For the first photo-shoot I completed, I focused on a range of different factors that can influence the identity of children, including the anxieties of adults and how they influence children, as well as how family history and loss can effect a child’s development of identity.
The following contact sheets work as evidence for my thought process when ruling out and selecting images from this photo-shoot:
For my identity project into the influence that adults have on the development of children’s identity, I have decided to take inspiration from the work of Tish Murtha, a social documentary photographer who worked in Britain. she is was best known for documenting more marginalized communities, such as the working class in the North East of England.
Her photography is documentary style, and often uses candid photography in order to truly show a true to life representation of the life, struggles and social workings of the groups she photographed. Examples of her work can be seen below:
Her work often shows the raw emotion on the faces of her subjects, allowing for the identity of the subjects to be presented through their emotions, feelings and reactions to their present situations.
Murtha uses her photography to inject personality into the individuals who are often simply stereotyped and grouped into certain groups of people. Her photography gives individual personalities to the people who are often shun by society due to their social class, position in society, age, gender or job.
Murtha produced exhibitions such as Youth Unemployed (1981), Elswick Kids (1978) and Juvenile Jazz Bands (1979), which showed the struggles of children living in the lower bands of society during the 70’s and 80’s, using photography to display real life issues such as poverty, unemployment, conflict and a lack of individual identity within the children of the working class.
Through her photography, Murtha raised important issues about society with the public, as her work depicted the struggles of the working class, and the social issues they face, which the viewer can then compare to the issues they themselves face.
Murtha, born in South Shields in the North East of England, was accustomed to the poverty and deprivation that was common in the area. Her work focused a lot of attention to proving that, although the subjects in the photographs often look care-free and happy, the environment in which they live is often poverty-stricken, run down, and appears to lack any outside help in order to make it safe and appropriate for living in.
The above image was taken by Murtha as part of her Youth Unemployment exhibition. This image uses the shock factor of the young boy holding a cigarette so nonchalantly in his mouth, in order to draw the attention of the viewer, before allowing them to understand the underlying meaning. This image portrays the children in a situation (playing cards and smoking cigarettes) that would normally be associated with adult behavior. Here, Murtha is commenting on the fact that a deprived environment often forces children to grow up faster than they should, and the situation they are placed in (poverty) influences them to take the identity of the adults around them.
The above image is an example of where Murtha took close up head-shots of individuals living in the run down areas of Newcastle. Murtha incorporated elements of both candid and posed photography. The above image focuses on the appearance of the subject in the foreground, who appears to come from a poorer, lower class background. While the subject appears to be from a less privileged background, his facial expression does not convey negative emotions, rather he seems distracted by something interesting. 
This image by Murtha really conveys the theme that all of her work follows. The young girl in the image is seen jumping on an abandoned car, a dangerous activity in a hazardous run down area that now days, would violate health and safety regulations immediately. However, the context of the image indicates that the subjects are actually enjoying this activity, with the subject in the background moving to stand back on the car roof (presumably after already jumping off). Here, Murtha is able to covey that, even among the deprivation and poverty, children still adapt to their environment and create fun out of seemingly dangerous or boring situations.
In order to experiment with photo-montage, I have decided to create a response to the artist Peter Kennard. His work focuses on portraying his views on political and social issues, such as war, politicians and environmental concerns. His work often criticizes the use of nuclear weapons, and highlights the importance of protecting the earth and innocent lives from the consequences of war
Below is a montage of the work of Kennard that challenges the current politics and social issues:
Taking inspiration from Kennard, and his criticisms of politics, the first photo-montage I created involved using Photoshop to cut and paste different facial features of different well known politicians onto the face of the current prime minister of England. For this image, I have taken inspiration from an image created by Peter Kennard, who used an image of the prime minister and photos-shopped another politician into her head. This is a statement made by Kennard voicing his opinion on UKIP, and the decisions made by the politicians involved.
The image I have created also criticizes the current political situation of the UK, and incorporates the same style as Kennard (using a black and white color scheme, and using a black background in order to draw maximum attention to the image in the foreground).
