MOUNTING LAYOUT IDEAS FOR FINAL OCCUPATION AND PERSONAL STUDY IMAGES:
Here are some proposals for ways in which I could exhibit and present my final images:
EVALUATION:
To evaluate my occupation project overall I believe it was a success and that I have been able to produce strong imagery and responses to tasks along with detailed image analysis’s that have explored the technical, contextual and conceptual elements of those images. I believe my strongest work in the occupation project was the bunker photography. This is because I found it the most interesting and therefore was able to give a lot more thought into it and produce some high quality images such as the ones portrayed alongside my still-life images that are mounted up in my portfolio folder. These images I feel could have been improved further by having carried out a second photoshoot on the bunkers or others similar, that I could’ve experimented on and captured further images which would have had been a lot more revised and contained a greater attention to detail and complexity. Having said this I still believe my work in this area was very strong and inputs significantly into the overall outcomes of the project.
To evaluate my personal study, overall I believe that it was highly successful in what I was trying to capture and the message I was trying to portray along with that. I believe the quality of my images was kept to a consistently high level and that all my shoots were methodical, and well carried out. I believe a finished photo-book was the best way to present the final outcomes, due to the large amount of sequencing involved and pairing between some of the images alongside the appropriately fitted and relevant quotes from the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”. One way I could have improved this project was by creating a plan to and photographing objects that my subject “Max” posseses which relate to the theme of extravagance and wealth and the contradiction this has to the stereotypical polish immigrant workers here in Jersey. This alongside the already captured images may have just added some further depth and detail to the overall portfolio and made my work slightly more interesting. Again, having said this I believe overall the the project was a significant success and had captured all of my aims and intentions in the final outcomes.
Overall I am happy with the way I decided to portray mental illness throughout my photobook. When I started this project I knew I wanted to tackle the subject of mental health, but it took me a while to figure out the best way to go forward with it. Originally i though of using landscapes as a way to convey emotion, however eventually decided to turn the camera on myself for a set of self-portraits. I feel as though this decision really helped me open up and put as much personal experience into the book as possible. After the original self-portrait shoot, i wanted to continue with creating a really unique and personal narrative in which i can show both my own emotions and feelings that i have been through, but leave parts of it ambiguous enough to be interpreted by other people in their own way.
I then decided to focus on my personnel experience surrounding prescription anti-depressant drugs, or more specifically SSRIs ( Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ) which are used when, for whatever reason, there is a lack of serotonin being produced, with it’s aim to boost serotonin levels in the brain. This element was quite difficult to capture, as most of the time you don’t notice anything different, which is why i decided to use a gradual build in saturation inside the book to show the slow but steady changes, however I did want to make sure to capture aspects of medication not working, and the task of changing medications and gradually building back up until it works. I represented this component in my book by showing the rise in dosage levels in text at the bottom of the page.
Dosage changes from 100mg – 250mg
The contrast between emotions felt and the way medication can affect these emotions is shown using different colors, but ultimately ending with more desaturated images to show that there is never a definitive end to some of the ways that mental illness can affect someones life. I wanted to show how medication can make the world seem better at the time, but ultimately cant completely change your outlook on how you feel. To do this i used brightly coloured backgrounds combined with the bright colours of the pills themselves, which also had the effect of contrasting some of the much darker images I had already made from previous shoots.
Over the course of the 3 studio photoshoots and various smaller shoots done around nature, people and extreme close ups of my hands, arms face, etc. I decided to use colour and brightness in order to show emotions in the narrative, with images being brighter and more highly saturated when showing the effects of the medication, and then darker images with low key lighting to show the change in mood
To conclude, This project has overall been very successful in terms of recording and capturing the concepts which I brought into this project, focusing on three main concepts, the housing crisis, nostalgia and control. I took significant inspiration from the slum photographer Nick Hedges and used his conceptual and contextual intents within my own work, bringing awareness to the housing crisis here in Jersey. In order to respond to my personal study I employed the use of both a film camera and digital camera. As I used the theme of nostalgia, the use of a film camera is an effective way to display this through the grainy and soft nature of the photos themselves. The subject of my images is the low cost, affordable housing which can be rented in Jersey. I contacted estate agents in order to show the contrast of the way in which housing agents glorify these homes in a way which makes them more commercially appealing, versus what the reality of them are. I focused on small and minor details which distinguish each property such as the flooring, bathrooms and kitchen cabinet. I photographed the exterior of buildings, going around the dingier parts of St.Helier which depict the depressing lifestyle some people face by living in the urbanized town center.
