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.
Jonathan Andrew is a Manchester born photographer working out of the Netherlands. he has acquired many awards across his career including winning an award in ‘historical architecture at the International Photography Awards’ and an honorable mention in ‘night photography at the International Photography Awards’.
The collection photographs various WWII defensive architecture, typically taken at night with the use of artificial lighting, likely to create interesting lighting that better interacts with the monolithic structures photographed. The photos are taken in a documentary fashion, featuring a small aperture and capturing the entirety of the subject in frame. The photos feature high contrast however seem to be adjusted to prevent any overpowering shadows or highlights. Blue and green tones appear to be emphasized across the collection. The images often feature quite heavy vignetting likely to show the importance of the subject in question.
Demonstrated in the image above is the use of heavy vignetting, however the vignette selection appears to have left out a structure in the background. This structure appears smaller due to perspective, thus the viewers eyes will likely first look at the central subject then be drawn to the bunker on the right. in terms of camera setting, the image appears to stay similar to the rest of the collection; the image features a high degree of focus indicative of a small aperture, with even the shadows of the image being sufficiently exposed which implies the use of a long shutter speed, likely in conjunction with a tripod. The compositions for the collections seem similar throughout, often featuring a central subject with a generally uncluttered back/foreground. This image like many others in the collection seems to focus on the blue and green tones in frame, likely done in post due to the distinct lack of other strong tones.
For my first photo shoot I decided to photograph my grandparents archival imagery in order to enhance my understanding of my grandparents lifestyle visually. I intend to look through their photo books capturing weddings, family events, holidays and their old house. While looking through the archival imagery I intend to ask questions about what was happening in the images as well as asking questions about their lifestyle in terms of family structure, traditions, religion, all aspects which have an impact on lifestyle. In order to get a digital copy of the images I intend to photograph the images using my DSLR, manual setting. I intend to keep the ISO and shutter speed low. I did look at scanning in the imagery, however a lot of them are bundled together and are laminated which would make the outcome distorted and not a ‘good quality’. Once I have all the imagery I intend to upload them to light room and select the best imagery which showcase their lifestyle. I will slightly adjust the images to ensure the all detail of the photograph to be showcased, without making it seem highly edited and lowering the quality and authenticity.
After previous research into archival imagery, I learnt the importance of this form of photographs to enhance a photographic project in terms of narrative and structure. Using family archives will allow me to explore my grandparents lifestyle when they were younger, allowing me to see how this underlying theme has changed and developed over time. In addition, the use of archives will spark conversation with my grandparents, allowing me to understand my subject on a deeper level, gaining more research in insight which will hopefully develop the way in which I go about capturing their lifestyle in future photo shoots.
Furthermore, some of the images will still be on film and/or slides which means a lot of the images I may not have access to. However, those images are very ‘old school’ and after emailing my grandparents do not hold much content in terms of showcasing the theme of lifestyle. I will also look at capturing any objects around the house, which my grandparents believe hold meaning and showcase their lifestyle.
After taking inspiration from my planning mind-map, I was able to take a series of images for my first photo-shoot, revolving around the theme of breaking masculine gender roles, and merging both masculinity and femininity in order to show a liberation from gender stereotypes and roles. Here are my results:
Green tick: Will use in editing – Green L: Small lighting problem – Green ?: Possible final – Green F: Small focus problem – Red X: Rejected image – Red F: Focus problem – Red P: Subject position = wrong – Red L: Lighting problem
The final images from my selection can be found below:
After creating this contact sheet, I was able to using editing software Photoshop to edit the images I decided that I would use. I used different editing techniques on the images in order to show different final results, and made an attempt to enhance the colours and contrast of each image using the editing tools on Photoshop:
I decided to experiment with the hue of some of my images in order to give them an overall more blue/green effect. I did this because I believe that by increasing the presence of this colour, the image takes on a more delicate, soft overall feel, therefore reflecting the feminine side of the image that I am trying to convey.
Here, I adjusted the hue, saturation and lightness slightly to give the image a softer effect
As well as editing the hue of my images, I also focused on increasing the contrast and altering the colour balance, in order to give the image an overall slightly softer and lighter effect.
