Posted on April 14, 2016
‘HOME’
For my home brief, I took photographs of locations around my house, patterns and small objects which hold a significant amount of meaning to me but, to others, wouldn’t as they don’t have anything personal to associate them with.
After giving it some thought, I decided to photograph my desk at home because, over the years, I have spent a lot of time sat at it. This has meant that personal belongings I frequently reach to became my surroundings. For instance, the accumulation of some of my favourite CDs, an award and my laptop which I constantly use. I particularly like the composition of this piece, shooting it with the intention of portraying order with a slight amount of disarray. I photographed my bed because the soft, warm bedding reminded me of home, in comparison to my less comforting one at University. I like the photo I chose in particular because of the close yet out of focus frame of my bed which appears at the outer corners of the image. I find that this adds depth to the image, as well as giving an outside perspective, as though the viewer was peering through. Finally, I photographed my favourite wall of the house I’ve lived at all my life. Hung on it is my family’s Emblem and photographs of my parents and their parents on their wedding days. I feel that this brings me back to the family meaning which I find is weighed with the term ‘home’.
In a similar way to before, I photographed patterns I liked in my home. They were taken up close so that it wasn’t necessarily clear what the photo was being taken of. The first is of my bedding, for the same reason as previous. I notably liked this image because I feel that I captured the slightly raised, or ‘bumpy’, texture quite well. The second photo is of my dog’s bedding, to which is hit nicely with the natural lighting. The third is of the curtains in my living room. I felt that the moss green, velvet texture, especially with the flowing folds of the fabric, would capture well in a photograph.
As my second triptych, I photographed small objects which had personal meaning to me which it doesn’t have to anyone else. These are of ‘gifts’ I was made by my younger family members. Upon seeing these images, I am greatly reminded of home, my upbringing and family.
These are some of the contact sheets I created, focusing on the images I chose for my final pieces. Included in them are various takes on my three interpretations of ‘Home’: locations, patterns & meaningful objects.
___________________________________________________
There were various photographers who inspired me to produce photographs of specific objects, locations and patterns which reminded me of home, holding more meaning to me than others who view the images.
One of these photographers was Joel Sternfield. He captures photographs of locations which seemingly have no meaning and are simply for aesthetic values, but in fact are where a particular news event had occurred. For instance, the three photos below were of where a death had taken place.
I found this project very interesting. Being reasonably controversial but intriguing, I was inspired to use photographs to emphasize the idea that there is “more than what meets the eye”. This is what partly inspired me for my ‘Home’ brief, taking photos of elements which reminded me of certain memories from my childhood; from my home.
Another photographer I looked at was Larry Sultan, with their ‘Pictures From Home’ project (1982-92) in particular. In this, he collected unstaged family snapshots of his home, where we can see the relationship dynamics between his mother and father and himself. I took inspiration from this to add not necessarily portraits of my family members, but what reminds me of them, and photograph old photographs of them.
Posted on March 20, 2016
Portrait Research
A fashion photographer whose projection photography I looked at before the photo-shoot is John French (1906-1966). The use of projection on his models gave patterns to the plain items of clothing they were wearing (i.e. long sleeved shirts) (see Figures 1 & 2). In other instances, they would be projected onto their bare skin (see Figure 3). Learning from this, I tried to ensure that my friend was wearing plain clothing, although I couldn’t prepare for the stranger, who’s clothing choices proved successful anyway. The subjects of the photographs had good form. In the photographs below especially, I like the models’ posture.
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
http://bygonefashion.livejournal.com/195314.html
Posted on March 9, 2016
PORTRAITS
Self-Portrait:
These portraits were taken with the help of two of my friends. It was late in the evening outside Lincoln Cathedral. We found that there was a large, yellow-tinted light which was used to light up the cathedral behind. Initially, we stood in front of this light but, from the perspective of the photographer, the lighting became too harsh on the subject, and when I was the subject, I could not see where to look so it felt unnatural. Due to this, we decided to photograph behind, using an additional light and reflector to light up the subject. We found this setup to be much more successful, generating nicer photographs. We took turns in being the photographer, assistant and model.