As well as criticizing politics, Kennard also uses his photo-montage work to criticize the physical state of the world and environment. He uses photo-montage to show his opinions on how human activity destroys and disrupts the environment.
In order to further experiment with photo-montage, I decided to take inspiration from Kennards work revolving around criticisms of environmental issues, and created the following photo-montage:
This image uses the same color scheme (grey-scale) as Kennard, which helps to emphasis the image in the foreground. As well as taking inspiration from Kennards work for the color scheme, I have also used a plain black background, as I feel like this allows for the image in the foreground to warrant maximum attention of the viewer, and helps to show the issue presented in the montage as an issue separate from anything else, allowing the viewer to focus all attention on the issue at hand.
After looking further into Kennards work, I have produced a variety of images that take inspiration from his photo-montage style, but do not replicate his work exactly (they include some original ideas and concepts). Below are the results of this:
Kennard is a British contemporary artist who experiments with photo montage in order to express his opinions on issues such as politics, environmental concerns and social problems. He is the Senior Research Reader in Photography at the Royal Collage of Art (London). He was an active participant in the anti-Vietnam war movement, and used his artistic background to create photo-montages in order to spread images showing the consequences of continuing the war. He also involved himself in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1970’s-1980’s.
Kennard is an activist for world peace, and conveys his passivism through his photo-montage work. His work often includes relatively basic layouts, involving only 1-3 images with a black background, use to draw maximum attention to the photo-montage in the foreground. Below are examples of Kennard’s work:
Kennard describes his own work as used to: “Rip apart the smooth, bleached and apparently seamless surface of the media’s presentation of the world and to expose the conflict and grubby reality underneath.” This quote indicates that Kennard used his work to portray the reality of life, not leaving out the horrors and atrocities that come with war, human suffering and conflict. His work contrasts how the media typically presents such issues, as the media often glances over the severity of certain issues such as the increasingly advanced technology used to produce nuclear weapons, and focuses more on issues that, arguably, matter much less (such as celebrities).
The above image was created by Kennard to emphasis that the world (more specifically, politicians and those in power) focus so much on developing unnecessary weaponry and war supplies, while completely ignoring the, arguably, more important issues such as world hunger and poverty. This image is designed to mimic a poster, and uses photo-montage editing techniques to reflect the contrast between a loaf of bread (representing hunger) and a nuclear weapon. This image is used to highlight the worrying order of the priorities of those in power, where they continue to mass produce harmful, dangerous weaponry while turning a blind eye to the real issues at hand.
The image seen above is used to convey Kennard’s opinion that those in charge are playing a dangerous game (gambling) with issues as serious and hazardous as the development of nuclear weaponry. It emphasizes that such a serious topic is often treated like a game, which contrasts the reality of what should occur, given that weapons are designed to destroy lives. Here, Kennard’s anti-war beliefs come through his work, as he highlights the careless and shameful way that those in power treat serious topics that could ruin uncounted lives.
Kennard often injects a sense of irony into his photo-montages. Above is the image of a skeleton (representing death) reading a manual on how to survive. These two elements clearly contrast each other, and so Kennard is able to convey the irony of handbooks that were distributed by the government in the 1970’s listing what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Kennard believed that in the possibility of the event of a nuclear attack, the government clearly did not feel enough concern for the population to take more drastic measures, and simply handed out leaflets stating how to survive. This image projects Kennard’s opinion, that the government took very basic, almost pitiful action, when in reality, drastic measures would be necessary in order to do any real good.
Street photography involves taking candid photographs of individuals on the street, without interacting with them or asking them to pose beforehand in any way. This results in photographs which display the subjects in in the moment, showing their natural poses and stances, and the genuine emotions they are feeling at the time of the photograph.
In order to experiment with street photography, I used participants that were available to me in town on an afternoon. I set my camera settings to a faster shutter-speed
The following are my final choices for the street photography images I have taken, after I have attempted to edit them in order to make the colors bolder and in some cases, lower the exposure.
In order to experiment with natural lighting during the portrait project, I used an open window to produce the lighting for a photo-shoot. The following images show examples of subjects faces being illuminated with the use of just natural lighting from a window.
