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Here are my photos, taken with the theme of transition in mind. Inspired by Pablo Iglesias Maurer’s work on transition of buildings and places through time, I used the Jerripedia’s archive of “coloured 1950s photos” to compare and contrast the changes through time, highlighting the transition in each of my edited photographs. The photos include locations such as St Helier harbour, most notably the old harbour, as well as Greve De Lecq, Bouley Bay, L’Etacq and Rozel. These are well renowned Jersey beauty spots, some of which haven’t changed what so ever in the past 70 years, as evident in some of the photos. This appeals to conservationist and conservative views, which dislike change and aim to preserve history, and how things used to be. The only real transition we can see with ease, is in the first two photographs of St Helier’s old harbour, where the development of high-income residential property and the construction of many large office buildings can easily be observed.

Pablo Iglesias Maurer is an author/photographer based in Washington DC. He is best known for his work photographing abandoned places and empty dilapidated spaces, mentioning how it was a hobby since he was a kid who would often find himself walking down railroad tracks and/or exploring buildings that he claims often had a “pull” to him, a sense of curiosity.

He has captured abandoned theatres, churches he’s and shopping malls. One of his more famous work was when he did an article, documenting through his photography the deterioration and eventual demolition of on the Pontiac Silverdome stadium in Michigan, USA.

Not long ago an old matchbook laying on photographer Pablo Iglesias Maurer‘s desk caught his eye. Or rather, it was the postcard-like picture on it, of a resort complex built in the 1960s. It got Pablo wondering how the place looked now, and the answer has led him to make an amazing photo series called ‘Abandoned States‘. The picture came with the title How to Run A Successful Golf Course, but when Maurer got to the place, it was clear the owner of Penn Hills Resort didn’t follow that advice. He pointed the camera at the decaying building at roughly the same spot and did a ‘5-decades-after’ shot of the place. Ever since then, Pablo was hooked. He ordered more 60s postcards from eBay and started going around the country capturing these once beautiful buildings that now stand abandoned only as faint memories of what once was…

Using these antique photos, Maurer then hunted down the original locations and created before-and-after comparisons. Each of the abandoned places and rooms that Maurer explored had its own personal significance to Maurer, he explained, but one room in particular seemed to resonate more than the others.

Maurer enjoys exploring abandoned places. He says his method for finding forgotten structures is simply to get in his car and drive. While exploring an abandoned office at the former Penn Hills Resort, he found a matchbook with a picture of an indoor swimming pool on the cover. Exploring the resort further, he was able to find the angle at which the original photo was taken, align his camera, and capture the same image decades later, similarity to what I want to replicate to somewhat degree in my own project.

“I came up with the idea to find other ephemera from that era. I picked up postcards from eBay and area antique shops”

“The bowling alley,” he says, was an attraction in the Homowack lodge in the Catskills. “I was there on Christmas day when my family was out of town, and I had nothing to do. I went up there and bowled. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life… It felt like it had been recently lived in.”

Since publishing his work, Maurer has received emails and messages from people who say they once spent their summers in these broken-down resorts.

Overall sound of the film

The sound in this film consisted of 3 main sections: Music, Sound Design and the Voice over. I feel that with these things carefully recorded and constructed together the overall audio of the piece effectively emmerses the viewer in the film they are watching.

Music:

for music I picked a track from a music licencing company I subscribe to called artlist, the song is called ‘Do You Remember?’ by Dear Gravity. I felt that this song would fit the mood of the film that I had envisioned for the piece. I also like the way the song fitted with the voice over and complimented what he was saying in a powerful and effective way. I did have to alter it slightly, the song was too short so I cut the song in an appropriate place looking at the waveform and then copied the second half of the song and added it on. I tried to line up the two audio tracks the best I could so the transition was as seamless as possible, then I used a constant power audio transition to join the clips so the transition was unknoticable.

Sound Design:

I added some some sound design to the surfing and cycling clips to make the film more immersive. For the surfing I added some sounds of waves (purple clips) from epidemic sound. I matched the sounds I was hearing with the visuals on screen. I added fade using keyframes to each sound clip to introduce and fade the sounds away seamlessly. For the cycling clips I used some of the original audio from the clips as they already sounded good, but for some of the clips I reused some of the cycling and road sounds from other clips I recorded. I also added a fade to the beginning and end of the clips to seamlessly bring them in. For some of the cycling clips you can also see the sea on screen so I included both the road and cycling sounds as well as the waves.

Voice over:

Because I wanted there to be a face to the voice over, I filmed my dad saying the voice over as well as recording audio. For the audio, I used a rode lav mic which I clipped onto dad’s shirt close to his mouth. By getting the mic as close to the mouth as possible it means that you can reduce the gain of the audio and reduce the background noise. I plugged the mic into my phone and used an app call Ferite to control the audio gain to get the best results. I did not do much editing to the sound as it was high enough quality straight away.

