Planning:

Christmas is a large event, which everyone in my family looks forward to every year. It is a tradition for my Grandparents to go to church in the morning and then come down to my house at around 12pm on Christmas Day to have a Christmas dinner with us, and exchange presents. The aim of this photoshoot is to showcase how my grandparents lifestyle influences the way in which we celebrate Christmas, due to this day being considered religious celebration. I also want to be able to capture the interaction between my grandparents and other family members, as well as showcasing our ‘traditional’ Christmas. When capturing the pictures I tended to take images of key events, and times within the day, and moments when my grandparents personality is clearly being showcased. The camera settings on my DSLR were kept minimal, allowing for a naturalistic documentary style image to be presented. My shutter speed was quick, with my ISO being low and my aperture also being low, reducing noise, blur and allows enough light into my imagery.

Structure of Christmas:

• 12pm Grandparents arrive – drinks, snacks are presented as we begin celebration.
• 12:30pm Present exchange – We provide a present exchange, gifting each other plants, car air fresheners etc.
• 1pm Dinner – at 1pm we gather round the table, say grace, and open our Christmas crackers as the ford begins to arrive. We usually discuss topics such as work, school, future and how our life is in general.
• 2:30 Dessert – We light the Christmas pudding, and my grandma provides us with her ‘Blue Peter Recipe’, a chocolate cake.
• 3pm Queens Speech – We all gather around the TV as we watch the queen deliver her yearly speech.
• 3:30 Christmas Tree Presents – Each year a member of the family will by a ‘joke’ gift for everyone else and will present these gifts later on in the day.
• 4pm Leaving – My Grandparents leave with their presents, and left over food.

Edits:

Outcomes:

When selecting my outcomes to edit and adjust to improve the quality of the photograph, I wanted to select images which accurately portray the events and the relationship my family have with my Grandparents, and the way in which this tradition reflects their lifestyle. In addition, I critically chose these photographs to work with as I believed that they helped to tell the narrative of this project. When adjusting the images, I wanted to maintain this simplistic and minimalistic aesthetic towards my work, and so I only present the imagery in black and white or in colour, and the I only focused on adjusting, blacks, white, contrast, detail and sharpness of the imagery. These experimentations are clearly presented below.

Analysis:

The photograph below is my favourite outcome from this photoshoot as I believe it clearly meets the aims of this photoshoot and clearly presents my theme of lifestyle. Conceptually, this is the moment before food arrives and my family are reading out the jokes from the Christmas crackers. It showcases their reaction to the delivery of the jokes. Typically, my brother does not understand the jokes, like this occasion, and requires people to explain. The photograph shows the bond and strong relationship everyone has around this table, as we follow the family tradition, which illustrates my grandparents lifestyle on a major event like this. Contextually, every Christmas we follow the same schedule and repeat the same day essentially every year. Following this pattern is crucial, as it allows my grandparents Christian religious beliefs to fit in with the day, and allows their grandchildren to follow, understand and practice their beliefs and traditions about christianity. Personally, me and my brother have been christened but do not actively consider ourselves as religious people, so this contextual factor on Christmas influences out day and the way in which we go about activities.

Breaking down the visual and technical components of this image allows for the concept and context of the imagery to clearly be displayed. Visually, we are presented with my family sitting around a table, with Christmas hats on as they laugh and look joyous at one another, making this the main focus point of the imagery. The photograph is presented in black and white, allowing clear tonal contrast, and is taken at a straight on angle. In some respects the photograph can be regarded to be using rule of thirds, to create the composition. Further more, the foreground is considered busy and lively due to a lack of space, with the background remaining plain and simplistic, which reduces distractions from the central focus of this image. The main formal elements which are presented in this frame is, space, detail and texture, which are all shown through the way in which the image has been framed. The photograph is sharp and showcases clear detail on the subjects skin, clothes and the table. Technically, the photograph was captured using and quick shutter speed and low ISO, which reduces intended blur and means no noise is presented in the frame. Additionally, the aperture has been set to a medium setting, as enough light is being let in, and a minor narrow depth of field is being presented. Alongside this, naturalistic lighting is being used, which compliments the daylight white balance being utilised.

