In my shoot responding to my manifesto I will be focusing on rules number 3,4 and 7.

• Rule #3 – I will take inspiration from Henrik Malmstrom’s ‘A Minor Wrongdoing’ by taking photographs that do not fit within the conventions of photography.
• Rule #4 – I will question whether the technicalities and conventions of society, photography and day-to-day life are necessary.
• Rule #7 – I will take inspiration from Lewis Bush’s work on ‘Metropole’ in the sense of use of double exposure.

I am focusing on these rules as they allow me to further explore the work I have done on Lewis Bush and Henrik Malmstrom through the use of techniques and styles of photography that both photographers have used in their shoots.  I plan on taking inspiration from Henrik Malmstrom by further developing on my shoot in which I took high-ISO grainy photographs which questioned the technicality rule of photography.  I plan on merging this inspiration with inspiration from Lewis Bush by editing the photographs to create the effect of double exposure that Bush used in his project ‘Metropole’. The combination of these two inspirations will allow be to follow rule four and question whether the technicalities and conventions of society and photography are necessary as well as incorporating political landscape further.  As seen in this post, I will be creating double exposure photographs using grainy photographs of individuals minding their own business in order to show and convey the idea that the Islanders are feeling disorientated and lost –  both because of the fast development in their island and because they are getting lost in their own business to the point where they do not realise people are observing and watching them

Below are two photographs that have been made in response to the manifesto of Futurism – ‘Dynanism of a Car‘ by Luigi Russolo and ‘Dynanism of a Soccer Player’ by Umberto Boccioni.

‘Dynanism of a Car‘

The colours within this work are very intense – the yellow colours make the viewer think of the headlights of a car as well as the red. This use of hot colours throughout the work adds to the feeling that the car in the painting is going at a very fast speed – which could reflect how Futurists feel about how the world should be. The use of the hard hot colours creates a contrast with the black of the de-constructed car which creates a more sleek and eye-catching design. The use of the yellows and reds have connotations to fire and the way the colour fades out in places can be seen as patterns that would be seen in a physical flame. There is no 3D effect within this photograph but there is an intense feeling of direction within it. The shape of the aero-dynamic modelled car can be seen even though it has been deconstructed and re-arranged. Russolo added to the affect of the aero-dynamic shape by horizontally stacking red arrows pointing in the direction of the car’s motion in order to give a sense of direction and movement within the photograph. ‘Dynanism of a Car‘ takes a car and de-constructs it into new entities that are then re-arranged into a new interpretation of the same car – this shows Cubist influences which was another artistic movement that de-constructs the subjects.

This piece of art by Luigi Russolo, titled ‘Dynanism of a Car‘ is a great example of the type of work produced during the movement of futurism in Italy.  Futurism is a rejection of the past and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry.  Futurists insist that literature will not be overtaken by progress, rather, it will absorb progress in its evolution.  This art was produced in 1912 and produces an image reminiscent of chronophotography by introducing the time dimension of speed in painting.

The painting was produced in 1912 but the image seems to display a modern bat-mobile type supercar which shows the forward-thinking attitude within Futurism.  Russolo is trying to convey the idea of motion by creating the impression of soundwaves in the front of the car. Russolo would often focus on the technological innovation and the visual manifestation of motion which can clearly be seen within ‘Dynanism of a Car‘.  The picture is also  similar to physics textbook pictures illustrating the Doppler effect which supports the idea that Russolo was intending to show the compression of soundwaves through this photograph.

