This was my book final and this is the link below to the PDF version of the book.
The way I have designed it is in chronological order.
NARRATIVE AND SEQUENCING –
Starting right from the front cover I have chosen to use a picture of my whole family including me, my brother, mum and dad. I have also chosen to use this childlike scribble over each picture to show and underline that this book is about my childhood and will reflect that within the pictures. The book I have chosen to call ” Casos Encerrados” which actually translates too ‘closed cases” which is used to reflect their marriage. Then right from the beginning of the book I have used one of the oldest archival images of my parents. This was actually taken on the day of my christening so very early on to their marriage. As we move further into the book across this double page spread I have used 2 archival images of my parents as children. The left is my mum and on the right is my dad. These pictures show childhood and underline this feeling of innocence that each of individual had at that time. These images are important to me as it shows a beginning of two people who knew each other through mutual friends and family who eventually became like best friends.
My book also has some images of places and things that are significant. The image of the house is important and I felt like it had to be included because it was my parents first home in Madeira and it was actually constructed by my dad and a few of his mates. Despite not being able to find an image of the house being built I found this and decided to include 2 versions one in colour and the other in black and white. One of the images is upside down and I have chosen to do this to incorporate the idea that everything sort of went downhill from the moment my parents decided to get divorced. Although there are worse cases to me and my brother who is now 10 but was only 4/5 at the time it turned our lives upside with little to no time to adjust. I have then added images of my brother who was born when I was about 7 so I wanted to add images of him after a good few pages into the book.
Towards the last 6 pages of my photo book I have used photoshop to cut out myself o one of the image which I took inspiration from Diana Markoisan’s example from her project. Moving on I have another image of my parents with that pen overlay to create that sense of innocence from the time these images were taken. The rings I chose to photograph as they were a gift from my dad to my mother in the 17/18 years they were together. Then I have chosen to include one photo taken from my half brothers christening with my dads new girlfiend . Finally for the second last page I chose to crop one of the images I had used before and create that split in the middle of the page to incorporate their divorce followed by the image of the official papers with their agreements.
To conclude, this project has overall been successful in terms of recording and capturing the concepts which I brought into the project, focusing on self identity. Given the titles ‘Occupation Vs Liberation’ I had a large range of work I could explore, however I found the idea that suited best was the liberation of personal identity and the occupation of your own thoughts. Initially I wanted to focus on the destruction of self portraits that would reflect a physical emotion towards these pictures, but through experimentation and photoshoots I created images that reflected an identity. Through my responses to Francesca Woodman and Edward Honaker I was able to combine both response imagery together in which they completed each other and formed a narrative. The narrative being the unwanted identity I was given and how I view myself within those images. Within my final zines I utilised self portraits both archival and new so that it was reflected even as I grew, the sense of unease was consistent.
Overall, with the four photoshoots I conducted I was able to produce work that reflected a personal touches such as, if the image wasn’t physically manipulated it had it’s own individual characteristics due to the use of film photography. Taking my inspiration from Francesca Woodman meant creating authentic film self-portraits, however to make it my own I used coloured film because you can see imperfections and light leaks. To enhance my images, on the opposing page where the image was I wrote poems for each individual image in a such a way I was translating miscellaneous thoughts into poetry.
For my final pieces, I am very proud in how I managed to construct 2 photographic zines, a storage box for them and a mobile for my mounted and hung images. I wanted everything to be done by hand because it was a project about myself and I don’t think something made by a machine would convey the right message.
The way I found was best to display my images was through using the foam board and creating a story with it. I have included images of their home in Madeira which I haven’t visited in 7 years so it has a lot of significance being able to put it on their. Theres images of my parents as children and me and my brother when we were a bit younger and swell as some of the only images I could actually find of them together. Then I chose to use the images I edited with double exposure of my dad and put it more to the right top hand corner to create this idea of him being distant.
