoyed all they see are angry people and a harsh ;landscape with poor intentions is my main interest. I think I can really create an interesting tabloid and an over exaggerated shoot from this.We constantly have to engage with our surroundings and our bodies is our own landscape. Because of this I will also do a small shoot whole on the Person themselves to show this emotion as they are their main home and being.

inspiration of similar concepts :

 

https://www.boredpanda.com/emotion/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

This is a really interesting article which is something I would be very interested in expanding my themes within. However she has said that her work is inspired by more eastern styles:I think that realism is more Western style. Japanese like to express emotions and spiritual feelings through the landscape photography.Contemporary theater, art and music stimulate the brain and increase mood. Emotional art heal people and leads the society to harmony. I took a challenge to capture emotions with my camera.Using logical thinking at photography results in better attention to the detail, but there is a tendency to get bored. Working with feelings and looking for emotions is more relaxing.

where the shoot will be and what I will need: I will try and visit at last two location that have an impact on my subject whether that be positive or negative. I will experiment within many different camera effects in order to enhance the image and if this is effective within the subject I am trying to connote. I think  will be more influences by a beach, hilly field and perhaps a urban landscape for these images. I also want the clothes the person is wearing to have a relation to the emotion and impact and perhaps question the political views to why they feel that way about the area itself. Additionally I think an effective thing to do will be is quote the person with a portiture image as i think this will support my themes and have a stringer impact on the audience and reader. I think this project could really make a change in governmental decisions and they can clearly see the impact it had upon people.

 

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

Political Landscape

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Politics…

The activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power.

Landscape…

All visible features of an area of land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.

Political Landscape…

A political landscape refers to the current state of visual features that involve the government and public affairs as well as how they are going to look in the future. Political landscapes can be connected to conceptual or narrative forms of photography.

From looking at the mind map I think that global warming was a popular topic that came up which suggests that it is an important topic throughout political landscape. I will further experiment into global warming and try capture how Jersey is contributing towards the effect of global warming. This is a very important topic as it is also a global issue rather than just a local issue and can be captured all over the world.

Furthermore, I will also focus into the economic side of political landscape in terms of the businesses and buildings that are worth millions of pounds that create an eyesore in the landscape and also contribute to global warming due to unnecessary size and expense of them.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas

My direction of political landscapes

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what does political mean:DEFINITION:’relating to the government or public affairs of a country.“a period of political and economic stability” Politics is a word of greek origin and translates to ‘”affairs of the cities”)  This highlights the process of making a decision and how this applies to groups and members of people  In modern nation-states, people have formed political parties to represent their ideas.

what this meant to me: I believe political to me means someone who is concentrated around the making of rules and the matter of what is right and wrong and what is best for a community of people. However I believe this is the intention of politics I do however believe there is a strong sense of idiocy, lies and corruption within politics. There is also a clear representation that law was a concept made in order to keep peace, however it has caused many issues such as division between race, matter of opinion and communities of people. This disagreement between people causes wars and leads to other issues which then concentrate to political issues as again they are solved by politicians. As seen previously the definition is a group of decision making people, This group of people who make the decisions are very unlike those who they are making the decisions for. This is reflected through the decisions of class, amount of money and additionally political views reflected within everyone. This has a pivotal part of the community. I believe that we live in a  democracy and this means everyone should have a voice. This means everyone having a right vote and to voice their opinions

what does landscapes mean:DEFINITION:All the visible features of an area of land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.“the soft colours of the Northumbrian landscape”. The term landscape emerged around the turn of the sixteenth century to denote a painting whose primary subject matter was natural scenery. A landscape is a sense of something that used to belong in english landscape.  because of this it typically very traditional. This is interesting because it is not urbanised and only seen as soft. However…. 

