Here are screenshot of the folders on my computer that have my childhood photos and recreated images. I have re-tweaked my replications by adding new characters, changing some of the locations and changing some of the composure. I have used a DSLR camera, iPhone 8 plus and iPhone 7 to take photos of some of the images.
HOW: For this photo shoot, I used my regular DSLR camera in order to capture the images.
WHERE: These images were taken again at Sorel point in St.John where I conducted my first photo shoot, this time focusing on the granite mining site there.
WHEN: This image was taken during the early/mid morning meaning that the shadows which are cast are at a very steep angle, giving different shadows than if it were to be taken during mid-day.
WHO: I attempted to incorporate both the landscape and people into my work, being representative of the human impact upon Jersey.
WHAT: The difference between this photo shoot and my previous which included the mirror is the inclusion of a model which is symbolic of the human impact on nature and landscapes.
WHY: One of the themes which I was trying to convey through my work was landscape romanticism therefore I tried to capture the sublime nature of the landscape and how it has been altered through man-made forces which are clearly reflected in the mirror.
MOST SUCCESSFUL IMAGE:
CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
VISUAL:
The first thing which strikes the viewer whilst looking at this image is the mirror which is in the hands of the model, in it we can see the reflection of the Ronez quarry plant. This was the exact point which I wanted to capture in my photography, the impact we humans have on the landscape itself. The plant itself is mining away at the side of the cliff, excavating the rock and altering the coastline over time. There is a clear juxtaposition in the image between the undisturbed nature in the backdrop of the image and the quarry plant being reflected in the mirror. Another very effective aspect of the image is the lack of a face the model has, being hidden behind the mirror and only having her arms and torso showing. it gives the model and ambiguity and removes any character or recognizable features, making her less of a focal point in the image. In a way this image also represents how we are a part of nature, we were created equally, yet in the reflection we see the man made quarry plant, separated from nature therefore part of a separate reality. There is also a sense of the surreal and natures power with the presence of the vast expanse of sea in the background of the image. It almost goes on forever as the line between the sky and sea is hazy. As it was a very bright and clear day when this image was captured, the colors are striking and powerful. In the reflection though, everything seems to be just that bit more monotone and dull, again representative of the ways in which we have harmed the planet and the less than promising future we are heading into.
TECHNICAL:
The day on which I conducted this photo shoot, I was greeted with ideal weather conditions. No wind and very clear skies. Due to the very bright weather conditions, I had to lower the ISO of my camera down to 100 to avoid having over exposed images. During this photo shoot I also experimented with capturing panoramic images, yet I soon realized that the logistics of framing and displaying one of these pieces would be very difficult therefore I scrapped the idea. Again the logistics of carrying a heavy mirror down a cliff path was quite challenging yet I didn’t want to compromise and stuck with it, producing some very impressive images at the end of it. I set the white balance of my camera to 5500 k as this is ideal for using outside in direct sunlight, creating images which aren’t too cool or too warm. The aperture of my camera was set at f/4.8 this meant that the exposure of the image wasn’t too high and the focus was universal.
CONCEPTUAL:
When exploring the theme of landscape urbanization, one of the largest impacts humans have is the change in environment through mining, physically changing the shape and makeup of the landscape itself. Mining is the extraction of minerals and other geological materials of economic value from deposits on the earth. Mining has the potential to have severely adverse effects on the environment including loss of biodiversity, erosion, contamination of surface water, ground water, and soil. The formation of sinkholes is also possible. Other than environmental damage, mining may also affect the surrounding population’s health as a result of contamination caused by the leakage of chemicals.
CONTEXTUAL:
There were five products for which the island was famous, many years ago, only one of which is still extracted in any quantity. The best known is granite, a primary rock, composed of crystals of quartz, felspar and mica, all closely united.
Jersey has three main colors in granite: red, pink and white, the shade of the stone being dictated by the impurity of the felspar.
The use of the colourful local granite has done much to enhance the Island, so much more than the dank black granite achieves for Guernsey. Complementary to the hard granite is the soft rotten granite which was quarried in large amounts as gravel. A most splendid example of this stone may be seen at the lower end of Les Varines, in St Saviour, where the walls forming the sides of the road may be presumed to be, upon passing by, of solid red stone. Upon closer inspection, however, it crumbles at the slightest touch.
Granite is, by virtue of its hardness, difficult to produce in large quantities, and so, to provide the large quantities necessary to satisfy the demands made by the 18th and 19th century housebuilders, quarries for an inferior secondary rock, Diorite, were opened up.
This stone is softer than granite, and may be dressed in a very short time with very little work. It was used for walls of gardens and houses, in the latter being used with cornerstones of granite or of the ‘new fangled’ bricks.