Overall, I believe my personal study on Occupation vs Liberation is a success. I believe my photoshoots and experiments with editing have yielded many strong images which I have included into my photobook. I believe my final prints represent a good variety of images included in my photobook. I believe my personal study essay fits quite well with certain aspects of my coursework project as it focuses on landscape manipulation and conservation. I have created responses to all of the photographers from my essay: manipulated landscapes from photoshoots 2 and 4 responding to Andreas Gursky, and objective angle photographs from photoshoots 2 and 3 responding to Hilla & Bernd Becher. In my future projects, I would like to develop a more thorough concept which would allow me to experiment in many different aspects as I felt like the concept which I focused on: recording bunkers and German defences, was quite narrow and limiting.
After gathering photographs and photo shoots i decided that i will present them in a form where they’re not completely visible or just make it hard to tell what is happening in the photograph by editing them through Photoshop and exploring new filters and editing techniques.
Why?
I decided to make my photographs indirect as to represent my confusion about my decision to join the navy, due to the fear of racism that i might receive if i commit my life to that base, and i only think that because of the racism i received at my marines cadet unit. And i think hiding my identity or making it unclear will show my feeling about the hard decision i am having to make at this very moment till next year.
How?
I will be importing the photographs i took on my camera to the schools computer and using Photoshop cc as my main source for editing, first of all i will be choosing the usable photographs that i will be using by deleting the unwanted ones, after that i will start editing the chosen photographs by cropping unwanted areas of the photographs, after that i will be experimenting different filter and editing techniques, mainly blur effects to hide my identity or to represent my confusion for example my giving a sharp photograph of myself wearing uniform a motion blur effect. After that i will be exploring different effects to hide my identity for example inverting or posterizing my photographs.
An example of an image that had a posturize adjustment layer (on the right)
I like the invert effect as you can see in the image above. The effect adds a lot of meaning to a photograph and specially it is very related to my topic as invert effect is just the negative of a photograph which represents my negativity towards being in the marines.
The story about my great grandfather Mashhoor Hadeetha Al-Jazi as told in my photobook got me thinking about war and how war has been photographed. The military has always played a significant part in my family. Nine members of my family have all had a distinguished career in the Jordanian military, but my great-grandfather’s, who was a Jordanian army commander in the Battle of K has always fascinated me and to a large extent influenced me in following in his footsteps. In this essay I will be investigating how war in the Middle East has been documented in photographs. This study will be based around analyzing a set of images from my great-grandfather’s Battle at and compare those images to images of recent conflicts in the region
The Purpose of War Photography: I am really effected by the way wars have changed over time and how now a days war is much easier due to the industrial revolution some countries can destroy a whole other country from the comfort of an office. And years ago soldiers had to actually go on battle fields and put their lives at risk and that is how I lost my great grandfather. “If war truly is a force that gives us meaning, photography is a force that gives us a means by which to envision that meaning.” (Bob Duggan,2012:1) Duggan is saying that photography of war is just as important as the war itself or else the war wouldn’t have much meaning.
This is my favorite war photographs, it was taken in 1964 in the Karamah Battle and you can see Mashhour in the front taking the lead. With his great heroic character as seen in the photograph wearing his CO uniform giving him this leader image. This photograph was taken by a war journalist back then when they had to be embedded within a troop risking their life to take these photographs that are the most important aspect of a war to complete its meaning as if there is a war without much photographs not many people will give it their attention, as the sad reality is that what people haven’t seen to them it hasn’t happened. The photographer took this photograph while Mashhour was leading his troop towards the war field and he took it just in time when you can see even though they’re headed towards war Mashhour still had a smile on his face which represent how proud he was to be the one chosen to lead these heroes to bring independence to their country. They were barging through the grass reaching half way their height, off road marching on the desert sands, waiting patiently for something to happen.