After adjusting these settings, I was able to form an outcome of the image below:
I believe this image works very well, as it conveys a softness in the colours and lightness of the image, but at the same time, the masculine pose of the subject and the focus on the masculine arms helps to draw a comparison between how the subject presents themselves, versus how they may be feeling. The folded arms are protecting/hiding their femininity (the dress).
In my images, I also took steps to eliminate the background of the subject, or replace it with a colour that made sure to push all focus to the subject themselves, and to remove the background that did not match the context of the image. To do this, I used the eyedropper tool to locate a suitable colour on the background, and used the paint brush to carefully paint around the subject, and fill in the background.
In some of my images, I made attempts to show as much contrast as possible between the light and dark areas of the photo, and in doing so enhanced the shapes and patterns of the subject and their clothing, which I feel helps to draw attention to the parts of the image where there is contrast (masculine legs vs the feminine clothing)
Here, I haven to cu around the subject to remove the background, I will then replace the background with a better image that makes more sense to the image.
After cutting out the subject from the background, I changed the image to black and white, and increased the contrast drastically. I then altered the colour balance so it sat more towards a blue hue, and therefore the final image is a black and white image with a slight blue tone, giving it a softer, but still stark bold overall look.
The following images are also a collection of my final images from my first photo-shoot, after the editing process:
This image took very little editing, I simply cropped the image to focus on the hands, and increased the saturation.
This image involved cutting out the image from the original background, and pasting it onto a white background. I then changed the image to black and white, and rose the contrast significantly.
For this image, I used the lasso tool to cut a jagged line down the centre of the image, and highlighted one half of the image in order to select it. I then copied that half of the image onto a separate layer, and was able to adjust the contrast of each 1/2 of the image separately, to create this split, distorted effect on the final black and white image.
This image was cut and pasted onto a white background, and was changed to black and white, with a slight raise in contrast
This image involved using the lasso tool to cut the lines through the image, and I then merged the layers of the lasso images together, in order to create the broken effect. I then individually edited the 2 layers, changing the colour balance of some fragments of the image so they gave a much more pink hue, in contrast to the black and white fragments of the image. I then used the lasso tool to copy and paste sections of the background, in order to clean the background up.
I used the lasso tool to cut and paste certain parts of the image, in order to separate the image into different layers to work on separately.
Here is an example of where i cut part of the original background out. I would then shape this cut-out-part to fir it into any areas where there are blemishes in the background in order to cover them
This image included cropping the image to focus on the hands, and changing the colour balance so the image was more red-toned. I then increased the saturation slightly to bolden the colours.
The above image included using the lasso tool (as used in previous images) to select a portion of the image to copy and paste onto a separate layer. I then edited the 2nd layer to an overall red hue, and increased the contrast of the first layer, also changing it to black and white. Furthermore, I cut the image from the original background and pasted it onto a white background.
An Iconic street photographer with a unique style, Bruce Gilden was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. He first went to Penn State University but he found his sociology courses too boring for his temperament and he quit college. Gilden briefly went with the idea of being an actor but in 1967, he decided to buy a camera and to become a photographer.
Although he did attend some evening classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Bruce Gilden is to be considered substantially a self-taught photographer. Right from childhood, he has always been fascinated by the life on the streets and the complicated and fascinating motion it involves, and this was the spark that inspired his first long-term personal projects, photographing in Coney Island and then during the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Over the years he has produced long and detailed photographic projects in New York, Haiti, France , Ireland, India, Russia, Japan and now in America. Since the seventies, his work has been exhibited in museum and art galleries all over the world and is part of many collections. The photographic style of Bruce Gilden is defined by the dynamic accent of his pictures, his special graphic qualities, and his original and direct manner of shooting the faces of passers-by with a flash. Gilden’s powerful images in black and white and now in color have brought the Magnum photographer worldwide fame.
Gilden has received many awards and grants for his work, including:
National Endowments for the Arts fellowships (1980, 1984 and 1992),
French “Villa Medicis Hors les Murs” grant (1995),
Grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts ( 1979, 1992 and 2000),
A Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship (1999)
A Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, in 2013.