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Software and General Overview

To edit this film, I used Adobe Premiere Pro. I have used this editing software before to edit film so I was familiar with all the basic tools which made the task a lot easier. I used my basic story board help me put a rough edit together. To start with, I cut up the voice over, cutting out any bits I didn’t want to include and cut it up and spaced out where I felt there was a natural pause or change of subject. On the top row of tracks are some titles that I put in to help me pace out the film. These rough titles as well as the spaced out voice over helped me to start adding relevant clips in the different sections and beginning to build a story. From their I worked on each section of the film working on perfecting the vibe and pace by slowing down certain clips for a desired effect or making some clips shorter of longer.

EXPERIMENTING

Mask Transition

I learned how to and implemented a mask transition in my film with the intent of adding some extra details to show a higher professional level of editing and make the film more engaging. In this case, the mask transition occurs when a woman walks across the whole screen, as she walks across she reveals the next clip.

To make the transition. I had to go frame by frame and create a mask around her back, which moves every frame. As the scene develops the mask follows her back and gradually reveals the whole scene.

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Shooting In S-Log

When filming most of the clips, I shot in the S-Log 2 setting on my sony a73. This helps to keep more dynamic range by capturing the image in a flat profile. The reason for doing this is to try and preserve the highlights and able more flexibility when colour grading. This was essential and really helpful when filming at sunset because I retain a lot more detail and information in the sky which is full of colour as the sun is setting.

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Pre covid sequence

This sequence early on in the film I wanted to make to accompany the definition of freedom being said voice over. I felt that when describing freedom, I should accompany that with visuals relating to the freedom we had before covid. In this case I used archive footage I had taken before lockdown at the end of 2019 and early 2020 at my Church (Freedom Church).

The track of blue clips is the ‘pre covid’ church sequence. I started the sequence with medium length clips of singers, preachers, church services and people talking and praying. I gradually made next clip on shorter and shorter until it built up to a rapid montage of shots which culminated with a blank screen to signify the end of that ‘era’. The work ‘Limitations’ is heard and then an clip of a mask on the floor is seen on screen to signify the removal of freedom and the voiceover goes on to speak about Covid. I decided to ad a high contrast black and white colour grade to the ‘pre covid sequence’ I felt that this helps to separate it and helps the viewer understand that this was before covid.

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Ending sequence

The ending sequence from around 4:58 till the end is my favourite part of the film and the part I am most proud of. Once edited together, the ending sequence was exactly like the idea in my head and I feel I successfully executed it. The sequence consists of the voice over concluding and bringing a close to film speaking about the limitations of covid and the freedom of Jesus. The voice over is supported by relevant visuals of the surfer, cyclist and person walking gradually stopping what they are doing and taking the time to watch the Church online service where they are enjoying God’s amazing creations, nature. The visual are accompanied on screen by visual text on the screen of what is being heard in the voice over. At this stage the music is also getting slower and coming to a close which helps the viewer to feel that the piece is coming to an end.

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I like the contrast of colours in this shoots and the way that the light was coming through the trees as well as the way it was hitting the lease as it made a cool streaking affect. I also tried to make the footage more slow to have a more cinematic affect.

I was more inspired to make the footage more colourful which was inspired by specific photographers. A photographer that explores limitations, escapism and surrealism within reality is KangHee Kim. Kim studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, graduating in 2014. It wasn’t until her senior year that she began using photography as a creative outlet, enjoying the freedom that came with the minimal equipment required. One of her ongoing series, Street Errands, began in 2016 and was born out of the mundane daily encounters of living in New York. “I realized, instead of waiting for miracles, I could instead create the magical moments in my imagination,” Kim says. “I construct my own form of escapism.” To create these photographs, she uses Photoshop to merge and manipulate multiple images from her travels in New York, California, Colorado, and Hawaii. Rather than preplan the scenes, Kim lets intuition guide her – creating cohesion with a uniform aesthetic and colour palette, and the returning motifs of moons, clouds, oceans, and skyscrapers.

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Editing and Experimenting

I was trying to make the greens more vibrant than any other colour and I did this by using the colour wheel and singling out the colour and dulling out the other colours. Whilst editing the saturation, shadows, highlight etc, I put an adjustment layer over the entire film and then individually edited the clips if they needed to be slightly more saturated or needed more contrast. For some of the clips I used the pen tool to mask the main focus of the clip as my camera wouldn’t allow me to adjust the depth of field too much whilst I was filming. I used the pipet tool to select the colour I wanted protect from the areas that weren’t masked e.g. my skin tones would be selected and I would add more to the different tones so all of my body was selected. I only did this for some clip that were slightly more still and didn’t have as much movement otherwise the tracker wouldn’t pick up where I was moving and wouldn’t change the depth of field. I also used the more advanced RGB tool on premier to get the colours that were more and less saturated to the correct colour, in other words it’s a colour correcting tool to make sure all the clips merge together smoothly between coloured clips. I tried to get all of the clips to look as if they were taken during golden hour as some of them were taken at different times or the cloud made the lighting not as good as it should’ve been.

