To start editing my images, I started by narrowing my image selection down using the ‘Pick’ and ‘Reject’ tools on Lightroom, which will help me decide which images I think are usable and which are not. Due to a technical mishap during this photoshoot, a lot of images have been rejected due to them being out of focus.
Next I gave each of these images a star rating out of 5, to further narrow my selection down and label which images I will 100% make use of (the strongest images), and others which I may use at some point.
I then used the colour filter tool on Lightroom to further narrow down my selection, making the green images the usable ones.
These are the images I thought were the strongest from this photoshoot. I have 3 images that could be used to create images inspired by Helmer-Petersen. I like the pigeon images as the movement shown by the slow shutter represents life in the otherwise still urban environment.
Final Edited Images
These are the coloured versions of each image, I made these images slightly colder and more green to give them a more industrial and unwelcoming feel. I like the inclusion of pigeons and trees in some of the images as it provides a nice contrast between the organic and urban.
Here I have made some black and white versions of each image, which I think is effective as it mirrors the greys and blacks of a stereotypical urban setting. I think these images will give my photobook a nice contrast as the other images are far more colourful.
These are my Helmer-Petersen inspired versions of the images which include scaffolding, I these turned out to be successful interpretations of his images.
Evaluation
I am happy with the way my final images turned out, I think they are strong images that will be useful and effective in my photobook. However in terms of actually taking the images, this was not a massively successful shoot; a lot of my images were dark/fuzzy as I had a slowed shutter speed, some of the images weren’t too aesthetically pleasing either. If I were to do this photoshoot again, I would take both of these into consideration and hopefully take higher quality images. I think the places I found to take these images are interesting (like the place with the tree and light) and I think it would be interesting to re-visit those at a later date.
What went well:
Some of the images I captured were interesting and unlike other images I have taken during my A-Levels, such as the pigeon images. The black and white images are especially effective within an urban setting, with the Helmer-Petersen images providing a nice contrast with the other images from the shoot.
How I can improve:
As stated earlier, I think my camera handling skills can be greatly improved from this photoshoot. I am now more knowledgeable on how a camera works and I aim to implement that into future shoots. I think a more dynamic time of day could give my images more depth and ‘pop’ such as during sunrise/sunset, unlike this shoot where it was later in the day (dark) with overcast clouds.
The story for my photobook explores youth culture within a small community such as an island, documenting what myself and my friends do in our free time and creating a narrative of life through the eyes of teenagers, aiming to capture the freedom and liberation of youth through a variety of photos taken in both chaotic and quiet atmospheres.
DESIGN & LAYOUT
To provide a better narrative, I have chosen to incorporate writing in my photobook, taken from a sheet of paper i asked my friends to write on, and give their opinion of life in Jersey as a teenager. Taking inspiration from Jim Goldberg and his messy style of photography, overlaying the writing onto my photos i feel will provide the unfiltered atmosphere that i attempt to convey in my images.
The layout for my photobook will feature both single-page portrait images and double page landscape spreads. I want a variety of different orientation in my book to catch the viewers eye and make a more interesting read. Certain sections of my both will contain a double-page feature on my friends, on one page will be an image of them, likely a headshot, and the opposing page will contain images of their possessions. This will allude to the concept of youth culture on an island and give readers a better understanding. I also want to include a variety of media in my book, with photos taken from polaroids, phone and different cameras to show range within my work.
COVER
I want my photobook to be in hardback, with one landscape photo covering both the front cover and blurb. Below are some possible ideas for my cover, taken from my images;
I chose landscape-based images from my cover as they are quite desolate with no background noise and only one main viewpoint, which will help make the title the focus of the cover, which will also be in handwriting to match the aesthetic of my photobook. I am unsure of my title at the moment but i want it to fit the theme of youth culture but be quite simplistic as to not let on too much.