Conclusion:

To conclude, I believe that photoshoot has been a success. I have been able to produce imagery which meets my artistic aim, and clearly represents my conceptual message of how my grandparents lifestyle influences the way in which my family celebrate major events. On top of this, I have been able to hint at contextual representations throughout my photographs, which adds additional meaning towards my final outcomes of this photoshoot. I have been able to experiment further with different ways of editing imagery using Lightroom, and have reinforced my skill of being able to critically analyse and select imagery which meet my artistic aim.

Planning:

After researching Laura Blight, and the way in which she conveyed interior of houses to tell the narrative of the previous owner he has recently died, I wanted to conduct a photo shoot in a similar style which showcases my Grandparents house in order to tell the narrative of their lifestyle. I will be looking at interior, as well as capturing exterior, furthering from what Blight captured. When deciding what to capture I will be looking at different areas of the house which I believe help to capture their lifestyle, from macro images to using the formal elements of space, texture and colour to help convey this. My camera settings are going to be kept standard, with my ISO being around 400-800, shutter speed being quick and the aperture being round f/5.6, with the use of manual focus and natural light source.

Edits:

Outcomes:

When editing my outcomes, I wanted to adjust the images to look like the work of Blight, by allowing the colours to slightly be desaturated, and noise to be presented, and having a natural darkness and somewhat eerie feel to them. I experimented with mainly the contrast, blacks, whites and shadows as well as the structure on lightroom to produce these outcomes. I tended to stick to black and white outcomes for exterior, as I felt the texture and tonal contrast allows for the house to hold more personality and tell it’s story, and the interior to mainly be in colour so that my work had a similar feel to Blight’s imagery. My experimentation can be viewed below:

Analysis:

Below is my recreation of Blight’s image of the chair in her photographic series ‘House Clearance’. The two images hold a lot of similarities, due to my clear understanding of the technique Blight used. For example, the composition of the framing is similar, with a chair in the foreground and windows in the background. Both photographs clearly represent the formal element of space, texture and colour, and represent the personality and characteristics of the room, as well as showcasing traces of human life, a key conceptual factor of Blight’s work. Due to similar outcomes, it is likely that we used the same shutter speed, quick, and a low aperture, alongside a natural daylight white balance.

In my image, the photograph presents the chair at more of a worms eye view/straight on angle, and is darker than Blight’s imagery. In addition, the surrounding of the chair in my image is a lot busier, which creates the representation of life still living in the house, which allows my conceptual representation of lifestyle to be clearly presented in my work. In addition, my image has more ‘noise’ in the sense that I used a high ISO, due to the natural lighting not being bright enough to illuminate the whole chair. On top of this, my image hold more of a modern day feel, due to my subject being more modern and up to date furniture. A final difference between to two images is that my photograph uses more of a wide depth of field, as we can clearly see the background of the image, which showcases my grandparents garden, but still does not distract viewers from the conceptual representation of my imagery.

I believe that my attempt of recreating this photograph is strong, I have been able to apply the techniques of Blight into my work, and have been able to introduce the ideology into traces of human activity and apply it to represent my grandparents ‘luxury’ lifestyle they live.

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Conclusion:

To conclude, I believe I have been able to produce strong imagery, which clearly depict the luxury and wealthy lifestyle my grandparents have, trough capturing the interior and exterior of their homes. Alongside this, I have been able to employ the composition techniques of Blight when capturing my images, in order to hint at her conceptual representation of human trace. I have been able to further explore this by applying these techniques to capturing the exterior of my Grandparents house, in order to showcase the size and ‘traditional’ values that the house holds, emphasising the luxury lifestyle they live, based on their upbringing and contextual elements of their past.