‘Dynanism of a Soccer Player‘

Boccioni uses highly contrasting colours in ‘Dynanism of a Soccer Player‘ along with extremely vibrant hues divided into sections that are reflective of rays of light – possibly coming from around the football stadium. Boccioni is focused on representing these vibrant colours and a sense of dynamics of movement within the painting rather than depicting the player. The dynamic movement feeling spread throughout the painting is done through abstract shapes of different opacity overlapping eachother – which has Cubist influences, similarly to ‘Dynanism of a Car‘.  The work is intended to show a soccer players dynamic movement through an abstract series of shapes and kaleidoscopic colours. The soccer player is dematerialized into a luminous array of colours which could be seen as the colours and lights seen in a typical football stadium in which there are seas of fans in different coloured football kits supporting the soccer players.  The only part of the soccer player that can be made out is the calf at the centre

‘Dynanism of a Soccer Player‘ was produced in 1913 by Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni who was a member of the Italian Futurists – a group of artists active around World War 1, which is a rejection of the past and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry.  Futurists are firm believers of moving technology and life forward at a fast pace, which can often be seen through their art.  . This piece demonstrates a quote from Boccioni from 1910, he said “To paint a human figure you must not paint it; you must render the whole of its surrounding atmosphere…movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies”.

Through abstraction and sense of dynamic movement Umberto Boccioni has challenged the conventional stillness of paint on canvas in order to create something exciting and different to the viewer. The viewer is forced by Boccioni to rethink aesthetic sensations and their original perception of surrounding objects due to the chaos of abstract shapes within the painting.

After much research I believe personally that reality is the form of three situations, possibility, dependency and circumstances within action.

Possibility to me is the chance of reality. Reality is not a given or something you are able to predict. Such as being older than someone does not stop the younger person from dying first. These harsh truths show the possibility of we do not know what effects, illness or situations we will come through during our life. Possibility is also a large part of chance, chance is something uncontrollable, and no one can know what the chance of something happening is. Because of this I think it would be interesting to capture some scenarios that capture how everything in life is a risk and matter of timing. this could be a balloon before it burst or perhaps the weather before a storm or even adding my concept of political emotions showing a narrative of something getting evicted or possible literally falling down. When I researched It come up within many fast shutter speed shots in order to cpature the action a apiece has. However I could focus on the side of nature and the beauty nature holds, And the chance something incredible would happen in nature, this could be a sun set or rise, people having twins and many occasions that would not be expected to happen in peoples realities. 

This has forever been an ongoing concept, because of this I believe using achieve pictures and editing them in such a way to demonstrates the circumstance of reality would be incredibly interesting.Dependency is the relationships people have within each other and how their actions cause a dependent reaction which causes the reality. This is a sense of action and reaction. dependency also has strong implementations of a weight. This weight could be the cause of emotional trauma, political instances or a literal weight and harsh imapct. This is a clear demonstration of the balancing of nature and the relationship of trust. I could use this narrative to track people and one person calling and showing clear demonstrations of trust and someone being dependent. however I could enlarge this through a large political instance of who everyone in the world is infact dependent on eeach other. We as a society cannot and will not be able to functions without eachers, as they help with medicine ,housing, money, economy but most importantly we need ot look after other. I think a large ignorance of dependency and a fault at our core is ignorance. How the western world ignorances the cries of those in need in the south and east.

circumstances. This is the godly benefit of being born in a circumstance better than others. Circumstance is also the determinate of where you are when and how this could lead onto the causation of what happens to you. No one has the ability to control who their family is or where stye are born and raised. Because of this many negative an unhappy relationships are formed,this could be caused but he environment people are in or they way in which people treat them.  Circumstances comes into the attitude of nature and fire very well into political landscape as it is an area governmentally controlled differently as you would like. Because of this many people, including some people in my family feel as though this is where they are not meant to be, Is this fate or a disappointing circumstance of action.

plan for shoot:

I want to create a alternate reality. To do so I will create an atmosphere that does not really exists, and capture actions that only happened for a s second and not what people would usually focus upon. tThe editing will be highly conceptual and forms ways in which is unconventional to portray the landscape itself. I will use my idea of circumstances by taking images where I was raised,This is my home, which I did not have a choice over but luckily the circumstances was not negative. However I think dependency goes hand in hand in capturing a reality of a place.  trust and dependency is usually something seen within people, however I think I could relate this t landscape and nature and also further expand this to the power if nature of man itself. lastly I want to capture possibility and capturing rare photos us using fast shutter speed and such. This will be very different from my family shoot, however still based in my family home, but will relate more to political landscapes through these conceptual ideas and editing processes.