Question: In what ways can photography capture being Portuguese in Jersey and the sense of belonging?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jersey to me acts like a tutorial level in a video game; a safe, closed off area that allows me to learn and develop skills before I move on to the real world when I am ready. I value this idea as it is quite comforting at times to know that I have a place to explore with all kinds of different people. However, I often find myself feeling quite insignificant due to the isolation that being on an island brings which is sometimes exaggerated due to the fact that I am Portuguese living on in the British Isles. The disconnection from both the Portuguese culture and Jersey’s culture leave me in an awkward position as I find that I am too Portuguese for the English people and too English for the Portuguese people. I would like to explore the Portuguese experience in Jersey as it is something I have first-hand experience of, including both the positive and negatives rather than sugar-coating it. I’d like to specifically explore being Portuguese in Jersey whilst touching on the topic of mental health due to how isolating it can be at times living here.
I’d like to begin by exploring the word ‘belonging’ both what it means and its implications. Belonging is often described as a feeling of security and acceptance, comfortably being able to exist within a space without fearing social rejection or being outcasted.
From a historical perspective I will discussing photography’s relationship with social sciences through early experiments with ethnography and visual anthropology
which I believe links into postmodernist photography due to how the definition of ‘the sense of belonging’ is subjective. Various individuals can have different ideas and interpretations of the phrase which can include both positive and negative connotations, making it an interesting feeling to explore, especially photographically as it has no limits, allowing for a more experimental approach to taking images. Postmodernism came about in the 1960s and was considered controversial at the time for its pessimism, the style itself was created as a response to modernism, allowing room for references outside of the artwork itself [i.e: context from the political world at the time] and combining previous movements [such as surrealism and expressionism] together to create, moving away from traditional rules in favour of being eclectic, creating new concepts rather than making pieces to be taken at face value, rejecting previous movements like those that modernism gave birth to. Postmodernism embraces blurring the lines between high art and popular culture through the use of the mundane and familiar.
For this project, I’ll be referencing within my work how photography embraced postmodern ideas and theories alongside the use of documentary photography. as I believe in order for me to successfully create a project that represents ‘the sense of belonging’ in regard to culture, I’ll need to explore the realistic aspect of my project, capturing images of how life is for Portuguese people – such as my family and I – before being able to delve deeper, adding more postmodern aspects to my work later on through context and referencing art movements, attempting to capture more complex/creative images after fully delving into my work.
I’ll be using a digital camera throughout my project along with a mix of older images from my parents in order to create a point of comparison whilst also experimenting with their images and how their lives in Jersey differ from how they were in Madeira.
It is common knowledge that there are many people of varying cultures living in Jersey, the highest number of non-English migrants being Portuguese/Madeiran, making up 8% of Jersey’s population in 2021, however, this statistic doesn’t include people like me, people who are Portuguese by blood yet English by birth. Us first generation kids often struggle to fit into our cultures as we’re usually separated from one or both, making it difficult to latch onto the feeling of belonging as we aren’t quite sure where ‘home’ is. In most cases, ‘home’ would be where we were born, and although Jersey does present a feeling of familiarity and comfort, I do not find that it feels like home, instead, I see it as something temporary.
With my family being in Madeira, the lack of connection to Jersey can be quite strong as I’ve got no British blood in me, giving me no need to stay in Jersey other than for convenience, however, despite this, the disconnection towards my biological culture is just as strong. The lack of knowledge towards what life is like in Madeira to only being able to speak my first language [Portuguese] due to years of lessons has left me struggling to connect to the rest of my family which is only exaggerated due to the fact that they see me as British.
My parents, despite trying to keep me in touch with our culture, often struggled to communicate with me growing up, despite English being our second language, as I found it to be my preferred language, which eventually led to me forgetting Portuguese altogether at some point. This affected my relationship with both my parents, especially with my dad. His job didn’t require him to speak English as much as my mum’s did, leaving a wall between us as neither knew how to talk to one another, often needing my mum to be present in order to have a decent conversation. Despite the fact that we lived together, we felt like strangers which is similar to American & Russian photographer Diana Markosian’s series ‘Inventing my father’ where she depicts her relationship with her father after not seeing him for almost 20 years, as she left without a goodbye at age 7, and how they view each other as strangers despite being family. She focuses on the awkward tension between them, using text alongside her photos to help express how they tried to rebuild their relationship. Her other series ‘Mornings (With You)’ is a more confrontative series on their relationship as she sets up the camera directly in front of the table both she and her father are seated at and takes raw images of them both together as they both reconnect. I believe her work links into my own due to how she explores her identity in terms of both her family and culture as she actively photographs her life and how the disconnect due to her moving as a child left her confused in her sense of belonging, stating “there was just this real desire, a real passion to expand my own sense of place, where I belonged – I didn’t know where I belonged” in an interview with NOWNESS [2021] which is what I myself aim to capture.