The above 2 images simply use natural lighting, and nothing else. the use of natural lighting in this instance allows for a soft illumination of the subjects face, allowing shadows to be cast across the face, but without them being too sharp or dark. This produces a more natural image, and allows the subject to be portrayed as they naturally are in reality.
For the above 2 images, I experimented with changing the background color of the image. This was done using a large black piece of card. I feel like this draws more attention to the face of the subject, and defined the shapes of the subject, separating them more from the background. I feel like the addition of a black background allows for the photograph to be given more dimensions, and feel more 3D.
Overall, the use of natural lighting in photography was a success, as I was able to create images that show the drastic contrasts between natural and studio lighting. Although natural lighting creates a more natural, soft light that portrays the subject in an (often) more flattering way, the lack of control that comes with using natural lighting can cause lighting issues (e.g the above 3 images are slightly darker, as they were taken when the sky was more overcast, thus the light was blocked.)
Aspects of Identity:
Photography is a medium that can be used to explore and play with identity, where the different aspects of a photographers cultural, social, geographical identity can be portrayed, and their views and opinions can be displayed for the viewer to understand and analyse.
The following is a mind-map including all examples of aspects that can be considered when taking photographs that experiment with identity:
Environmental factors such as the upbringing of the photographer, the lifestyle that they choose to lead, and the experiences they have had throughout their life that have shaped their thoughts and opinions all effect how a photographer will interpret the definition of identity.
Examples of Identity in Photography:
Photographers such as Shirin Neshat create images that more obviously involve the topic of cultural identity, and include bold, eye drawing subjects to allow the viewer to realize the initial concept of the image, while also adding less obvious, more metaphorical meanings that can create a discussion on cultural differences and tensions after further analysis of her images, the following is an example of her work:
(The eye catching subject of the image is the Arabic writing on the soles of the feet, which immediately indicates that the image is of cultural relevance. However, the use of the tag on the foot is more subjective, as it could indicate that the feet belong to that of a corpse, therefore opening a discussion about the violence and tension surrounding cultural minorities.)
Other photographers who choose to experiment with identity in their work. Photographer Tish Murtha experimented with social identity, taking into account and documenting the different aspects of society, and the differences between the social groups that make it up. Her style allows for the life of the people in her images to be documented in a candid, natural fashion, while at the same time her images can be compared to show the differences between social groups at the time she was actively photographing, and the different struggles and issues that each social group faced. The below image is an example of her work:
This image can be said to be a candid image displaying children growing up in England in the 1970’s, however it also displays the importance of the developing bonds, connections and friendships between the children, and displays them as their own social group, independent fro adults, showing the complexities of the lives and relationships that children have.
Lack of Identity in Photography:
On top of photographers using photography to blatantly explore identity, some use it to distort or hide identity, allowing for the subject of the image to become less an individual. Hiding the identity of the subject of an image to create a sense of mystery and disassociation has been a popular tactic in art for years, a famous example being that of the painting “The Son of Man”, by Rene Magritte (1946), where the subject of her image lacks identity due to the covering of his face with an apple:
An example of a modern photographer who experiments with using a lack of identity in her images, is Polish photographer Michalina Wozniak in her Identity series, which makes use of blank masks in her photographs to hide the identity of her subject, opening up a dialogue for questions such as who the subject really, what their intentions are, and what they represent. An example of her work can be seen blow:
Photo-montage is the process of creating a photo through the process of cutting and sticking different images together, in order to present a single final image.
This technique was first introduced by “Dadaists” in 1915 in order to aid their protest against the First World War, and was later adopted by surrealists, resulting in the creation of work that broke the rules of conventional art, and expressed opinions (political, social e.t.c) through bold, noisy and nonsensical artwork.
Dadaism: A movement in European art and literature where artists disregarded the conventional aesthetics of art produced at the time, and instead created bold, nonsensical and ridiculous artwork in order to either voice opinions in an over the top fashion, or to ridicule the meaningless of certain aspects of the modern world.