Henrik Malmstrom is a Finnish photographer currently living and working in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Malmstrom self-published his first book in 2010, titled ‘On Borrowed Time‘.  He is the co-founder and curator of the Müllkellergalerie which is a premium art gallery located in a garbage room in Hamburg, Germany.  Malmstrom has won over 15 awards since 2008 as well as being shortlisted for the best photobook of the year in 2016.

I think that Malmstrom has a very interesting approach in his book ‘A Minor Wrongdoing‘ in which he photographs subjects at night with a very high ISO to create grainy and underexposed photographs.  In this book Malmstrom would photograph people that he saw from the window of his living room using a cheap digital camera. He would create the effect of a surveillance camera by setting the ISO abnormally high.  The book that came from this replicates a messy police report archive with the grainy monochromatic photographs creating a sense of abstraction due to their unconventional appearances. The photographs in this book were taken between 2011-2014, Malmstrom’s synopsis of ‘A Minor Wrongdoing’ says that the project records “the last remains 
of street life in an urban area that is currently undergoing
fierce gentrification after recent official law enforcement
against street-based prostitution”.

I think that Malmstrom’s defiance of the rule of technicality is very interesting and unique as it creates a composition that most photographers would not even attempt to make.  Whilst having an abstract and unconventional aesthetic in this project, Malmstrom has managed to make this work still look good whilst breaking the rules of technicality. I plan on taking inspiration from Malmstrom’s work when exploring breaking the rule of technicality as I think I can successfully combine documentary/street photography along with this style to create something that I would not usually attempt.

Analysis

In this photograph, Malmstrom has used natural lighting, or the lack of it, in order to create a very grainy and grey photograph which replicates the effect of a surveillance camera. Within this photograph there is not a wide tonal range due to the grey and surveillance nature of the photograph which creates an almost old-fashioned effect within the photograph. The photograph is not a very high contrast either due to the dark setting that Malmstrom is going for, but the low contrast works for the style of photograph. Malmstrom will have used a shutter speed of around 1/50 – 1/100 with a very high ISO of 1600 or 3200 as the idea of this project was to capture grainy photographs of people in the dark. Technical quality was not a key aim of this photograph, which can be seen, as Malmstrom aimed to create these technically incorrect photographs. The high ISO allows for the grainy texture to be created which adds a lot of character to the photographs and adds to the dark and mysterious setting.

There is no colour in this photograph – only black and white. This black and white theme further conveys the theme of surveillance and discretion within the photographs. The mixture of the high ISO grainy photograph with the black and white effect means that the tones are also very dark and mysterious – these dark tones make the setting have a sinister and secretive vibe meaning there could be more to what meets the eye with this subject. The grainy texture makes the photograph seem as if it was printed poorly – which again breaks the technical rules of photography, but this grainy texture fits in to further push the idea that this is a mysterious photograph. The eye is immediately drawn to the cigarette being lit in the subjects mouth as it sparks to be the whitest part of the photograph, contrasting from the regular grey tones without. This white spark illuminates the side of the subjects face to give a slight sense of the subjects identity without giving too much away, leaving more mystery in the photograph. The subject is also placed along one of the vertical lines of the rule of thirds – this may be intentional but also may not be, either way it makes the photograph more aesthetically pleasing for the viewer. There is not much of a 3D setting to the photograph due to the dark and grey tones with little shadowing.

This photograph was taken from Malmstrom’s book ‘A Minor Wrongdoing‘ in which he photographs subjects at night with a very high ISO to create grainy and underexposed photographs.  All of the subjects within the book were photographs from Malmstrom’s living room window which adds to the sense of mysteriousness and surveillance.  On the final outcome of the book in which this photograph was placed, it replicated a messy police report archive which shows that the surveillance theme conveyed throughout the photographs is intentional.

