Rinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer whose work focuses on ordinary life, the delicacy of natural forms and the beauty of ordinary moments. Her work is often recognisable through the nostalgic haziness of her images, something achieved through lower contrasts in settings with intense natural lighting which creates a poetic sense of serenity.

Kawauchi acts as the observer in her photographs, shooting scenes as they play out naturally, establishing emotional authenticity, in turn strengthening the effect of the viewer’s own emotional response. Take this image of Kawauchi’s daughter, for example, as it shows a moment of her playing or exploring in the outdoors, in what appears to be a wooded area. This image in particular portrays a moment of pure childhood innocence, a nostalgic feeling that everyone can relate to in one way or another, whether it’s from their own childhood, or something they recognise in their own children, it’s the memories that stay with someone for their whole life. Compositionally, Kawauchi uses the rule of thirds and a shallow focus to centre her daughter within the image as the subject. Like with a lot of her work, this piece too has a very soft colour palette, namely using lighter blues and darker greens, a low contrast and an emphasis on the natural lighting, which brings out the feelings of nostalgia surrounding the photograph that Kawauchi is known for.

In my own work, I find that, much like in Kawauchi’s work, I dwell on the concept of nostalgia, preferring to shoot with warmer tones and with natural lighting. I want to develop a photoshoot more in the style of Kawauchi’s work, shooting in soft, intense natural lighting, and focusing on delicate natural structures as they are; purely observing.

With this project, I want to explore the world around me, the more intricate details of nature, overlooked areas that have plenty of stories to tell, and to bring it all together in a photobook. I want to play with a variety of different styles of photography, such as street photography, timelapse photography, landscape photography, and maybe some portraiture where possible. I’m starting my project with a wider area of study, looking at a larger number of photographers and refining it to a select few toward the end of the project. I’m interpreting the theme as three separate ideas, which I intend to either bring together, or to focus on a singular idea by the end of the project. I want to develop photoshoots that hint towards ideas of observation, seeking, and challenging as their own themes, before combining them in my final photoshoots.

• Stereotypes (gender, race, age, religion, class)
• Authority (government, people in power, protests)
• Photography (compositions, lighting, camera settings)
• Myself (experiences, behaviours, ideas)

To challenge something is to rebel against it, something that is often done by a lot of photographers and artists. When I think of the word ‘rebel,’ I often think about activism against some form of authority, whether small or large. Artists often express rebellion through subliminal messages in their work, or bold messages such as through graffiti. The style of graffiti in itself represents youth culture, something I align with, and something that I could consider searching for and finding images of. In my own work, I see myself challenging other people’s opinions and views on certain groups of people, particularly youth, but also my own views, as they change and adapt through my own experiences. I’m keen on the idea of going against what others think, as I often trust my judgement the most – for better or worse – which could actually be an idea in itself for this project, going against who I am and what I do, although this may become too complicated. Alternatively, I’m also interested in directly challenging various stereotypes, instead of the natural subtlety that usually ends up in my work. Whatever I decide to challenge, I want to do it through juxtaposition, presenting both the ‘order and disorder’ of what I decide to shoot.

Nicholas Goodden is a photographer that has a unique way of presenting graffiti in his photographs, desaturating his images, but leaving the colours within the artwork he shoots as it bends with the landscape around it. It could be argued that as Goodden only takes images of the work, and doesn’t explicitly do it himself, he’s merely observing the work through the camera lens, although I feel that by photographing this, he almost provides a platform for the message of the artwork to spread further, which could be considered to aid and further challenge this. Personally, I find his use of limiting the saturation in his images to a specified area to create a focal point interesting, and feel that it shows a more unique, interesting part of the world that’s often looked over as more destructive, which I could recreate in my own work.

I could also challenge compositional standards of photography, through both the use of angles and technical aspects, which could leave for some interesting and unique final images. A key way that I would want to execute this would be through the use of angles and framing. I could take portrait images of people to where they’re just unnaturally off-centred in the image, even off to the edge completely, and play around with angles, such as extreme worm/bird’s eye. Regardless, this gives me the chance to experiment with different settings and what can work compositionally, without necessarily conforming to typical photography standards.

