I found photos of my dad and his band mate Jim from when he was travelling around the world to places like Australia and New York. He played at gigs around the world and became very popular around the 1980’s. Although his band was popular he still didn’t have much money and got by due the gigs he got and part time jobs on the side; he did this in order to travel to different places. He used to share flats with strangers as he travelled and earned a bed there by doing work fro the people who owned the flat.
Studio Photoshoot
My dad has a music school in St. Helier and on the top floor there is a studio for recording music. I decided to take photos of him playing his guitar as his school is his biggest achievement in life after all his hard work. The contrast between where he came from and what he has now is quite drastic; going from travelling around the world and not having much other than his music to owning a whole school, still gigging and still having his passion for music. He’s been playing the guitar for over 40 years and still loves his guitar as much as he did back then.
In Light Room I selected several images using the rating tool and colouring different images to show which ones I liked the most and which ones I thought were the best quality e.g. green being the best quality and red being the worst, 5/4 stars are photos i like the look of due to their composition or the vibrancy etc and less than 5/4 stars are photos i don’t like the composition of.
I left all the amps in their place in the background as I wanted it to look as natural as possible. I used a macro lens for the close up photos of my Dad’s hands and used flash for a lot of the photos as I thoiught the lighting looked better that way.
This photographer has a theme of finding patterns in life and linking two completely different things together through different shapes or patterns e.g. water droplets and slides link together because they have the same circular shape and in the mood board below, it shows that they link because they have the same cool tones and colours. This Japanese photographer is also associated with the aesthetics of Wabi Sabi, where imperfections are accepted as beautiful in life and should be loved. Her work is described to have a dream-like quality to them, which a lot of people find soothing and want to look at her work more often in order to relax.
Kawauchi depicts the ordinary things in life and makes them into something meaningful. I’m going to try display this in my own photography; to find love in the simpler and finer things in life. Love doesn’t necessarily mean a connection with a person, it can mean many things; finding love in the imperfections of your life could lead to a lot more happiness as you would see try to the problems in your life as something to learn from and appreciate rather than a flaw that has top be fixed.
“If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi.” – Andrew Juniper
Finding similarities and imperfections in life.
“Photographer Rinko Kawauchi discusses her interest in the small mysteries of everyday life, which she explores in her series Utatane (2001). She explains why she was drawn to the sublime beauty of the controlled burning of grasslands in Japan for her series Ametsuchi (2012–13), and reflects on how her photography comes from a state between dreams and waking.”
Photo Analysis
Illuminance 2009
When looking into the technical parts of the photo and the way the photo was taken through the camera lens the lighting looks like natural lighting, possibly from a cloudy day. The lighting also allows there to be cooler tones in the photograph and contrasts nicely with the warmer tones coming from the burning cigarette. As well as the contrast in colour, the contrast in in darker and lighter tones in shown on the person’s hand in the photo; where the skin shines from the direst light and then the darker cool toned shadow contrasting with it. The contrast between the shadows and highlights isn’t too drastic, the only black shown in the photo in on the cigarette which pin points it as the focus of the photo. When looking the aperture the depth of field doesn’t seem to be very shallow in this photograph as the whole photo seems to be fairly blurry and out of focus.Looking into the ISO, the photo seems to have a very low sensitivity meaning it the photo appears to be a bit grainier than the average photo. There is also not a lot of tonal range and contrast, the tones and colours seem to quite neutral.
Observing the visual representation in this photograph, there doesn’t seem too much tonal range when it comes to the main focus of the photograph (the cigarette being hold in the models hand), although the burning part of the cigarette in contrast with the cool background, makes the photo have some differentiation from the background compared to the warm light tones coming from the burning cigarette. Due to the lack of sharpness being shown in the photo, defined textures are difficult to pick out. The photograph is clearly 2D and due to it being blurry it can’t have the 3D concept of coming alive through the photo. There is a repetitive theme throughout Rinko Kawauchi’s photographs of cool tones which has connotations of gloominess and calmness.