I think that through this photograph and the other photograph from his book  ‘A Minor Wrongdoing‘, Malmstrom is trying to question whether the technicalities and conventions of photography and society that we are supposed to conform to really matter in the grand scheme of things.  I think this because Malmstrom is photographing unaware subjects whilst they are in their own world, not worrying about conforming to society’s standards or trying to impress people.  Through doing this Malmstrom is showing what people are really like when they are not around and so how we should be all the time.  Malmstrom further presses this idea by not sticking to the normal conventions of photography through grainy, low contrast photographs caught with an abnormally high ISO.

Cristina de Middel  is a Spanish  documentary artist who is currently living and working in Mexico. She has self published many of her works and has focused on many different projects such as the southern Africa space program . Her work is critically acclaimed and she had sold out many of her books ad  works across the world. She has been nominated for many huge photography prizes all around the globe. Her work is an ongoing investigation to focus on the ambiguous relationship of what is the truth. She blends her views od documentary and conceptual phoqogorhic practises, she does this through practising with the reconstruction of archetypes and her found burr of what is reality and what is fiction. Her photojournalistic gaze as an outsider allows her to create views which she can presently see within the landscape she is is innovate with her work creates critically acclaimed series , such as the image above which focuses on a failed program for space. this could come onto terms of predicting the future of presenting a false sense or recreating an occasion that is happening elsewhere in the world. Her stages reenactments and obscure narratives allow a continuously interesting new body of work. Her work is that of fiction but can serve as a subject relative to todays world. Her photography can work just as well as being fact as it highlights our expectations of how reality is flawed. Her exhibitions are international and have won the prize for infinity award and the international centre award. 

To me the image above has a child like sense of a false sense of reality and the hope and childlike ignorance a child has. This is mirrored through the handmade costume and the stance which conveys power and confidence. The angle of the photo being a low shot also attributes power to the man, it shows a confidence and his gaze perhaps highlights a longing for a reality that will probably never happen. The atmosphere to which they are surrounded is relative to the location of Africa and them having a space program in such a poor area. The light tonal colours of the outfit creates such a strong juxtaposition to the atmosphere itself and shows the artists disagreement of political standards and corruption within the government structure of their properties. It shows a false reality to the people of Africa and thinking they have an opportunity to be part of this space program but it is not a possibility.

I believe this piece is very interesting in how to shows a false reality .I believe that the person  look secure, and composed, and how this is not an accurate scenario to someone who too would be faced with many bugs such as this. The image contains a beauty within these horrible bugs that would scare many people. This image symbolises the death and ignorance and suffering people have to live with.Her images purpose a sense of reality throughout he false tablo images which are obviously set up but insure a deep meaning. it interests me the way in which all of her work contains and obscure image with an equally as obscure narrative story within it too.

Midde had a realisation that her work did not have enough impact. because of this she stopped believing in raising awareness by pointing out the problem. She wanted to start a debate within her images and see how many different approaches she could take in order to start the making of a solution. She has said ‘ straight documentary photography is about imposing an opinion (that comes from mass media’s agenda) and the audience has very little to add to it, and the dimension of the problem makes it impossible to react’Because of this imposing a different reality were she promotes a solution and not the problem itself there is a new dynamic and an essence of courage within her work.The language employed when searching the chronicle of the world is outdated, the reaction is no longer the same. People are no longer impressed by the document itself and some contexts needs to be provided. Midde wanted to ‘include my opinion and my vision of things in the way I try to explain the world.’ The inspiration of her work is generating a context from newspapers, magazines and then sharing it she portrays as a selfish process. Midde stays on the surface because she believes this is the most interesting subject to a topic, due to it being a visible concept. It enables people to see a problem and understand it a-lot better . This is how her work presents a new reality to so many because it is not meant to show a problem, but easily present a solution.