OTHER SUCCESSFUL IMAGES:
CONTACT SHEETS:
My plan of action is to find some childhood photos and to either rework into them, completely replicate them, or recreate them but tweak some details. After I have manipulated and printed them off I will then rework into them using a number of methods including, cutting them, collaging, sewing into them, layering them, and drawing into them.
To get these images, I will find childhood photos of myself/my family, then conduct a number of mini shoots of taking a couple of photos to recreate some of the childhood images and then manipulate them using adobe lightroom. I'm not going to recreate all of the childhood images as some of them need to be reworked into to display their significant meaning.
When recreating the images, I will be using the images as reference, but will make different arrangements and adaptations to display the change and the journey of life. Also not all of the images will be able to be taken in the same location because some of them were taken in foreign countries for instance when I lived in Ireland there were photos taken that I cannot identically recreate unless I fly over to where I once lived.
For everybody, every day is a new experience and my project is based on the journey of life, and how time affects every individual and how everybody's experiences shape them into the person they have become today.
Once I have reworked into my images, I will then frame them in both old and new frames to show the diffrences between time.
Below is a small contact sheet of the images I have thought about using as a apart of a response to Heath Ledger’s work. I did not plan on doing an entire photo-shoot with many photos because I wanted mine to match the unplanned experimental element of Ledger’s work. By planning a large photo-shoot with everything planned out, my outcomes would therefore be less authentic and wouldn’t match well with what my aims were.
Editing
Because most of Heath Ledger’s photos were presumably taken on film and then developed and edited later, I wanted to create the same sort-of effect without having to go through the entire process of using film. I ended up just using my phone to capture some random moments out and about. Then I just edited them very simply on the Ios Photos App & VSCO as I didn’t want to over complicate things. I used the Vivid Warm filter and the maximum amount of grain which made the digital photos look more grainy like real film.
Next I plan on printing out all of the photos above and starting to work on manipulating them by hand and creating a response to Ledger’s work. I plan on using nail polish, paint, pencils etc to manipulate my photos. I am also not sure if I will end up manipulating all of the photos because some aren’t as str
For my final piece/pieces I am inspired by both recreating/replicating old childhood photos and the work of Carole Benitah. By combining both of these ideas/concepts I believe I will be able to create my final pieces.
PHOTO SHOOT PLANNING:
WHO:In this photo shoot, in comparison to the other one was keen to involve a model, not only does it have symbolic meaning, being the catalyst for the urbanization of landscape but also represents the impact individual people have on the landscape.
WHERE:The images were taken at St.Aubin’s bay, a large and open beach which was perfect for capturing the surreal qualities of nature and the sea.
HOW: In order to capture the images I used a large rectangular mirror and had my model hold it, pointing it in different directions upon my request, tying in with the whole theme of unknown journeys/a double journey. I used my regular DSLR camera to capture the images.
WHEN: The images were captured on quite an overcast day without any blue skies therefore in a few of the images it appears as though the sky is white. I went out around late morning/mid day to capture the images.
WHY: With this photo shoot, I was taking a different approach to the title “journeys and pathways”, selecting the theme of unknown journeys/a double journey to focus on. I used a mirror to capture the other side of the landscape, one which we cannot see from the perspective we stand at. The incorporation of a model also allowed me to add more symbolic meaning to the images.
SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMES:
CRITICAL ANALYSIS (IMAGE 1):
TECHNICAL:
As with my other images in my previous photo shoot, logistically it was one of the hardest photo shoots I have done due to the fact that it involved props which needed to be transported as opposed to just taking images of the landscape or people who are already there. Good weather conditions were also essential for this photo shoot as I did not want rainy weather which could interfere with the reflections in the mirror. In terms of camera settings, I set the ISO fairly low at 100 as it was a very bright day and wanted to avoid overexposure as much as possible. It was also oddly hazy on that day due to the clouds above which dispersed even yet very powerful sunlight upon the landscape. I set the white balance of my camera to 5500 k as this is ideal for using outside in direct sunlight, creating images which aren’t too cool or too warm. The aperture of my camera was set at f/4.8 this meant that the exposure of the image wasn’t too high and the focus was universal.
VISUAL:
The most striking thing when looking at the image is the juxtaposition of the color of the black and white wall and the beautifully brown and orange granite rocks. They meet in a way which separates the two very distinctly. One of the straight edges of the mirror also contributes to this as it meets perfectly in the middle of the two. There is a very clear foreground and background of the image. The model and the mirror being the focal point and in the foreground of the image and the wall being in the background. Although the wall is not the focal point of the image, it does draw a lot of attention to itself due to the color and differentiation in texture. The two oppose each other with the linear pattern of the black and white wall and the irregular and organic shapes of the rocks on the other side. Fitting wit the theme of landscape urbanization, it is all about the surroundings and not the model. The slight wind on that day means the models face is covered with her own hair, this further takes away the attention and blanks out the identity of the model, undistinguished and anonymous. The hazy day allowed for very even and powerful light to be evenly distributed across the image, therefore I increased the contrast in photo shop in order to prevent the model and the environment from looking washed out and dull.