I took multiple approaches to my image taking,using both digital and film photography in order to create the intended meaning within my images. In order to create some of the pages within my photo book, I used a combination of digital photography which was manipulated in order to appear like film. In order to fully capture the extent of the crisis, I took images both within the exterior and interior of Andium homes, a prominent government body which controls a huge chunk of the affordable housing market in Jersey. I also used digital photography in order to showcase the state of other housing and use this enforce various points which I argue in my personal study.
I took simplistic yet effective approaches to my photo book, which showcases a variety of interior and exterior images taken both in St.Helier and Andium homes. I chose a fairly simplistic layout which allows for the viewer to really take interest in the images and examine them fully. I included some hand written notes, originally written in Russian, but including translated captions on the bottom which gives a more personal element to my project to show how real people feel about the Jersey housing market. There are also a couple of edits which show the interior of these peoples homes and personal possessions, again enforcing some of the more personal aspects of this project.
All in all I feel as though I have effectively captured my intended concepts and visualized them within a photo book. Although simple, it is effective within demonstrating the struggles of people living in Jersey, and the astronomical prices which come with mediocre homes, being overpriced and overly expensive for the majority of the working class population of Jersey.
As a final mounting idea I chose to go with a selection of 6 film images to include in my final selection as I felt that they worked well together in terms of location, aesthetics and composition. 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 images, 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. 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.
FINAL MOUNT:
In terms of the layout of my final mount I have chosen to go with a simple set of window mounts with are set in a symmetrical manner. I chose to go with this as it best went with the classical film style of the images, and keeping to these conventions. I also chose to leave a significant white boarder around the edges as they aesthetically appear as genuine Polaroid images.
How the concept of surrealism in photography can help artists express their inner thoughts and portray their opinions and views on events that are going on.
The theme which I focus on in my personal study follows the odyssey of four feelings; change – euphoria – love – regret. For myself, the idea and concept of change has a journey – how change makes you feel euphoric, and you fall in love with your new life but may still suffer with the feelings of regret. There have been many changes occurring in the past few years of my life, and its changed me as a person, ripped away any safety nets, and started building the person I am now at present. My personal study is going to document how change can affect you emotionally and spirituality as a person, specifically focusing on illness, divorce, loss, lack of love and the idea of rebuilding your so called normality all over again. I will also be looking into the aspects of change when you want things to stay the same, and when things aren’t changing even though you want them to. All of these aspects and changes that happen in life can have a relentless repercussion on your mental view on things, often becoming twisted and confusing for yourself to even fathom. Surrealism and the prospect of dreams also play a vital role in the pieces of art I have created, and so I will be exploring the historical context of surrealism and touching slightly on Dadaism.
Whilst my personal investigation focuses on raw life events and situations, I wanted to explore the groundings of surrealist art, including Dadaism as my work is heavily influenced by these prominent movements. Around the start of the surrealism period, around 1920, the economic boom had ceased, and America had began the period called the Great Depression. The Surrealism movement had started, which was heavily influenced by dadaism and abstractism, but was also affected by the Great Depression. “It was the first time in U.S history that a widespread movement of artists began addressing politics and using their art to influence society Andre Breton defined surrealism as “psychic automatism in its purest state, by which one proposes to express verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner, the actual functioning of thought.” (MoMA) Bretons reasoning preposes that artists neglect the rhyme and reason of reality, and tap into a deeper state of their unconscious minds. This statement that Breton made is the basis to my creative work in this personal study, and signifies the meaning and deeper context behind the work that I’ve created. Another significant individual linked to surrealism was Sigmund Freud, who wrote the book “the interpretation of dreams” (1899). Through this book he recognised and covered the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid reasons for human emotions and certain lusts. The vulnerability he gave to such topics, including desire, sexuality, sensuality and mental facades created the theoretical basis for much of surrealism.
