We did this photoshoot inspired by early 17th-century styles of photography. Still-life “art” can be a celebration of the material joys of life, or conversely a memento mori, expressing the temporality of human life and material pleasures. The wonderful thing about still-life art is that depending on the objects and the cultural contexts they draw from, each still-life art form will take on a unique meaning. Still-life art has existed from the 17th century until the modern-day, but in the 19th century, artists adopted photography as a new medium for still-life art, to express their concepts in a novel format, and thus the still-life photo was born.

We used the photography studio to take a variety of still-life images of objects relating to the ‘My Rock’ project such as rocks, shells, seaweed, etc we could combine with previous photoshoots later on. We used two different types of lighting (flashed lighting and still lighting) alongside varying backgrounds in order to experiment with the intensity of the lights and accentuate the quality of each image along with pairing each object composition with a backdrop that would allow the details the emerge within the image- essentially giving the subjects a stage.

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Contact Sheets

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Selections

My aim for this photoshoot was to try and get some images similar to those of Shiroshi Sugimoto in his series “Seascapes in which he creates abstract images solely using photos of the horizon, where the sea and sky meet. Mentions in the description of this project how he uses minimal editing, mainly just making it monochrome. I was actually aiming to create a similar style of images but with a bit more going on in the photos, including things like sunsets, cloud formations, rock formations, boats, buoys, piers, etc as I want to link this series of images more closely to island life in Jersey- but still keeping the simple calming nature.

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Edits

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Image 2

Seeing as I set my tripod up on an angled wall, for this edit I also had to adjust the angle.

I have noticed that in this second image, along with some others from this shoot that the water has become almost the same colour as the sky, and so in future, I will need to adjust my camera settings, as well as the angle I’m shooting at + the editing technique I’m using in order to create more of a separation- similar to Hiroshimo’s work.

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Conclusion

Overall I am happy with these images as a starting point, but I do feel like I want to create more images in a similar way to create a larger collection in order to convey the desired effect. This means I will be conducting more photoshoots, in order to construct a larger group of images to add to my photobook as I feel like this style of photos works best in a group with complimentary images, and/or contrasting images such as those I am planning on creating showing more “brutalist” images giving a more depressing angle on island living. I feel that having the two different styles of contrasting images potentially even sharing page spreads it will give my book some extra depth.

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Photosculptures are three-dimensional art sculptures are works of art that present the dimensions of height, width, and depth. They occupy physical space and can be perceived from all sides and angles. Traditional types of three-dimensional media, like sculptures and reliefs, are some of the oldest examples of 3D artwork.

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History of Photo-Sculptures

The process was invented and patented by French artist (painter, sculptor, and photographer) François Willème in 1860. He took a series of photographs from around a subject and used them to carve a likeness of the figure. Contemporary photo sculptures are obtained through a process of 3D scanning and 3D printing.

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Photosculpture Mood Board

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Artist Reference: Robert Heinecken

Robert Heinecken was an American artist who referred to himself as a “paraphotographer” because he so often made photographic images without a camera. Heinecken was known for appropriating and re-processing images from magazines, product packaging, or television. In the late 1960s, he also began cutting up popular magazines such as Time and Vogue and inserting sexual or pornographic images into them.

He would place his collage publications back on newsstands in Los Angeles to be sold to unsuspecting buyers. In the 1980s, he created several series on American news television that involved photographing images on the television or exposing the light of a television set directly to paper to create what he called “videograms.”

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Inspiration

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My main point of inspiration from Robert is the way in which he cops and rearranges his images before placing them onto 3D-shaped “canvases” such as the one shown below. I plan to print out an image of the coast taken from my photoshoot at Le’Tacq and fuse it onto a piece of foam board, which I will then cut u into smaller pieces to rearrange. This will create a puzzle-like piece similar to the one shown below.

Photography zines are a tool that photographers can use to tell a visual story, inform an audience about a specific topic or issue, showcase and advertise a new idea or just create a preview of an ongoing project. Zines were originally called fanzines, alluding to the fans who made them but not to be confused with magazines as photo-zines don’t include nearly as much text- if any). Zines often have specific yet simple layouts in order to take the viewer on a journey or portray a story through the photos within. Images will be thoughtfully and specifically laid out in order to anticipate and or guide the path your vision takes when you first view the page.

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Example – Time Only Moves In One Direction,
By Chris Black

This specific zine was published by Village bookshop and Gallery (a small independent Leeds-based organisation) which source self-published and small-press zines from artists around the world. This is an example of how zines are an example of a sort of rebellion from smaller artists against big publishing/ printing companies as zines require significantly fewer resources to make – giving the power back to smaller artists.

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Photo-Zine Moodboard

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My Zine

Based on the zines I have viewed through my research, I am planning to keep the main precipice of my zine simple- featuring mainly bold landscape shots. However, I will be altering the images slightly to create a more abstract theme throughout as personally I found a lot of the zines I came across to be slightly boring upon first look. I will be using techniques such as warping, color splash, and duplication along with adding borders/frames to certain images.

