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Process and Portfolio Pt.3

After thinking about the feedback I’d received I changed the colour of the pages to a slightly off white so the work stood out rather than getting drowned out. I also changed the layout of some of the pages and made my last page one of my favourite sketchbook pages.

some pages from my final portfolio

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Process and Portfolio Pt. 2

After spending some time playing with the format and composition of my work I decided to colour coordinate the pages to the Holsten Pils can on the opening page. when showing this work to my tutor she said this took away from the work rather than complimenting it. She also suggested that I reconsider some of the layout so that the composition works better and that I end the portfolio on a stronger image.

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Process and Portfolio

After our initial briefing, I was keen to start going through and photographing my work.

Here are some examples of the work I selcted

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Final Composition

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Everyday connections Part 3

Considering Hockney’s work and my own photo arrangements I was trying to think about how I might put the foot into a scene where action and movement are felt. As I’d been walking through town I noticed a banana peel in amongst rubbish which, as any good art student might do, I took a photo of.

This photo gave me the idea id been looking for. The idea of the foot slipping on the banana skin, one of the most universally known slapstick gags. 

This is a mockup I made of the idea I drew where the certain points of action are shown the describe the action by photographs. Now I just had to get them 

The hand, tense and exaggerated.

When I saw my friend Johnny in the beanie, shades and dressing gown I thought this would help add to the humour of the image so I asked him to pull a face as if he’d just slipped on a banana skin and he went above and beyond.

Because a belly wasn't adding much to the image I thought using this bright arrow would help describe the movement and make the piece more dynamic. 

After playing with the arrangement and size on photoshop for a while I found the arrangement above to be the most effective.

Once id printed the pictures I had more space to work with the composition. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, there's a feeling of the figure in the imagined spaced before and after the slip and the arrangement of the images has a quite graphical feel. Looking back I’d like to try a clearer photo of a banana and play around with different feet, hands, and faces. Using gloves, socks and shoes could help make the image feel more surreal.

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David Hockney’s Photography

Hockney's mix-matched photographic scenes give a more dynamic feel to the setting he’s describing. Where the images almost meet give movement to the image as we look around.

In this image you can feel the characters moving and spending time in that room, you can almost hear the woman speaking and the man turning his head, I feel as though the gaps where things don’t quite meet give our mind room to imagine the movements and fill in the missing links, allowing us to better immerse ourselves in the scene.

Conversely, in this image, the woman appears to have been taken out of the space and her environment feels more like a painting. The negative space gives real depth to the rest of the image.

It's fascinating how effective these images can be, I’d love to try something similar in my sequence, where the same scene is being described by different photos.

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Everyday Connections, Part 2

Following the combinations that I’d explored last week, I decided to look further into textures and how they provoke different sense and feelings. I took photos of a range of texture, ranging from harsh and uncomfortable to warm and inviting. I decided to use a photo of my foot in the textures to allow the viewer to feel the textures in a more imaginative way.

This arrangement (with the textures beneath the foot) implies that the foot is about to tread on the different surfaces and allows the viewer to imagine how that might feel.

When the foot is surrounded it makes the surfaces feel as though they're trapping the foot and the foot is trying to avoid the dangers

In this sequence the foot is before the other photos, implying that the character in question is just about to encounter each of these textures

with the foot being in front of a soft, homely fabric and faced by the unpleasant surfaces from outside it suggests the characters about to go on a tough journey.

I'm happy with the progress these pictures show but I feel as though there's more to be explored and tested out 

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Everyday Connections

After taking the initial photos here are some of the combinations I found interesting.

This combination suggests what the characters are doing, I like how the type helps tell the story.

Here all the photos relate to the colour orange in different ways; warning, negative space, growth and hair/fur.

These photos all relate in the form of a circle in different ways

In this combination, there's a contrast between an appetising meal and a disgusting plate of dirty cutlery. It could be read as a before and after. 

This sequence suggests a story in which the person has taken the branch from where the fox was and has left a trail on her way. I like the idea of a trail suggesting and path someones followed to get from point A to B.

In this, I noticed each person has covered themselves in interesting ways.

I cropped the photos of the burger and the cutlery to see if I could make them play even further on the senses. Although this wasn't an overly successful compilation, I want to explore more textures and close up images to see what it does to the senses in the weeks to come. 

