PHOTO SHOOT PLAN:

• WHERE: Within my personal study, I will be focusing on 3 main areas of study , personal, external and internal. The persona aspect of my project I will be looking at my own personal journey and the ways in which my family has occupied Jersey, capturing images of my own home. The external aspect of my project will be focusing on the exterior aesthetic o low cost housing within Jersey. Lastly the interior aspect of my project will done within empty properties, arranging viewings with estate agents in order to do so. 

• WHEN: in order to capture the exterior photo shoots, I will be attempting to capture them during more gloomy and overcast days as I feel this will add to the themes associated with the topic at hand which is all about control and institutional discrimination. 

• WHO: My project will be focusing less on people but rather places, I will be using documentary style photography in order to carry out my shoots, focusing on the state of the housing market and the truth of affordable housing. 

• WHY: The topic at hand is personal to both me and a large population of Jersey. Immigrants, young people and the elderly, making it almost out of reach to buy or rent property which lives up to suitable standards. 

• HOW: I will be using a mixture of both film and digital photography in order to carry out my photo shoots. A theme which I also want to convey through my work photography as it will be linking to the impacts of trauma and childhood. 

SUCCESSFUL IMAGES:

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IMAGE ANALYSIS:

VISUAL:

I find that the overall visual appeal of this image comes from the film which I developed, having a grainy texture and golden overcast which provokes feelings of nostalgia as if the image was taken by your relatives in the 80’s. Visually and on a surface level the image is not extraordinary, capturing a very mundane scene, but adding the contextual information means that there is more to the image than the eye can see. The first thing which strikes the viewer is the dark and dingy scene of the garages and dustbins on the outside, the ye being drawn to the bright white writing on in the center of the image. Another major aspect of this image is the light. The sun is hitting from the top right side of the image, totally illuminating the sky and casting a deep shadow on the left hand side of the image.

TECHNICAL:

This image is a physical print copy of the film which I developed using a disposable camera, the overall aesthetic aspects of film meant that I had wanted to work with it for a long time. It is a difficult medium to work with for three reasons. Firstly taking the images is like a shot in the dark as you cannot see a preview up until the images are printed. Secondly there are restriction as to how many images you are able to take due to the use of film, I for instance could only take 39 images meaning that each shot had to be planned and meaningful as it would be wasteful to take any old shot, and even with careful planning some shots were unusable as they were either too dark or over exposed. Lastly the cost factor of creating these images was also a large part to the difficulty as disposable cameras can be quite pricey depending on the quality, mine being £11, also costing £9 to develop the images meaning it is not a viable source of images if images need to be taken quickly and efficiently.

CONCEPTUAL:

Going back to the theme of nostalgia and wanting to home in on this, Using film was an effective way to achieve this. When looking at the image, one of the first feelings which is provoked is nostalgia with the grainy, warm nature of the final prints, looking like family archival images which have been taken from the attic, dating back to the 80’s. I want to to retain this feeling throughout my images as it is a different approach to modern digital photography. Using a medium such as film makes me appreciate photography on a deeper level by making me consider each shot before taking it due to the material restraints of using film. Each shot has to be planned and considered as this isn’t a priority anymore when using digital photography. Even if each shot is not perfect, I will be including each shot as this will reflect the “take what you can get” approach of housing as people will, in desperate times, take whatever comes their way.

CONTEXTUAL:

States figures suggest the elderly, younger people and smaller families are struggling to find suitable and affordable accommodation in the private sector. A reflection of this struggle can be seen within the social and low cost housing of Jersey. Currently demand outweighs supply therefore the need for affordable housing is in more need than ever.

EDITING IDEAS:

An idea which I found to be quite interesting in terms of the visual aspects of the image is tracing the outlines within the image and then moving this traced layer to one side, creating a sort of child like drawing which can be seen a top of the original. Although not directly linked to any contextual information to the image, I find that this editing technique is an effective way to give an image a stronger focal point and to draw interest.

Pictorialism: 1880s-1920s

The desire for a photo graphical image to reflect and resemble a painting spurred the onset of pictorialism. Early pictorialsim portrayed romantic and religious themes, Reflective of the art forms of interest at the time. Women were mostly photographed due to the idea at the time being that males were seen as higher earners than women due to the gender pay gap, so therefore, Men were rarely the subjects of images and woman were therefore the subjects as a result as the men would typically be out working, whereas the women would typically be at home taking care of the children and doing household chores.