Bruce Gilden has published 15 monographs of his work, among them:
Facing New York, 1992; Bleus, 1994;
Haiti, 1996 (European Publishers Award for Photography);
After The Off, 1999;
Go, 2000; Coney Island, 2002;
A Beautiful Catastrophe, 2004;
Foreclosures, 2013;
A complete Examination ofMiddlesex, 2014.
Face, and HeyMister Throw Me Some Beads!, his new book, 2016.
“Do you think of the things you’re photographing as ‘dark’?“
“The world isn’t great, ok? Look what’s going on in the world. from the environment, we’re polluting the world, to terrorism, to everything. Then you have all the governments and the politicians who are all full of shit, they never tell the truth, they’re always promoting what the best deal is for themselves… I mean, come on! So, my pictures are showing that there are problems in this world. I think that the only way you can solve a problem is by confronting it. I’m an optimist.”
In some of your most iconic pictures, one can indeed get the feeling that you can see the soul of the persons you shoot. It seems that what you show is beyond the physical appearance of the subject. Is it the sole goal of your work or just one of its facets for you?
It’s not the sole goal, I don’t think about that really. I put my own soul into it. This is why I can tell you or tell somebody “With all I’ve done, you’re not going to be able to do the same as me. Maybe you’ll do worse, maybe you’ll do better, maybe you’ll do equal.” But the thing is I’ve had a very tough background, emotionally. My parents were pretty strange and I suffered. So I’m putting all of that into my pictures. If you look at the Face (Dewi Lewis – 2015) book, there was a quote by Oscar Wilde that I found two days before printing (interestingly enough, Oscar Wilde and I were born on the same day, October 16): “Every portrait that is painted with feelings is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter”. So those people are me in some way, shape and form. And I put a lot in. I’m not doing it for anyone, it’s not about money, I just have to do it! Just think now, I’m 69 and yet I’m doing new work. How many photographers at 69 are doing new work? I’m not talking if you are using photography to create in a studio, I’m talking about going out there with people. You would be hard-pressed to find many people at 69 doing good work. That means I’m passionate about it and I compete with myself. Even if I had to stop shooting for three months because of a leg injury but now it’s healed. It’s tough to go out there now and sometimes I question myself. Because once I can’t do it, then I’ll stop. I wanted to do the Face project for 20 years, maybe 30 years, a long time ago. I had an idea to do it and then I found the right camera: the Leica S. But I don’t research, I’m not a researcher for equipment. So I found the right camera and that’s how this came about. For the last few years in New York, I was really bored and I needed to do something differently. I would go out but it was really an effort. I mean, it’s always an effort, but it was really an effort. You have to push yourself. The good photographs make it all worthwhile but who knows when you’re going to get a good photograph? I also should say that with the faces, it’s a lot easier to do good pictures than candid photography because when you combine a lot of stuff in the street, anything can go wrong. The stage set is set for you. In my pictures, people are walking. I’m a perfectionist so I couldn’t feel good about a picture unless it’s very good. Even with the faces, I’ve done those for about two and a half years and they got a lot stronger. I have some good ones from the beginning but as I went further, I saw how much more I could get out of it. It’s a learning process.
Selected quotes:
“The world isn’t great, ok? Look what’s going on in the world. from the environment, we’re polluting the world, to terrorism, to everything.”
“I’ve had a very tough background, emotionally. My parents were pretty strange and I suffered. So I’m putting all of that into my pictures.”
“Every portrait that is painted with feelings is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter” – Face (Dewi Lewis – 2015) book
^^ Can photographs actually capture feelings and emotions or can they not be taken on face value?
Opening quote
^^” Every portrait that is painted with feelings is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter”
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study?
^^what I will be studying is whether photographs can capture every daylife effectively, or whether there is more to life/emotions/thoughts that we cannot see in a photo
Which artists will you be analysing and why?
^^Find 2 artists and analyse why they can be useful “I will be studying ** and ** as their work links with my personal investigation in the follow ways
How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
^^I will be responding to their work and essay question through the production of a photobook and final prints which display my theme/take on occupation vs. liberation/photoshoots and a hands on approach which will get me to think about my essay question throughout my work.
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to powerpoints about isms and movements.