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Evaluating

Overall, I think that these shoots went moderately well. If I could do anything differently I would have gotten more angles from further away as well as some close up shots of my surroundings. I think that would have given the viewer a wider variety of things to grasp their attention other than the main character. I like the way I’ve edited this footage as the time of day made the makes the clips look really warm toned, which was the way I wanted it but I toned the warmth down I tiny bit to fit better with the rest of the film.

I was more inspired to make the footage more colourful which was inspired by specific photographers. A photographer that explores limitations, escapism and surrealism within reality is KangHee Kim. Kim studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, graduating in 2014. It wasn’t until her senior year that she began using photography as a creative outlet, enjoying the freedom that came with the minimal equipment required. One of her ongoing series, Street Errands, began in 2016 and was born out of the mundane daily encounters of living in New York. “I realized, instead of waiting for miracles, I could instead create the magical moments in my imagination,” Kim says. “I construct my own form of escapism.” To create these photographs, she uses Photoshop to merge and manipulate multiple images from her travels in New York, California, Colorado, and Hawaii. Rather than preplan the scenes, Kim lets intuition guide her – creating cohesion with a uniform aesthetic and colour palette, and the returning motifs of moons, clouds, oceans, and skyscrapers.

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Editing and Experimenting

I tried to get a wider angle on most of the shots but just zoomed in afterwards. Whilst editing the saturation, shadows, highlight etc, I put an adjustment layer over the entire film and then individually edited the clips if they needed to be slightly more saturated or needed more contrast. For some of the clips I used the pen tool to mask the main focus of the clip as my camera wouldn’t allow me to adjust the depth of field too much whilst I was filming. I used the pipet tool to select the colour I wanted protect from the areas that weren’t masked e.g. my skin tones would be selected and I would add more to the different tones so all of my body was selected. I only did this for some clip that were slightly more still and didn’t have as much movement otherwise the tracker wouldn’t pick up where I was moving and wouldn’t change the depth of field. I also used the more advanced RGB tool on premier to get the colours that were more and less saturated to the correct colour, in other words it’s a colour correcting tool to make sure all the clips merge together smoothly between coloured clips. I tried to get all of the clips to look as if they were taken during golden hour as some of them were taken at different times or the cloud made the lighting not as good as it should’ve been.

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Evaluating

This was one of my least successful shoots when looking at the photos but I managed to salvage a lot of the footage and make it look better than the way it was shot originally. So, overall, I think that these shoots went moderately well. If I could do anything differently I would have gotten more angles from further away as well as some close up shots of my surroundings. I think that would have given the viewer a wider variety of things to grasp their attention other than the main character. I like the way I’ve edited this footage as the time of day made the makes the clips look really warm toned, which was the way I wanted it but I toned the warmth down I tiny bit to fit better with the rest of the film.

Link to photo book: The Individuals Take on Freedom

https://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/9196443/35389b87acd4fb9d0be8e30bb1616414433d4964

My focus for this project was freedom and limitations. I chose to look at the freedom of an individual and their hobby. I started by looking at a dancer, shown in my early experiments. I later decided to focus on artistic roller skating. This lead me to my photo book: The Individuals Take on Freedom as shown below. It demonstrates how freedom can be interpreted differently for each person. In this case, the freedom is gained from roller skating. The images can present this due to the composition, for example the spread and open body language can show freedom as the individual is not closed off or hiding. It can also be linked to limitation due to the time, effort and commitment it takes. For example the images of the individual competing at competitions when they are young implies the age of when they started. This exposes how long it takes to develop these skills and reach a high standard. We are shown that the commitment of activities can impact life negatively, effecting both social features due to the amount of time it takes up and physical features as it is a sport and can result in injury or fatigue. Indications of improved mental features are relevant as the freedom of doing the thing one enjoys the most can help an individual to escape their reality for a while. There is also the achievements you gain which makes it worth all the hard work. My photo book covers all of these ideas with the medals and competition photos showing the achievements, the skating photos highlighting the developments and improvements made and the black and white body images representing both the strain it can cause and the beauty of the body. The body is a major part of artistic roller skating as it is important to be able to compose yourself correctly are create a beautiful performance. Focussing on individual features clearly shows the beauty more distinctly, especially with the face as it can be used to portray emotion and tell a story. This creates a more engaging and moving performance for the audience, similar to the detail within the photos creating an interesting series of images for the viewer. The use of colour throughout the book creates eye-catching pages, with the black and white body images breaking up the book keeping it refreshing. The black and white images create a serious tone compared to the coloured images. This can help represent the limitations as they are darker than the freedom. It could also suggest the importance of these body images and convey a message about loving your individual self no matter what, embracing any flaws or minor imperfections you feel you may have.