1.What has inspired me from the personal investigation. (Themes, tasks, photos, film, documentary, tableaux)

During the personal investigation of the theme Love and Rebellion, there were many areas which I enjoyed and inspired me. I really enjoyed creating the zine and it inspired me to look more into my own family specifically my Dad and my Grandad. I have really enjoyed the documentary side of the project and I have been inspired to do more documentary photography and start my own personal projects. I also really enjoyed making the short film. It forced me to get out and do things that were out of my comfort zone. I developed in my skills as I was forced to act quick to get a capture a certain moments. I was pleased with the results and our group worked well.

2. Examples of work from the project

The zine:

The 90 second film:

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/b87b8553-e3d3-48e1-944c-3fe27b8c1ae2

3. Mind Map / Moodboard of Love & Rebellion with new inspirations

4. Initial Statement of Intent

I plan to investigate the motoring heratige of my family. In particular my Dad, Uncle and Aunts and both my Grandfathers. I plan to make a photo book looking at the 3 generations of my family on both sides of the family and their involvement with different forms of motoring, whether it is mechanics, racing, world record or just hobbies. During this project I hope to learn more about my Grandfathers, who they were and the legacy they left behind. Both of my Grandad’s died, 1 of which I do not remember, and I therefore want learn more about them. I am going to investigate them my speaking to my Nan and Gran about their husbands and the fascination they had with engines, cars and bikes.

5. Possible Shoots

I already have a plan for a couple shoots to do with this project. I am going to use the photos I have already taken of my dad in the garage as part of ‘his’ section of the book, but them I am going expand and explore as I take more photos to develop the project further.

DAD

WHAT: I want to show the contrast in my Dad’s life between his love for motoring and his ‘office’ jobs. I am going to document him working at his office and preaching as he is one of the lead pastors at Freedom Church. I plan to do a lot of environmental portraits accompanied by some candid images.

WHERE/WHEN: In his office in freedom centre, on the roof and the building site that is freedom centre (the old odeon cinema). I will probably do this when he has finished work around 5 o’clock but this doesn’t matter hugely as I will be shooting inside with artificial lights apart from the shots from the roof or outside the centre.

EQUIPMENT/HOW: I plan to use my Sony A73 with my sigma 35mm 1.4 as it has a wide aperture so is good in low light as I will be shooting inside. By using an aperture of around f2 – f2.8 I can get. some background blur which helps to isolate the subject. I probably won’t use a tripod as I don’t like using them and I have quite steady hands, I am also more free to move without one and it will save time. For lighting, I will try and use natural light where possible for example window lighting, however I might resort to using my Godox Sl60w constant LED light with a softbox if the natural lighting is not sufficient and I can create whatever kind of look I want.

PAPA (Dad’s dad)

WHAT: As my Dad’s dad has past away I am limited to what I can capture. Therefore I am going to ask my gran for old pictures of my papa, especially ones with cars or motorbikes and digitise them. There is also some footage of a car breaking a speed world record that my grandad worked on which I could take screen grabs of and layout in a sequence.

WHERE/WHEN: In the next few weeks I am going t

EQUIPMENT:

PAPA (Mum’s Dad)

WHAT: Take some images of his garage where he kept his mini, the trophies and stuff he won. I want to take his mini out to a spot along St Ouens bay to get some nice images of it at sunset and also some interior shots.

WHERE/WHEN: I want to take these photos down at St Ouens bay or around L’Etack/Gronez Cliff Path area as this is where the sun sets. This will provide nice soft lighting for the shots of the exterior and interior of the car.

EQUIPMENT: I may use a tripod for this as it will be getting darker and darker so I can stable the shot so I can have longere. shutter and reduce the ISO. I will most likely use my 35mm f1.4 with my Sony A73 for the wide shots of the car and either my 50mm f1.8 or 70-200 f2.8 for the interior shots of the car. I will probably shoot at the widest aperture possible as this will let in lots of light and make the subjects pop especially the interior shots.

Aunty Tammy + Uncle John

CONTEXT: Both My Mums sister and her husband are into motorsport specifically motorbike racing. Every Year they go the Isle of Man to watch the famous TT which is an incredibly dangerous road race where track racers from around the world come to prove themselves. They also enjoy watching other bike racing, they regularly watch me racing motocross and when away on holiday they try and go to a motorbike race of any type. Also their youngest son Ikey who is 3 years old has shown an extreme interest in motorbikes. For his birthday he got a little electric bike with all the motocross kit. He also often comes to watch me race and isn’t fazed by the loud bikes which is usually rare for a child his age.

