RICHARD BILLINGHAM is an English photographer but was first a painter. His photographs, of his parents in their tower story block, were discovered by one of his teachers in his university room. His photos mainly consisted of documenting his parents relationship, his dads battle with alcohol consumption and his mums addiction with puzzles. BILLINGHAM has also made many short films, the most recent being, Ray and Liz, which told his childhood story.

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The colours in the image are very bright and saturated. Overall the image is very light and airy, and there isn’t a very large tonal range, as there are mostly only light tones and near to no dark tones, except BILLINGHAMs’ dads jeans. There are various different types of textures within this image, such as the carpet, the tiles on the wall and the wooden door. The linear aspects direct the eye to the figure in the image, this aspect is very clever and means the viewer is instantly drawn into the image. RICHARD BILLINGHAMs’ dad struggled with alcholism, so the image clearly shows how bad his situation was. This image is clearly not staged but documentative.

How Do I Want It To Look/Feel?

I want my zine to look dark and almost have a depressive feel to it so that the audience can potentially relate to my work. Dark colours such as purples, blacks, grey’s etc would be best to create that dark tone. I may even turn my images black and white to enhance that depressive tone that I’m going for, however I will look at this when it comes to my experimentation.

Format Size and Orientation

I would like my images to bleed out to the edges of the book so that there is no white margin around the edges. I’d like to do this because I feel like it is more appealing to the eye and I also feel as though it makes the image a lot bolder and more appealing to look at. My images will be portrait on the pages so that the audience doesn’t need to turn the book around in order to look at the images and so that everything is the exact same.

Narrative and Visual Concept

So, my narrative is; revealing my true emotions within my relationship. emotions such as, insecurity, low self esteem, paranoia etc. However, I am going to be comparing these images that symbolize my emotions to the good times that happen within my relationships. I have taken two photo shoots, one symbolizes the happy times and the other symbolizes the sad times. The way I’m going to show this is; on the double page spreads, I will put one image of our happy side and next to it, to add juxtaposition, the sad times that we have. The photographs I have decided, will be in black and white, just to add the tone of sadness a bit more.

This is what I mean by juxtaposing the images. So, as you can see, there is a happy, sentimental moment on the right, and on the left there is a not so happy, depressing image on the right to show the struggles that come with relationships.

Title and Captions

The title for my love story is DISQUIETUDE – this means a state of uneasiness or anxiety, which essentially is the narrative to my story. I THINK, somewhere I will put a piece of text explaining my emotions if i have room – I will have to look into this a bit more. Although the text will be quite ambiguous so that it’ll leave the audience open for interpretation.

Front and Back Cover

I want my front and back covers to be quite plain, I don’t want anything overshadowing the story that’s inside. Maybe a plain black or grey to compliment the images inside and to add the somber tone, I feel as though a plain and simple front cover sometimes can also intrigue the audience a bit more. My title ‘DISQUIETUDE’ will most probably be in white writing to stand out from the dark tones behind, the font is to be decided.

This is what I’ve finally decided for my front cover. It is all black to set the tone and to make the title stand out. I chose a font that I liked and one that is easily read, with a touch of edge to make it aesthetically pleasing.

Now that I have my selection of images that I’ve gone through to double check and am happy with, I can move on to developing them in the same style as the others. They don’t require much work at this stage, only switching them to black and white and slightly adjusting them so that they are the most visually pleasing that they can be.

I chose this image because it was a nice portrait and I knew I didn’t already have any portraits of this person in the zine, I like the fact that it’s his profile instead of face on; I think that makes it more interesting. I think the lighting makes his earring stand out and the light coming in from the windows makes for a nice backdrop. It’s also quite clear that it’s a coffee shop, because of the writing in the windows, which adds to the narrative.

This is a posed portrait instead of a candid like most of the rest of my images, and I especially like how the brickwork comes through quite strongly in the background because it adds some character. I think the way that her eyes are very clear draws the onlooker’s eyes into the centre of the image, and I also think her facial expression is fairly enigmatic/neutral.

I quite like the framing of this image and how the main subject isn’t entirely centre-frame and that it’s at a slight angle ; it’s clear she’s looking at someone else which makes this photo feel slightly intrusive and as though we’re disturbing a private conversation. This image turned out darker than the rest of them, but I think that works because it shows a different viewpoint of the shop and adds some differentiation between the images.

I especially like this image because, unlike the others, it isn’t an individual portrait and shows a more candid and natural interaction between friends. The body language shows intimacy and how they’re comfortable around each other, and I believe it worked particularly well in black and white as well.

