Will Lakeman is a Local artist who grew up in Jersey his exhibition which he had created was based on Fort Regent and how he visioned it when he was little, when we went on a class trip to go see it Will explained to us that Fort Regent was a place he went to, to spend time with his brother. Lakeman is a photographer who has nurtured an obsessive interest in ‘the Fort’, and has spent his adult life revisiting weird dreams of this iconic building and its heyday in the early 1990s. It was interesting hearing about how the Fort was when it had things to do and was busy as now more and more things have been taken out of it and each year it is becoming more derelict and is hardly used. He mentioned that part of his attachment to Fort Regent was due to his autism he was fascinated by the pools and funfairs which were there even though he was intimidated and didn’t like the floods of people which the Fort held as it could be a sensory overload he found his passion for the place. The nostalgia which Lakeman experienced whilst making this project bought him comfort as he was able to create the illusion of how amazing he found the Fort even though other other people may have thought he had exaggerated it but that didn’t matter because it was how he saw it.

The images were an attempt to recreate his childhood memories and how he envisioned it, and whilst creating the images the nostalgia came flooding back of his childhood memories, the images are fascinating to look at as they are vibrant and look really realistic.

These photos were created by ai, for the past 3 years Lakeman was working on ai to create these photos he said he liked creating these images however it took him years to master the techniques and he is still learning, Lakeman also used a light-box to frame his images to enhance the vibrance of the colours to resemble how he saw them the ones in the light-box are printed on a special film in order for it to more effective.

I really enjoyed visiting this exhibition as it was something i haven’t seen before and was a different medium of photography and i found that fascinating i loved how vibrant the images were.

I have created a virtual gallery to show off all my final images in one space i have created this by using artsteps a online website which allows you to use your own images to create your own space to show off your work.

For my final project i picked femininity for the identity project that i could relate to being a female, and when researching photographers i came across Justine Kurland’s ‘Girl Pictures’ which i as inspired by to create my own shoot similar to hers as i liked how she captured the youth of femininity in a unique way and and in such a natural way, for example how she captured people braiding each others hair which children usually do in the playground in their youth years, her photos don’t seem as staged as other photographers although it is obviously staged there is a way on how she photographed the people in such a natural way which is why it appealed to me straight away.

My idea behind this topic femininity was to show the stereotypical representations of females and the youth within young females.

when planning this photoshoot i had to plan the outfits with the people i was using for this i arranged them to all wear blue jeans and a whit top i liked the idea of them all wearing the same thing but the outfits being slightly different showing there style and what they are comfortable in. I also had to factor in the weather as this shoot was highly dependant on the weather i had to make sure the ground was dry and the sky was bright, although when i did the shoot there was a slight bit of mist in the air i believe this worked out for be as in on of Kurlands photos on a hill the sky is misty it also creates a sene of eeriness. However if i was to do this shoot again i would do it of a clear sky day because due to the bright clouds it made the photos slightly over exposed so there for in the editing process i had to turn the exposure down to make them look right and also due to the clouds it didn’t make the grass look as vibrant.

When it came to the photoshoot i wanted the photos to be as natural as possible i gave guidance to the girls of what i was wanting the outcomes of the photoshoot to look like by showing them Justine Kurlands book ‘Girls Photos’ and i let them partially do what they want which worked out in my favour as i got the photos i need to get in relation to Kurlands work but i also got outcomes which were unique to my work and what i had envisioned the outcome to be like. When it came to editing the photos i wanted to keep them natural looking i did this by not making any vast changes with the Kurland inspired shoot on may of the photos i tended to adjust the vibrance exposure and the saturation to create the look and aesthetic i was looking for, i believe that because i made the images more vibrant it made my photos look more alive and joyful and feminine

Overall evaluation

I really enjoyed this project, i learned a lot about studio lighting and different positions of lighting you can do to get different effects, i also believe that my knowledge and skills on photography have improved a lot since the last project as i feel a lot more comfortable behind the camera and my knowledge on how to work a camera. Things i have struggled with in this project is getting willing people to sit in front of the camera and asking people to help me, i have also struggled with working with natural lighting within portraits and finding the best balance to not get it over or under exposed.

These photos i mounted up by using foam board i placed each images on foam boarded, glued it down and then cut each one out by using a knife and a metal rulers to get a sharp straight line, once each image was cut out i then placed double sided sticky tape to the back of each image and placed them on one single pice of foam board to create this final pice.

window mount

The photos below i created by cutting out each window fame, i had to work out all the sizes and measurements for this to make sure the image being placed fitted in perfectly to the mount, after i have marked out all the lines on the board i then begin to cut out the centre square, i use a special knife which cuts out on an angle which makes the white rim around the photo.