^^Visual culture (solarization/superimposition) related to my response/postmodernism. Make links to art movements.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
^^ artist that shows face value/photographs lie/best of OR artist that shows friendships/how can you convey love/emotions/attachment in a photo
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
^^ artist that shows deeper sides of lifeeither things we cannot physically show/only express OR the side that we keep hidden from others/personal/shame/secrets
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced.
^^Similarities and differences to both artist work/approach and my own response/method/final outcomes
Since my personal investigation involves manipulating my own archival images, I have decided to scan the photographs and print them so the originals would be kept the same as they are irreplaceable. Although many of the photographs had already been printed out, I also found several CDs storing images of places I used to live and go on holiday. I had never seen the images from the CDs, which caused a realisation that memory does fade away in time. I could not remember the moments these photos were captured, the memories were only restored through looking at these images. Like Carolle Benitah I had to “excavate” through albums, boxes and CDs in order to carry out the process of “order, classification, scanning and printing”.
Below I have planned the different techniques I intend to carry out on my childhood archival images during the Christmas holidays. The only photo-shoots I need to conduct is when I capture self portraits in the style of John Stezaker’s Mask series and Antonio Mora’s dream like portraits. Even these photos need alterations through collages and multi exposure.
Photo-manipulation one: Carolle Benitah
For my first photo-manipulation I plan to use coloured thread and scissors in order to alter my childhood photos to investigate how moving to different country’s has influenced my current identity. I will try to recreate the visual aspects portrayed in her work by including needlework and artistic techniques, whether that may be drawing, painting or cutting. Through these techniques, I want to demonstrate my feelings towards my childhood from my current perspective. I want to portray how grateful I am to have lived in various countries. It has allowed me to gain cultural knowledge, new experiences and memories. By manipulating my archival images, I want to demonstrate how memories slowly fade away in the passage of time. Revisiting my childhood images will help me to recall the moments in which the photographs were taken. The red illustrations will be symbolic of me leaving behind my traces in each country.
Photo-manipulation two: Annegret Soltau
For my second photo-manipulation I would like my archival images to be sewn over or collaged with black thread. I intend to recreate the abstract quality of her work and the geometric patterns which joins features of her face. The thread will help me portray the idea of identity and will act as a metaphor for the instability in my life. I intend to use thread to showcase that movement doesn’t necessarily mean freedom. It’s restricting in the way that you feel out of place, a sense of not feeling like you belong at “home”.
Photo-shoot three: John Stezaker
For my third photo-shoot I intend to create collages by hiding the facial features of black and white portraits with archival images depicting countries I have lived in and their most iconic scenery and architecture. These archive images will overlap my face in order to convey how living in different countries has ultimately shaped my current identity. In the editing process, I will turn the portraits of myself and my parents into black and white while keeping the archival images in colour to replicate his work.
Photo-shootfour: Antonio Mora
For my fourth photo-shoot I will respond to Antonio Mora’s photography work by creating digital collages on photoshop. This will enable me to merge portraits with landscapes and architecture from archival photographs. In order to replicate his style I will capture head shots so in the manipulation process I can focus on altering the area around the head.
Antonio Mora has been a creative art director since 1995 and has gradually drawn towards the more artistic area of his profession. His work which is personal and evocative are meant to create intense feelings. He has developed a large collection of portraits where dreamworlds are superimposed with reality.
Mora uses techniques to create digital collages using various tools such as filters, hues, saturations and gradients of opacity. This creative process results in photographs being merged together. The tools on photoshop allowed him to dissolve two or more superimposed images in order to obtain results where the human faces are mixed with landscapes and architecture. I would say that his digital collages place his subjects in a strange, mysterious world, halfway between dream and reality. “My originality lies in the fusion, in finding combinations that evoke evocation and mystery. Images that open a crack in our collective memory that allows us to observe the beings that inhabit our deepest dreams.”
He says that his work is inspired by the belief that “art is made to disturb the conscience”. He works with images he finds through the internet, magazines and blogs and fuses them together with his photo manipulation techniques. His seamless way of mixing various concepts together creates a mind tricking illusion for the viewer.