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Examples of Martin’s Work

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“We all know our landscape is constantly changing, but as we live in the moment we rarely perceive a big sense of difference”

Michael Marten

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From looking at Martins work I gather that he aims to illustrate the ebbs and flows of our environment by taking two photos of the same coastal location at both low and high water, and displaying them side by side. A majority of his images show intense drastic landscape changes in coastal environments, with minimal editing or colour grading – just him leaving original tones and colours.

What his images portray is very closely linked to islandness in the way that he portrays the sea and tidal changes, which is the defining part of island living and will link in nicely with my personal study as I look into what disconnects the island of Jersey from the rest of the world.

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I chose to reference Michaels’s work as I feel that it links well into the overall theme of islandness as it obviously portrays coastal movements of the sea which I a key part of island living; but more specifically my focus on loneliness, isolation and disconnection. This is seen in his photos where he captures busy beaches full of people and then the same beach when it becomes unreachable during high tide.

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In these photos, Micheal takes advantage of natural lighting in order to give a massive contrast between the before and after. By efficiently timing his shoots in accordance with the tidal range he was able to capture low tide at a time when the beach was busy with people and the sun was out providing a light, clear image. He has used a tripod to keep the same angle in both images, and by using a wide shot it captures more people, contributing to the contrast in the second image as they would all be covered.

In the second image, the tide has obviously come up covering the beach which was once full of people. The lighting is much darker as the photo was taken later in the day, but when given context from the first image it makes it slightly eerie.

Michael has used the bridge in the centre as a focal point which makes it clear that the two images are of the same place. Michael also used a slightly slower shutter speed to create a bit of blur while the waves crashed over.

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I will be attempting to create my own selection of similar images by photographing coastal points such as Gorey Harbour, Le Hurrel Slip, and St Helier Harbour. I will be doing this by photographing POIs at low tide and high tide, keeping a specific angle by marking my tripod and where I place it.

“FOR EVERY MINUTE YOU ARE ANGRY YOU LOSE 60 SECONDS OF HAPPINESS”

Made by Julian German, who happened to meet an old man named Charles Albert Lucien Snelling after spotting his unique coloured house with plants for sale outside. I can perceive this book as being made with the intention of entertaining and enlightening people.

This specific book is a hardcover made of a unique canvas material, with prints of white, yellow, green and blue flowers around it. The cover also includes a silkscreened title box with the book name and authors name. Its slightly bigger/more square than A4 size in a portrait layout, and doesn’t include page numbers but I can estimate there to be around 30. I find the title is clearly literal but is an attempt to be an intriguing way of putting a phrase to make it more rememberable- while also foreshadowing how the contents are meant to be pleasant and enjoyable to consume.

The story is based around an old widower who has a passion for flowers, but can gauge that the creator chose to write on him after being intrigued by his simplistic life and general happiness and content with this life. This is shown as Julian takes a look into his simple life, including lots of shots of the man himself, along with shots of his old house, and lots of shots of his flowers/flower themed décor. Julian has for the most part stuck to one image per page, bar images of the man’s personal photo books featured on the first and last few pages. Julian has left many a page blank, and photos with minimal editing; which i perceive as a an attempt to focus the viewers attention on the striking simplicity of the images and overall the life of the man he is portraying.

Essay Questions

–Think of a hypothesis and list possible essay questions–

“How does Kalafatis use the ocean used a means to portray the loneliness of archipelagos/ islandness/island living?”

“How is the ocean used as a means to portray the loneliness of archipelagos/ islandness/island living?”

“How does Sugimoto use photography to evoke “a calming sense of security, as if visiting an ancestral home””

“How can photography evoke feelings of calmness & security around specific subjects”

Harvard System of Referencing

Bengal, R. (2020), Justin Kurland: Girl Pictures. New York; A Aperture

In Text Referencing

In her book on the island of Jersey, Dingle writes ‘

Essay

Inspiration

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Locations

Gorey, St Catharine’s, Noirmont

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My aim is to use a tripod and long exposure/ shutter speed to get a calm still image where the sky meets the water over the horizon, Similar to how Shiroshi Sugimoto works. I will be experimenting with different times of day and weather conditions.

Inferences

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PICTORIALISM

Time period :1880s – 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : attempting to make images which resemble paintings

Artists associated: Clarence H. White, John Everett Millais, Paolo Veronese, JMW Turner, Peter Harvey Emerson

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: painting over photos, smearing Vaseline on lenses, scratch the negative out on prints,

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REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1880-1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Picture meant to look the way it looked through viewfinder, no image manipulation, framing more specific,

Artists associated: Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Framing, collections,

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MODERNISM

Time period: 1830

Key characteristics/ conventions: celebrates unity,

Artists associated: Olive Cotton, Alfred Stieglitz

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

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POST-MODERNISM

Nialistic reaction to modernism, result of ww2, Postmodern photography is characterized by atypical compositions of subjects that are unconventional or sometimes completely absent, making sympathy with the subject difficult or impossible

Time period: “arose in the second half of the 20th century”

Key characteristics/ conventions : celebrating difference rather than unity,

Artists associated:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Abstract,