Daniel W. Coburn is an American documentary photographer whom I believe also links into my project as his main focus is family. He uses his photography as a way to document his family which allows him to create a raw set of images rather than a stereotypical/sugar-coated family photo album that only includes the positive aspects of their lives. In his series ‘Next of Kin’, he includes rough, mostly posed, images of his family behind the scenes exploring his family history in “parable of love, reverie, respect and quiet tragedy” [Coburn, D. Next of Kin 2012] which directly links into my project in terms of theme as I would like to take some candid images of both myself and my parents at times where we would not normally pose for images, capturing us in our day to day lives without focusing on positives as most photos do.
For my photoshoots, I began by taking some experimental self-portraits as I knew this project was personal to me and I wanted to start within my comfort zone – in my room. This way, I could explore my own identity without needing to expose my family to the camera before I was ready to. I used different types of lighting, poses, props to accentuate my facial expressions and emotions, trying to portray a sense of solitude. Throughout the shoot, I started to generate more ideas of where my project could go and was quickly ready to move out of my comfort zone and take more day-to-day photographs of my mother, focusing on her as I knew it would be more difficult to capture my dad due to his work hours. This led me to going to my mum’s part-time job and capturing the environment, trying to peak at what part of her life was in providing for our family which was quite interesting, especially as she exposed her distaste for some of the company’s actions. The next shoot involved taking images of my mother at home, contrasting the environment from before.
How have Vasantha Yogananthan and LaToya Ruby Frazier explored identity and heritage in their work?
Opening Quote: …
Intro: In this essay I intend to investigate the differences and similarities of how photographers Vasantha Yogananthan and LaToya Ruby Frazier each explore the concepts of identity and heritage in their work. I have chosen these two because I feel that I can relate to aspects of their work, due to being a person of colour myself, and find that they have both approached the subject with their own unique style and technique. Yogananthan often make images of strangers, blurring the lines between fiction and reality, as well as implementing the technique of hand painting film images, something particularly important to photography’s history in India. His work stands between an outsider and an insider’s perspective, (try and find a quote from Solomon-Godeau text in inside/ outside) while being a stranger and photographing a world, he is not entirely familiar with while also reconnecting with his own culture and restabilising the portrayal of South Asia through photography. Frazier focusing on documenting her family, very much from the idea of an insider looking at the world that she herself as black woman inhabit growing up in a steel mill town, taking her images using a monochrome film camera, giving them a timeless feel. (still unfinished)
Add illustration of Yogananthan and Frazier work
Pg 1: Yogananthan and Frazier use two incredibly contrasting styles to explore the subjects of heritage and identity in their work, Yogananthan relying on traditional techniques and creating images evocative of the Pictorialist photo movement of the late 19th, early 20th century, made up of key figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Heinrich Kuhn and Frank Eugene. Employing a local Indian painter Jaykumar Shankar to help hand colour his black and white images to give them a soft and dream-like appearance, through his use of colour and composition Yogananthan invites collaboration and shared authorship of the final image . His work is a way for him to reclaim his Sri Lankan heritage after being born and raised in France, by choosing to approach The Ramayana through a Pictorialist lens, a style crucial to European photography’s history, Yogananthan creates a series that draws inspiration from both sides of his heritage, while also depicting the mythology in a more fantastical way.Pictorialism is defined as “an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.”
