This photoshoot was to document my family in Poland during an event and my Gran’s house. The process of selecting is done on Adobe Lightroom Classic.
RED: BELOW AVERAGE
YELLOW: AVERAGE
GREEN: *BEST* IMAGES/ABOVE AVERAGE
Most of my images are highlighted yellow. Those highlighted in red are below average images due to me trying to figure out which setting works best. Because I did outdoor and indoor images, I needed to change the settings in order to create the best images I could. When taking these images I had the ‘FLASH’ turned on to create this aesthetic of ‘documentary’ photography. The images highlighted in green are my strongest images, most of the images are portraits of my family members either together or behind the scenes of my grandparents cooking. These images bring me a sense of nostalgia seeing 3 different generations in the same room, while also having my Polish family there which allows me to project my Polish heritage and traditions through the photography.
In this photoshoot I will take inspiration from the Bernd typology work. By taking repeated images of the same subject I will be creating my own typology. During my time away in Poland I will aim to take a few portraits of my family members and places which hold significance with my family and time away. During this shoot I will be also be creating typologies through the stereotypical ‘documentary’ photography. However, with the return back to Jersey I will juxtapose and contrast my life in Poland vs Jersey, therefore I will also take images of my family here.
WHERE?
LOCATIONS FOR PHOTOSHOOT:
POLAND
HOUSE AND FAMILY IN POLAND
SIGNIFICANT PLACES (PARKS, CENTRES)
WHEN?
This images will be taken as I go away to Poland for the weekend for a family event. Hopefully I will be able to go back to take another shoot, however it’s uncertain.
HOW?
I will be using a camera from school so I am able to create higher quality images. I will be using the flash in order to create that ‘documentary’ style photography and create a slightly more authentic images, showing the events of the night and the function of the event.
WHY?
This photoshoot is designed to show my duel nationality, my life in Jersey and my life in Poland. By doing this photoshoot I am creating my own typology of my own personal nostalgia. By creating these images in my photobook I will be able to shows the difference within my life with my two families.
A photographic typology is a study of “types”. That is, a photographic series that prioritizes “collecting” rather than stand-alone images. It’s a powerful method of photography that can be used to reshape the way we perceive the world around us. The noun TYPOLOGY means the study and interpretation of types. This became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs taken over the course of 50 years of industrial structures; water towers, grain elevators, blast furnaces etc can be considered conceptual art.
The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, invented New typologies, they began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their “typologies”—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure.
Hilla Becher was a German artist born in 1931 in Siegen, Germany. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. For forty years, they photographed disappearing industrial architecture around Europe and North America.
They won the Erasmus Prize in 2002 and Hasselblad Award in 2004 for their work and roles as photography professors at the art academy Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes.
‘They are the lines on the face of the world. The photographs are portraits of our history. And when the structures have been demolished and grassed over, as though they were never there, the pictures remain.’ Michael Collins, The Long Look
This quote from Michael Collins connects with my personal study, Nostalgia. ‘The photographs are portraits of our history’
The way these images are presented shows different buildings and how they could evolve. This is how I’m going to incorporate typologies into my personal study, by presenting different locations which bring me nostalgia. If I am able to get some portrait images of my family I will also try to use their portraits and display them in the style of typologies.
Visual – what we can see in the image
With the presentation of these images you are able to see a stationary and repeated sequence. The images seem to be taken at the same angle and height which creates this this organised aesthetic look. Each individual image presents a different building, which shows the evolution of building structures. Each infrastructure in the individual images in centred in the middle thirds, in the rule of thirds which creates this repetition. By using the form of the grid the Bernd’s were able to emphasise the repetition, which can suggests that the industrialisation was becoming repetitive. “we want to change nothing about the objects we photograph.. namely strip the individual object of context, in other words to position them such that they fit the frame” this quote by the Bernd’s show they photographed industrial buildings without context, just to view them as an overall form.
Contextual – who, when, where etc…the story, background, impact:
Hilla Becher was a German artist born in 1931 in Siegen, Germany. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. For forty years, they photographed disappearing industrial architecture around Europe and North America. The Becher’s themes to photograph were the overlooked beauty within the relationship between form and function. Both of the subjects addressed the effect of industry on economy and the environment.
The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their “typologies”—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure.