Photo-montage can be used to create abstract and surreal artwork, and the introduction of Photoshop and photo editing software has made the creation of photo-montage images much easier for many. Below are a collection of images where artists have created photo-montages:
Photo-montage has developed through the years, and was wildly popular during the 20th century among the more forward thinking, rebellious artists and photographers who wanted to break the rules of conventional artwork. Hannah Hoch is an example of an artist who used photo-montage to express her critiques of society, politics and the way art was viewed during her time. Below is a mood-board including some examples of her photo-montage work:
Hoch didn’t shy away from expressing her opinions, and often portrayed female equality and feminism in her work, which was a new subject that went against the more conservative beliefs of the public at the time (and so was welcomed by Dadaists).
Photomontage has continued to be a popular form of expressionism even through modern times, with artists often expressing their opinions on current political events through the use of photomontage. Modern photographers and artists who express themselves through the use of photomontage include Scott Treleaven and Peter Kennard.
Examples of Peter Kennard’s work can be seen below, in which some of the images are clearly critical of the current political situation in the UK and USA:
Photomontage has evolved along with the political and social struggles that artists use it to convey. Modern technology has enabled photomontages to be created only using a computer, without the need for physically cutting or sticking. This has allowed for many artists to more smoothly layer art together, to create montages of different photographs that seem like they fit together more easily. The increase in the publics political knowledge through the years has also allowed for artists to place more subtle critics of social and political events in their work, allowing for the meaning behind their images to become layered, and thus adding more to the image for the viewer to think about.
In contrast to using studio lighting to produce the light for a photograph, natural lighting can also be used to provide lighting for a photograph. Natural lighting is often used in scenarios where using artificial lighting would be impractical, or would ruin the effect of the image. Natural light can provide a soft alternative to the harsh lighting of studio lighting, and can often blend with the environment much more subtly.
Below are a range of professional photographs taken using natural lighting:
Using natural light can present challenges that are not present when using studio/artificial lighting. one such challenge is the inability to manipulate or alter the lighting. Natural lighting changes in intensity and direction depending on the time of day or the location of the photograph. The fact that natural lighting cannot be as easily manipulated means photographers can often struggle with producing an image with the striking effect they are looking for. These problems can be reduced using a variety of different techniques:
Reflectors:
Reflectors can be used when working with both studio and natural lighting, yet when working with natural lighting, they can be more useful in helping to direct light to specific places where it would otherwise not reach. Reflectors are useful when attempting to direct light into an area that it would not reach, or to bounce light back towards the subject to create more illumination:
The color of the reflector also changes the color of the light that is reflected back onto the subject. Gold reflectors are often used to reflect light back so that it casts a warm light back onto the subject, whereas silver reflectors may be used in low light, as it is often able to cast light a further distance than a white reflector.
To produce tableau vivant images, the studio was used in order retain full control over things such as lighting and the background. The images that we decided to replicate were the following:
All of the above images were chosen for their story telling visuals, as each image portrays a still frame from what would usually be depicted as a fast moving scene.
The products of the photo-shoot we conducted in the studio can be seen in the contact sheets below:
Key:
Red F: Out of focus, Red P: Subject in the wrong position, Green F: slightly out of focus, Green P: subject in slightly incorrect position, Red box: discarded image, Green box: selected for possible to final image
The above images were taken by a range of other students within the photography class, and the lighting and prop management was coordinated by a range of photography students as well. After analyzing the end results for the tableaux photo-shoots, I have decided on the following 2 final images:
Above is the final edited image from the photo-shoot in which we attempted to recreate “Liberty Leading the People”, a painting created by Delacroix. This image required props in order to create a flag, and the studio was used in order to draw maximum attention to the subjects in the foreground. The lighting in this image is focused on the subject representing Liberty, and the rest of the image is relatively shaded. This is done to mimic the atmosphere of a war setting, and the saturation as been turned up slightly to mimic the slightly orange tone of the original image. The image has also been edited to remove the white floor and curtains in the background, allowing or the image seem slightly more realistic
The image above is the final edited image from our attempt to mimic the photograph taken by Lachapelle, “Last Supper”. For this image we used a table as a prop, and pointed the lighting towards the subject in the middle of the table, accentuating the fact that this subject is supposed to represent Jesus. Editing has resulted in the darkening of the background, which allows for the scene to draw maximum attention to the subjects and the foreground.