All posts by Talal B

Filters

Author:
Category:
AO3 Record Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Uncategorized

personal project photo shoot 2

Leave a comment

Introduction

This is my second attempt at a photo shoot for this project and i used a studio to photograph my self wearing a uniform to show how i want to be a part of the navy because i was motivated to do that from my great grandfather. And i wanted to show my motivation to be in the navy by photographing myself in my favorite uniform.

Studio

So i began by booking the studio and placing a permanent yellow lighting on a white background only from one side and i used the school’s camera by putting it on a tripod then i just set the timer on 5 seconds and kept photographing myself against the white background. And these are the photographs i came out with:

this is my first photograph in my MTP uniform making a random position and unfortunately the shutter speed was very slow so the photograph wasn’t in focus and there was a shadow effect in the back ground which i should’ve eliminated.
This is the second photograph with my hands in my pocket looking straight at the camera but unfortunately the same goes here for the shutter speed and the shadow but in addition my glasses also reflected the light in here so i should’ve moved the light to another position.
This is one of the most focused photographs because i was very still but still should’ve set the shutter speed faster
This photograph was taken by mistake so is probably no going to be used as it is very out of focus
this is a more full body photograph to show most of my body with the MTP training uniform.
now i put my Number 1s uniform or the Blue’s uniform which is more worn during parades or memorials , the camera was a bit more focused but still needed faster shutter speed
this is just an upper body photograph showing me saluting as i would to an officer while wearing my number 1s uniform.

Conclusion

So in conclusion i’m probably not going to use many photographs from this photo shoot as i had some technical issues with the photograph, what i learnt from this photo shoot is to use faster shutter speed and two lights instead of one to eliminate the shadow effect, and i will be doing this photo shoot again.

AO3 Record Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Uncategorized

Personal project-Secondary data (interviews)

1 Comment

Intro

I went to Jordan over Christmas for a couple of days and collected some data by interviewing some people about my personal project. I did the interviews as one to one interviews sitting down with a notebook in my hand and i asked them the questions i planned to ask them on my planner and recorded their answers. And i’m going to put out my results on this blog post down below.

Hamzah Al-Jazi

Hamzah is Mashhoor’s Grand son also the son of Abu Ali, after asking his permission to interview him about Mashoor i collected these answers from him down below.

-How many years do you remember with him?

“he died when i was only 12 years old so only about since i was 6.” said Hamzah.

– How did his death affect you?

“I was only young when he was in my life but yet i still have felt like there is something missing from my life since the day i died.” He said

– Is there any personal stories you want to share about him?

“One of the very few things i remember still of when i was that young was when he took me hunting with him on the weekends and he’d always make a perfect shot” He said

-How would you describe Mashhoor in one sentence?

” He was a man of power and pride who a lot of people will always remember.” Hamza Stated.

– Are you proud of your family history because of Mashhoor’s accomplishments?

“if their was something that made me who i am today then its Mashhoor’s accomplishments and i’m very proud of that.”

Wael Mattar

Wael was Mashhoor’s best friend in the old days, i went to his home and interviewed him over a cup off coffee and down below is his answered that i recorded.

For how long did you know Mashhooor?

“i met mashhoor when i was only 16 years old in the neighborhood” said Wael.

Did you have any accomplishments with him?

“i used to be Mashhoors first officer in Al Karamah battle and i was his right hand during all the battle.” He said.

Does knowing the fact that Mashhoor was your friend make you proud?

“Yes in fact i still believe the luckiest thing that ever happened to me was when i met him he changed my whole life forever” said Wael.

How often did you used to see him?

“It varied a lot but i used to see him everyday during times of battle as i had to always be by his side” He said.

What did you do when you where with him?

“We used to play soccer together as teenagers, then we used to work together at times of war” He stated.

How would you describe Mashhoor in one phrase?

“A man of pride and loyalty” phrased Wael.

Eman Mattar

Eman is Abu Ali’s wife, so i went to her house and interviewed her about Mashhoor and recorded her answers to my question down below:

How close where you to Mashhoor?