Our personal study project is based around the theme of nostalgia. Nostalgia is defined as ‘a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.’ My interpretation of the theme nostalgia in my personal study, is going to be based on exploring my Polish heritage, and how my family in Poland applies to my own sense of nostalgia. Furthermore I will contrast this to my life with my family here, in Jersey. I will be using Realism, within Typology and artist’s such as Hilla and Bernd Becher in order to present my life through photography. In the book August Sander Face of Our Time by Alfred Doblin Sander says ‘Each of us knows a number of people, and we recognize them when we meet by specific entirely personal characteristics that they have. All the people we encounter are only individuals, and each person has a name as well as specific, unrepeatable, and characteristic token of identification’ this supports my personal study by showing my identity and nostalgia through my family.
The main purpose of my project is to take photograph’s of my family neighbourhood, this is to highlight the nostalgic feeling I have towards my family. This will include taking images of their houses and portrait’s of my family members. I will be taking documentary style images, some of my photos will be taken with flash, as I will be attending a family gathering in Poland which gives me an opportunity to take pictures. I will take pictures of the setting and surroundings where the dinner will take place, perhaps I will be able to find some objects that are significant to my family as well as images of my family during the dinner. Here I will also try to and take headshot portraits of my family members, inside and perhaps outside their house depending on the natural lighting, as I will not be using artificial lighting.
Realism within Typology is what I am referencing my project to. The term ‘realism’ can mean to depict things as they are, without idealising or making abstract. This will be presented by my documentary photography that I will take. As well as taking images of my family neighbourhood, I will aspire to also take images of the town I live in, Konstantynow Lodzki. Here I will try to take images of small landmarks that can be used as filler images in the book.
I will develop my project into a book form. This is so it can highlight each documentary image and tell a story through the layout of a book. I am yet to decide whether the images will be in colour or black and white, once the images are taken I will decide. However I’m more interested in colour, I will edit my images in Adobe Lightroom Classic. Within the book I will alternate between portraits and images of people and landmarks and place either in Poland or Jersey. In Jersey I will take images in places that are significant to me. I however won’t be adding any text within the book as my intention is for the images to speak for themselves.
Over the course of studying Photography A-Level, we have completed a number of projects and looked at a variety of artists. Some artist we’ve studied are Ansel Adams, Justine Kurland, Clare Rae and Hilla and Bernd Becher. Studying these variety of different artist’s allowed me to grow a deeper understanding of the camera and my preferred style of photography.
During the course of my A-Level study of photography I also learnt how to use various design software’s such as Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, InDesign, Premier Pro and briefly Audio Audition, when creating our film.
In my own personal study I will be focused on interpreting the work of the Becher’s; Typologies. In which they took photographs of industrial buildings and displaying them in a grid format.
REFLECTING ON PAST WORK:
Justine Kurland: Girl Pictures
MOODBOARD:
MY IMAGES:
REFLECTION:
‘Girl Pictures’ by Kurland was a project I really enjoyed. It allowed me to experiment with portraiture photography, while also taking pictures with my girl friends showing ‘girlhood’ in the teenage years. This project seemed to be easier as we are in our teenage years, which allowed me to photograph among my peers. Taking very stereotypical ‘feminine’ images allowed me to take images in different locations which let me explore photography inside and outside.
2. LIGHTING TECHNIQUES
MY IMAGES:
REFLECTION:
Taking picture in the studio allowed me to understand the camera settings better. Here we explored double exposure and different lighting techniques. This unit allowed me to understand how to use the studio and professional lighting stands and overall how to use the camera and studio safely. I really enjoyed taking pictures using the coloured gels as I think they enhanced the visual of the image, but using different colours it allowed me to change the mood of the image entirely. By doing this project I grew a deeper understanding how one setting of a camera or your location could change the entire picture.
This was my least favourite project. Creating a film is a lot harder then it seems and it took a lot of team effort and co-operation. I did not like this project as there were so many other aspects you had to think about; photography, video and audio. I was not experienced in managing sounds or sound effects and found it hard to create a good sequenced that flowed. However this project improved my time management skills and co-ordination and allowed me to learn software’s such as Audition and Premier Pro.