The photograph was taken under natural day light where the broad day desert sun light was positioned from above, making the photograph a bit over exposed mean while giving it a good glare. The aperture was made to be a wide range giving the photograph a deep depth of field but due to the poor quality of lenses at that time the photograph was not very focused and gave the image that small blare effect. And high speed shutter speed wasn’t available at that time so it there was a slight motion blur. The chosen shutter speed gave the photograph high grain. More over, the white balance of the camera settings made the photograph quite warm. The combination of the grass and soldiers give the image textural quality that is ‘busy’ to look at. The color of their uniform blends in with the background. And the combination of the dark soldiers with the bright environment gave the image more quality.
This is a recent photograph of a modern day war in Afghanistan taken on November 2001, these american marines where in a country that isn’t theirs and were fighting the locals in it. You can see the difference between this photograph and the old photograph of the Karamah battle, in this photo it represents how much the soldiers had to carry on their back as there is too much evolved technology so war became more competitive with time. These marines look very exhausted as they’re walking through the sunny desert sun with a lot of load on them. Further more, in the Karamah battle photograph the background was just of an old tank which is what they used to use in the old days meanwhile the back ground of this photograph is off a more evolved and technological weaponry vehicle which is a helicopter. And i believe that war now a days is not as much effort taking but if more destructive as to the evolution of weaponry which increased competition between nations.
This photograph was taken using a state of the art camera which is easier to use as its lighter with better quality and finally more settings option. This photograph was taken with the sunlight that’s positioned facing the soldiers as the main source of light, you can see that as the reflection of the light on their faces prove it. And that brightness made the image over exposed with a slight glare. And the advanced lens was more focused with a deep depth of field making it sharp. Due to the option of faster shutter speed with new cameras. The shadow effect on the soldier’s faces contribute to the secrecy of them. The white balance on the photo though made it quite cold. The pattern of the soldiers walking in a single file behind each other on the arid land gave the photograph a good pattern quality.
War photography was harder to achieve good quality photographs in the old times although it was easier to have access to war. Zooms were then clumsy, heavy and of poor optical quality. Meanwhile digital cameras today can automatically adjust the film speed setting to the available light, are much better than film in very low light, have rapid auto focus, and can be used with zooms that give good optical quality across a wide range. With a laptop and a satellite phone, pictures can be adjusted and sent to the publisher within minutes, while in the old times the photographer had to keep his camera safe with them until they reached back to their base, but if they got stuck on the way or died then the photographs will never be published. And unfortunately now a days there is so many restrictions on taking photographs in a war zone mostly because the countries with the greater power don’t want to show the world what they are doing so basically no photographs that show evidence of war is allowed in these countries, which is very discomforting as people are just sitting in their homes doing there daily stuff normally around the world and have no clue about what is actually happening in these countries with war. What is even worse is that now editing photographs is very easily done so countries with more power can just easily edit a photograph that shows something disturbing to show something normal from the comfort of an office.
In conclusion after doing my research on the purpose of war photograph and got deep in it, i found out how important a photographer can be, as if a war didn’t have any photographs it would have much meaning to the people who weren’t there. And then that lead me to questioning how war changed with time and evolution of technology. And the most artist who inspired me but i didn’t mention her a lot was Julian Stallabrass who went and risked her life in the Iraq war to get the finest of war photographs, and used her words through my essay to direct me on the right path of war photograph.
Bibliography Julian,S.(2013) Photoworks. Grand Parade, Brighton, BN2 9
How do the photographers Mary Ellen Mark and Francesca Woodman explore mental health issues in their work?
Ward 81 was the maximum-security section of the Oregon State Hospital, in which photographer Mary Ellen Mark lived with the female patients for 36 days, sharing and recordings their feelings and moods. Mark, best known for her photojournalism didn’t want to take this approach for Ward 81. She explains how her outcome from her time at Ward 81 represented a scrapbook more than a story. Mark wanted to “capture the different aspects and range of personalities” during her time there making her project.