Planning:

After researching LaToya Ruby Frazier, I was able to understand the way in which her conceptual representations were presented within her imagery. Using this techniques of capturing naturalistic portraits in order to portray lifestyle, I conducted a photoshoot with my grandparents. At the beginning of the session I explained the purpose of the shoot and informed them that I would be following them around as they live out their everyday lives, emphasising the importance of them sticking to their true personality to accurately representing their lifestyle as I followed them around. The shoot was conducted during the middle of the afternoon which meant daylight was beginning to become darker, which forced me to increase my aperture in order to let enough light into, for the frame to clearly illustrate their lifestyle. The camera settings were kept basic, quick shutter speed, middle – high ISO and aperture of around f/5.6 in order to capture the imagery.

Conceptually, I wanted to convey my grandparents lifestyle and how their upbringing and past has influenced their life. For example, I focused on capturing the idea of my grandma being a house wife, while my grandad provided and worked for the family. I also wanted to represent the ideology of economic status and the way in which their financial situation has influenced their lifestyle which they thought were large influencing factors during my interview with them. Due to them being financially stable, it has allowed for them to have luxury habits, such as owning a large house, being able to afford expensive furniture and being able to retire early. These factors I tried to portray through my imagery, as well as recreate and produce imagery which follows the same stylistic features of Frazier.

Edits:

Outcomes:

When producing the outcomes from this photo shoot, I wanted to keep them simplistic and authentic, in order to clearly and accurately illustrate the lifestyle they live. Due to Frazier’s work mainly being in black and white, lead most of my outcomes to be showcased in black and white, in order to create close connections between mine and my artists work. However, with two of the images I decided to leave them in colour, as they best suited being presented in colour, due to them having a more authentic persona towards them which meant that the colour allowed for reality to accurately be portrayed within the imagery.

Analysis / Comparison:

The image below (Frazier’s) is the photograph which I felt held strong conceptual representation, and wanted to recreate within my work to present different concepts in relation to the subjects I was capturing. The two images follow similar composition, by having a subject present in the foreground and background looking in different directions, with a narrow depth of field being utilised. Both photographs are being presented in black and white, with the detail and structure being high, but the smoothness of the imagery and noise being low, likely done through camera settings with editing complimenting these values. Both photographs show clear focus to the formal elements of space, tone and texture which is clearly presented from the proxemics, clothes and basic background. Another similarity between the two is through the camera settings used in order to capture these images, due to them being alike, it suggests that I used similar settings The lighting used would have been artificial through studio lighting and lighting readily found in that room. The light source is soft and can be considered cold, which illustrates the brutality of this reality and how it has negatively impacted the families life. This works well with the low ISO which is used as no intended noise is being presented within the imagery. As well as the white balance being accurately set to an in door setting allowing for clear colour correction, illuminating the tonal contrast within the frame. In addition to this, the shutter speed is kept to a quick capture as there is no movement or intended blur within the frame of the photograph, which helps to compliment the ISO setting used. 

The main difference between the two images are the conceptual representation. Frazier wanted to showcase how herself and her family are being treated as invisible due to their race, presenting political power and situation in their suburb in Braddock. It also illustrates their lifestyle and poverty through the perspective of herself, mum and grandmother, this concept is further explained in my artist research on a previous blog post. Personally, I wanted to convey the social situation which was common in the 1940’s and still present in my grandparents lifestyle today, gender roles. Having my grandad being in the front of the frame well dressed up shows he is the authoritative figure who provides for the household, having my grandmother in the back suggests her submissiveness and willingness to follow instructions from her husband, although this may be considered a bad thing, to them it is normality which they both enjoy.

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Conclusion:

In conclusion, I believe that the imagery produced shows close relationships with Fraziers imagery, through the sense of composition and the ideology that we have both conveyed lifestyle in a similar way. With close regards to the final imagery produced, I believe that the photographs shows my ability to capture detailed portraits, which have clear focus and show my ability to produce a strong composition, which compliments the simplistic edits. In addition, I have been able to provide evidence my reinforces my ability to use Lightroom effectively to produce strong imagery.