A Canon 700D with f/1.8 85mm Prime Portrait Lens was used, with focusing placed on the model. The particular lens used was good for portraits because it allows the user to use a lower f/stop, which is shown in my photos. The depth of field allowed the background to look out of focus and blurry, letting the subject be sharply in focus and stand out more. To capture the images, the aperture was put on priority so that the camera would adjust the shutter speed and ISO accordingly to the aperture based on the location. For my portraits in particular, I felt that my mustard yellow coat was complimented by the yellow light hitting the Cathedral. In retrospect, an outfit focused around blue tones might have created a nicer juxtaposition in colour but, overall, I do not think that my clothing choices hindered the composition of the final images.
It felt unnatural for me to be very serious or pose in the photos. Seeing the camera made me inclined to smile. Not in a false, forced way, but I felt more fabricated when I showed no change or effort in my facial expression. A favoured image is the middle image of the triptych, as it captured me laughing genuinely at something my friend had said.
Portrait of a Friend:
From a friend, I heard about some of her friends in Photography Society using projections of other images onto a board, with a model standing in front. This would cause the projection to become ‘painted’ over both the background and the person’s body and face. I had seen other photographers create beautiful imagery from this style, so decided to try it out myself.
We accumulated various images from the internet that we thought might look effective as projections, varying from locations to illustrations. First, one of the representatives of Photography Society who I had not met offered to model, allowing me to photograph a stranger. Then, my friend Sophie offered to model, letting me gather portraits of a friend.
Portrait of a Stranger:
The photos were shot in a dark room so that the projections could be well-seen. This meant that I had to put my Canon 1200D camera with an 18-55mm lens with a high aperture of f/20 to allow more light in and reasonably high ISO. Since I was taking hand-held shots, I used a faster shutter speed, but my high aperture and ISO made up for this.
Contact Sheets:
_______________________________________________________________________
Additional Portraits:
As an additional experimentation with portraiture, my friends and I took photographs of each other using a Sony NEX-5N, 50mm Prime Lens, f-stop 1.8. I liked the casual setup of the library, and the depth of field created by the shallow focus. I opened the aperture to f/1.8 to create a stronger depth of field. It worked well with the 1/250 shutter speed, which let in less light so that the photographs weren’t overexposed. I used a higher ISO to increase the camera’s sensitivity to the light.
Posted on March 9, 2016
FOUND OBJECTS
Initially, I found it difficult to decide on what miscellaneous objects I would be able to find on the streets and photographs. Not only to create a visually appealing triad, but also what was available for me. I began to consider the idea of wrappers; the crumpled shapes they create and how their original names could be distorted or more difficult to read. From this, I expanded on sweet wrappers, such as ‘Parma Violets’ and ‘Love Hearts’.
Before taking these images, I looked into still life photography, in particular wrappers for sweets and chocolate. I found that the lighting couldn’t be too harsh otherwise there would be glare on the shiny wrapper, causing parts of the text, for instance, to be illegible. What I found in other’s works to look effective is when the wrapper was very crumpled, so I wanted to ensure that the wrappers I chose held a strong but irregular shape, as though it had been crushed then tried to be put back together.
To take the photographs, I shot them against brown paper bags or plastic ones, similar to what you would usually carry such sweets in. I also used a large lamp to light up my scene. The images below were my favourite photographs from the shoot.
Camera:
Canon 1200D, ISO 400, f/5.0, 1/60 sec
I found this project to be successful because, looking back at the photographs, I like the sharp capture of the folds of the crumpled, used wrappers. Additionally, I like how the background of each of the images doesn’t overpower the stimulus, but rather compliments it.
Posted on February 19, 2016
APPROPRIATION
Appropriation: “The deliberate reworking of images and styles from earlier, well-known works of art.”
Initially, I wanted appropriate a photo from the internet which displays a modern trend or act. I would then overlay it with an older image. For instance, I found an image of a house party in the 21st Century and overlaid a couple from a 1950s School Dance. The intention for this was to show the differences in clothing style and social norms for each time era.
After receiving feedback from my first image, I researched further into other photographers who tried to achieve the same thing. I frequently found that they would retrieve two images of the same location but of different time periods and merge them. This greatly inspired me to try out the technique. With mine, I wanted to create a sense of nostalgia in my images, therefore blending out the edges of the overlaying photograph, giving a ghostly impact. In particular, I aimed to find photos from the 1950s and 21st Century. From this, I created two new appropriated images whereby an older photo is imposed on a newer one.
I found inspiration to create the desired images from website pages shown below. In many of the images shared on websites such as these by various photographers, they are of famous locations across the globe, showing how time impacts a location. The images below are of appropriated images in particular which I liked.
