On the 10th of september 2020, 6pm at ‘Havre Des Pas’ on the pier I am going to take photos of my sister ‘Nadia’ for my environmental portrait assignment.
I have used my sister because she has been there for me through everything. Nadia and I’s age gap is 11 yrs her turning 28 in a couple days and I being 17. Out of my whole family her and I have the strongest bond and growing up together meant we faced every difficulty with one another which helped form the current bond we share.
I chose this specific location because this is one of the locations where she used to take me as a little kid whenever we were both stressed out with home life, school or her job and spend time together just having a laugh and a good time.
I would like for the out come of the images to be moderately bright background with little to no bright colours for example white’s browns some dark-ish blues and then my sister in a bright cheery outfit in the center of the images for her to be the main focus of the photo.
PLANNING: Write a specification that provide an interpretation and plan of how you intend to explore A Love Story. This must include at least 3 photoshoots you will be doing in the next 2-3 weeks (these could include photo-assignments). How do you want your images to look and feel like? Include visual references to artists/photographers in terms of style, approach, intentions, aesthetics concept and outcome. Remember the final outcome is a 16 page photo-zine so you will need to edit a final series of 12-16 images that sequenced together as a set forms a narrative that visualises your love story.
STORY: What is your love story? Describe in:
Love and insomnia.
Love, heartbreak, self love a personal story about my best friends and how we grew apart.
A story about a young girls relationship with two boys that have some dark moments, filled with tears, happy moments, good memories and love showing how she dealt with losing both her best friend. Stumbling through life with a smile on her face ignoring and hiding the pain.
NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?
Images > new photographic responses, photo-shoots recreation of moments in the story.
Archives > old photos from family albums, iPhone
Texts > letters, documents, poems, text messages, words with meaning.
AUDIENCE: Who is it for?
Most image makers tend to overlook the experience of the viewer. Considering who your audience is and how they may engage with your photo-zine is important factor when you are designing/ making it.
Reflect and comment on this in your specification (age group, demographic, social/ cultural background etc.
In the first edit I used ‘p’ and ‘x’ to filter through 120 photographs I flagged 34 images. I then went onto rating the photos 5 star meaning ‘yes’ 4 star meaning ‘maybe‘. After Rating the photos I went onto colour coding and selecting which ones I would consider my final edits. From them edits I look more closely at them and compare two photos to get the final edit.
I used the auto option on the tone in lightroom I darkened the corners by ‘-20’ so that it could focus more on the person.
In total there were 206 photos I had to filter through them I used a system of red, green and orange: no, yes and maybe.
sheet 1sheet 2sheet 3sheet 4sheet 5sheet 6
as there were so many I then went ahead and made another set of contact sheets of the possible outcomes and narrowed it down even more to 175 possible photos that could be used to creat a final piece/oieces.
The screenshots above are a selection from the original 700 that I decided to continue working with, many of the images I didn’t select were either doubles of other images, or had an issue with the ISO or blur that I didn’t like, or they were simply not the sort of pictures I was going for. I ended up having 50 images in Lightroom at this stage.
The next stage was to go through and flag the images using the SHIFT+P/X shortcut depending on my gut reaction. Then I gave all the ones I flagged as “keep” a star rating from 3-5, 3 being the lowest.
I put the remaining images through another rating process using the Colour Label function, (green=keep yellow=maybe red=reject). I based this on how much the individual image worked with the others as a set and also how much I felt it kept with my original idea for the narrative I’m planning.
Next, I added a filter to only see green images on my screen in order to have a better idea of the set of photos I was working with. I decided to look through the images again and double check ratings, re-evaluate and change any ratings if necessary, and ended up moving two images out of the “green” category and into the “yellow”, leaving me with my final nine pictures and allowing me to start developing those images.
Below is a specification that provides an interpretation and plan of how I intend to explore A Love Story. This will include at least 3 photoshoots that I will complete in the next 2-3 weeks. It was also explain how I want my images to look and feel, including visual references to artists/photographers in terms of style, approach, intentions, aesthetics concept and outcome. The final outcome will be a 16 page photo-zine, sequenced together as a set forms a narrative that visualises my love story.
STORY: Loving His Life (Are You Loving Life?)
Photographing what my Dad loves in life and how he has grown to admire it.
This love story will show my dad learning to admire the things he loves and how he finds beauty with the things that surround him. The lack of love they’ve previously been shown will encourage them to excel in what they want to achieve as well as, finding love in the life they’re living. This will also link into mental health and how my Dad has improved his well being, as finding things that he loves and cares about contributes to his quality of life. By learning to enjoy the finer things in life and then looking at the grand scheme of things, it’s possible to have more of a passion for smaller details in life and find more tranquility.
Planning
Photoshoot 1 – In this photoshoot I’m going to take photos of my Dad in his music studio, whilst he’s playing the guitar. I’ll take the photograph near the window so hopefully sun will shine through window so I’ll have good lighting. He’ll be sitting on a red stool to relate to the them of love and I’ll take photos of him looking out the window and look down at his guitar. This is to show his love for music.
Photoshoot 2 – In my final part of my zine I’ll have archives my dad from when he was younger from when he used to play in his band.
Rinko Kawauchi tries to let the observer see the patterns in life the way she sees it through the camera lens. She tries to admire the finer things in life and make the imperfections seem beautiful.
Finding hidden meanings in life, as well as observing certain parts of my Dad’s life, may allow him to discover metaphors that relate to the life he’s living. Similarly to how someone may listen to lyrics only to realize that the words link into their own lives. Most people can relate to a song just like most people can find their own meaning and representation in a photo.
Jim Goldberg shows hidden meanings in daily life, but instead of getting the viewer to discover that for themselves he writes it straight onto the photograph so it’s obvious what is happening in the models life.
I will be photographing close up parts of the things my Dad cherishes life, so they can be interpreted in their own way. I will try to discover patterns in his life and try to find imperfections. Some of my photography will revolve around Wabi Sabi by showing that love has imperfections. I will also be taking close up photos of the things that he loves in life and showing the bigger picture after taking a close up photo.
WABI SABI – The view or thought of finding beauty in every aspect of imperfection in nature. It is about the aesthetic of things in existence, that are “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
AUDIENCE: Anyone and Everyone
The different stages of my photo shoots will relate to different people, as some of the things that my Dad loves, someone else may be able to have the same passion and admiration; someone may be happy with someone they’re with and be happy with the life they’re living; someone may love a certain hobby; someone could be slowly finding a new love in their life, whether it’s a person or they find something they love as a hobby or something that brings them happiness in another way e.g. someone may love being surrounded by nature. These different things in life that my Dad loves will be shown in my photo shoots; music/guitars.