“Mashhoor was my father in law so i saw a lot of him and we were really close, he treated me as his own daughter.” Said Eman

Since your the closest one to Abu Ali how would you describe Abu Ali’s condition was when Mashhoor died?

“Abu Ali was a really strong person who didn’t show much emotion except for when hes falling asleep, even if he had any problems or depressing situations no one would be able to tell as he always puts a smile on his face, but i could tell how he may have seemed alright to everyone when his father died but i knew he wasn’t the same anymore, he always seemed a bit lost. Stated Eman

Conclusion

In conclusion these interviews and answers are going to help me a lot in my project as i have a bigger picture of the story and i have more answers now. I will now be using this data i collected as a guide to what i should include in my project.

AO1 Develop Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Uncategorized

personal project PHOTO SHOOTS planner

1 Comment

Introduction

For my personal project i will need some photographs to include but in order to achieve that i will need to plan my photo shoots first, but unfortunately the idea of my personal project restricts me from being able to get many photographs as my personal project is about something that is past and not present so there’s not much i can photograph as its all gone now but i will be able to take photographs of objects or archival photographs that where already taken by someone else who was there in the past and past it on to me or my family.

First photo shoot

I will be going back to Jordan in Christmas but unfortunately i’m only going there for 3 days because my reason of visit limits me from staying there for longer, and i will be very occupied all day for the three days so i don’t have much opportunity to go out and do a photo shoot so i will be taking photographs of objects related to the project in my own home, the only thing i’m sure of is my knife that was given to me by Abu Ali who inherited it from the guy my project is about.i will be taking the photo shoot using my phone as i have no access to a camera, i will lay the knife down on a white paper and adjust the light to get a florescent white light.

Interviews

My secondary data will be collecting information and stories about Mashhoor Al Jazi to add up to my personal project and to do that i am going to be interviewing people that are related to him and ask the questions. down below is a list of the people that i’m going to interview and what i’m going to ask them:

  1. Hamzah Al Jazi (grandson): How many years do you remember with him? How did his death affect you? Is there any personal stories you want to share about him? How would you describe Mashhoor in one sentence? Are you proud of your family history because of Mashhoor’s accomplishments?
  2. Wael Mattar (old friend): For how long did you know Mashhooor? Did you have any accomplishments with him? Does knowing the fact that Mashhoor was your friend make you proud? How often did you used to see him? What did you do when you where with him? How would you describe Mashhoor in one phrase?
  3. Eman Mattar (daughter in law):How close where you to Mashhoor? since your the closest one to Abu Ali how would you describe Abu Ali’s condition was when Mashhoor died?

Conclusion:

After collecting all my data which include the photo shoots and my interviews i will arrange it all on different blog post for all of them to create one whole project and in the end i will create a summery blog post to make it as a final piece.

AO1 Develop Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Uncategorized

Essay draft

Leave a comment

Introduction

My area of study is going to be war photography, as it is related to the topic were studying (occupation vs. liberation) and because I have a lot of family history with wars. Specially with how my great grandpa was a high rank and a really appreciated leader by his country and even other countries like Palestine. His biggest achievement was leading the whole Jordanian army in Al Karamah battle and that is what I will be focusing on. I’m going to start first by talking about how I heard of his stories, then I’m going to talk about his story and achievements, lastly, I’m going to finish up by talking about how he affected me personally. Meanwhile I will be using artists references throughout. 

The artist I’m going to be studying first and analyzing is Paul Burnal as he is a war author which is similar to what I’m working on, and i chose him specifically out of a lot of war authors as he wrote one of my favorite books which is Batterie Lothringer and is based on photographs taken in Jersey about wars so that will give me easy access to take the similar photographs.

I am going to be responding to his work by studying him and his history first, then I’m going to try and do similar photographs as his. 

The quote that caught my eyes as I was reading his book is “…Buried four bodies today, I was quite tired from all these going on” (Burnal,2015:221); As it just shows how much he suffered and was just done with everything going on which relates to my story as I kind of had to suffer from the effect of war on me. 

