This selection of photographs shows the top 20 images from my shoot in St. Helier. It shows different architectural structures, people, construction and areas that have been abandoned. These photographs take inspiration from Albert Smith and Michelle Sank in the sense that they document the people and their environments along with structures within the environment.
I reviewed all of my images I took on my St. Helier photoshoot and selected the top 100 images from throughout the day. When photographing these images I relaised I was drawn to the bold and abstract shapes and colours and how this contrasts with the background of some images.
To develop these images I will pick a smaller selection and arrange them in an order together as I think the images I have collected all link together in a way. I wanted to focus on the parts of St Helier that people may not pay attention to in everyday life, similar to Luke Fowler.
Here are selection of my favourite images from the shoot:
One of my favourite photo from this shoot was the image on the left.
Visual:
I will be cropping, applying filters and adjusting the properties of the shortlist of my photographs in order to create the images that I desire to.
For example, below shows the editing process; I start off by altering the white balance and then I focus on choosing the correct filter and then editing features such as the brightness and contrast. I then finish off the editing by cropping.
In this shoot I have successfully looked at multiple subjects whilst exploring the title of “Future of St. Helier”. I have looked at neglected buildings left to rot, new buildings being constructed, man taking over nature, nature taking over man, history of St. Helier and importantly the people of St. Helier. One thing that I believe that I have done well in this shoot is capturing the different aspects and areas of St. Helier to document the ongoings of the renovations and also to document the destruction. One thing that I think I could have improved on is my focus on portraiture and the people of St. Helier. I plan on developing this in my second shoot as I will revisit my given area and focus primarily on portrait photographs in order to widen the variety of photographs taken from this project.
Over the course of two weeks me and my family produced 6 bin bags of plastic. On average we throw away 5 full bin bags a week of general waste. Over the two weeks 6 out of 10 bin bags were full of plastic. My focus during the photo shoot was to capture a clear picture of the plastic pile and making use of the coloured lighting to illuminate one side of the pile. This means when I edit the photos later I can easily cut up and compose an image. I experimented with different lighting states, from darker to lighter states with only hints of colour, giving the frame a deeper depth of field. The coloured lighting is very bright and sickly. I would like to reflect some of the colours in my edits.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/plastics-facts-infographics-ocean-pollution/ Another issue I would like to try and show an expression for concern that targets my chosen word 'secrets' is plastic. Talking about plastic and accepting that it is an important concern is not enough. As humans we should take blame for the disruption of the environment and take action on it. For some people that means they need to stop performing the selfish action of littering because it's an inconvenience for them to walk to a bin. Like the meat industry it is another problem we ignore because we don't want to accept how destructive and harmful it is. Plastic waste doesn't directly affect us yet but, it has affected other parts of the world that we don't see or hear about every day. The general attitude is that until this problem starts to have an immediate impact on our lives; it's non of our concern. My plan for my next photoshoot is to collect every plastic item in my house that would go straight to the bin over two weeks. This will give me and my family an idea of how much plastic waste we produce and contribute to the growing problem of plastic waste.
Contact sheet -I had successful outcomes in my material in my photoshoot, finding the correct white balance and ISO was tricky due to the lack of lighting I had because I was in a bathroom, which meant I couldn't bring in any additional lighting other than the main light and relying on the little natural light that came through the window as a result of the lack of plugs. I realised I couldn't take a picture without flash because a shutter speed that was too fast would not capture enough light and a shutter speed too slow made it hard to capture a clear picture when there is no tripod. The images I captured were not exactly how I imagined in my head in terms of the composition and what the images emulated. This has led me to think of new ideas of presentation. The bathroom wall emanates a sinister and dark tone which I feel takes away my point of mass production and focuses on the unethical issues of slaughter. Everyone feels guilt towards eating meat, yet they abandon the guilt and push it to the back of their mind. That reason alone is not enough for people to think and act on the problem. I don't want people to look at my images and only think my purpose behind it is to make them feel guilty with the consumption of meat, I want my pieces to trigger some kind of interest in the problem and the audience to realise the process of killing and eating animals is not just unethical but a root cause to problems in the worlds future. My images do not reflect the issue of mass production and therefore during my editing process I will add to the amount of bacon to have a greater effect.
My aim for my response to Klaus Pichler is to tackle the similar issues he faces in his pieces. I don't want to directly copy his work so I will take a slightly different approach that reflects mass production and waste aimed at the meat industry as I believe this industry is a core problem to environmental issues. This issue is kept quiet and avoided by the Government and ignored by the public because we are uneducated about the issue and its detrimental effects to our lives.http://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-meat-on-your-plate-is-killing-the-planet-76128 From asking 20 people what meat they could not live without, giving them the options of beef, chicken, bacon or pork, 4 stated beef, 5 chicken, 8 bacon and 3 pork. Bacon was the most popular meat and therefore it will be my chosen meat to feature in my photo shoot. I will use my bathroom because I will be using raw meat which is not suitable for a studio due to fat, grease and general juice produced by raw meat. Hopefully the bacon will stick on my bathroom walls so I can easily compose my pictures.
Concept: Vanitas Paintings use certain objects to represent the inevitability of death
Lighting: Dark setting with a spotlight on the objects
Props: Skull, Candle, Feather, Books, Coins, Jewellery, Sage
Location: Simple black background to put the focus on the objects in the foreground
Camera Skills: Quick shutter speed to capture the flame without blurring it
Concept: The self portrait of Gwen John shows her isolation and struggle for recognition in a career dominated by men.
Location: I will position my model near a window with a clear background
Lighting: Natural Lighting from the side to create the similar soft effect and light shadow on one half of the face.
Camera Settings: Just clear focus on the subject
Props: I chose my model as I thought they looked similar to Gwen John. They will wear a shirt, tie and necklace backwards and ring earings. They will hold a grey cardigan over their arm.
This image is the inspiration behind my images. It is titled ‘Self-Portrait’ By Gwen John.
I decided not to use any of the images that had too many shadows in them.