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Photography Research - Martin Parr

Parrs photos shows off the mundane in a beautiful and romantic light (like a love letter to a roll of toilet paper). With well cropped and composed candids - intensely saturated - Parr tells us the story of his subjects, projects their character and presents it in a glorified, cinematic style. Some criticize Parr for mocking the working class in his photography but I’d have to disagree with that. I personally think all his photos do is capture what's already there and add some pizazz from his own interest to them.

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Photography Research - Hans Eijkelboom

Hans Eijkelboom creates archives of candid shots from people wearing the same items of clothing. Although the photos are all taken in completely different situations and the people in the shots sometimes couldn't be any more different from each other, when the photos are put together they look like they belong to the same group. It’s as though they've all just walked out of the same double denim or rolling stones convention. The imagery has a very humorous feel to it and pokes fun at the idea of individuality expressed through fashion. It’s as if, no matter how differently we dress, well just end up belonging to a different genre of person. 

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A Blogpost about Blogposts

Today Paddy and Nick spoke to us about how to improve our blogs and gave us a few examples of successful blogs some of our peers have made that personalize their blogs to their own style and voice. This inspired me to start using the blog as a place for genuine reflection and evaluative thinking as opposed to simply posting because I’ve been told to. 

With Paddy and Nicks advice and tips I’ve made a list of things to bear in mind when making posts;

ASK - What we did?

        - Why we did it?

        - How does this relate to me?

Use it as a place to remember relevant artist with their names and works

Use imagery that relates to what you’re talking about to create a visual illustration of what you've been talking about, not just crappy pages from your RSJ

Give your blog a voice, Don't just write passive documentation of what you've done, give your opinion even if you thought the lecture/seminar was shit

Use hashtags to organize each session and relate what you've learnt to different concepts

At the end of this, we were given our task for next week to take 50 photos of things that look interesting to us. Then refine that 50 down to 25 and print them for next Friday to play around with combining photos to suggest narrative.

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Storytelling Week 4

After chewing over the idea of an Italian American story I realized I didn't know enough context to write a decent story. I decided to watch a documentary about the history of Italian immigration and integration with America and took notes about different stories within history. I was particularly moved by one of the stories about a Husband/Father (Nunzio) of a poor family, who went from Cicely to work in America to get money for his family. He died in Brooklyn on a construction site because of the poor conditions Italian workers had to work in. The wife, Giovanna, supposedly saw him one night when she was waiting for him to return. He smiled tipped his hat and disappeared. Italian women who's husbands had left to work in America were called white widows because many of the men wouldn't come back.

Final Draft

White Widow

The dinner table is noticeably quieter tonight. All the plates are empty by now, all but the one sat opposite Giovanna. The steam from the food fills the space in front of the empty chair, the chair Nunzio once sat in. Giovanna’s children are sat either side of the table looking anxiously at the empty chair, then back at their mother in hope of her giving some explanation. Before they could even find the bravery to ask why their Father wasn’t back yet, Giovanna sends them both to bed. Her children leave her at the table where she stays frozen, with an empty gaze cutting through the space in front of her. As the evening comes the room grows darker, quieter. Only the sounds of the ocean rocking back and forth against the shore and the laughs of the family next door can be heard. And yet Giovanna is paralyzed from the shrilling, panicked voice of her mind. A battle is commencing in her brain, one part of hers trying desperately to hold on to the hope that Nunzio will be back soon and the other voice in her mind has already let go of this hope and is shouting in the space between her ears.”He’s not coming back”.

In an attempt to ignore her own head she reached into the breast pocket of her tattered dress and pulled out the folded up letter Nunzio had written her a few months before. Nunzio had always written to her since he left Cicely for New York. She kept each letter in the same drawer of the dresser in their room, but this was the last letter he’d written for her and she kept it with her at all times. The paper was creased and had two tiny tears on the side at the folds. At the bottom of the page, the blue ink Nunzio wrote the letter with has been made from a legible word to a dried up drop by one of Giovanna’s tears. The paper makes a soft rustling sound as her hands start to tremor. She recites the letter over in her head again and again till her mouth begins to move with the rhythm of his words.