The Persistence of Memory (1931) Salvador Dali
I focused mainly on mental facades, desire and sensuality during this study, incorporating aspects of reality and unconscious states of mind, thoughts and dreams. Through this, I tried to merge all topics of interest into one, as they all have some sort of link with each other in the first place. Most surrealist artists would rely on their own unique reoccurring motifs through their work that appeared in dreams of certain unconscious states, such as Salvador Dali’s clocks. This imagery would more often than not feature in their creative pieces, generally coming across as outlandish, perplexing and somewhat uncanny as it would throw the viewer from their initial assumptions. I found this somewhat comical and amusing, as the photographer was the one who was in control of tricking the viewer with their own creations. For me, I found this fascinating as you could almost control what the viewers were perceiving.
Katrien De Blauwer is a photographer/ artist who uses collage to portray memories and reminisce on certain times. Her images normally include female figures that have been collaged together with other images and mixed media such as paint, pen and natural materials such as dried flowers. She started off studying painting, but later moved on to Photography and fashion as she found the certain subject matter involved more alluring. She explored collage for years, and at a later age began collecting, cutting and recycling images as a form of therapeutic self investigation. Whilst this self investigation brought up many questions for herself, challenging personal views and beliefs, it also questioned her viewers
De Blauwer calls herself a “photographer without a camera”, as she seeks out, collects and recycles pictures and photos from old magazines to create a direct communication with our unconscious and our anonymous minds thanks to the use of found images and body parts that have been cut away. This way, her personal history and creative journey becomes the history of everyone; each individual can interpret and relate to each of her works in whatever way they feel appropriate. The collage effects a kind of universal audience, emphasising the impossibility to identify with a single individual, yet allowing to recognise oneself in the story. The artist becomes a neutral intermediary: without being the author of the photographs, she appropriates and integrates them into her own interior world, a world she’s revealing in third person.
“Memory by accumulation rather than by subtraction.”
Dirty Scenes 27 (2019)
Lissy Elle is a young photographer who shoots in film and combines documentary photography with surrealist elements. Most of Elle’s projects and works have focused on her mentality in different stages and places of her life. When asked ‘What is the most important element about a photograph?’, she stated “An emotion, no matter how clichéd that might sound. You can always tell if someone created a piece from a technical place or an emotional place. You can do everything right in terms of lighting and composition and still make a flat and dull photograph. I want to see what you were feeling and what you were thinking and why I should care. If you don’t care then I don’t .” (EZRAMAGAZINE.Bolger.2019:5)
Whilst Elle’s main body of work focuses on candid documentary photography, mainly focusing on her spontaneous outings with close friends, she tends to incorporate surrealist, almost darkly comical aspects into these works, seemingly bringing a representation of deeper meaning and more complex, mature emotions – like exposing adulthood as a darker place then we may think. The ways in which she creates her surrealist imagery are very sophisticated and subtle, adding an obvious modernistic approach to the look of her creations, along with dream like imagery and adaptations that were obviously counterfeit. This fuelled my motivation to incorporate visual surrealism, not just surrealist context behind my pieces. I found it challenging incorporating both real life events and dreams or thoughts/ mindsets together at first, but as I worked on my personal study I discovered how they both can influence each other in terms of certain situations in my life impacting greatly the quality of my mindset.
In essence, it is obvious that the concept of surrealism can help artists and photographers to express their emotions and explain certain events that have impacted their lives greatly. This is obvious due to the idea of how the Great Depression influenced the surrealist art movement to a degree, and how Katrien De Blauwer works with old images for her own therapeutic self investigation.