CONTEXTUAL:
In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution in Jersey took place on the shoreline – this was where the shipyards were and the beach between First Tower and West Park was the site of some of the island’s largest shipbuilders. Deslandes, Le Vesconte and Grandin between them built over 100 vessels here. The remains of the yards lie beneath Victoria Avenue. In 1860, when Jersey was the fourth largest ship building centre in the British Isles, George Deslandes priced a job at £14 per ton. This was £3 per ton cheaper than builders on the mainland. However, the industry began to go into decline in the late 1860s and 1870s as Jersey was unable to build the more modern iron ships. The new railway built between St Helier and St Aubin did not help as it cut through the yards. However on a bizarre note, the train service was halted for two days in January 1875 when a ship became stuck on the tracks as it was being launched from the Deslandes yard.
source:
https://www.jerseyheritage.org/heritage-landscape/first-tower
CONCEPTUAL:
One of the themes which I wanted to explore in my own work was the journey of urbanization and also unknown journeys. When conceptualizing the mirror idea and getting inspired by the photographer Cody William Smith, I realized that an interesting aspect of the images, they show reality which we cannot see from one perspective, only being revealed when you place a mirror can you see this reality. This further contributes to the surreal aspects of landscape romanticism, as not only are you showing one perspective, but multiple, in a way creative a hyper reality in the image. I also like the fact that a lot of the images appear photo-shopped when reality it is all done with a mirror and camera and very simply edited in the selection process. Increasing small things such as saturation or fixing the exposure of the images. Another large theme which I am keen to explore with this method is landscape urbanization. In image 1 and 4, you can again see two perspectives, one of the untouched sea and shoreline and the other the urbanization and industrialization of Jersey. Humans have altered and changed the natural landscape we have all around us with homes, businesses and industries.
EXPERIMENTING WITH OVER SATURATION:
In photography the term ‘saturation’ describes the depth or intensity of color present within an image. Saturation is also referred to as ‘chroma’; The more saturated an image is the more colorful and vibrant it will appear, less color saturation will make an image appear subdued or muted.
The over saturation of the image above means that there are aspects of it which appear more unreal and different, I waned to experiment with this aspect of photo shop as sometimes images which are over saturated can be quite effective and different. Sometimes mistakes which we try to avoid can become an interesting aspect of an image which overall works harmoniously and adds rather than distracts the viewer.
CONTACT SHEETS:
As a part of my response to thew Journeys and Pathways title I wanted to explore topics such as street art and how it has evolved over the years. I also wanted to experiment further with editing my photos by hand and using different mediums such as paint, coloured pencils and cutting/ re sticking things together, this was in order to show what usual everyday streets in Jersey could potentially look like if more street art was incorporated. Therefore, when I was searching for artists and photographers to make case studies on and develop from I saw some of Heath Ledger’s art and photography work in amongst these. I have always really loved his acting work as he was very talented but until recently I wasn’t aware that he was also a keen artist.
‘In the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, the actor is painted as something of a Renaissance man. He was an obsessive photographer, who loved taking stills, then drawing all over them with paint, markers, and even nail polish. Here are rare images of the actor’s artwork shown in the documentary’
Vanity Fair
Ledger loved taking photographs, capturing stills of the London Underground, the contemplative faces of former girlfriends, and deserted Australian landscapes. His artwork was always very experimental with what he chose to capture and then later add elements over the top.
‘It’s a fascinating, little-known side to the actor, who was celebrated in life for his performances in films like The Dark Knight (for which he earned a posthumous Oscar) and Brokeback Mountain. The documentary delves into the life of the man behind-the-scenes, a restless creator who loved to moonlight as a photographer, then give those photos a personal touch.’ Heath would often take a marker pen, nail polish or paint to any image to give these ‘personal touches’ His addition brightens up any image, this is especially present in the image of the subway station. Instead of having just a regular subway station, he has added yellow streaks to the flooring and small additions of blue paint to the bare walls.
Vanity Fair
‘His friends were similarly artistic. In the documentary, Ledger’s best friend Trevor Di Carlo accompanies him on all his filming escapades, snapping rare images of the raffish star in his downtime. You can see those images above as well; one captures Ledger as he leans in the middle of the floor, camera in hand. In another, he’s running down an empty street in Australia. Ledger took the latter photo and marked it up, scratching in ghostly stick figures as though they too were running with their arms outstretched on the wide open road. The result is kinetic and wild, like much of Ledger’s personal artwork. It’s the same expressive quality that carried over into Ledger’s work as an actor, cementing his reputation as a multi-faceted movie star—one whose work is still worthy of discussion and admiration long after his untimely death in 2008.’