Contextually and conceptually, this photograph is meant to make the observer think about imperfections. The way humans destroy their bodies due to addiction is a imperfect part of humans. The actual photo reflects imperfections due to the blurriness and empty space. The cool toned empty background show the coldness surrounded in people’s lives and where there is room for improvement and happiness. The only warm toned part of the photo the imperfection in a persons life which is a cigarette. I think the meaning behind this is meant to be that anyone will try and find happiness in anything and sometimes they take a wrong route and follow through with addictions, which in the long run, will only bring less happiness.
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.
Francis Foot started to have an interest in photography not long after he became a gas fitter as his main profession. He had a fascination with phonographs and gramophones and soon learnt that this could be his new and improved career. His family bought a shop in Pitt Street, this is where Foot began this career as a photographer and his father and mother helped him make money by selling gramophones, records and other wares in Dumaresq Street.
Foot and his family prospered through keeping the HMV franchise for Jersey with their famous logo which was a painted that was created in 1899 by Francis Barraud. The painting of the dog Nipper listening to a cylinder phonograph still remains on the Dumaresq Street wall today.
Due to the success from the HMV franchise, as well as selling his photographs to be published on postcards, Foot managed to take over another shop in Pitt Street, where he carried on selling records in the 1950s and 60s when they were made from vinyl.
Love – an intense feeling of deep affection or a great interest and pleasure in something. The meaning can be different definitions for different people depending on their experience with love and what they love or have a passion for in their own lives.
Love is all about what you value in your life. A lot of the time love is a good thing but it can also turn into addiction and obsession which then brings on unhealthy emotions such as stress, sadness and loneliness.
Mood Boards
Photographers showing what Love means to them or the love story they’re trying to represent. Whether these are real stories or whether they’re set up to look a certain way, the photographers always have a in depth meaning behind every photo they take. The love shown in the photographs can represent many things such as; self love, obsession, abandonment, loneliness, happiness and many other representations can be interpreted based on the viewers life experience and their way of thinking.
Just before Alberto Korda took this iconic photograph of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, in Havana Harbor a ship had exploded , killing dozens of dockworkers and the entire crew. Covering the funeral for the newspaper Revolución, Korda focused on Fidel Castro, who in an raging speech, accused the U.S. of causing the explosion. The two frames he shot of Castro’s young ally were a seeming afterthought, and they went unpublished by the newspaper.
After Guevara was killed leading a guerrilla movement in Bolivia nearly seven years later, the Cuban regime embraced him as a martyr for the movement, and Korda’s image of the beret-clad revolutionary soon became its ever lasting symbol.
Overall, Guerrillero Heroico was seized by artists, causes and admen around the world, appearing on everything from protest art to underwear to soft drinks. It has become the cultural shorthand for rebellion and one of the most recognizable and reproduced images of all time, with its influence long since transcending its steely-eyed subject.
From a photographic prospective of what makes an image iconic; a lot of professional photographers would say that an angle of a portrait can make the difference of a “basic photo” of another person and making a person look heroic and powerful, only by taking the photo from lower angle like the photographer above has done.
The Falling Man
The most widely seen images from 9/11 are of planes and towers, not people. Falling Man is one of those few. The photo was taken by Richard Drew and in the moments after the 11th September 2001 attacks. This one man’s escape from the collapsing buildings was a symbol of individuality against the backdrop of faceless skyscrapers. On a day of this tragedy, Falling Man is one of the only widely seen pictures that shows someone dying without the gore. The photo was published in newspapers around the U.S. in the days after the attacks, but backlash from readers forced it into being less publicized as many people felt traumatized just by looking at the photo as well as saying it was extremely morbid. It can be a difficult image to process, as many have said, but the man perfectly bisecting the iconic towers as he drops toward the earth has an artistic feel to it as dreadful as that sounds. The Falling Man’s identity is still unknown, but he is believed to have been an employee at the Windows on the World restaurant, which was on the top of the north tower. The true power of Falling Man is less about who its subject was and more about what he became.
