For the first shoot in my personal study I decided to use low-key lighting to create the sense of being lost, as there is no clear mise-en-scene. I used a 24-105mm lens, but kept the focal length at 105mm for most of the photos as I liked the ‘flat’ look that it gave the images which a wider focal length would not have captured as well. I also used the widest aperture which was f/4 so I could play around with focus more in some of my images. Shutter speed was between 1/100 – 1/160 sec for most of my multiple exposures, and 8 seconds for the slow shutter speed images. In some ways this shoot was inspired by the work of Lief Sandberg, however I intend to make more of a response to his work in my 2nd photoshoot. However, I decided to use multiple exposures and slow shutter speeds in this shoot to create a slightly surrealist impression, and the low key, 1 point lighting only adds to the atmospheric feel that I was aiming to create. On top of this, it accurately represents the emotions that I wanted to get across in my original brief; that of depression, confusion and anger. This not only recreates the personal emotions and feelings that poor mental health can induce. Personally this shoot represents the stage of mental illness before getting help, when all of the emotions you feel start to boil over, and the pressure of not wanting to show “Weakness”.

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Elaine Constantine is a photographer and also a writer and director. She is famous for her colourful and vibrant photos that mainly feature confident women. She is known to shoot for Vogue, i-D, Vivienne Westwood and many other magazines and brands. I like Constantine's work because she captures females and bright and confident characters and I see many aspects of the females in her images that resonate with my younger sisters. 

I want to use Constantine's style in my own work to capture when they have fun and are having silly moments. The flash creates a contrast of the skin with the backgrounds and the bright colours of clothing eccentuates the emotions portrayed from the subjects. In my own photoshoots I will use the flash when taking the images and when I am manipulating the images I shall increase the vibrance and saturation to enhance the colours in the photos.

First things First: Gather old family photos!!

Plane ticket to the UK in the center of the book.

Shoot 1:

Observing family life (Dad) – Try and get snapshots of daily life. – just as i go

Concept:

• Dad doing bills?
• How the house looks as a single dad
• Maybe dad having one of his naps?
• Dad doing chores
• maybe re-enacting some photos
• portraits

Technical:

• Well lit
• candid – but not bad quality

Shoot 2:

Aesthetic Shoot – Try and get images that envoke feeling (in the style of Mateusz Sorello) – just as i go

• birds
• waves
• plants
• things that create a disjointed or lonely nature

Technical:

• flash
• grainy
• high clarity

Shoot 3:

Observing family life (Mum) – Try and get snapshots of daily life. – over new years

Concept:

• Housework
• How the house looks as a single mum
• re enacting childhood photos
• family life

Technical:

• Well lit
• candid – but not bad quality
• portraits

Shoot 4: 1st week back

• Revisiting places visited in family photos
• recreate

This shoot went quite successful. The main difficulty of the of the shoot was being careful when removing the make up of the doll with the nail varnish.

Daren You:

Daren You is a Chinese photographer currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has been published in Lens Culture Magazine, i-D, Der Greif Magazine, Phases Magazine and the official blog of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

His work focuses on chaos photography and unique processes to achieve his desired images with a sense of randomness linked to chaos photography itself.

Chaos Theory:

Chaos Photography:

One definition of chaos is when nonlinear things are impossible to predict and control. If law and order rule the universe, chaos, is the totally disorganized opposite of this.

Daren You has been exploring how to let images create themselves and avoid manipulation by photographers and cameras. For this series, he used several techniques (both historical and contemporary) to process the same image: reticulated film through a high temperature developing process, liquid emulsion, inkjet printing, darkroom printing and en-caustic painting. He then merged all these processes together by re shooting the images.

Daren You was curious about what the image will become after so many processes. The result is random, no one knows what it will look like. It is impossible to control the result by layering these processes on top of the same image, together. The dark tone in his images references the universe. It’s infinite and empty nature. When You chose his subject matter, he was looking for subjects with unpredictable elements: they’re unstable and disordered, like wind, clouds and water. Many systems that we live wit such as landscapes and trees, exhibit complex and chaotic behaviors. They are constantly in flux.