Structural elements of typical pictorialism, such as the joining together and combination of different images to form a composite image as a result. The recreation of atmospheric effects in nature are also a predominant feature and there is a heavy focus on tonality and focus within images. Pictorialism inspired works are typically framed and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner

Street Photography 1930s- Present Day

Street photography is a photographical movement that arguably changed the course of portrait photography as we know it, by essentially capturing one off candid moments of people in urban environments. Street photography is said to have roots in Paris, With photographers such as Henri-Cartier Bresson being pioneers within the movement itself. Street photography aims to explore the human figure itself and Humanity’s interaction with everyday life and situations within an urban environment. Many street photographers also tend to interact with their subjects as a form of gaining context to a persons background and the situation being photographed. Street photography has been used throughout the years as a platform to adress issues to the public, such as homelessness, poverty and racism. Street photography aims to be spontaneous and capture a moment in time, with the prime purpose of telling a story and highlighting the subjects interaction with their environment. Street photography can also be classed as documentary photography dependent on the approach of the photographer. If a photographer is less spontaneous and more precise with capturing images with the sole intent of telling the story of the subject, then Street photography can fall into the bracket of documentary photography.

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The Red String was a book produced by a man named Yoshikatsu Fujji. The first page we are confronted with a separation between 2 striking images. The first picture on the left, is of his young father with a him as a baby whilst the one on the right is his mother holding the same child in the same environment.

Right from the beginning, we are presented with an element of separation which is what Fujii is trying to incorporate through the split of his parents. Right from the beginning, the separation is evident. Already the mother and father figure in the photo are also separated but the child stays In both pictures.

A direct link to his explanation of the event is below; https://www.yoshikatsufujii.com/red-string

What follows on the inside is a well thought out, properly constructed, book to capture the theme of separation and how and why it affected him the way it did. Flipping through each page contains a meaningful archival image either his parents wedding images, family photos, snapshots from his youth and objects with sentimental value. Fujji having done some interviews on this piece of work once said ” “My family will probably never meet all together again. But I can feel without a doubt that there is still proof inside each of us that we once lived together.”

As Fujii explains in the text at the back of the book, there is a Japanese legend that says predestined lovers are tied together by an invisible piece of red string, from the moment they are born. While that red string between his mother and father was apparently sundered, Fujii offers his Red String as a way to bind these losses back together.

Thus, the structure and layout of the book, combined with the fascinating mix of photos (old, new, black and white, color, abstract) blend together perfectly, offering an intimate artistic experience. It is exactly the kind of experience that is the unique province of this ever-changing, but loosely bound together thing we call the photobook

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Opening quote

INTRODUCTION
In order to approach my personal study, I will be focusing on 3 main concepts, the housing crisis, nostalgia and control. A topic which I am highly interested in and am willing to explore is the housing crisis which affects a large population of Jersey, not only the immigrants but young people and the elderly all face institutional discrimination which makes it extremely difficult to get on the property ladder or be able to find housing in Jersey. There is an extreme lack of affordable housing for low income families and young people alike, who start out on the bottom earning minimum wage at the start of their careers. With the use of film, an older method of photography, I am hoping to capture images that capture a nostalgic and reminiscing feel. The fuzziness and grain which can be captured using this flash provokes ideas of the old and outdated, much like the housing in Jersey, lacking houses and slats which are safe and regulated for people to live in.

A prominent photographer which links to my area of study is Nick Hedges, photographing and recording of social housing in post WW2 Britain in the 60’s and 70’s. Mikhael Subotzky is also a photographer who closely ties in with the topics which I will be tackling, taking striking images of a high rise, low cost housing in the heart of South Africa. Using both candid photography and the surrealism of the architecture of the building, creating a photo book tackling the subject. The themes and subjects which both these photographers tackle closely tie in with the overall focus of my personal project, taking a documentary style, biographical approach to their work.

In order to respond to my personal study I will be employing the use of both a film camera and digital camera. As I will be using the theme of nostalgia, the use of a film camera will be an effective way to display this through the grainy and soft nature of the photos themselves. The subject of my images will be of the low cost, affordable housing which can be rented in Jersey. I will be contacting estate agents in order to show the contrast of the way in which housing agents glorify these homes versus what the reality of them are. I will be focusing on small and minor details which distinguish each property such as the flooring, bathrooms and kitchen cabinet. I will also be photographing the exterior of buildings, going around the dingier parts of St.Helier which depict the depressing lifestyle some people face by living in the center.