I decided to mount my images in this way to mimic pictures out of my book. one of the images I included in my book was the same as the first image. I liked it a lot so I decided to do the same concept but larger and have the images staged on foam board to add levels and make it more interesting. The second image is inspired by one of the pages of Yoshikatsu Fujii’s ‘Red String’ in which he has on image going across the two halves of the book with each of his parents either side. Overall I am happy with how these turned out and I feel like they represent the contents of my book very well.
Final coursework Images
Experimentation:
Final Layout:
Evaluation:
I chose these images as i thought they best represented the work we have done since September, as it includes portraits, the bunker landscapes and the occupation objects. I decided to collage them to bring all the areas of study together and to unite the story of the occupation. If I could do this project again, I’d like to interview more occupation survivors and take their pictures, or get them to re-visit places where they grew up or bunkers.
Essay Question; How have family photos developed over generations?
Introduction
“photography has undergone a transformation, not only technologically but conceptually. Initially described as a means of capturing or freezing ‘real life” (Bright, S and Van Erp H. 2019: page 18). This quote backs up the meaning of my project, where I am to investigate the changes that have been made to family images throughout the years. Postmodernism came around during the second half of the 20th century, where the building on themes such as family photos where developed to more of expressionism and surrealism instead of the raw meaning of an image. Hollad. P said in his book ‘Personal photography and popular photography’; ‘home photography has undergone a dramatic transformation’ Holland. P (1998) ‘Sweet it is to scan…’ Personal Photography and Popular Photography. London: Routledge.This has allowed me to hear somebody else mention the change, making me want to investigate it more, however he also stated ‘family photography is itself an indication of the domestication of everyday life and the expansion of a family’ Holland. P (1998) ‘Sweet it is to scan…’ Personal Photography and Popular Photography. London: Routledge.Another artist I looked at was Keuyon D, where he spoke about the different topics that where typically held and taken in family photos, those topics included babies, mother and baby, father and baby, important possessions, child and bike, adult with car, house, grandchildren, friends and actual footage, too this day these topics haven’t changed, it is the way they are taken that had. The images use to be more stages and set out, however in the 20th century they have become more action shots and candid as we have the ability to take a photo whenever we want using out phone cameras. The images shown by the artists, show some during the 19th century where taking images where more on a rare occasion and the other where photos have become more modern.
About My Project
‘Photography has undergone a transformation’ this states what my project is focused on, the change in how photographs have changed, in the means of quality, staging and the way they are stored. The first half of my project focusing on the first and second generation of my family, which involves my grandparents and parents, this will include images of my parents at younger ages and showing them grow up to becoming adults, this enables me to show quality and staging of the images during this time where photos were of a rare occasion this slowly merged into my parents during the adulthood where you see a change in quality of the images, along with who is in the photo and who stands where. In the early photos, where my parents where infants, you can see the eldest seems o have dominance within the image as they become the main aspect of the photo, whereby they are at the front or in the centre of the frame, this slowly developed as the photos of my parents in adulthood, all subject share the same dominance and the whole scene becomes the main aspect, also images where taken on a more regular occasion.
However, as my parents grew older and decided to have a child you can see a change in focus on what they began to takes images of, at any change they would take a photo of me as it allowed them to see the different phases and changes of my growing up. Every image they took, seemed to have a main focus, which was me, the images became more candid as I became less aware an image was being taken as they were trying to capture memories when they could, so they could be remembered. This is completely different to how photos where taken previously as they where stored digitally on a computer or phone, along with their being an increase in how many photos where taken as it became easier to do this. In Howarth S. work you can see the type of images that are being taken today;
Between the two images, you can see a change in the staging of the images, the older photo is more staged and has a older, worn feeling about it, this is because they had one change to take an image, this was due to the cost of having a photo taken and developed as they weren’t able to be stored digitally. Compared to the more modern photo, which is more candid and it within the moment of a mother and baby, they were probably able to see the image and retake it multiple or times and due the fact f improvements in technology images where constantly in high definition and where stored electronically.