Add illustration of a Pictorialist work
George Davidson
Vasantha Yogananthan
In contrast, Frazier takes inspiration from a variety of artists who were part of a movement known as social realism, using straight photography, defined as “a photo shoot that represents a scene or subject in sharp focus and detail, in accordance with the qualities that distinguish photography from other visual media, particularly painting. Simple and clean with sharp detail.” (reference source using Harvard) to explore ideas of societal injustice. Some of these photographers include Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Kathe Kowalski- Frazier’s mentor until her death in 2006. Frazier’s exploration of societal injustice came from her experiencing environmental racism first hand, and how it affects not just her but the wider community of Braddock.
Add illustration of a Realist/ straight photography work
Dorothea Lange
LaToya Ruby Frazier
Yogananthan explores his heritage and identity as a biracial man through his project The Myth of Two souls, an exploration of The Ramayana through photography, allowing him to reconnect with his heritage as well as investigating his connection to South Asia. This project works in contrast to photography being used as a cold colonial force used to oppress the people living in America, Africa, and Asia, documenting them and comparing their physicality to that of their white oppressors. The Myth of Two Souls, explores Indian people and culture through a more empathetic lens, utilising The Ramayana, and its many interpretations, to explore the everyday lives of the people of India, while still maintaining the spiritual importance of the story, instead of depicting South Asians as sub-human creatures to be ruled by an empire. The image I have chosen to analyse is The Evening Before from Chapter 2 of Yogananthan’s Myth of Two Souls, titled The Promise. This chapter depicts the protagonists Rama, an incarnation of the god of preservation, Vishnu, and Sita, an incarnation of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and their emerging romantic relationship. The title implies that the image represents Rama on the night before his wedding to Sita and shows a young man sitting on some steps surrounded by an environment of traditional architecture and the city fading away into the background. The background colours are soft and light, contrasting Rama’s darker, more modern clothing, as well as his skin. Throughout Hindu mythology, Rama is often depicted having blue skin, alongside the god he incarnated from, this blue skin was likely used to represent the cosmos, as well as the idea that Rama’s ambiguous skin tone could mean that anyone could imagine him as themselves. Yogananthan uses this idea to cast a variety of Rama’s across the images taken for this project and depict The Ramayana, as something seen across all Southern Asia, not in specific ethnic groups or parts of the geography, deeply embedded even in modern culture. While the title implies the image is set at night, the sky is painted to be a light pink fading into cream, helping enhance the more mystical style of images, while also showing off the abilities of the artists Yogananthan collaborated with in order to make the piece, like Jaykumar Shankar, one of the few people remaining who paints on monochrome images in a traditonal way. By collaborating with Indian artists and writers, Yogananthan is able to reposition the portrayal of India, not from the view of outside invaders, but from the people who live there, demonstrating the importance of tradition and culture, while also showing modern day India.
The Evening Before– Vasantha Yogananthan
The portrayal of Rama and Sita in traditional artwork
Jaykumar Shankar
LaToya Ruby Frazier explores her heritage and identity as a black woman living in an industrial city through her project The Notion of Family, a photobook that depicts the relationships between her family as well as the town of Braddock and how integral the steel industry is to the community’s lives. Frazier documents her struggles with chronic illness due to her proximity to the steel mills, the closure of the local hospital which was seen as the heart of the town due to the lack of town development, the death of her grandmother, and the abandonment of the black community in Braddock due to closures at the steel mill, leaving many residents sick and impoverished. Frazier uses photography to explore these societal injustices, and throughout the book places small amounts of text to contextualise images and explain the dynamic of her family. The images are taken on a monochrome film camera, reminiscent to the black-and-white pictures taken of black people during the civil rights movement. Frazier uses these similarities to emphasise her fight against environmental racism and how the US government still does not see black communities as worth protecting, seen through the lack of support given to residents financially as well as the eventual closure of their hospital, eventually leading to the death of Frazier’s Grandmother due to healthcare workers not getting to her in time as they had to come from another town. The image I have chosen to analyse is titled “Me and my guardian angel”, which was taken by Frazier in 2005. It shows her and her grandmother sitting on the floor, surrounded by dolls, Frazier’s hair tied up in a childlike style, and smiling while her grandmother looks at it sternly. Frazier was raised by her grandmother and often dressed her in this way as a child. In an interview, Frazier explains her grandmother’s fascination with dolls, “She must have had hundreds, all in different sizes, different outfits, different nationalities… She began collecting them when my aunt – her daughter – was murdered. It was something to do with filling that loss”. This idea of loss is crucial to Frazier and her grandmother’s relationship, since this is one of the few images of the two of them together before her grandmother’s death, their final image together taken at her funeral, displaying her open casket and surrounded by dolls. In this image Frazier could be showing the complex nature of their relationship, raised by a woman who lost one of her own daughters and fills that hole with legions of dolls. Frazier’s decision to wear her hair in this way could represent her belief that her grandmother still views her as a child, despite her being 25 years old when the image was taken.