My favourite of Heath’s artworks is the one of his maybe girlfriend’s face and the wide open road in Australia with the figures, which is talked about above. I find the woman’s expression to be captivating and the marks around her seem to frame her in perfectly. The spot of colour on the forehead I think is a great touch and brings everything together with the colours around her and in the background are now also on her face, instead of just basic black and white. I also like the out of focus background with the woman in black and the pink painted wall, it makes everything tie together but also keep the attention on the woman’s face. To make a response to Heath and develop my photos the way he has I plan to take some random photos in town or just portraits of my friends and experiment with them, just to see what happens and where it takes me.
What I truly love about Carolle Benitah's images is how she reworks into them. For example, the image above named à la plage, features two cut out bodies, and a body sewn with red thread. Upon research of Carolle's work, I know that the red thread features throughout her childhood photos, and an educated guess would probably mean that Carolle is the child under the red thread. However, what I also love about this image is how she composes the cut out bodies. The fact that she hasn't covered up or masked the holes left by the cut outs of the figures leaves an eerie sense of loss and leaves the viewer with a sense that the figures either aren't in Benitah's life, or they're not significant in her life anymore.
What I also like about the composition of this image is how she still manages to incorporate the cut out figures at the bottom of her image, both lying down, one with their face scribbled out in purple and the other headless.
What I did to create this mock up image is I printed off this childhood image of my grandma, sister and I. I then used a knife to carefully cut around the outline of my grandma, and then removed her from the image. The reason why I removed her was because she has passed away. The negative space left can represent that her passing has left a hole in our lives, and can also represent my slow fading memory of her. Although I do remember her, her silly habits and strong Scottish accent, the image of her face is slowly fading from my memory even though I don't want it to. I believe that is why I think photographs can be so precious, because it enables and aids people to cling onto precious memories, and remember those who we have lost.
I used adobe lightroom to then manipulate my images. I altered the saturation, vibrancy, contrast, highlights, shadows and clarity. Although this is just a mock up, it has given me an insight into what I want to do for my final pieces and what I can do to improve. Firstly I need to use high quality paper and a sharp knife to ensure there aren't any tags and rips. I may also want to layer the image on top of a piece of paper and work into the negative space. For instance I could cover the paper in glitter and when I place the image on top of the paper, then only the space of the cut out of my grandma will be filled with glitter. I could also maybe sew into my image and add extra minute details, such as a border around the cutout of my grandma.
Overall I do like the concept behind both Carole's à la plage and my rework of my image. However, after this experimentation I do want to further expand my reworking of my image by working with the negative space and adding more minute but significant details such as sewing into the image.
Jersey is where I have grown up from birth, it’s a beautiful place and I am thankful to call it my home. It may only be small, but it’s coastlines and beaches are breathtaking. As a person who lives on the island I believe I underestimate the importance of Jersey’s surroundings of water and I wanted to explore this as the first part of my final project. Jersey has been an island for approximately 8,000 years: therefore, apart from the last 60 years, the only way for people to come or leave the island has been by sea. Over the centuries the way in which boats have been powered has changed – muscle power, wind power, steam power and now diesel power. Being an such a small island means that the sea was once our only way of migration, transportation of goods and exploration, so it’s easy access to the sea is the only reason why it now has 166,083 people living on it and 726,800 tourists, although some of this tourism is now due to air transportation it’s crucial to note that this hasn’t always been an option and Jersey was a popular holidays destination before planes were easily accessible. Jersey luckily didn’t go through a fatal natural disaster, but it is similar in the way that it had to undergo masses of urbanization in order to make it’s place in the world of tourism. Jersey did it in a different way though, so far Jersey’s natural beauty hasn’t been affected to the extent of Thailand, but with an ever growing population and housing problem we could begin to ruin it. In conclusion I want to capture a series of photos of Jersey’s most popular and busiest beach (St Brelade), to emphasis it’s natural beauty, rather than it’s man made attractions. The beaches are the main influence of holiday makers and I believe as inhabitants we forget that. My concept links to the theme of journeys and pathways because it’s about how Jersey has gone ion this journey on industrialization throughout the years via overseas trade and economic development but the beaches have still to this day remained the islands most prominent features.
Mood boards showing a mixture of Stephan Gill’s work. His work shows clear use of double exposure giving a strong and powerful effect to the images. He also presents the idea of overlaying different images, almost giving an ink splodge effect. I believe this to add great detail to the image and it add excitement and sense of individuality as if differs from the norm photograph that a regularly taken. To me, a lot of Gill’s photographs have a rather cold feeling towards the image with over exposure commonly used i the background to enhance the contrast between the light in the background against the dark (often black) markings on top. This clearly helps emphasis all the aspects of the image creating a more visually pleasing image.
Ideas and questions to ask myself when creating my own work inspired by Stephen Gill