Inspiration 1;
One of the main influences I had during this, was the concept of archives. Visiting the Jersey Archive gave me initiative on how photos where taken back in the day, along with types of family photos came from family members and where sentimental and not seen as show pieces. The way the photos were stored and framed, made me want to produce the older photos I had in their natural form as it added to the story of the photo itself. By using these photos it allowed me to create a beginning to my family album I was creating.
Photos such as the images above are the types of images taken during my grandparents life along with my parents. The low quality of the image is only part of helping the image to tell its story, the distressed boarder around the image on the right aids in defining the age of the image, along with the photo on the left having the date written in the bottom right hand corner. Writing on photos doesn’t occur anymore, this is due to the face of images being stored digitally now. I wanted to be able to document this within my book, so I decided to photograph the front and back of the images to showcase the facts on the back as it will add context and understanding to the image.
With this set in stone, this influenced me to go and find old photos of my parents, with this said I found plenty that were able to show age, and the different staging of the image aspects and by this I mean, it seems the eldest in the photo had dominance over everyone else, as they seemed to catch your eye first. Along with this, they had information on the back of them which added a more defined story to the image to help me understand the story, which I believe is a good aspect as it’ll make my book more personal and understandable as I will have images with meaning.
The images above are my own images I found and photographed myself. The lighting of the images is poor due to the old camera that was used, along with the poor printing and age that was carried with it. The colouring of the boarder and back of the image is a dirty cream/brown which does show the age, this is due to the fact the image has been held many of time, stored in different areas, etc but this adds character to the image as it can emphasise specific aspects. The top image is showing, my grandad, my mum, uncle and aunty as they are on a day out. My grandad draws most attention due to his height and build being much bigger than the other subjects. On the back of the images is written a place which they were visiting when they were on holiday, down the line this would have helped them to remember this memory more clearer and allow them to set the scene in their head, it also allows for the viewer to understand the type of place they where at. Finally, the unique handwriting style adds adjust and style to the image as it is rarely seen.
Conclusion
Through this essay and project, I have been investing how family photos have changed over time, my main point being – ‘photography has undergone a transformation, not only technologically but conceptually. Initially described as a means of capturing or freezing ‘real life’ (Bright, S and Van Erp H. 2019; page 18). From my research I have learnt how image have changed, firstly through the quality and the way they are taken. Images used to be taken rarely as it wasn’t as easy as it was today, once the image was taken it would be printed out as there was no other way to see them or have the image, however today images are taken on a regular basis as it is easy, due to cameras on phones and it is easier to keep the images digitally. Along with the way they are taken the concept has also changed, the images taken earlier where staged, they had more direction too them whereas today images have become more candid, due to how easy an image is to take an image. Overall, sentimental value hasn’t changed the way they are taken and the meaning/concepts have, this is due to the fact of changes made within society and the norms.
I have edited my final photographs and will be representing them in this blog post, and explaining what i did to edit them and how i did it.
Black & White
I edited this photograph by cropping most my body out to just leave my torso in it, and then i added a black and white filter through adding a new layer adjustment on Photoshop, the black and white gave my photograph a dull texture to represent my thoughts about joining the marines. And the shadow in the back is my confused thoughts following me wherever i go.
This was me experimenting with the layout of the title and spine. At first I liked the quirky font as it reminded me of my idea of the 70s which is when my parents got married, however, I ended up preferring something more simple and minimalist, almost like what you’d see on the order of service at a funeral; a memorial for my parents marriage. I also didn’t know if the white would be too bright so I tried a grey colour but ended up with going back to the white.
This was me trying to decide where I would leave pages blank to add in the images once the book arrived.
I again, at first I like the dramatic full bleed page, however, then I decided to make it more minimal, resembling a negative. I will therefore also be adding a negative over the centre of the image going diagonally.
I was trying to decide which image I thought fitted better. I decided to go with the one of me as a baby with my dad as it would be on my dads side which made more sense. I also think that the colours and shadows in the image fitted with the rest of the book better than the other image.
Again, here I was trying to decide which image I preferred. Although I preferred the first image, the second one made more sense and was more poignant juxtaposed against the dead flowers on the right. The second photo is also just my parents with no one else in the background.