During her time at Ward 81, Mark found that the women had very strong emotions, she explained the difference was that those in Ward 81 had more exaggerated emotions compared to those outside, “There’s no bullshit; the emotions are pure”. With Mark looking for the range of emotions within the patients, she didn’t define them down to the mental health issues with which these women suffered with, so instead of saying, “This one is schizophrenic, this one is paranoid”, she explained “this is the romantic, this is the social one”. Mark lived in Ward 81 for 36 days in which she only left twice for hamburgers which she stated was “to enhance the hospital cuisine”. Mark had met patients who had undergone electro-shock therapy and even some who had been lobotomized, she explained how the patients who were admitted to the Ward were deemed harmful to themselves and others, Mark further explained how at night, the ward “echoed with their cries”.
The bewildered teenager shown earlier submerges herself in the solitude of the bath.“Once (above) she became angry about something and beat her one hand against the table. All the women had strong relationships with one another. Some were positive and some negative. They felt a real sense of community. Deep friendships were very important in helping the women get better.”Posing beside a childhood portrait of herself and her sister, who is also a patient in the hospital, that her father had brought that day.
This photo of a patient who is sat next to a portrait, is explained to be and childhood portrait of a patient and her sister (who is also a patient at the hospital) which was a gift from her father which he gave to her that day.
Within the photo you can see that Marks point of focus was the patient who is sat posing in the chair, the foreground of the image is clear and sharp, as you look into the depth of the image you will see that in the middle ground (where the childhood portrait is placed) this area, whilst still being in focus this area of the photo has been blurred slightly, which highlights the relevance of the portrait which is sat on the desk. The background is blurred even more with the wall and radiator not holding much importance to the photo. The main thing that you notice visually about the photo is that it is in black white which is emotive for a person looking at the image as it has been drained of colour leaving a dark feeling, a sense of being scared and discomfort. The edge of the photo has been taken to leave the edges of the photo to have been under exposed and the middle of the photo to be more illuminated, forcing us (the viewer) to focus in in the subject.
The body language and the facial expressions of the patient in this photo shows sadness, discomfort and pain. With her body tucked into her and with her clutching her legs shows discomfort, it gives the impression that by her tucking in close to herself that she is trying to imitate human contact to comfort herself. When you investigate her face, you can see that she is showing pain, discomfort and sadness. The distance between the camera and the patient is quite small, showing that the relationship between Mark and the patients were very close, which helped allowed her to see the patients for their emotions instead of what they are labelled as in terms of behavior and mental health issues.
“As a joke,” says Mary Ellen Mark (above), “this patient came up and bit my nose.”
She is laughing in her bed, her limber arms wrapped about her.
“She was feeling lost, bewildered-just as any teenager sometimes does,” says Mary Ellen Mark of the young patient above.
Francesca Woodman was an American photographer who was known to incorporate the theory and idea of mental health into her work. She used herself as a model for most of her shoots, which allowed her to keep her style of photography and the incorporation of her mental health to be more personal than it would if she had used other models more frequently. Woodman used the technique of long exposure time, in order to create a warped and disappearing into the background effect, which created the effect of having a cluttered mind. There is something otherworldly about her images, silently haunting. Woodman herself suffered with mental health issues which in turn lead to the end of her early career and short life at the age of 22 when she committed suicide. Her images to lead up to her suicide, resemble that of an unhealthy mindset, with the beginning her posing for herself with clothes on and nude, and having other people pose in this way, but towards the end, they took a drastic change, to the use of the long exposure to create that warped effect.
Woodman was working within a tradition started by important surrealists such as Man Ray and Claude Cahun.
This image of a warped and ghostly figure sat falling on the floor can have the representation of what Woodman felt like (mentally). The broken/falling to pieces house and set up can be deemed as a representation to a mindset of being broken and falling apart. This would then have a personal relationship to Woodman as she can be showing the viewers how she feels mentally.