Me and my guardian angel– Latoya Ruby Frazier
Grandma Ruby Smoking Pall Malls 2002 (Another view of the room the image above was taken in)
I want my book to look very personalised, almost like a diary. I have heavily considered handmaking my book yet I am still unsure about this- I do want the book to seem quite intimate instead of professionally printed.
PAPER AND INK
I would like the pages of the photobook (if possible) to only have rounded edges- I would also like the images to be printed in matte ink.
FORMAT, SIZE AND ORIENTATION
The book will be standard sized portrait, I would like to explore the possibility of the page and cover edged being curved- I would like to avoid almost straight lines anywhere in the books as there would be a heavy contrast between the style of the images and the style of the book itself- this design would also add to the personalised aspect of the book.
BINDING AND COVER
I would like the binding to seem somewhat handmade- I may handmake this book personally and sew the pages together myself. I am interested in singer sewn binding however if professionally printed I may just use PUR binding. I would like the cover of the book to be a thicker card, not a pure hard cover.
BOOK TITLE
I am heavily unsure of the title still, I would like it to be quite vague so you do not really know what to expect of the book.
STRUCTURE AND ARCHITECTURE
I would like the book to have an unpredictable flow, portrait and people based images broken up by nature images and text.
DESIGN AND LAYOUT
I would like the pages to look quite busy- I will be using a mixture of full page spreads and separate images, possibly have grids of images.
EDITING AND SEQUENCING
My editing for these images is going to be moderately basic- I may experiment with black and white images (such as the one seen below1) or go further with editing and attempt a largely dream-like style2 . What I do know for certain is that I would like my images to be predominantly warm-toned- with an emphasis of lighting and grain in the image done through editing. Sequencing will be done by image colour- I would like the book pages to be quite busy however images have to be complementary of each other otherwise it will look messy.
1. Olivia Bee: Kids in Love
2. Olivia Bee: Kids in Love
IMAGES AND TEXT
I would like there to be a mixture of images and text- including adding text to images by superimposing it on top and surrounding images with text- the text will be a mix of poetry, personal accounts, context to the images, day itineraries, notes such as recipes or postcards and letters.
Photoshoot plan: For my second photoshoot I would like to explore some areas of farmland in an attempt to recreate the work of Richard Misrach. To do so I will be taking some images of green houses in some fields, I would like to create high quality images with an eerie effect to them and some which can be drastically edited using the ‘invert’ tool in photoshoot. To do so I will be exploring this area during the early afternoon in order to get good sunset which creates clear images whilst still being not too bright. The only equipment I will be using will be the school camera, as I don’t think that it is necessary to use a tripod. This is because I think that more interesting images can be created without the tripod as more creative angles can be gained.
Contact Sheets
Below I have included some contact sheet which illustrate all of the different angles and compositions I have achieved during this photoshoot. I think this is important to demonstrate as it helps me look through all of images and start to understand how many successful ones I have taken.
Overview of photoshoot: In my opinion this photoshoot is filled with a lot of images of high quality and potential but there is some images which are too over or under-exposed to be able to edit or use throughout my book, however, I still think that these images will come in useful when it comes to creating creative edited pictures.
Image Selection
In order to begin my image selection process, I went through all of my images and rated them with stars, this ensures that I can later filter out of my unsuccessful and only focus on the ones I have rated 5 stars. The next step to this process is using a colour coding scheme which helps me determine which images out of my strongest images have the most relevance to my project and are of the best quality. I have also used a star rating system followed by a colour coding system to show my better photographs.