Paragraph 1

I also want to link cultural-ism to my project as it somehow has an effect on everything that’s included in my project, the basic idea about cultural-ism is that it is the idea that individuals are determined by their culture, that these cultures form closed, organic wholes, and that the individual is unable to leave his or her own culture but rather can only realize him or herself within it. Which also relates to how i came to Jersey for education and still want to complete my wish of going into going into the navy as my great grandpa influenced me to after his achievements, but even if i want to join an English based army force i will not be able to just become English while i’m there no matter how long i stay i will always have my culture that will not change no matter what.

Image result for different cultures in army
i like this photograph as i shows three different people from three different cultures yet they’re all serving for the same country

I want to use this photograph as proof of my idea of cultural ism as you can see how even though the guy in the middle is serving for a different culture he still kept his cultural identity and didn’t try to hide it but yet he wanted to show it off to everybody by dressing as his culture would with his head dress and facial hair. And this relates to how i would be if i was to join an English army force i would still practice my own cultural practices.

Bibliography

Paul,B. (2002) Channel Islands Occupation Society. 

Uncategorized

REVIEWING and reflecting

Leave a comment

Intro

During the time and effort i put through doing my investigation and investigating with the project (Occupation vs. Liberation) i gained a lot of experience and skills with working on portraits, environmental photography, photo shop skills……. .And in this blog post i’m going to write and overview of these stuff i learnt as well as the inspirations that inspired me throughout my work.

Knowledge

The occupation

I gained a lot of knowledge about the island through this project as i have lived in jersey for almost a year and a half without even knowing that there was an occupation that occurred before i came. so through this project i now gained knowledge about almost everything i can know about the occupation from when it started to what they ate during the occupation.

Home

Moreover i also gained knowledge about the family i lived with as i lived with them without knowing that much about them but when i was working on my Home Sweet Home project i learnt a lot about them by photographing what they do at home throughout the day.

Skills

Light Room

Throughout doing this project i gained a lot skills with practicing photo editing specially using Light room as i have always been using Photoshop but we had to use light room in this project which really worked to my advantage because i got to explore all the new ways of editing photographs.

Camera Handling

I also expanded my photography techniques specially with environmental portraiture and still object photographing through the project (Still Life). And got more professionalized with using camera skills and adjusting settings.

Conclusion

in conclusion this project really taught me a lot of stuff but mainly just gave me experience about the whole idea of being involved in the history of the German Occupation in Jersey.

AO3 Record Ideas, Uncategorized

objects studio photo shoots planning

Leave a comment

Intro

in this experiment i am going to photograph objects and i decided in this photo shoot to take still photos of objects from the German Occupation, these objects where brought from the Jersey Archive to give us an opportunity to photograph them, and this is how i planned to do that:

Setups

i decided to use two different setups to photograph my objects as some different objects need to be photographed at different angles and these are the two setups i used:

Straight on Angle Lighting Setup

For the straight on angle set up I used a continuous light set up. I used a fill light illuminating the object, with a secondary (tungsten light) light source to reduce the shadows and clearly showcase the object. I also experimented with back lights, but felt that it was not successful and did not justify the objects, thus I stopped using the back light. The camera was on a tripod with a 50 mm lens.

Birds Eye View Lighting Setup

For this set up, I used two flash head lights, set on a 2.0 power output. The lights where paced either side of the table, slightly facing downwards towards the object. On my camera I used a transmitter which triggered the flash heads to operate as I captured my imagery. In addition, I also used a pilot light in order to position a and frame my composition, this was located at the back of the table (on right) and did not affect the coloring or the outcomes of my image. The camera itself was placed on a tripod looking down at the table.

My plan is to work on this project with my friend who also takes photography so we can exchange skills and get the best results. we are going to go to the studio for three hours divided into three school days and use one camera between us and take photographs on different personalized settings then comparing the results to come out with an even better setting for the camera. We are going to start photographic the most suitable eye catching 3D objects using the straight on angle lighting setup, and afterwere done with that were going to photography the flatter objects on the birds eye view lighting setup.