The use of the long exposure and having the model move during this time frame creates this ghostly figure that almost disappears into the setting and background, which creates a meaning of her deleting herself from memory, like her disappearing and no one being able to recognise who this figure is, much like at the scene of her suicide where she remained unrecognisable.
The image is in black and white which evokes a sad, lonely and depressed feeling towards the picture, especially in which it is set and the setting in which it is placed. The over exposed windows allow the room to be lit up and exposed to the camera, but it also adds the feeling of the background being harsh with this vivid lighting as if there is nothing outside. Whilst the long exposure allowed the ghostly figure from the moving model blend well into the background, the broken room was captured and looked a sharp image and had defined lines which allow the viewer to see the dimensions and the depth of the room.
The distance between the figure and the camera shows that the relationship may not have been as close between the camera and the figure, or the purpose of having this distance was to show the separation and distance between Woodman’s state of mind and life and how she may have tried to keep her worries and issues far away and not tackling them.
Both photographers Mary Ellen Mark and Francesca Woodman explored mental health issues in their work that they had created, Mark through showing the personalities and real emotions and expressions of the women who were institutionalised to the maximum-security section at the Oregon state hospital and Francesca through long shutter speeds to create a ghost-like figure illusion. Whilst both artists had a different approach to the topic of mental health, with Mark (not pointing out) the mental health issues with her subjects, but just taking photos of them in their physical state there and then, and Woodman using the pictures to try to convey and underlying sense of human fragility.
They both use black and white images to create a sense of sadness and depression, which really gives the images their emotion and where the viewers can understand the topic and the general emotion without needing to understand the story behind the photo.
In both images which I have analysed they backgrounds/surrounding rooms are simple and bland, which helps draw the focus to the main and most important part to the image which in both photos are the person which can be seen. Whilst both artists include a person but at different depths which could be due to the intense or lack of relationship between the model and photographer, they both have placed the model in the same place which is just over two thirds of the way across the picture, which limits the room that they take up allowing more background space, but this use of limiting how much foreground they take up increases how much the viewer is drawn to the figure.
A clear difference that can be seen within the photographs and general photographers work is that in Mark’s Ward 81 work is that she is always up close to her models due to the trust, respect and relationship that has been made and gained, but she is always focussed on the face and body language and general actions around her and the camera. This allowed her to explore the patient’s personality and how they really acted.
But Woodman would do a range of keeping the form of the figures shown in her photos to using the long exposure settings to create the in-humane like figures and forms, in order to create that feeling of being misplaced from humanity and slowly merging onto the background. Woodman also poses models nude in some of her photo shoots, which could represent not being held down by expectations. She used the photos to represent and show her mental health through the work of her photography. In many ways it was an explanation of herself, a form of therapy and catharsis.
In conclusion Francesca Woodman uses her point of view and her representations of mental health to present in her work, by exploring these ideas of disappearing into the background and being in places where the setting is falling apart, which represents an unstable mind, and the mindset of someone with these issues. Whereas Mary Ellen Mark explores mental health by placing herself in the shoes of the women in Ward 81, but instead of the models being put into positions and movements to symbolise their mental health, Mark allows them to be free with their movements to capture the real emotions of the ladies in Ward 81. Both artists show their own representations of what they feel mental health looks like, and both share similar ideas with using black and white to interpret darkness and gloom. Woodman creates moods by altering reality and not capture humans in their state of mental health, whereas Mark uses reality to show the effects of mental health issues on people, by photographing their faces and how they act daily, the reason for this, is Mark would have been sensitive to the codes of representation, standards and ethics that documentary photographers are bound to (hence why there is an anonymity with regards to their name and condition). To be able to touch our emotions as viewers, as an audience, we must be able to connect with these codes. In the form of a book we are able to immerse ourselves in the work in a quiet and private way, but viewing the work in a gallery space the work can take a shared and communal edge.