Purple- images with most potential
Blue- images that could be used
Pink- images with least potential
Best Images Before Editing
Below I have created a gallery which contains some of my best photographs before I have cropped or edited them. This is in an attempt to show that some good unedited images have come from this photoshoot. I also like filtering out all of my images so I can see which have the highest natural clarity.
Editing
Editing these images came to be more difficult then expected, as some of them were so grey that it was hard for any other colours and tones to comes through in the images. However, I have demonstrated some editing I have done throughout these images and how this has impacted the photographers in a positive or negative way.
I think that overall my editing has been good, and only adds to the strength of my images that I have taken. This way of monochromatic editing is my favourite as it adds dimension and contrast. The lighter and darker tones are more evident and this means that the shadows are more clear as well. I think that my photoshoot has become even more successful after looking at these edited photos.
Final Images and Evaluation/ Critique
This section will include all of my final images from this photoshoot, this demonstrates that exploring the fields was successful when in regards to creating new images for my photobook. The most important aspect of this photoshoot is the fact that I am responding to Misrach more then Baltz, but this photoshoot could be compared to both.
I have selected this as my first final image as I think that this is my most influential image, it shows all of the greenhouses that are present in all of my other images. I like that there are different textures present in this image. This monochromatic editing means that the clouds create different shapes with soft texture in comparison to the parallel dark lines in the greenhouses with lack of texture with lots of dimension. I really like the composition of this images as it allows for half of it to be composed of sky, whilst half of the image is composed of the greenhouses themselves. Lots of this image is filled with dark tones and very harsh lines, whilst the sky is very subtle, this creates contrast within the image and makes it more appealing. Most importantly I think that this image relates more to Lewis Baltz in comparison to Richard Misrach, and this means that this photoshoot links to both of these artists and strengthens the concept of my project.
I would like for both of these images to put together when they are being displayed as I think they compliment each other well, with these images being two perspectives of the same structure. I have tried to edit them so they are the same and appear to have similar lighting. I have purposefully make the first image quite over exposed, so that the sky is brighter and the texture of the leaves is more prominent. I think that these are two of my strongest images as the second also contains a lot of detail and texture within the leaves. The purpose of these photographs relating to my project was the fact that they represent manmade structures being built on a natural landscape, and then the natural landscape taking back the scape that us humans has taken for our own benefit, this is important as it links to Misrach’s concept of educating people surrounding the climate crisis we are always facing.
I have selected this as another final image as it represents how strong manmade structures can be, as the structure has obviously lasted a significant amount of time, throughout all the natural events that could have occurred, and this is shown through all of the dirt and moss that can be found on the outside of these greenhouses, highlighting the longevity of their lives. This links to the fact that the damage that manmade life has caused is mostly one which is irreversible and cannot always be controlled. Additionally, this image remained more aesthetic without monochromatic editing, and I like how the colours in this image show how much natural life can still go through and survive regardless of the circumstances.
Compare and Contrast
St Helier (2023) Petrochemical America (2012)
Similarities: I have now included a compare and contrast of my work versus that of Richard Misrach, this shows where I have got my inspiration to photograph natural landscapes from. The clarity of this images reflects how I have considered my work being compared to his, as I wouldn’t want to take inspiration from his work and then begin to produce low quality outcomes to comparison. Lots of cool and green tones are evident in both of these pieces of work, with natural aspects such as leaves and foliage in both of these pieces.
Differences: I think that these two images have many differences and this is because of the composition and objects that are present in each other the photographs, they have completely different looks with just a few links to each other. Additionally, Misrach’s work is filled with a wider variety of wide shot images, whilst I have more examples of more zoomed in images, attempting to focus on one part of the greenhouse. Despite there being visual differences in my work, their are different conceptual approaches to our work, this means that Misrach has focused on a whole area (Cancer Alley in this photograph above) in an attempt to educate people and bring attention to out current climate crisis. On the other hand, throughout my work I am heavily trying to relate my project to very specific and somewhat overlooked areas of Jersey (like this photoshoot specifically). In my opinion this dramatically affects the outcomes that our work will create, the message of my work is more related to how the landscape itself has changed, and how the environment has continued to adapt.
