We got into a group of 4 to create a mind map about different communities we related to/know and we thought about how we could show these in Jersey and through a NFT.
I created 2 mindmaps. My first one was a starting point for me just to put down all my ideas surrounding the word community and different ideas for shoots. My second mindmap was to develop those ideas and create shoots from those ideas and how I am able to represent my ideas through Jerseys community.
To create our moodboard we looked into and thought about answering this question. “What will the future of Jersey look like as a community in the metaverse?” This question was the basis behind my whole NFT project and this is where the ideas sparked from.
Mindmap
Once we made the mind map we made a mood board to add image to our ideas and give us more inspiration for ideas for our 30 second animation and image.
My group had the most inspiration from Generations as we wanted to show how fashion has changed over the many generations and show what it could be like in the future.
For my first shoot I focused on the French and Portuguese quarters, focusing on capturing raw moments and showing their lifestyle and area through my images. In my shoot I wanted to capture a sense of place, character of community and people/portraiture. In my shoot I took around 200 images.
After I did my shoot I then imported my images into light room where I created a Identity and Community folder. I then went through all my images from my first shoot and flagged the images I want to use by holding shift and using the (p) pick and (x) reject buttons. My aim was to end up with a maximum of half of my images flagged. After flagging my best images, I then rated my images out of 5 so I could focus on my best images.
Here I had flagged (white flag) the images I want to use and edit and the black is images I won’t be using
Here are all my selected images from my first shoot.
Above is just 2 of my edited images, with their before and after comparison to show how I edited them.
Final images
Analyse:
I like the overall outcome of my edited images from my first shoot. I decided to use a mixture of black white and coloured images as I felt not all my images would suit black and white and some of my images had lots of colour in it so I wanted to enhance that. I created my images with the view of representing different cultures within Jersey that aren’t just British. Jersey has a huge range of cultures within the island and I wanted to capture this by visiting different cultural spots. I decided to include environmental portraits of residents of Jersey as it added a personal and visual aspect to my shoot. I photographed people of different cultures, jobs and occupations. This also represented the different jobs within the island and the lady representing the main occupation in Jersey.
Second shoot
For my second shoot I went around the British expats/wealthy residents.
I then repeated what I did within the first shoot and imported and flagged all my chosen images within lightroom.
I then went through all my flagged images and straightened them up, changed the curve, and changed the tones and exposures on all the images to make them a stronger image.
Final edited images
With my second shoot I took a more landscape and environmental shoot focusing on smaller details, like the flags hanging out someones flat window. I focused in on the smaller details of Jersey and the hidden away buildings and objects. I liked looking at different sequences and the colours within this shoot. I wanted to take a different approach to my second shoot to create a different collection of images.
We went on a trip down to the Jersey Museum to start our year 13 project on Identity and Community. We visited the ‘People make jersey – our stories of immigration’ exhibition to learn more about our communities immigration stories. Lucy Layton put together the exhibition in order to show that every Islander had their own ‘Jersey story’ to tell and the variety of people who make up Jersey’s community. The exhibition starts with Jersey’s first permanent settlers, who arrived around 7,000 years ago and where originally driven by a changing climate to seek a new place where they could plant their crops and raise their families. It then follows the waves of immigrants who have arrived in Jersey over the centuries.
In the exhibition their was a glass table which had displayed many different types of passport cards and there was the Aliens registration cards, which showed lots of French people living in Jersey in 1920.
They also had a wall with many Jersey surnames and describing the history and origins of these names.
In the exhibition they created a wall which shows the current generations holding their older generations registration cards and next to them was a little bit about their family history.
Around the museum they had placed objects belonging to immigrants and people who were sharing their stories. They had many different objects like an old potato grater used to make polish dishes, a Portuguese passport , a old Spanish doll and a old kettle.
Nick Fancher focuses on portraiture and mainly shoots using artificial black and white lighting. The black and white creates a dramatic feel to the image and lets off a lot of emotion. The models eyes are darker than the rest of her face which creates a dramatic feel as it feels as if we can’t properly see her or understand her.