WHAT: Therefore for this shoot I want to get some environmental portraits of my Aunty, Uncle and kids wearing their TT merchandise. I also want to capture them watching motosport on TV.

EXAMPLES:

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THEMES-

Over the course of the various Love and Rebellion projects I explored several different themes, including:

• home
• family
• self-love, self acceptance
• platonic vs romantic love
• youth/adolescence
• isolation + loneliness
• anti-art

I also did a lot of research on the subthemes of racism and colonialism; how they came about, historical events that were caused or affected by them, how they impacted Jersey, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

MEDIUM-

• still photography
• film/moving images

I used still photography for my photo zine and in some parts of my film project, however the majority of my film is made up of moving images. I preferred using moving images for the film because I felt it made it more dynamic and engaging, however I do also generally like still photography for the rest of my projects.

APPROACHES-

I tried to use a variety of approaches, including:

• candid
• environmental
• portrait
• documentary
• monochrome
• colour

I think using different approaches through different projects is beneficial because it allows you as a photographer to develop your own persona; style as well as develop your skills. I used a candid and documentary-style approach in my photo zine in order to fit with the theme of “capturing moments in time”, which worked very well in my opinion. I’ve experimented with either monochrome or colour in all of the projects in “Love and Rebellion”, and decided on which way to go depending on the theme/subject, the artists I was inspired by, as well as how good it looked visually.

ARTISTS-

I studied many different artists, not all of them photographers but all of them using a variety of different styles and approaches.

• Claude Cahun- French photographer who took mainly self-portraits revolving around her gender identity/self-expression; she was a pioneer in the Surrealist art movement and a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of Jersey
• Alec Soth- American portrait photographer, does lots of environmental photographs of people from different backgrounds; contemporary work, often colourful, bright and natural
• Laia Abril- documented the after-effects of death within a family, themes of grief, eating-disorders, recovery and family; published in a photobook called “The Epilogue”
• Shannon O’Donnell- contemporary photographer focusing on gender roles/identity, questioning authority figures; often uses film/moving images as a medium
• Carrie Mae Weems- American photographer focused on the “human experience” as well as issues facing black people in society and her own struggle with personal identity
• Banksy- world-famous anonymous street artist, often his work is very political and rebellious and uses a very distinctive stenciling technique

SKILLS-

I also learnt how to use a few new pieces of software:

• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe InDesign

In my film, I use Premiere Pro as well as Lightroom to edit the footage and put it all together. For my zine I made good use of Lightroom to select the right images and edit them, then put the actual zine together on InDesign.

Additionally, I improved my Photoshop skills by using it throughout all of my projects.

PAST PROJECTS-

Overall I have two final products on the theme of “Love and Rebellion” : a short film and a photo-zine.

The photo-zine came from the prompt title “A Love Story” and focuses on the sub-themes of youth, friendship, home and family. I was inspired by a past student’s work as well as the photographer Laia Abril. The images are mainly unplanned and candid, with a few staged portraits, mixing between images of individuals and group photos. My intention was to represent how close-knit young friendship groups can be and present a fairly ambiguous story of platonic love, as well as document my own friends and my youth. Specific aspects of this project I enjoyed and want to continue using is the candid style of the images, as well as the generic themes of youth and non-romantic love, because I feel like romantic love is used very often in photography and non-romantic forms of love can be so much more interesting and original.

The second project I worked on in “Love and Rebellion” was a 90-ish second film that I made with a group, called “Some Sunny Day”. Our starting themes were anti-art, risk and the absurd, which we linked to the island’s covid-19 lockdown, young people’s response to it, along with Jersey’s historic occupation during the Second World War. We filmed all of the footage in a trip to an isolated bunker left over from the Occupation and incorporated a quote from a popular war song of the era, “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn (which is where the title comes from). Another key part of the film was our soundscape which was mainly made up of a homemade recording of a radio announcement made in early March explaining the first lockdown. We are all quite pleased with the end-result, and I particularly like how the medium of a film allowed us to incorporate sound and more emotion, as well as making a clearer narrative, which is why I think I am going to make another short film for my Personal Study.