PG 1: HOUSING CRISIS:

According to a report from Statistics Jersey, shortages are now predicted for every size of flat and house, with the exception of a small surplus (70) in the number of large homes of four or more bedrooms. And the situation has worsened considerably since the last Future Housing Needs report was issued, covering 2015-2018, with almost twice as many more homes now needed. The gap between the number of people looking for homes and the number of homes available widened by 90%. I will be investigating the state of social housing, their conditions and the impact which it has on individuals for whom this is their reality, specifically interviewing my mother who intersection-ally falls under a migrant and single mother. I will be examining the personal impact which the housing crisis has on my family.

Taking a documentary photography approach to this subject, my work will be following the conventions of realism. The idea that picture knowledge could be universal relates to what is known in philosophy as the ‘realist’ approach. Realism is the idea that a photograph of an object or a person bears a close relationship to that object or person. There is a link between the object or person photographed, and the photograph. The photograph, in other words, is a trace of something real. Because it was necessary for the object or person to be present at the moment of photographic recording, we can also say that there is a link between the photograph and the events, objects, people, etc., it depicts. Examining the work of Nick Hedges, there is a clear link between my own personal study and the depictions which I aim to imitate in terms of contextual aspects and intent. I will be comparing two works from Nick Hedges, from the exhibition ‘Make Life Worth Living’, It was commissioned by Shelter, a charity working against homelessness to raise consciousness about the poor living conditions many Britons experience. The photographs were taken between 1968 and 1972 and are an intimate glimpse in to the human cost of bad housing.

Pg 2: NOSTALGIA:

Due to the contextual time period of these images, a sense of nostalgia is provoked through the critical use of lettering and composition. By displaying the photograph alongside related images and Shelter publications, it is possible to expand its narrative. A richer understanding of the final print is made possible. It is also interesting to see how the charity used Hedges’ photographs in their publications, and how they framed them with case studies which included interviews with subjects. A comparison between the contact print and the final print raises questions about the nature of photographic truth, and how the photographer’s intentions shaped his representation of the homeless. The significance of the formal qualities of the final print as it appears in the Shelter report (it is much grainier than the contact print, and has a heightened contrast) is also relevant to a discussion of the photograph’s semiotic effect creating meaning from the contextualization of the images. By including excerpts from interviews in interpretation panels, details about subjects are made accessible, despite remaining anonymous (Shelter used pseudonyms in their campaigns). The biographical information about the subjects of the Shelter photographs, published in reports and displayed in exhibitions, is fundamental to the kinds of narrative generated by Hedges’ photographs.

Pg 3: Your responses

Conclusion

Bibliography

Paragraph 1 Structure (500 words) : Use subheading. This paragraph covers the first thing you said in your introduction that you would address. The first sentence introduces the main idea of the paragraph. Other sentences develop the subject of the paragraph.

Content: you could look at the following…exemplify your hypothesis within a historical and theoretical context.  Write about how your area of study and own work is linked to a specific art movement/ ism. Research and read key text and articles from critics, historians and artists associated with the movement/ism. Use quotes from sources to make a point, back it up with evidence or an example (a photograph), explain how the image supports the point made or how your interpretation of the work may disapprove. How does the photograph compare or contrast with others made by the same photographer, or to other images made in the same period or of the same genre by other artists. How does the photograph relate to visual representation in general, and in particularly to the history and theory of photography, arts and culture.

Joanna is a polish photographer born in 1985 in Warsaw, now based in London. In 2013, she gained a Master Of Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art in London. Not long after in 2014 she created ‘Frowst’ as her first debut, which is a series of staged family portraits in a large black and white format, this collection went on to win the first book Award the same year.

‘FROWST which means stuffy or stiffly, captures the paradoxical nature of a home. Warm and cozy, a frowsty space can also feel airless and uncomfortable. The space of intimacy is often suffocating, but its comfortable security might trap us inside longer than we wish. It allows us to manifest our vulnerabilities and weaknesses under the safe roof of domestic convenience.’