Overall, I think the final selection of images are going to work quite well with the others, and with the narrative as a whole that I’m planning. If I had to change anything, I would maybe try for some more images from different angles, like form behind or from above/below, but I also think that the images I actually have are a success. Below are all of the images in their finished state :

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-A noun meaning to have an intense feeling of deep affection; or a great interest and pleasure in something.

To me love means showing affection in a subtle or subtle way, platonic or not. This can be shown in multiple ways, physically; hugging, kissing; through speech, being vulnerable and remembering little things about each other

5 Ways to Capture Love in Photography

I used the same process as with my last set of images, starting off importing them all into Lightroom and using that to sort through them.

After that I flagged the ones I wanted to keep, remembering that I only had a limited amount of images left in my zine, so I was a lot more critical. I started off with roughly 140 images, so a lot less than my first shoot, and after flagging I ended up with 12.

I then used the colour label feature and gave the remaining images either red, yellow, or green. After adding a filter so I could only see the yellow and green ones, I went through them again and re-evaluated to see if I had mislabeled any.

At this stage, I had 4 final images that I liked and believed would work well after editing in the same way as the others, and was ready to move into the developing stage in Lightroom.

Henry Mullins – Historic

Henry Mullins first started working 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s, but then moved to the island of Jersey in 1848. Here he worked in a studio called the “Royal Saloon” at 7 Royal Square. He was in fact the first professional photographer to come to Jersey and found his business in portraiture in the very beginnings of photography his portraits would go for “a fee of five guineas”.

His specialty was “cartes de visite” as the archive contains 9600 photographs which are generally broken down into 16 sets of photographs taken in a single sitting.

Arnold Newman – Contemporary

Arnold Abner Newman, born in March 3rd, 1918 is professional American photographer which was known for his “Environmental Portraits” which he has photographed many artists and politicians. He focused on the idea that an image “must still excite and intrest the viewer”. Here he found his passion through the “empathy he felt for artists and their work.

His work is very particular as he worked close to the environmental theme by “carefully framed and lit setting, and its contents, to symbolise the individual’s life and work”. Newman took his last portrait in 2005 of James “Jimmy” Burrows at the NBC studios; he later dies in June 2006.

Image Analysis

STILL TO COMPLETE

Photoshoot Plan

LOCATION: I will be taking photos in Zita’s environment, so places such as her home, the drama and music studios, our school. I will be using artificial light either from school lighting or with flash.

MODEL: I will be using my friend zita for all the shots.

FRAMING: I will be doing full body shots and then upper body shots, here I will experiment with different angles such as low angles to look powerful and normal eye level shots.

LIGHTING: I will generally be taking photos inside so by using artificial lighting such as the school room lights or with a flash; however when taking photos outside I will be taking photos with natural daylight lighting.

For this project I decided to dedicate it to my friend Zita, Here i wanted to show her in her own environment of her home, and school subjects that she likes, I tried to be creative with the editing styles but also stuck with some historical looking images

Edited Outcomes

This has to be my favourite image of the whole shoot as I think the black and white is striking and works well to make this image look high quality and professional, this shows Zita in her environment of her garden and I think gives zita power and she looks strong and confident. i think this matches Arnold Newmans work and it shows my model in their environment and confident, it is also a formal portrait as she knew I was taking this picture of her.

These two images is what I came out with from the historic shoot I tried to mimic henry Mullins images with the set up and the use of drapy fabric matches the curtains used in his images. I also added grain to help add a more vintage look to the image

For these last two images I tried experimenting with different effect, for both images I worked with mirrors for reflection.; but in image one I added a out of focus image to the background to create an interesting frame; and in the second image I blacked out the background to help put Zita as the focus of the image.

Artist Inspirations

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For this shoot, I wanted to capture the idea of friendship further by getting a group of mine and Zitas friends together in the studio. I used pink gel lighting to help tie in with the idea of love.

Photoshoot Plan

• LOCATION:At school, in the studio, using artificial lighting such asring lights and normal LED lights with a pink gel cover; using a white backdrop to contrast against everyone’s black clothing
• MODEL: I will be using our group of friends including zita and I
• POSING: I will, be using both informal and formal shots to use which are better to there for create some candid and other formal shots

Edited Outcomes

I like the formal arrangement in this image, however I could never get the editing quite right due to the lighting in this picture so it came out a bit too dark for my liking. I think the fact that the group is wearing black but me and Zita are wearing colours works as it makes Zita and I stand out linking back to our friendship but still showing our relations with other people.

I really like this image as it captures the fun side of our friendship group and successfully captures a candid and happy side to us.

I like this image as it’s more intimate but still shows our friendship through the use of the pinky promise as it shows our trust we have for each other.

I also like this final image as it shows Zita’s joy in hugging me and our happiness when together as friends.