The image above is some of the measurements i used to create the window mounts.

These two photos i placed the window mounted photos on to white foam board to create a second frame the white frame is 5cm wide around the whole image.

This photo shoot was inspired by Justine Kurland and her girls pictures, these photos are my interpretations to her photos.

The differences between mine and Justine Kurlands work within these two photos is that all the women in her photo are all facing forward or sideways compared to mine they all have there backs towards the photo.

Within these two photos i believe this shows the unison of females and the connection that we all have with my photo this is shown by the braiding of the hair which everyone is doing linking them all together, in Justine Kurlands photos the connection is show but a girl placing a leech on the other girls back, a place where she cant reach.

I edited this photo by using Lightroom classic my aim when i was editing this photo was to make it look more vibrant, brighter and to add more depth due to the weather conditions of the day i took the photos it was cloudy making everything look a lot more dull, there for i turned the shadows up to add the depth and then turned the vibrance and the saturation up to give it a more brighter and vibrant look.

With this image i didn’t like how bright it was there for i turned the exposure down to eliminate the white cast as much as i could and then turned the vibrance up to make the weather appear more sunny and vibrant.

I chose to turn this photo into black and white to show off the texture of the jeans and emphasise the shadows and highlights on the hands and jewellery.

With this image when i was taking it i made it so the girls were slightly off centre there for making the viewer take in and look at the other surroundings of the image including the focal point.

This is roughly how i want to present my photos when i get them printed and frame them i have made this collage by using photoshop and arranging them into how i would like to present them, i have done this so i can visually see how it is going to look before i finalise it and i am able to experiment different ways and see what looks the best.

Justine Kurland is another person who has inspired me to do one of my photoshoots and her book Girl Pictures, she has inspired me to take photos in a similar style as hers, she shows feminism is a beautiful and majestic way, her photos also show youth within females as she shows girls running through fields and making daisy chains, things children did when they were younger.

Justine Kurland (American, b.1969) is a Contemporary Fine Art photographer who is known for her large c-print tableau pictures of childhood secret places and wastelands. She was born in Warsaw, NY, and graduated from The School of Visual Arts in New York with a BFA in 1996.

Kurland has become famous for her landscapes dealing with young children, men, and women, often mixing the purity of youth with its unbridled wildness. These works of feral and unsupervised children running amuck in a suburban wasteland formed the basis of her book Spirit West in 2000. She has traveled across the United States to create these staged photos, including to Virginia and California, but spent many months traveling through New Zealand as well. Her photos of utopian-esque communities in Virginia and California earned her solo shows in London and Vienna. Kurland is very in touch with nature and the primal impulses of humanity. In 2004, the book Old Joy explored men in the wilderness often unclothed as they experienced the true mystery of nature.

Kurland uses natural daylight to capture her photos and the visual element of her photographs make her photos look like they are taken on film due to the colour and the graininess of the photos, her photos are bright and almost include an aspect of nature in them.

The idea behind her photos are to include aspects of freedom and liberation within femininity

Many females look up to Justine Kurland and her work on girl pictures because of the relatability in an interview she says “The whole idea of this series was to have this imaginary place of protection for these girls.” and for many girls they don’t have a safe place so for the idea or thought of having one is comforting for them there for her work is a breath of fresh air and relatable. Kurland also believes and says that ‘to prove that this alternate fantasy life is real because it’s part of all of the other images that we’re navigating through”.

The image above shows the freedom and release of pressure that the people in the image have you can tell this buy the laid back and relaxed posture of the females, Kurland used natural lighting in this image as she is outside, this photo was taken on a cloudy day you are as the sky has a whit cast and is not blue this impacts the image due as is would have decreased the actual vibrance of the setting and wouldn’t have captured and the bright colours that there would have been, however the element of it not being bright makes the views this that it is like that for a reason and i could represent that there is something overpowering the image from being bright some views may believe it shows that the male patriarchy is still overpowering women and putting a dull cast of femininity.

My Interpratation

Clare Rae explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of the female body. Known for her engagement with domestic and institutional spaces, Rae’s work has recently been captured and exhibited in locations such as the National Gallery of Victoria, Monash University, the Abbotsford Convent, Sutton Project Space and the Substation, Melbourne.

Clare did a shoot inspired by Claude Cahun in jersey where Cahun lived during WW2 .

My Photos