Photoshoot Plan: For this photoshoot I would like to explore the area of La Collette and its close surroundings. The main aim of this photoshoot would be to create high quality images of an industrial are, particularly ones which would look good edited in a monochromatic style, as this reflects the work of artist Lewis Baltz, who I have been researching and writing about throughout my essay. Additionally, this photoshoot was aimed to be done throughout sunset, as the golden lighting can create reflective effects and interesting shadows. I will not be using other equipment apart from the camera as I believe that my shutter speed will not be low enough for me to need to tripod. I will be attempting to recreate work similar to those of Lewis Baltz and Richard Misrach, this makes this photoshoot my most important of the three that I will be doing, as the others mostly focus on just one of these artists,
Contact Sheets
Overview of Photoshoot: Overall, I think that this photoshoot generated some very successful and high quality images, and most importantly I now have images which can reflect both Lewis Baltz’s and Richard Misrach’s work. I think that it was a very good decision to take this photoshoot during sunset as the warm tones of the image makes them a lot more aesthetic and unique. However, I wish could have generated more images from this shoot because the ones I have will relate very well to my project in my opinion.
Image Selection
In order to begin my image selection process, I went through all of my images and rated them with stars, this ensures that I can later filter out of my unsuccessful and only focus on the ones I have rated 5 stars. The next step to this process is using a colour coding scheme which helps me determine which images out of my strongest images have the most relevance to my project and are of the best quality. This means that the editing process is made so much easier as I have already selected the best images and these mostly have high levels of quality, meaning that some types of editing, such as monochromatic, don’t turn out grainy.
Purple- images with most potential
Blue- images that could be used
Pink- images with least potential
Why I like this method of image selection: This method is an easy way to determine how much I like all of my images individually and how I can visualise them coming together as a sequence. It helps me consider how all my photographs will be arranged in my photobook and which images match up the best.
Best Images Before Editing
Below I have created a gallery to illustrate my images with the most potential, as I believe that these images do not need a lot of editing and are high quality without adapting the ‘clarity’ and ‘dehaze’ settings in Lightroom Classic. I would like to use these images in my photobook as the saturation of these images will look aesthetic in my book as the natural colours provide contrast to the amount of monochromatic photographs I would like to include.
Editing
I have created a gallery to demonstrate the different ways in which I have edited my images, this also shows that not every photo needs a lot of adjustments/ changes to them. I found that the case with so many of my images from this photoshoot as the images had good levels of saturation and vibrancy so they didn’t need a lot of work done to them.
The images from this photoshoot were more difficult to edit than I expected, this meant that making them appear monochromatic sometimes was not as successful as I would have hoped, this means that selecting images to place on the blog was more challenging and there was not many good black and white images to place into this editing gallery. I would like to majority of my monochromatic images to come from my other photoshoots so I’m not too concerned about this.
Final Images and Evaluation/ Critique
This section will include all of my final images from this photoshoot, this demonstrates that exploring around La Collette was successful when in regards to creating new images for my photobook. The most important aspect of this photoshoot is the fact that I am responding to both of my artists and these images are important when it comes to illustrating my understanding of both of my photographers work.
I have decided to place these two final images together as they both have a warm tone and blue aspects to them, the background throughout the first image matches the sky in the second. The first image is like a zoomed out wider perspective of the second one, and this creates a story of exploration throughout these images. This is important as it shows the narrative and thought put into taking my images in La Collette and its surroundings. The overall look of the photographs is one of high quality and dimension, in my opinion these are some of my successful photographs as they didn’t require a lot of editing and cropping. These images are a good reflection of Baltz’s style of photography along with the angles and saturations that Misrach uses, making them great example of how I have tried to explore the work of both photographers in my own way.