This image relates to Anthropocene as the water can represent water wastage and the dripping represents the waste. The water drips keep running off the bottom off the image which could show that the water wastage will keep happening and going if people don’t change their ways. The image is in black and white and has a strong dark tonal range. The image is not naturally black and white which could represent the unpure water people in poorer countries have to drink everyday as they re unable to assess fresh natural water.
Darian Mederos work focuses on painting the all over the human face. He paints bubble wrap over the subjects face which reflects light and distorts the underlying image. He uses the thing layer of translucent bubble wrap to make the viewers reflect and care about the protection of the subject. The subject in this image is a middle age women which can relate to Anthropocene as it can show the older generation and how the human waste has affected them and how they have seen the drastic change in the environment and the earth over their lifetime. This can be more effective to the viewer as it feels like she was chosen for a reason and she is wiser and has more experience with this situation. The bubble wrap also creates repetition within the image and blurs the models face. The repetition can show that this problem with the plastic in the ocean keeps occurring and isn’t changing or getting better. It can also show that their is an increasing amount of plastic waste and that there is a huge amount of waste that is impacting on our environment the way the bubble wrap impacts the models face.
Final displayed images forHendrik Kerstens and Vika Pobeda
Evaluation:
My original intentions for my work was to create images that related to my artists and to the idea of Anthropocene. I wanted to mainly focus on portraiture and show plastic and water wastage through my images. I wanted to show the damage of plastic waste on the marine animals and how it effects our oceans and environment and I wanted to represent purity and the lack of access to pure water for some based on peoples social class. I feel I represented this well in my mages by using many different plastic objects and used these images to distort and ‘destroy’ the models face in order to represent the damage done to the environment. Although I wasn’t happy with all the images in my shoots I picked the best ones and edited them till I was happy with the final outcome and felt it presented my intentions. Although I was happy with the majority of my final outcomes I feel I could have explored the water images more and created a more powerful image to represent my ideas more. I feel that you can see a clear resemblance between mine and the chosen artists images and can see a correlation between the ideas.
First I selected my best images from the shoot and put them into a separate folder so I could focus on a few of the best images.
I started by cropping all my images to get rid of background that wasn’t needed to make the image more smart and effective. I did this to all my final images.c
I then changed the brightness and contrast on my images as they were all quite bright from the artificial lighting. I lowered the brightness and altered the contrast to create the look I wanted.
I then changed the vibrance of the image to create a more yellow tone to the image to suite some of Darian Mederos images. This left me with my final image.
I wanted all my images to be close up images and so I had to crop my images quite a bit in order to achieve this.
Final images:
I like the outcome of my images as I feel they represent my artists approach well and you can see a clear similarity between my images and the artists. I wanted to represent the plastic wastage in these images by using plastic objects as props in my images. I used plastic waste to distort the models face in order to represent the idea that the earth may look incorrect or different due to the damage plastic has done to the earth. I feel i represented this well in my images as the bubble wrap creates a blurred effect meaning you cant properly see the models face and relates to Darian Mederos images. I also used a plastic bag over the models face to represent all the animals that are trapped or injured by plastic that is polluting the seas and their habitats. I chose to put the bag over her head to represent her being trapped and the ingestion of plastic by animals. I also used cling film and folded the cling film to create dents to distort and change the models face, I also put vaseline onto the cling film to make it looked blurred.
Nick Fancher
Nick Fancher shoot
I used mainy different editing techniques for this shoot. For my colourful images I:
I started by overlapping the 2 images and made them fit ontop of each other perfectly.
I then changed the opacity and experimented with it to find the perfect level to create the image I wanted.
I also put most of my images into black and white and changed the exposure and brightness on all images to create the right feeling from the image.