• Self-discovery (new/old experiences)
• Familiarity/comfort (places I often visit/stay)
• Community (parish meetings, events, church)

To “seek” is to look for something. To represent this aspect of the project, I want to try seeking self-discovery, familiarity, comfort, and community through different means. Self-discovery is more about experiences and how one responds to them, which could be expressed through uncomfortable imagery of different staged situations, and dramatised recreations.

I could seek familiarity and comfort through the concept of childhood nostalgia, which is a topic I’m familiar with from past projects, so I could look back on old photographers to develop on that work further, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson. I can portray concepts of community by photographing larger gatherings of people, such as for events or regular meetings, such as church on Sundays, etc., although I don’t feel as though this could have as much artistic value for my project.

To introduce the project, I want to observe and find beauty within the mundane as a starting point before further developing it, as I want to share my focus with each word of the exam prompt as individual ideas. I could do this through street photography, although I feel it would work better to work with smaller areas for a composition, to appreciate smaller textures up close, similarly to the work of Rinko Kawauchi, who I could use as an inspiration and someone to study on as the project develops.

Other photographers that I’m interested in studying for this part of the project include Rolf Van Roojj, and Bart Koetsier. This is because they often act as simply an observer, not interacting or staging their surroundings, just capturing moments on the street as they see them.

For this project, I want to focus on the prompt as separate categories, as I feel that there’s more to explore with each individual word as opposed to the three of them together.

Observe:

• Watching (people, cars, moving objects)
• Change/growth (plants, developments, construction, landscape)

I could present the idea of “observe” through street photography, or even a time-lapse through a short film like Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi (1982). I’m more interested in using street photography, as it’s something that I’m comfortable with, and I can gather a large number of images, although I also believe that it may feel too generic, whilst a time-lapse would be something new for me to learn. If not a film, I could create a large reel of photographs showing the development and growth of something. Alternatively, I could observe the change of Jersey’s landscape, using some of the photo archives at the Société Jersiaise and recreating some of their images in the modern day. I could also observe life through an anatomic perspective, similarly to the work of Suzie Fitzharris, using photoshop to create X-ray style imagery.

Seek:

• Self-discovery (new/old experiences)
• Familiarity/comfort (places I often visit/stay)
• Community (parish meetings, events, church)

To “seek” is to look for something. To represent this aspect of the project, I want to try seeking self-discovery, familiarity, comfort, and community through different means. Self-discovery is more about experiences and how one responds to them, which could be expressed through uncomfortable imagery of different staged situations, and dramatised recreations. I could seek familiarity and comfort through visiting places from my childhood, such as parks, playgrounds etc., although I would have to be careful around these areas as to not violate people’s privacy. A way around this, however, could be by visiting these places later in the day when they’re quiet or empty, or even at night, to contrast the familiarity of it.

Challenge:

• Stereotypes (gender, race, age, religion, class)
• Authority (government, people in power, protests)
• Photography (compositions, lighting, camera settings)
• Myself (experiences, behaviours, ideas)

To challenge something is to rebel against it, something that is often done by a lot of photographers and artists. When I think of the word ‘rebel,’ I often think about activism against some form of authority, whether small or large. Artists often express rebellion through subliminal messages in their work, or bold messages such as through graffiti. The style of graffiti in itself represents youth culture, something I align with, and something that I could consider searching for and finding images of. In my own work, I see myself challenging other people’s opinions and views on certain groups of people, particularly youth, but also my own views, as they change and adapt through my own experiences. I’m keen on the idea of going against what others think, as I often trust my judgement the most – for better or worse – which could actually be an idea in itself for this project, going against who I am and what I do, although this may be too complicated. Alternatively, I’m also interested in directly challenging various stereotypes, instead of the natural subtlety that usually ends up in my work. Whatever I decide to challenge, I want to do it through juxtaposition, presenting both the ‘order and disorder’ of what I decide to shoot.