“My beloved Giovanna,

Although it’s only been 3 months since we’ve been together as a family it feels like a lifetime. I can’t wait for the day I return and we can be together again, get a nice house, and live the easy life we’d always dreamed about. That day is coming sooner than we both thought, I just landed a job on a construction site in Brooklyn. We’re helping build their underground train platforms. Can you believe that? An underground train! If only you could see the craziness of this city. There's buzzing chaos down every street. So many different kinds of people from all sorts of places. I even met an Irish man the other day! His accent was so strange I could hardly understand him, but he was a kind man.

It’s like no other place I’ve ever seen before but the business of it all is making me weary. The hours I work are long and exhausting and the fumes from all the machinery have given me a terrible cough. But with the money I’m earning now, It’ll only be 2 short months till I can come back home and be with you and the kids again. Tell Luca that His drawing you sent me is a masterpiece, he’s going to be the next Leonardo DaVinci. I put that picture on the wall next to my bed so I can see it every night before I go to sleep. And tell Maria the daddy misses her very much and is bringing her back something very special from America (I got her a toy Pony a few days ago but don’t tell her, I want it to be a surprise).

I love you with all of my heart Giovanna, and this time apart has only made my love grow stronger. I cannot wait to tell all the exciting things I’ve seen here and all the crazy stories. Just 2 short months now, and we can be a family again, we can be happy again.

With all of my love,

Nunzio”

Just 2 short Months. 2 short Months. 2 short Months. The words spin around Giovanna’s head on a relentless tormenting loop. Her face tenses and tightens as though she’s been wounded. After spending a few more moments suspending in this frozen state, she drags herself off of the chair, and starts clearing the table, she Puts Nunzios food in the bowl outside for the dog from next door to have, the same as she has done every night. As she washes the plates she notices how still and sturdy the room around her feels, only to realize how much she is trembling, uncontrollably! Her hands are jittering and splashing all around the plate she’s washing.

She tries to ignore these involuntary tremors by turning her attention to the beautiful scene she can see from out the window. She looks at the strokes of orange in the sky, beautifully complemented by the blue background. Some of the orange falls into the tender ripples of the water below and dances around the surface of the ocean. The sun begins to fall behind the edge of the ocean and with this, the blue sky becomes deeper and richer. Giovanna’s signature empty gaze becomes fixed on the rock outside her window, till a spark appears in her eye. Her mouth opens, her brow raises, her breath shortens and her hands still tremble. All in disbelief at what she sees. Out of nowhere, as if the angels brought him, Nunzio appears on the rock. Wearing impeccably clean shoes and dark grey slacks with a white, button-down shirt tucked in and a rimmed hat sitting at a slant on his full head of hair. He looks exactly how she’d remembered him tanned skin like leather with his thick mustache buried beneath his charmingly big nose. Exactly how she’d remembered him, till his leather skin grows red around his eyes, and his lip begins to tremor. His glossy eyes begin to cry and his mouth tries to stop itself from frowning, and, though it is blatant he’s in pain, he knows this is the last Giovanna will ever see of him so he miraculously lifts the corners of his mouth into a smile. A smile that says I love you. A smile that says I miss you with eyes that say I’m sorry. Eyes that say I know its hard believe me I know. But a smile that says it will get easier. And with that smile, he tips his hat and fades away.

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Storytelling Week 3

Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm trying to get himself out of a difficult situation because he couldn't help telling his best friends daughter to stop singing.

This Friday jane spoke more about the importance of action in stories. Specifically how the protagonist needs to be someone that's going to react to situations so that the story can go somewhere. If the character is completely passive then the story won't go anywhere. This reminded me of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm who always responds to mundane and standard things in life in an opposing and stubborn way. This often makes him a dislikable character but we forgive him because he takes us to extreme and funny situations through this and creatively resolves the story at the end. 

To argue against Jane's point of passive characters I'd bring up The Dude from The Big Lebowski, possibly the most passive protagonist of all time but the story is full of action because of the bizarre and opinionated characters around him. You could argue that Walter is the protagonist as his aggressive actions are what drive the story.