“How does photographing on film (or using your material photographic process of predilection) inform your artistic practice?“

“Gelatin silver print is still the best way in the world to present black and white photographs; it has the tones and the texture that you can’t get from the digital print. That’s the main reason why I use black and white film. I also enjoy the random visual effects that created during the time of processing. Sometimes your room is not clean enough; you can see the ash marks on your negatives, which reminds me that I exist in a physical world rather than a cold digital world. Sometimes you didn’t adjust your processing temperature very well; you will see the reticulated grains and uneven gray tones in your photographs, they all created different kinds of beauty.”

https://www.lensc

For my Personal Investigation I intend to create a photo-book which is centered around specific people in my life and what makes them an individual, I want this to also center around the theme of youth culture. Each section of my book will be about one person and their features/interests and things that make them who they are, I want to include the stereo-typically non attractive of a young person’s being. Things like: scars, tattoos, teeth, eyes. Things that are unique to them. I also just want candid shots of their faces/bodies just doing everyday things.

Context that everything will be changing soon in our lives and the photo-book is about a brief moment in time and how we were at this age, clothes we wore, what we looked like etc, things that used to interest us.I also would like to take a multi media approach where I am going to have my photos developed and later paint and write over them in different ways which relate to my project.

-artists references: Ed Templeton – mixing art with photography on print outs – draws on photos. to talk about: litmus tests, teenage smokers etc, Jim Goldberg.

For my first photo shoot I will photograph three people wearing multiple sets of clothes. However, they will all be wearing the same outfits; which will be a variation of bright, high-end clothing, and more monotone worn-out clothing. I will also encorporate elements of tableaux in this photo shoot by telling the models to have positive facial expressions and body language whilst wearing bright clothing, and the opposite whilst wearing the darker clothing. I will also edit some of the portraits together into a composite image. More specifically I will combine the portraits of each of the models wearing the same outfit, to create a sort of group photo of them all dressed identically.

Although composite portraiture is normally used in large group portraits, I will use it in my much smaller group of models as I only have one of each outfit, so having everyone wear it simultaneously is impossible.

So far within my project I have achieved two shoots/experiments involving portraits and personal archival imagery. Over the next couple weeks I will expand on these ideas and create more complex montages inspired by Kensuke Koike and continue mt theme of destruction and erasure of identity. I also intent to do more full length shots so that I have a variety of images but they all correlate to the idea of personal identity.

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I will do a series of fashion shoots with 2 distinct styles. Half of the shoots will consist of bright bold colours, with positive connotations. Whereas the other half will be more monotone and serious. The bright shoots will also feature brand name clothing and other elements which can show social status. While the darker shoots will feature lower-end clothing, possibly worn, which will help capture the serious and joyless perspective.

• ‘Judging a book by its cover’ we judge people by their appearance.
• Can the way we dress affect our self-confidence.
• Buying clothes for other people’s approval rather than your own.

Plans for my photoshoots

2 photoshoots before the Christmas holiday:

• I will be taking images of my family here in Jersey at our home. I want to focus specifically on my Aunt and Uncle who are the ones who offered me a place to stay when I moved over to Jersey, and I want to be able to try and portray how my relationship with them has changed since September 2018, which is when I first moved over to Jersey. I’d like to try and take images with Polaroids to try and capture the authentic effect it gives the image. Polaroids tend not to change any of the details and cannot be edited by editing programs such as Photoshop, so it captures the moment as it is, and that’s the type of effect i’d like to add to my work. If using Polaroids doesn’t turn out the way i’d like it to then i’ll switch to a normal digital camera.
• The second photo shoot I plan to take if of the family as a whole who live in my house. I currently live with my aunt and uncle and my aunt’s parents, so i’d like to photograph them all together, mainly at dinner or when sitting in the living room, as this is when we are all usually together and talking.

2 photoshoots during the Christmas holiday:

• Since all of my family is coming over and spending Christmas in Jersey, I have the opportunity to take pictures of both my family in London and my family in Jersey together in one room. I will be planning to take images during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, when everyone will be eating and spending time together. This will also capture the close relationship my family has despite living in different places. I will also try and take these images in Polaroids however if it doesn’t end up working out then I will switch to a normal digital camera.
• I will be going to London the weekend before Christmas so I have a chance to photograph my family and their lives in London to compare to my family in Jersey. I want to mainly focus on my mother and younger brothers who I lived in a house with until I moved over to Jersey at 16, and I want to photograph their life in London since I have left. I also want to focus on my Grandparents, who are also a huge influence in my life. Like my other photoshoots I plan to use Polaroids, however I will switch to a digital camera if need be.