As a response to his work, I will create digital collages on photoshop to blend portraits with landscapes and architecture from archival photographs. Like Mora, I want my work to be surreal in order to create a mysterious world. The portraits will have to be head shots in order to manipulate the region of the face. I selected Mora as one of my references because I want to create digital collages using self portraits in order to demonstrate how living in different countries has ultimately shaped my current identity.
VISUAL: This is a portrait that consists of the natural and unnatural world. The woman’s face has been slightly revealed, creating a mysterious effect to the image. If you look closely you can see cracks in the photo which makes it seem like the image is ageing and about to peel off. Around the head area you can see arches which appears to be a bridge that has been copied and pasted several times. On the left hand side you can see a cluster of leaves resting in the corner. The reflection of the leaves and the arches can also be seen in the image, seamlessly blending into the woman’s face. You can also see that the smallest arch and its reflection has created a circle which has been replaced for the real eye that has been erased. Antonio Mora has placed multiple pictures on top of one another and then lowered the opacity to blend all the images together.
COMPOSITION: The focal point in this image is where the eye is supposed to be. The arches have decreased in size the further out it is which captures the viewers attention and makes their eyes follow through the endless tunnel. The contrast in colours is interesting since the lower half is dark and gloomy while the upper half has a tranquil effect through the nature and peaceful landscape.
OPINION: I like how the artist has used nature to replace a large amount of the woman’s face. I think this image is telling us a story about a young woman who is broken which is represented by the cracks. She has a lot going on in her head which is represented by the several arches that circle around her. She appears to be envious which can be seen through the colour imagery of green depicted through the leaves and their reflection.
Luigi Ghirri is an Italian born artist and photographer. Ghirri is considered as a pioneer of contemporary photography. His pictures often feature very baron backgrounds with a starkly contrasting subject. His photography seems to employ abstraction through the use of minimalist forms with little contrast to hide the form of the object. This results in an image with few discernible three dimensional forms, utilizing color blocking to represent forms.
The lighting in the image is very flat and soft. This image is naturally lit however it seems as though it may have been overcast due to the lack of harsh shadows. It appears as thought the image was taken around mid-day as any shadows appear directly beneath the slide. I believe this was done to further abstract the forms within the image. The image appears to have been taken using a high F stop since the whole image is mostly in focus and there appears to be very little vignetting. There appears to be a considerable amount of grain and Gaussian blur in the image which suggests it is either taken on film (also suggested by slight discoloration on the left) or an old digital camera. The image looks rather cold.
The image features very flat tones across the background which is broken up by the strong contrast created by the bright red slide in the foreground. There is some texture created by the small ripples throughout the sand in the foreground. The piece features very strong lines with a strong emphasis on triangles created by the slide and the small stream of water across the sound. The ripples in the sand create a repeating pattern until they slowly go out of focus as they reach the background.
Fairies is a legend and stories that inhibits all of the Channel Islands, looking specifically into Jersey’s history with mythical fairies I have found that it to be one of the favoured and known legends of the islands being habited by fairies. The islands fairies are strongly associated with prehistoric sights, MacCulloch, art historian and academic, notes it was best believed that the fairies inhibited the island before the people who are here now and ‘that the cromlechs were erected by them for dwelling places’.
It has been said that people who interfered with the ancient monuments would be punished by the fairies, it was considered extremely unlucky to meddle with the ancient stones because of the ‘wrath of the spirits’ who inhabited these places. It has been known that in areas of the parish of St Johns fairies have blinded people who have disturbed the lands around them.
Mr Hocart who once broke up the ancient stones of La Roque Qui Sonne at L’Ancresse for building material was said to have been cursed. As soon as his house was complete a fire broke out killing the servants. Parts of the stone were sent to Britain for sale and the ships which carried them sunk. The story of Hocart is noted in 19th century guide books, with various gruesome misfortunes befalling him.
For this photoshoot I plan to use a tableaux effect, placing people in costume that similar to representing that of a fairy and creating the illusion of these torments: taunting and blinding, to suggest the stories and the myths, as well as having some tableaux photographs of just the fairies in the woods and in and amongst the island for effect and to add to the ideas of the occupation it has on the island.