After discussing more stories, Jane gave us the rest of the session to brainstorm for a 2-page story of our own to be done by next Friday. I started brainstorming ideas for a world where everyone wore a name tag but found it really difficult to think of a narrative that would work well within that world. I then started thinking about making a story about Italian Americans as this is something I've always wanted to know more about

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Storytelling Week 2

Albert Camus, The Stanger (book cover)

Today we thought about the beginnings of stories. Jane compared the beginning of a story to a pill that the audience chooses whether or not to swallow that takes us on a journey. She said that it needs to have a sharp edge to it that makes us want to know more about what's going to happen. This got me thinking about other films and books that have punchy beginnings like The Stranger by Albert Camus, The opening line, "Today, my Mother died, or maybe yesterday, I can't remember" such an obscure and cold way to talk about the death of a mother that we immediately want to know more about this character and how he sees the world.

Jane asked us to write the First sentences of a story about a nobody that takes place in an ordinary town when something catastrophic happens to this character. I wrote about a man in a car crash and tried to make the story as inviting as possible. Thinking about the idea of boiling a story down to get the most important information in, we were asked to shorten our 100-word stories down to just 10 words. I boiled mine down to this.

Simons upset? Jake walks past. Kisses Simons wife!? That's why!

Then, in pairs, we had to come up with a storyline. George and I came up with an idea for a piece of chewing gum that gets picked up on the bottom of someone's shoe and travels the world. At the end of the session, Jane gave us some poems to read before next Friday.

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Encounter on a Lonely Road

My first idea for this encounter was to have someone thinking they were about to receive a hi-five only to realise it was meant for somebody behind them. After initial brainstorms and draft, I thought about how the story might conclude and I made a twist ending.

Final story

What did I have for lunch? Burgers! with Simon! I hope he's doing okay. seemed down about something. This streets quiet. That person behind. Loud shoes. Could be high heels. Whos that? Do I know him? Not jake is it? is he waving? No. a hug! Do I go in? I barely even know jake. He was always closer to Simon. He looks so excited to see me though I can't turn down a hug. Wait. He's gone straight past me. Oh, he's hugging high heels. Is he kissing her? Wait is that... oh my god! It's Simons wife?

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Storytelling Week 1

Today marked the start of our new research and presentation project. Writer Jane Hankin came in and spoke to us about storytelling and narrative. She taught us about the importance of giving a scene or moment in a story as many details about the sights, smells, sounds and emotions as possible to make the moment important and allow the audience to feel what the characters are feeling. We did a creative writing exercise where we had to write a story about a leaf. Jane made a point that it had to make her feel something when we read it out. I wrote about a leaf that lost his friend to the autumn weather. We then had a group exercise in which we had to think about what objects we could associate with certain abstract emotions or feelings. Our group explored the word lust and thought of what it would feel like, smell like, what noise it would make e.t.c. I thought it might smell like coffee or cigarette smoke, something addictive and desirable, and that it might sound like a crackling fire and feel like a velvet pillow. From this, we then came up with a spell to make someone fall in love with you. This exercise was really fun and got me thinking about creative writing for the first time in a long time. I'm excited to see what the rest of our Friday sessions entail.

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Materialise (expose) Week 3/4

When we met up this week we were asked to answer questions about the presentation, who we present to and for what different reasons. This was really useful as it helped me understand our project more as before this session I was really confused about the brief. Afterward, we talked about what workshops we wanted to look at and how we were going to present our research. We decided to look at screen printing, intaglio, and the darkroom as these were all processes that involved exposure to light or acid. Olivia (from our group) came up with the idea to present our work as a mockumentary style video exposing the workshops and what the process does in each of them. We were all really keen on the idea as it gives us the opportunity to present the information in detail and in a more engaging way as well as relating back to the word expose.

So with this, we met up on Monday afternoon and started recording the workshops and interviewing people asking them about the different processes in detail. As I was feeling ill that day I didn't stay long but the rest of our group got all of the footage and sent it to me for me to edit it together for Friday. I edited it with music playing over some of the scenes to give it a more documentary style to it. Overall all I was really pleased with the video and I think it achieved what we were going for. it came to 8 minutes long so we decided we would introduce the video when presenting and take questions at the end to meet the full 10-minute requirement.

Screenshot from the editing process

link for final video;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vl44H7lePBexFKWVYg8lryffJXjuswS4/view?usp=sharing

After presenting the video we got a really good response. One thing I picked up on was I made the in-between scenes showing directions too long and there could have been a bit more information in the video but we spoke whilst the video was playing about the information we were missing so all in all I'd say the presentation was a success.