In order to respond to the theme of “Observe, Seek, Challenge” I have come up with some rough ideas (inspired by my previous work as well as photographers I have found)
Brain Storm of Ideas
Name of book Ideas:
“Conversion”
“Epiphany”
“Through a Trance”
“Mysticism”
“Aureole”
“unknown”
“Clairaudience“
Epiphany – A sudden realisation or insight, especially one that leads to a spiritual or religious awakening.
Trance – A state of mind in which someone seems to be asleep and to have no conscious control over their thoughts or actions, but in which they can see and hear things and respond to commands given by other people.
Mysticism – Becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning.
Aureole – A bright circle of light, especially around the head.
Clairaudience – The power or faculty of hearing something not present to the ear but regarded as having objective reality.
Mood Board
Over the past few weeks I’ve taken example photos of what type of images I might make(I may include these in my actual photoshoot)
Review & Reflect
Throughout my projects I have experimented with both documentary and tableaux images responding to different themes. I have gone back through these images and selected ones that may help inspire or give ideas of what kind of work I’d like to produce.
Laia Abril (born 1986) Abril was born in 1986 in Barcelona, Spain, is a Catalan artist whose work relates to bio-politics, grief and women’s rights. She won the PhotoBook festival in Kassel and the PhotoEspaña Best Book Award. Her books include The Epilogue (2014), which documents the indirect victims of eating disorders; and a long-term project as seen down below.
Laia Abril’s Misogyny is a powerful exploration that confronts the enduring issue of gender-based violence and the horrific things women go through. Abril goes into the nature of misogyny, shedding light on its harmful impact on women and how it can affect them. However she is trying to challenge this misogynistic attitude and shape individual lives. Abril’s approach is deeply personal, as she captures not only the physical harm and deception of violence but also the psychological scars left by the hate.
Her work engages with silence that some women have to do, such as a domestic abuse relationship that which is not shown in the media but is present in the lives of women. Abril’s photography often uses symbolism and conveys an message, always. For example the silencing of a women’s voices in patriarchal systems. The intimacy of her portraits and the message she tries to convey emphasizes the complexity of misogyny.
By confronting the world with harsh truth that no one wnats tp hear, Abril wnats us to look at gender inequality, abortion and all the probelms we a swomen face etc…
Through Misogyny, Abril uses photography as a tool for artistic expression but also as a means of social activism, using the camera to bring silenced voices and hidden stories to light. Her work therefore tells us so much about women’s life.
My favourite image
This is my favourite image because its an image that you could argue shows a women “suffering in silence”. She looks drained and almost as if she is going though a rough time. This image is in black and white which apposes that she is going through some sort of barging or depression as its a dull colour and that’s what you would relate these colours with. She is clearly a feminist and has a very strong opinion on what and how women suffer. Women Suffer In Silence! which is the sad truth of reality. I love how she is one of the only women who will speak upon it and isn’t shy about the horrors. Abril is a strong independent women who isn’t scared to speak on the harsh truth.
Her books
Laia Abril is a powerful voice in contemporary photography, using her work to explore complex social issues, particularly those affecting women. Through her books she attaches themselves too so many issues such as rape, abortion etc. Abril goes into themes of trauma, gender inequality, and the unseen struggles women face. Her intimate yet unapologetic approach to storytelling has a profound impact, encouraging a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of women today. Abril’s ability to blend personal narratives with broader social commentary makes her work not only a visual experience but a call for empathy and change, empowering women to reclaim their stories and challenge societal norms.
Women today continue to face deep-rooted challenges, such as misogyny. This remains widespread, everyday in discrimination, verbal abuse, and gender violence. Many women still struggle against social expectations and stereotypes (norms) that dictate how they should look, act, and live. Despite progress in gender equality, issues like sexual harassment, assault, and rape continue to haunt women, leaving emotional, physical, and psychological trauma. In many places, women are still denied equal rights in education, work, and politics, and their voices are often silenced, such as Afghanistan – the Taliban. The pressure to meet beauty standards, combined with the constant threat of violence, creates an environment of fear and low self-esteem.
For the topic of ‘Observe, Seek, Challenge’, I started by creating a mind map of the different definitions and synonyms of these three words to explain what they meant together. After this, I began compiling just a few of the various themes that are explored within photography through observation, seeking and challenging the world around us.
By creating this mind map, this will begin to help me come up with ideas, stemming from the different themes that I have explored, for my personal study. By looking at what inspires other artists and photographers and doing a brief research on their work, for example Liz Barber, as this may give me an initial idea to expand on or interpret in my own way.
Now, I can begin to explore these various concepts and come up with motives of my own for my personal study.
Started by designing and drawing out a mood board, with explaining what each term, ‘Observe, Seek and Challenge’ meant. Then got stuck on ideas, so started to draw different icons around the title such as, hearts, lighting bolts, flowers, waves, genders, even square roots, to try give me ideas.
This ended up helping as now I have an idea that I want to do which involves waves and surfing or something alone the 5 mile road which involves a surfer with his board and next to this bungalow.
My next idea involves two basketball players, one being very tall whilst the other isn’t so tall and give a documentary photoshoot of how they get ready pre-games or how they play in-game.
Finally, my best idea is to showcase the difficulties and challenges between male and female basketball and why they can’t play in the same league. Also, how different athletes get ready before the game and play during the game.
Sam Taylor-Johnson spoke about how ‘Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’ This is showing and explaining the ‘Male gaze’ arguing that it has an indirect influence, forcing women to unconsciously ‘self-police’, their own behaviour.