Marvin Joseph set himself the task of visualizing racism through a lens and chose one of his photo shoots to surround itself with the topic of law enforcement and police brutality, which currently a very big topic. He picks upon how black people are treated differently by the police although the police and law enforcement is meant to be what protects society and is meant to make everyone feel safe. Especially at the moment, black people, particularly in America, do not feel safe; outside or in their own homes. For instance, last year a woman by the name of Atatiana K. Jefferson, was shot through her own home through her bedroom window, whilst playing a game with her nephew in Texas by a police officicer.
“For inspiration, Malon Ali and I visited the Spirit Halloween store. While we were looking for the ugliest masks we could find, we spotted the faux crime-scene tape. The epiphany took hold instantly for both of us. The tape would illustrate the message: that being black in America can be a crime. Malon’s dark-skinned body would be wrapped mummy-like and consumed by this tape — which is proving impossible to shake off. His attempts as he leaps, poses, runs or even dances are in vain. He cannot escape the ever-looming presence of racism.”
Relation to Modern Racism
In today’s society, many crimes have occurred on the polices enforcement’s part. Although many black people get blamed for crimes they haven’t committed and police officers get away with; racism, abuse and sometimes even murder, just because they’re white/have government power backing them up.
“Loud in our laughter, silent in our suffering”
The Black Lives Matter movement has protested against black people being silent in their suffering and making sure that black people are heard in want they want and need. This photo shoot in particular illustrates how black people are not free; they are controlled by white people still, more importantly they are controlled by the government. They are unable to speak their truth and unable to say what needs to be said. There is still subtle racism everywhere. In America it is the least subtle but just because place’s like the UK are said to be the “least racist” doesn’t mean they’re not still racist and it doesn’t make it acceptable.
“The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.” By the year 1914, Europeans colonised a huge majority of the world’s nations.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to America. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
The slave trade refers to the transatlantic trading patterns which were established as early as the mid-17th century. Trading ships would set sail from Europe with a cargo of manufactured goods to the west coast of Africa. When arriving, these goods would be traded over a number of weeks and months and captured people were provided by African traders. European traders found it easier to do business with African slave traders who raided settlements far away from the African coast and brought those young and healthy enough to the coast to be sold into slavery.
This was a huge problem for black people itself for many reasons; slave traders would take mainly men from Africa, leaving women and children to fend for themselves and unable to reproduce; hundreds and thousands of men would die from the unhygienic living space below the deck of the ships as well as the lack of food and many people would get sea sick and would have to lie in there own waste; head to toe with other people. Not many survived the voyage. With the men who did survive; the majority of those sold into slavery were destined to work on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas, where huge areas of the American continent had been colonised by European countries. These plantations produced products such as sugar or tobacco, meant for consumption back in Europe.
The 13th Amendment, adopted on December 18, 1865, officially abolished slavery, but freed Black peoples’ status in the post-war South remained precarious, and significant challenges awaited during the Reconstruction period.
“Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”
There are many different ways of describing what racism is and many different people that are discriminated due to the colour of their skin or where they come from may have stronger opinions about the topic and different ideas about what it means to them as they have all been affected by racism one way or another. Being singled out this way can negatively affect the way someone speaks and acts in front of others, the way people think about themselves and the kind of people they are discriminated by and the they live as a whole.
Modern Racism: BLACK LIVES MATTER
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. A white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on George Floyd’s neck whilst two other white police officers restrained him. After this tragic event people protested globally for the rights of black lives as well as creating memorials for George Floyd. America especially, has had an overwhelming amount of people protesting and many black men and women have died due to police brutality, most of them were killed or harmed whilst peacefully protesting.