The book is comprised of twenty-five photographs, arranged in a minimalist way, usually a photo per spread. I take inspiration from this as I want to have a few blank pages to create tension between images. Her images are tableaux as as she sets them up deliberately, creating mise-en-scene. At first sight they are simple, casual pictures but soon reveal the surgical precision of the staged situation.

http://joannapiotrowska.com/ReflectsonFrowst.html

Her images first striked me as uncomfortable, the way a fully grown woman was sitting on an older mans lap. The theme throughout the book is consistent as she recreates relations within a household. She uses domestic settings such as a kitchen or bedroom as the background for these unsettling images. The black and white adds to the sense of reminiscing and remembering a time in which we were young and certain situations weren’t awkward or weird at the time. I am going to use black and white for the majority of my images as they represent memories from my past. The book highlights the carelessness of being a child, the lack of social consciousness we had at this early stage of life. I am going to use her concept to recreate memories from my childhood for images in my photo book. Her theme of family fits perfectly into my book which surrounds the theme of divorce. In her book she creates forts out of cushions and chairs as you did as a child and places the subject underneath them. These images create a sense of playfulness and reminiscing, but there is more depth to their meaning. “The shelter is like a fortress for our bodies, an extension of our selves. It is about how we choose to live, what we’ve surrounded ourselves with,” she says. “It’s also a little absurd that an adult is building this temporary, fragile structure. It isn’t really giving us any protection because it’s so ad hoc.” Joanna is taking a childhood past time and relating it to our behaviour as adults and how anything we do has a effect on us. The forts we once made weren’t just for fun, they were security we build for ourselves.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/07/we-need-to-defend-ourselves-joanna-piotrowska-family-photographs-tate-britain

SHOOT 1:

• WHERE: Within my personal study, I will be focusing on 3 main areas of study , personal, external and internal. The persona aspect of my project I will be looking at my own personal journey and the ways in which my family has occupied Jersey, capturing images of my own home. The external aspect of my project will be focusing on the exterior aesthetic o low cost housing within Jersey. Lastly the interior aspect of my project will done within empty properties, arranging viewings with estate agents in order to do so. 

• WHEN: in order to capture the exterior photo shoots, I will be attempting to capture them during more gloomy and overcast days as I feel this will add to the themes associated with the topic at hand which is all about control and institutional discrimination. 

• WHO: My project will be focusing less on people but rather places, I will be using documentary style photography in order to carry out my shoots, focusing on the state of the housing market and the truth of affordable housing. 

• WHY: The topic at hand is personal to both me and a large population of Jersey. Immigrants, young people and the elderly, making it almost out of reach to buy or rent property which lives up to suitable standards. 

• HOW: I will be using a mixture of both film and digital photography in order to carry out my photo shoots. A theme which I also want to convey through my work photography as it will be linking to the impacts of trauma and childhood. 

SHOOT 2:

WHERE: Going forward after my first photo shoot, I will be conducing these within the rental properties which are available in Jersey. Mostly focusing on property in St.Helier as this tends to be the area with the largest concentration of immigrants and affordable housing.

WHEN: In order to achieve quality imagery, I will attempt to capture the images during daytime, retaining natural lighting within the images.

WHO: Much like the first photo shoot, I will be focusing on places rather than people so therefore my imagery will be solely focused on the interior of properties. Looking at small details such as the kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms etc.

WHY: A topic which I am highly interested in and am willing to explore is the housing crisis which affects a large population of Jersey, not only the immigrants but young people and the elderly all face institutional discrimination which makes it extremely difficult to get on the property ladder or be able to find housing in Jersey. There is an extreme lack of affordable housing for low income families and young people alike, who start out on the bottom earning minimum wage at the start of their careers.

HOW: Taking into mind the logistical problems associated with capturing and developing film, for the remainder for my shoots I will be using a digital camera in order to capture my shoots. Although it may not be authentic, there are methods which can be used with editing techniques which can give the same aesthetic qualities as print film.

SHOOT 3:

Repeating the steps taken in shoot 2, I will be conducting further shoots taken within rental properties which will allow me to gain a variety of resources and use these in order to create a narrative and conclude what I have seen.

SHOOT 4:

Repeating the steps taken in shoot 2 and 3, I will be conducting further shoots taken within rental properties which will allow me to gain a variety of resources and use these in order to create a narrative and conclude what I have seen.

SHOOT 5:

In my final shoot I will be focusing on my own home, taking the same approach of documentary photography as in shoot 2,3 and 4. This shoot will allow me to create a cyclical narrative, using the internal, external and personal narratives within my personal study.