Overall I found the film project challenging. This project was my least favourite as I did not enjoy the software or the idea of creating a film with the images. This project was also heavy dependent on communicating with your group making sure everyone has everything they need; everyone needs to be organised. Premiere Pro was a new software I hadn’t used before and was slightly difficult to learn and first especially since it updated half way through the project.
What I found interesting in this project was seeing the process in which artist do in order to create a film. Looking at examples of short films like ‘La Jettee’ was intriguing as I enjoying watching the film without having an understanding with how much work is put into creating a film. I enjoyed creating the composition and deciding which images are interesting for the film.
What I found challenging in this project was linking the audio with the film making. The audio was a crucial element to out film which meant in needed to be perfectly placed in the film. However in order to do this meant good communication with Hannah, our audio editor. This project showed me the importance of organisation and communication with your peers. Ultimately in a next project like this the key element is to be organised and create and decide things that all your peers agree on.
THE APP USED TO EDIT OUR ELIZABETH CASTLE FILM; PREMIERE PRO.
The process in making the film was particularly difficult, I was using this software for the first time which meant I had to familiarise myself with the tools. Me being the creator of the film making was tasked with adding creating the composition of the images/videos, the visual aesthetic, adding fading to the images, and making sure the audio was in the right place. Firstly I added our original image into a sequenced that we liked which also flowed better with a narrative, in order to add some history aspect to our film. According to Hesmondhalgh’s cultural industries theory producers use existing material so the audience can relate and minimise risk when releasing a product.
In this image you are able to see the sequencing of videos and images. To create a smooth film I tried to add similar images as to what you could see in the videos, sort of like a visual conclusion in what you saw in the short video. Furthermore with the archive images I faded my original images into them to show the evolution and change you are able to see.
In this screenshot you are able to see a fade from one image to another. You can do this by slightly overlapping the two images and adding two key frames in the edge of each image. You are able to create different types of fades depending on how you position your images and the fade.
Here you are able to see the adjustment layer that is added on top of the sequence throughout the film. An adjustment layer, is an application of the same effect to a multitude of clips on your timeline. In the adjustment layer I added a black and white filter from the list of adobe filters, this was so the edited images and videos could have the same mood. However in order to make the archive images distinctive I added a different filter ‘Kodak Tobacco’ to create a more vintage old look. This filter had a gold/warm tone which seemed to look a bit like rustic paper used back in the day.
To edit the sound in my film I used Adobe Audition. The class was given a workshop by Sam to demonstrate how to use this application when editing and creating soundscapes for the film. Hannah Fernandes was our audio editor in our group.
THE APP USED TO EDIT OUR ELIZABETH CASTLE SOUNDS; ADOBE AUDIOTION.
Sam, the provider of the workshop, prepared us a folder of sound material that he gathered from the trip to Elizabeth Castle. Majority of the sounds Hannah worked with were taken from this folder, as our film group did not have the equipment to gather our own material. However, Hannah used the audio from one of the videos captured for the canon fire. Using Adobe Audition, she was able to make it louder and clearer so it could be heard in the film.
Sam’s provided sound effects
Hannah used Sam’s materials to create the soundscapes. Using the combination of sound effects, seagulls and the sea, to create an establishing background noise for the film. This was to help establish the setting and surroundings at the beginning of the film. Hannah was able to take other sound effects from this too, for example rifle firings.
Sam’s provided dialogue clips
This folder included some dialogue clips recorded on the trip. They consist of recordings of demonstrations and other staff character commands. Hannah distributed a selected few of these clips across my film. She did this because the focus of our film was supposed to aim for Tourism attractions which therefore linked to the history of the grounds.
Media – Radio – Departments – Media – Students – Sound FX
Furthermore Hannah gathered more sound effects from the Media Drive to expand our sound collection for the film. This includes the backing music for the film, called ‘Café del Mar – Terrace Mix 2’. However, the clip weren’t long enough for the entirety of the film. So, using Adobe Audition, she removed parts of the clip that weren’t useful and disliked by the group and duplicated it in order to extend the backing track to fit the film.
THIS IS SHOWN IN THE BELOW SCREENSHOT:
Audio folder for the film
This is Hannah’s folder which was created for all the sound effects that would be used in the film eg: backing music, and Adobe Audition edits Hannah created. This was useful as it allowed our entire sound material to be transferred to the film editor’s computer. This then allows the film editor, Alice, to add in the sound clips to our film as the finishing touches.