George Floyd’s death massively affected people lives around including his 6 year old daughter and his girlfriend who were both left devastated. Impacting the world to create change for people lives who are affected daily just because of the colour of their skin. People won’t accept silence anymore and no one can ignore the suffering of black people any longer. Humanity wants and needs change for the better. In particular people want police brutality to stop, it is completely corrupted into thinking that black people are the cause of most crimes and most of the police force won’t hesitate to suspect a black man or woman of doing something illegal. Evidently, it has been proven that police brutality, especially in America, will go to the extent of murdering human beings even when they are completely innocent.
People using their Platforms to Fight Against Racism:
On the 3rd June, the Star Wars actor, John Boyega, even protested and made a memorable speech to encourage the fight against racism: “This is an intense time for our community, and the most important thing is for us to maintain momentum and not lose sight of how critical it is to pursue long-term solutions and commitments, for the sake of our generation, and the next”.
There are countless celebrities who have used their platform to educate people on what’s happening in the world today to do with racism. Millions of people around the world are trying to gain justice for the deaths of innocent black lives.
“Black is being guilty until being proven that you’re innocent”
The title above is one of the many lines in the song “Black” by Dave. This performance was the month before George Floyd’s death but still has large emotional impact on the problems to do with racism at the moment. Many of Dave’s songs have large impact surrounding black lives and educating other on the modern racism still occurring in the world today. An important line in this song is “he’s white you give him a chance, he’s ill and confused, If he’s black he’s probably armed, you see him and shoot” it is an example of black people living fear of the police; the people who are meant to protect society. These lyrics also show how quickly black people are judged by police just because of their skin colour.
“How can the black community dismantle a problem that they didn’t create?”
James Corden briefly touches on the treatment of black lives during global pandemic, particularly in America. More black prople have died from the corona virus due to racism. Hospitals with a large majority of white doctors and nurses in the USA have deliberately not treated black patients with cover, leaving them to suffer even though a large majority of the doctors and nurses that are risking their lives to fight against corona virus are black.
James is also one of many millions who were moved by Dave’s live performance and chose to spread awareness of how important the lyrics were for educating people in todays society.
The string that has been sown onto the photograph is meant further illustrate the lack emotions that the model is struggling to show/express them more. As well as this, the string can also be a sign of being trapped and being tied down to your own emotions which links to loss of identity as it represents people not being able to control how they act or how they feel.
Editing:
I edited three of my best images from one of. my photoshoots to look more like Lee Jeffries work. I made the photo black and white and I intensified this by lowering the red and yellow tones do allow more contrast to be seen. These images were the most successful as they were the most in focus, the most intense and you can see minute details such as the freckles on the models face, similarly to some of Jefferies’ models. I also edited the photos to be in black and white because the loss of colour links to the sub theme “loss of identity”. The centre piece links well to this theme as the background tells the observer no further information about what the model is like personality wise or what their life is like as well as what their past/background is like. I cropped the images in order let the observer focus more on the details of the models face, this is similar to what Jefferies does with his own photography.
Final Process:
After mounting my photos onto foam board and sewing on red thread onto my final image, the photos below were my final outcomes. With the photo being in the style of Lee Jefferies work and getting the inspiration to use thread from. the photographer Maurizio Anzeri, these outcomes turned out very much in the way that I wanted. For deciding the composition of my final pieces, I was thinking of having two A4 sizes cut down to be square photographs and placing either side of the larger A3 photograph which was also cut down into a square. I chose these particular photographs to be this specific size as I thought that the photo with the model looking straight into the lens seemed less intense therefore it would make more sense for it be the centre piece, compared to the more intense and dramatic photos where the model looks as if they are in agony due to the string pulling on their face. I decided to do a geometric pattern on the centre photo as some Maurizio Anzeri’s work has simple “swirly” looking patterns on his own work, too add my on twist to it I decided to make it more jagged and I thought that the pattern fit the other photos better this way as it makes the photo more dramatic.