Here I am creating a list of things that I found interesting doing, and other studies I enjoyed doing:
Still Life And Formalism
Still life is a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world. This typically including fruit and flowers and objects contrasting with others textures, such as bowls and glassware. For this project I looked at famous paintings to get an idea of what my photos should look like. I also analysed photographers like Paulette Tavormina, who created 17th century inspired still life photography. She lives and works in the chaotic city of New York, yet manages to capture stillness in her work. I also looked at a a series of photos by Mat Collishaw’s called ‘Last Meal on Death Row’. Here are some of there photos and my responses below:
Mat Collishaw
Paulette Tavormina
Richard Kuiper
Formalism is where where The Design, Composition and Lighting are dominant over Subject Matter. I think this contrasted nicely with the still life project as when taking photos using these ideas in mind, it creates a widely different result to the still life photos. Walker evens and his series on Beauties of the common tool was a famous piece of work that he published in 1955 and tries to capture the good, clear, ‘undesigned’ forms. This linked very closely to the ideologies of formalism, with is simple backgrounds and repetitive composition throughout the series. I also analysed photos from Darren Harvey-Regan, who was directly inspired by Walker evens, but had modern technology to improve the outcome. Below are some photos and my responses:
Walker evens
Just a few of my images
Environmental Portraits
An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. Arnold Newman was the main inspiration for my photoshoots, he is known for his ability to thoughtfully capture the personalities of his subjects through their expressions and surroundings. While commonplace today, this technique was not widely used in the 1930s when Newman was learning his craft, pathing the new era of portrait photography. He would designing floor plans, equipment, schedules, and possible poses before the actual shoot even took place. Here are some of his Images and my responses to the overall topic:
John F. Kennedy
My response
Studio Lighting and Headshots
Here I was getting to grips with the some common lighting methods, and some slightly more obscure ones. The main types of studio lighting consist of flash and continuous lighting, but they way you organise the lighting can create a massive impact on the final outcome. One lighting technique is called Rembrandt lighting, where a small triangle is cast under one of the eyes. Butterfly lighting is the next one and it shins a light directly towards the models face, above the camera. It creates a shadow under the nose and cheek bone that resembles a butterfly. Another one I looked at was Chiaruscuro (Italian for light dark), its a dramatic contrast between light and dark in the image. Here are my photos where I tried to replicate these lighting techniques in the studio:
Rembrandt
Butterfly
Chiaruscuro
A headshot photo is where the portrait photo is cropped somewhere in the middle torso – so that the focus is on your face. Bruce Gilden and his faces series was where he went very up and close to the subjects faces, capturing and amplifying all the imperfections lack of symmetry of people, making each person very different to each other as we are all individuals. Often times he subjects looked ‘Ugly’, causing a lot of criticism. Here are some of his photos:
I then explored different ways to edit headshots, using diamond cameo, photo-montage and multi-exposure:
diamond cameo
photo montage
multi-exposure
Identity – masculinity vs femininity
This topic is all about capturing the inside of a subject, not the outside (e.g. there hair, eye colour, what clothes they re wearing). I tried to capture who they actually are, there identity. However, since this is a very broad topic, with many things I could explore, so I decided to focus on the binary opposites of masculinity vs femininity. I analysed 2 photographers, Cindy Sherman’s work is the multitude of identity stereotypes (like femininity) that have arisen throughout both the history of art and the history of advertising, cinema, and media. Sherman reveals and dismantles these stereotypes. her Untitled Film Project shows how females who play roles in moves are simply there for male pleasure. Claude Cahun was another photographer who defied conventional ideals of beauty and femininity with her shaven head and male attire, Claude Cahun is a perfect example of someone who pushed the boundaries of gender roles in a stereotypical society. Here are some photos from them:
Untitled Film Still #2
Claude Cahun
Here are some of my photos that I took, which is my response to the topic of masculinity and femininity:
Landscape – Romanticism and the sublime, and New topographies
A Landscape photograph is one where it is aligned with the horizon line. The photo is wider than it is tall, to capture the vastness of a natural setting. Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) is an artistic and intellectual movement, characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of the past and nature. The Sublime defines art as that which alludes to an immeasurable greatness beyond comprehension. Ansel Adams often had both these features in his images. He is probably the most well known and important landscape photographer of the 20th century. He created many techniques (e.g. the zone system) to help create his vast and breath-taking images of national parks in California. Here are 2 photos by him:
Monolith, the Face of Half Dome – yosemite national park (1927)
the Grand Teton National Park
Here are some of my photos that I got inspired by Adams to take:
The New Topographics represented a radical shift by redefining the subject of landscape photography as the built (as opposed to the natural) environment. As environmentalism took hold of the public conscience in the 1970s, The old landscape photography from people like Ansel Adams, which where heroic and displaced the power of nature, where rejected in favour of how human activity connects with the natural world, rather than separating it. Robert Adams was took very deadpan images of buildings contracting the natural world. Here are some of his photos:
My photos:
Anthropocene
anthropocene is defined as the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Edward Burtynsky, born in 1955, is renowned for his continued investigation of the ‘indelible human signature’ of the planet, caused by are excessive destruction of the natural landscape, for resources, land, energy, dump sights and more. Here are some photos from Edward Burtynsky and my response to his ideology’s:
My photos:
Stephanie Jung
Stephanie Jung works as a freelance photographer, based in Germany. Her Photos are often multiple merged images, each slightly offset from each other. Stephanie Jung does this to create a sense of movement, matched with the busy environment. Here are some of her photos and my responses:
My photos:
Street photography – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier Bresson harnessed the idea of the decisive moment, which is, with little planning, waiting for a moment which is interesting to capture. His photos set in motion a transformative wave that resonated throughout the photographic community. Here Are some photos from him:
I created a page spread of a trip to St.Malo I went on. I took some street photos before hand, then put them in InDesign to edit them and create a page spread of my trip.