I have selected this as one of my final images as I think it reflects the work of Lewis Baltz very accurately, the infrastructure and use of parallel lines means that it reminds me of his work and could be compared and contrasted to his work in an effective way. Furthermore, the point of view in which the image was taken is very interesting as it is from the ground looking very high up, using this unique perspective means that I had more control of the composition of the image and how much sky was left to be exposed. Overall, I think that the cool tones in the image mean that the greys and blues play off each other very effectively and this creates a very authentic feel to the whole image, and the greys in the metal work creates light shadow and reflecting aspects across the majority of the photograph. Its important to note that overall the complexity of the image is limited, but this doesn’t necessarily mean this makes the image less or more successful, its more just an observation when thinking about how much time was put into considering how this image would turn out.
These final images were taken straight across from each other which explains why the sky is slightly darker in the first image as it is facing away from the sunset, and also explains why there is lots of light reflecting off of the metal structure in the second image. In my opinion these photographs fit well together as they both represent work from both of my artists, along with showing how similar and different their work is at the same time. Furthermore, the composition of both of these images makes them more successful as the lamppost is in the middle of the image, and the side of the metal building takes up half of the photograph on the right hand side. These image link well as they both contain parts of La Collette which look similar but have different functions. for example the incinerator in the background of the left image and the lamppost in the background of the right photograph. A critique for these images could be that the first one could of been more zoomed in, along with changing the ‘F’ setting on the camera, the image could of been a lot clearer.
Compare and Contrast
My Work (La Collette, 2023)Baltz’s Work (West Wall, 1974)
Similarities: Below I have placed an example of my work in comparison to the work Lewis Baltz, this is in an attempt to illustrate that I can take inspiration from an artist and show I can create examples of their work in my own style throughout their photoshoots, this means that I have some work which is like Baltz’s and some which is more like Misrach’s, or even some that reflect my own style of photography. The main similarities in these two photographs is the parallel lines in each of the photograph, as the empty space which is present to create contrast, such as the sky in my image and the bushes and pavement which are places at the very foreground of Baltz’s image. This illustrates that both work was taken in industrial areas which have been heavily built my mankind and may be continue to develop.
Differences: My work in comparison to Baltz’s is not monochromatic and contains less cluttered parallel lines, this means that along with the lack of free space in his image his work looks more busy and full of life, it could be argued that my work is of lower quality in comparison. My photograph only focuses on one part of of the structure and the metal work, whilst Baltz’s image looks at some surroundings, such as the pavement and the rocks in the foreground of the image. In my opinion, this makes his work focus more on the general aspects on Anthropocene and it could be interpreted that my work is just focusing on industrial areas and not that natural oandscapes that have been destroyed.
For my second photoshoot I planned on taking photographs of street spots around St. Helier, but it started raining, so I found myself in an underground carpark near the harbour photographing. I managed to take 199 photos during this photoshoot. Using the flagging option in Lightroom I managed to narrow it down to 36 photographs.
I then once again used the rating option in Lightroom to narrow down the 36 images, which left me with 13 of the best images taken during this shoot. While selecting these 13 final images to use in my photobook I made multiple edits of each as well as editing photos which were not rated.
Best Shoot 2 edits
Once again I decided I wanted to use mostly black and white images, as I believe it looked a lot more effective, I found photographing in an underground carpark was unusual scenery wise, as it all looked the same and was very repetitive, although it did lead to some interesting images.
For my first photoshoot, I took photographs down the harbour skatepark over the course of a day and took 318 photographs over this day. I used the flagging option in Adobe Lightroom to narrow down the images taken which left me with 123 photographs, which were still too many.
I then took the photos which I flagged and then used the rating system in Lightroom to narrow down the images again to my favourite, which left me with 11 final images, while narrowing down the images I edited a lot of them but only kept my 11 favourite edits to use within the photobook I am creating for this study.
The majority of my final edits were mostly action shots of skateboarders, but also included a couple images of the skateboarding community in the skatepark.
Best Shoot 1 Edits
I decided that most of the images that I wanted to include within my photobook to be black and white, this is because I believe it made a lot of the images look a lot more effective. It also draws the eyes of the viewer towards the skateboarders within the photographs, and not anywhere else on the image where there may be distracting colours or other subjects. I selected these images as my best edits as, I believe they are the most interesting photographs I took during this shoot and look the coolest out of all of them.