Final images:
I used water in a few of my images to represent purity and sometimes a lack of access to water. Pure water is so important to reduces the risk of contamination of diseases and it is important when cleaning utensils and everyday items and especially important for a basic action such as washing your hands. An estimated 2.2 billion people need access to safe drinking water, including 884 million currently without basic drinking water service, this means these people do not have easy access to fresh , clean water and face the risk of catching deadly diseases everyday just from a daily necessity. Unsafe water is one of the world’s largest health and environmental problems particularly for the poorest in the world which relates to social class. Woman and young children must carry buckets full of water every few days and sometimes everyday and walk for miles carrying the heavy buckets of fresh water. In regions where freshwater must be retrieved from sources outside the home, the burden of fetching and carrying water largely falls on women. Therefore I wanted to use water in some of my images to represent this as it relates to Anthropocene as humans have caused this lack of access to water. I also chose to use barbed wire and use the holes to look through to the model to divide up the face and also to make it look like she is trapped in the wire which is what happens to the sea animals from all the waste that goes into the sea.
Hendrik Kerstens and Vika Pobeda
Initially I wasn’t happy with the outcome of this shoot so I decided to try some editing techniques to change my images to fit my aim and represent Anthropocene more.
Therefore, for all my images in this shoot I chose to use multi exposure.
I put some of the images into black and white to add more effect and improve the image , I then overlapped the images.
Then I changed the opacity to the right opacity for the image I wanted to create.
I then cropped down the image to create the final image that I was happy with.
Final images:
I chose to use the multi exposure technique for these images to create a confused and overwhelming look for the viewers. To create these images I used multiple types of waste that is typically found in the ocean and caused injury to animals whether that be the animal trapped in a plastic bag or a turtle getting a plastic straw stuck in their throat. On a boat off Costa Rica, a biologist had to use pliers from a Swiss army knife to try to extract a plastic straw from a sea turtle’s nostril. The turtle squirmed in agony, whilst bleeding profusely. Around 700 species of marine animals have been reported—so far—to have eaten or become entangled in plastic.
Darian is a painter and visual artist who is known for his unique and abstract approach to painting. He is best recognised for his signature bubble wrap style where he paints a bubbles over a portrait giving the image added texture and effect. He attended an art school in Cuba for 2 years and then finished his degree at San Alejandro in Havana.
Nick Fancher
Nick Fancher is a photographer, author, and educator who specialises in dramatic lighting, where he often employs the use of bold colours and experimental camera techniques. He is particularly known for his efficient method of working, which is with the use of minimal gear, often in unconventional locations. Nick graduated from Ohio State with a BFA in photography in 2005 and has authored several books on his techniques
Hendrik Kerstens and Vika Pobeda
Hendrik Kerstens is a Dutch photographer who photographs his daughter Paula. He began a series of photographing his daughter’s life, initially capturing her in everyday poses and attire, documenting intimate moments. He gradually expanded his photography to create carefully composed portraits that refer to the works of the Dutch Old Masters and the Italian Renaissance. These images use everyday items as props, such as a dishtowel or cream standing in for a maiden’s cloth and wig, and still rely on Paula as his primary subject
Vika Pobeda is a photographer and videographer who is known for her commercial work for different companies. She is known for her portraits and colourful advertising work.
I am going to present the theme Anthropocene through portrait photography. My initial ideas are to use lots of plastic waste items (straws , bin bags , plastic bags). The reason i’m doing this is to represent humans and the damage they have caused. I am also going to be using these plastic items to alter the models face and cover parts of their face to show a distorted vision and view and ‘destroy’ the models face to present the way they destroyed the planet. I will also use photoshop and use multi exposure on some of my images to create a blurred affect and ‘damage’ the image.
What – Portrait photography using plastic waste. I will use studio lighting and do headshot based photos.
When – I can take my photos whenever as I will be using studio lighting so I don’t need to think about the natural lighting
Where – School studio using a mix black and white backgrounds
Why – I want to show a distorted image and alter the models face using the items that have altered the planet.
How – I will take my images using strong 2 point studio lighting and use recycled plastic waste to create the images. I will also use photoshop on some of my images to create a multi exposure image.
My main focus when using the plastic wastage is to show the impact on the environment by mankind. I also used the waste to distort the models face to represent a distorted vision similar to how my photographers shoot. This is to show that something normal to us looks different which is what has happened to the earth due to the plastic waste created by humans. I also used water to represent water waste and the difference of access to water based on peoples wealth and location.