what this means to me: A landscape to me usually means a deep concentration of the land itself, so an enhanced concentration on nature and ignorance of man and all man made concepts. I think overtime landscapes have evolved more to me to capture a whole scenario that is reflective of where I am. This is a demonstration of narrative documentary and is also inclusive of people being within the image. I think It is important to create a mood, emotion and feeling within a landscape and not be just a ‘pretty picture’. When many people think of landscapes they reflect on the past history that occurred in that area. It is an area of land which is a reflection of memories. Political this includes wars suffering and past negative impacts that people try and forgot happened. Whenever I am looking at nature I reflect upon the beauty and also the power that nature has over humans. I think there is a misunderstood strength to every landscapes and to how it was made,I want to highlight the power and possibly present nature vs human within some of my images.  The landscape itself and what is underlining such as the history is a large concept but so is the archaeology and the study of the way in which humanity has changed the physical appearance of the environment – both present and past. This can then lead me onto environmental issues and the ignorance humans have for the actions and reaction fo nature. I believe a landscape is a reflection of a home, it is loved by many people because this is what they remember as going up and part of their childhood and who they are today. Within every landscape is a groups of people influenced by its behaviour.

I want to start off withe experimenting within three concepts:

My first concept is: portraying a sense of emotion mirrored through people and a landscapes, this will be portrayed through the attitude and strength of nature, the scenario and the tonal weather that will create a pathetic fallacy effect. I have chosen this as it political enforces the worrisome of human mental health and also the well being of global warming and the system of mind is just as important as the state of nature.  This would be under more conceptual and creative photography approaches , however when involvement of the nature this can not be narrated and so has mirroring effects of documentary photography.

local examples of these ideas:Emotions are more like a landscape; there is a variety of emotional expressions, verbal communication, and body language that goes with REACTION.You may experience a range of emotions, but think of three to start with: SAD, MAD, and GLAD.With more  research into emotions i discovered that “ Positive people cognitively process more efficiently and more appropriately. If you’re in a negative mood, a fair amount of processing is going to that mood. When you’re in a positive mood, you’re more open to taking in information and handling it effectively.” Politically this shows how people are effected by governmental issues such as money, housing, humans rights and if they are being discriminated upon this will have an influence on how they perceive a landscape and what emotion they see within nature. I think this is a really interesting concept that not only discusses mental health, the power of nature, and governmental power but also shows a physiological impact on what happens when  we see a certain landscape differing on our moods. I will represent this through a local landscape of familiarity, this will probably reflect a positive  attribute to the landscape and actions of the person due to a familiarity between them.

International example: This will have alot more power within the image due to people not knowing the area and depending on the persons mood. I could Include more narrative reflections of a landscape by taking images of native places in international areas so effecting my opinion on the landscape through their own personal influences.

My second concept:  fashion as a state of conciseness and political correctness. This would involve staged more tabloids shots of long dresses or political statement in urban and natural landscapes. These could all be done and staged in order to promote a specific issue such as furr. I could also incorporate beauty standards within a landscape and also portraiture and questions political correctness of gender and beauty standards within many formats.

local examples of this could be: a complete reflection of political issues where these models or tabloid scenarios are set up, in jersey specifically this could include a staged photoshoot outside the hospital or on land in clothes that show a contrasts in order to stage where and when.I want each image to be vivid in colour and clear within the concept they are trying to convey politically. I want it to be highly influential and fashion forward covered in colours and also huge outfits also causing a huge statement as it is going against what idealistically deemed as the normative. Fashion and what we wear is an expression of who we are so these huge outfits will make an expression fo who these women are and also a transformative way to highlight sexism, women’s rights and gender fluidity within the left political ideologies. They images could not only question the normative. I think I will divide these shoots into different themes in order to completely experiment within what issues I am currently trying to present. internationally: These examples are seen along the catwalk and on the front of major influential magazines such as vogue,etc..

my last concept: is a narrative documentary of how people live and perhaps show the conceptual side of poverty that is not usually seen within the main media. This could be perceived locally as: housing issues within Jersey and the communities differing within each parish. Much like within the future of St Helier I was able to capture people along with their emotions and attitudes towards the town itself. Similarly I will want to capture people in their natural from as a type of street photography. I want to show a synced aspect  like my previous images so will highlight a sense of cohesion within each of my shoots. internationally i can reflect a community if people  living in an area not unlike jersey and see how there life is so different to ours. Within this concept I am allowing myself a large range of possible areas, outcomes and people to meet and leaving this concept idea of how the government politically ignores those in need the most will be interesting to capture them and their living conditions.