Monthly Archives: January 2020

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Personal Investigation – Interview with my Grandparents

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In order to gain more descriptive insight into my grandparents lifestyle, I decided to ask them a few questions allowing them to consider and articulate the type of lifestyle they live, in order to accurately present this ideology through my imagery. I felt doing this allowed them consider different aspects which they may not have thought about, as well as reflect on their life and childhood, making this project more personal to them, thus allowing me to gain more detail.

How would you say your upbringing influenced your lifestyle?
Upbringing has a very significant influence on our lifestyle. We tend to want to live in the same way – type of work, type of friends, what we eat, how we spend leisure time, ambitions – as our parents did. But upbringing can only form bedrock of our independent lifestyle as we tend to react to our surroundings, opportunities, setbacks in life. These
surroundings can and do change and we change with them
Our parents did not have mobile phones and in many cases televisions but we all react to them now and the enormous changes they bring

How does religion impact your lifestyle?
Very significantly. Firstly by attending church regularly taking part in acts of worship to God who we believe made heaven and earth and all things in it. Religion is of course not just attending church but is also about seeking answers to perennial questions such as why are we here? And what is God’s purpose for us as individuals? As Christians we believe the words of the Bible are sent by God for our guidance on how we should live our lives. The greatest message given in the Bible is to Love God and then to love our neighbour as much as we love ourselves. Neighbour is not somebody living next door but all those disadvantaged people throughout the world e.g. refugees, starving, civil wars. We never achieve perfection in living by this but we do try.

What does family mean to you?
Family means a lot. For most people it is mother father, brother, sister, uncles, aunts, cousins who first influenced us and mostly provide places where we have been safe, protected and encouraged in our development
For Grandparents this does not change but just makes the number of family members wider who you want to see grow develop and prosper. We are both in direct regular contact with our brothers and sisters – my sister’s husband John died when he was only 55, we often talk about him – and we hear from them of their own childrens’ activities. Interest in what is happening to them grows and does not go away as we get older.

How would you describe your lifestyle?
We are fortunate to live in comfort more so than most people enjoy. It has come mostly through hard work – ethos given to us as we grew up – and taking opportunities as they arise. And we all sometimes have a bit of luck as well as setbacks Family structure has little bearing on our current lifestyle as all our children are independent of us and we have no parents to look after. But please see above what Family means to us

How has your lifestyle influenced your childrens’ lifestyle?
 Just as we were in many ways influenced by our parents’ lifestyle so it is likely that our lifestyle will in many ways, though not all, influence our childrens’ lifestyle. There is the
question of genes within families which are passed through generations. Genes can affect everything from abilities, skills, attitudes and other attributes which get passed from generation to generation. I got my genes for being a genius from my grandfather and so you have your genes for being
genius from your grandfather!

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas

Photo Shoot 1 – Archives

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Edits:

Edit 1 – Flagged
Edit 2 – Star Rating
Edit 3 – Colour Rating

Final Outcomes:

As mentioned in my photo shoot planning post I discussed how I did not want to manipulate the imagery, to the extent to which it takes away from the authenticity. On light room I simply slightly adjusted the shadows, white, blacks, contrast and clarity sliders subtly. Doing this allowed for the image colour and to clearly be showcased. In further edits, I am going to look at using these archival to produce photomontages and or manipulate the photographs to help portray stronger conceptual meaning in order to showcase their lifestyle.

Conclusion:

The imagery I managed to gather from searching through my grandparents photo archive, has given me useful insight into different aspects of their lifestyle. One major aspect I realised was the importance of family, many of their images included pictures of them both with other family members at important occasions such as weddings or christenings. These family events can also be considered religious showcasing another factor which has highly impacted their lifestlye. In addition, my Grandad referred a lot to how he worked hard to make a living for him and his wife, showcasing gender roles within their society and upbringing alongside the ideology of wealth, which is also supported through their attired as they seem to constantly be dressed very formally in every occasion. Due to this I am going to base my next lot of photoshoots exploring these ideas of religion, family gathering, gender roles and wealth through portraits and potential for me to explore their house through exterior and interior photography.

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Shoot 3- TRees

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I took images of oak trees as they fit well with the aesthetic of my photobook. They add a sense of eeriness and darkness about my book. I made them black and white to create high contrast between the grey sky and the brown branches, to exaggerate the trees silhouette.

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Essay intro

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How does Cristina de Middel use tableaux photography in tandem with archival images to represent previous narratives?

In what way does Crisitina de Middel construct a narrative using a variety of photographic images such as tableaux and archives.

Text Box: Schwendener, M (Sept 5 2013) Cristina de Middel: ‘The Afronauts’ New York: NY Times

“Ms. Middel shows how the medium promotes both fact and fiction”

The work that I will be focusing on is Cristina de Middel’s book called ‘Afronauts’. The book is based around a Zambian science teacher named Edwuard Makuka, who in 1964 decided to train the first African crew to travel to the moon. His plan was to use an aluminium rocket to put a woman, two cats and a missionary into Space. First the moon, then Mars, using a catapult system. He founded the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Astronomical Research to start training his Afronauts in his headquarters located only 20 miles from Lusaka. The plan was not well thought out as neither Zambia or any of the surrounding countries had the resources, finances or expertise to follow this programme through to completion.  The book was a finalist in the Paris Photo Fair Aperture First book award. The style of photography that she uses is halfway between documentary photography and tableaux, because she uses real stories but then re-enacts them out using models and actors. Middel also uses a set of archival images of Zambian villages of the time to also show how ridiculous the idea of a space program to compete with the US and Russia was. The book is opened to a letter from one Zambian minister to another saying that according to Makuka America and Russia may lose the race to the moon.

Historical Context:

The first emergence of postmodernism in photography was in the late 20th century. It is characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.

One of the founding post-modernist photographers was Mark Klett in his superimposing work. One project that is an example of this is his Yosemite in time, in which he photographed large wide landscaped then later in photoshop superimposed images over the top lining them up with the landmarks that are still there. The images that he would use are those of the ‘greats’ who photographed the area in the early 1900’s like Ansel Adams and his photos were taken closer to 2000 so they were taken to show the impact and changes on the landscapes over the century. He would take the large images with wide lenses and often from further back than the original images. He often went to spots where were multiple images taken from the area so he can fit 2 or more images within his.

‘Four views from four times and one shoreline, Lake Tenaya, 2002‘
‘View from the handrail at Glacier Point overlook, connecting views from Ansel Adams to Carleton Watkins‘