he Patent Diamond Cameo photograph was registered by F.R. Window of London in 1864. Four small oval portraits (1″ x ³/₄“) were placed on a carte de visite in the shape of a diamond, each portrait being of the same person photographed in a different position. A special camera made by Dallmeyer was used in which the one glass negative was moved to a new position in the back of camera after each portrait had been taken, and when the paper print had been pasted on the card a special press was used to punch the four portraits up into a convex cameo shape. It is unlikely the process became very popular with Adelaide’s photographers, as the failure of just one of the four portraits through movement, poor expression or incorrect exposure meant that the plate had to be rejected and another four portraits made on a new plate. To obtain a carte de visite which had a pleasing overall effect would have involved careful advance planning of the four positions to be taken, as it was only after the negative was developed that the photographer could see if an acceptable negative had been produced.

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To make mine I took 4 photos of someone looking straight on, away to either side and down. I put these into a photoshop document, levelled them, cut them out and arranged them in a diamond shape. To also add a more vintage and worn appearance I copied in a photo of an old piece of paper then reduced the opacity to add a more worn out look.

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I repeated this process again outside of school in a makeshift studio but with varied facial expressions and actions. I like how this one came out more as it feels more personal and the lighting changed a bit halfway through the shoot because of a malfunctioning reading lamp I was using to cast shadows.

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For this idea I used a studio environment to capture portraits with a low shutter speed which created motion blur when shaking your head.

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After opening these in photoshop and doing some cropping, I placed them into one image, added a drop shadow and arranged them in line creating a piece that show some movement.

To finish I just added this shot of his hands behind to give depth and a more personal look.

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This idea was inspired by the work of Carole Benitah and was my take of portraying geographical identity, as well as portraying the passage of time. Carole has a series of images where she has taken old family photos and either cut them up, or draw/sew over them to create unknown figures amongst a normal portrait or background.

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I had more photos from the same photoshoot so it was easy to cut out a subject from the other photos as they had the same angles and lighting. After I had added him in and adjusted the colours I used the magic wand tool to select a portion of his body which I then used layer-via-cut on to remove them from the layer. I duplicated. I added in photos of old discoloured paper behind the layer. To finish it I used the marquee tool to remove sections behind them revealing the black and white layer I had created earlier.

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I have created my second piece inspired by John Divola, an American contemporary visual artist. He has a series of images called “Zuma” where he goes into abandoned buildings in California at various times during the day and takes photographs from interesting angles and perspectives. He then goes throughout the house spray painting, creating graffiti, breaking things and moving objects around. He then goes around the house again taking more photos.

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“Divola’s works trace a schematic desire for escape, movement and transcendence. “

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I chose to base my images off this project as I had a good idea of how I could represent loss of identity through a visual representation of mental health disorder, specifically Dissociative Disorders, more specially Depersonalization-derealization Disorder .

I chose this image of a dark, dingy hotel room which was in a state of decay and falling apart which will represent someones head.

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Once I had a clear view out the window I chose a photo which i thought would contrast the dim environment in the room.

I added this photo into the project, placed it the layer below and cropped until it looked right and played with the colour settings until it fit in. To add the final part of the image I cut out someone looking out a window to represent personality/conscience.

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After adding them in I used the FX to create a drop shadow and used the smudge tool to create a waved effect around the border of the window which I think reflects the idea of it being set in a brain/head quite well.

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Overall I think this idea came out very well and looks how I was trying to make it look. It looks similar to John Divola’s work but portrays a slightly different message in a more cryptic way.

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My first piece is a montage inspired by the work of Jim Goldberg. Goldberg photographs sub-cultures creating photo collages, including text with his photographs, often written by his subjects telling some sort of story about an element of their life which is often quite depressing or just hard truth. He makes these pieces to highlight the gap between the rich and the poor and pretty much provide a semi detailed insight into ordinary people and their identitys.

He mostly uses black and white photos with a few exceptions with straight on portraits of people often in their homes or places of significance to them. His photos come off as dark and a bit depressing as they are basic with not much to them, on top of a white background. He then asks the subjects to write out something about their life, their feelings, their situation etc which provides a personal addition to the piece and is what really gives it the deep meaning.

For my collage I went to my local skatepark and photographed a skater in different settings, while trying to portray their personality and identity as much as possible. I also added in a seperate piece consisting of a close up his hands which was inspired by one of Goldberg’s other pieces, as I then printed out and wrote a quote from my subject (as Jim had) about why he tries the same trick for so long, as Jim had.

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Once they were all in photoshop I created an A2 project, colour levelled each photo, added them in and spent a while adjusting their positions and sizes based on their relevance. I took these photos at night with flash and so they all have the the same tone which looks good on the montage. This is the final piece however I am going to be printing them out and adding them to an A2 board which I will be writing on and around the photos in the style of Jim Goldberg.

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What is identity (in photography?)

(Social identity and loss of identity focus)

Identity itself is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. Identity in photography is more about how a photograph resembles the likeness of what appeared before the lens. So, in the case of a profile picture, family album or mug shot, identity is based on the repetition of sameness that is evidenced by the image produced by the camera.

Identity can be influenced by many things including where you grew up, the people you are around, your heritage etc.

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Carole Benitah

is a French Moroccan photographer, who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, explores memory, family and the passage of time. I find these images very interesting as they are a fresh take on displaying emotions such as grief and the feeling of not belonging while using old family photos to link in heritage. I will definitely be using this as inspiration for my project.

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Corrine Day

was a British fashion photographer, documentary photographer, and fashion model. She was a photographer whose influence on the style and perception of photography in the early 1990s and onwards has been immense. Self taught, Day brought a more documentary look to fashion imagery, in which she often included autobiographical elements. She has projects on vitality / pressures of youth.

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Diana Markosian

takes an intimate approach to her photography and video storytelling, Her work is represented by Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris, France and Rose Gallery in Los Angeles, California. She has projects that focus on cultural, geographical and political identity. For example in the photos below she explores unseen parts of foreign culture and the “forgotten” people from older generations who still remember and embrace century old traditions and ideas. For example the first picture was taken on the outskirts of Havana, neighbours gathered in the street waiting for a girl to emerge from her house for her quinceañera. She uses wide shots to show the scale of the gathering, which I think she has done purely to emphasise how important this is in their culture.

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Who is Claude Cahun?

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Schwob adopted the artist name Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae.

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About her work

Cahun’s work is both political and personal and also focuses on creating work linked to the surrealist movement. Although she made sculpture, embedded herself within activism and wrote extensively, Cahun is mostly synonymous for her contributions to surrealist photography, particularly her striking self-portraits, in which she questioned societal expectations of gender years ahead of her time

Contact Sheets

Photoshoot 1

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Final Selections

Photoshoot 3

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Final selections

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Others

A ‘multiple exposure’ is a type of photograph that is created by exposing the same frame of film to light more than once. Multiple exposures allow a photographer to superimpose one subject or scene over another on the same frame of a photograph. Multiple exposures can also be created digitally, (the technique I used) although this is done during post processing by overlaying multiple photography over each other. A sports sequence photograph can be seen as being another example of a multiple exposure.

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For mine I used my portrait photos taken with Oliver Duran and put them all into one photoshop project as different layers. I adjusted the position of the images and reduced the opacity of all but one of them to create the multiple exposure effect seen below.

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Overall I think this image came out well but I didn’t like the way the photos were at different distances from the camera and there was a lack of movement so I went back to the studio to take some more photos.

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I think that this image came out a lot better as the photos I used were more similar and consistent i.e same lighting and angles. I also asked for them to move their head slightly between shots which I think creates an interesting effect.

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