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Narrative Project Test

Here is my first attempt at shooting my narrative project. I edited the images on my laptop edit&create software, added the filter Sauna and played around with colour and brightness too. When I was done editing the images I imported them into Adobe Premiere Pro in order sequence, I set the speed/duration of each clip to 00:00:15. However, I am not happy with the way it has come out. Some of the images have also automatically resized themselves as the images were taken in 6000 x 4000 since I was shooting in RAW, next time when I shoot I will make sure the images are at least 1920 x 1280 and are saved as a JPG file. Luckily this is only a test shoot of my animation and I still have time to correct the things I don't like and have messed up. I think I will be sticking with the idea in my client brief animation, where her legs stayed still. I think it gave the animation a better flow of movement between the changes in photos.

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Hello Moon

Here are a few shots that I caught of the moon over the past couple of weeks. The camera I took them on was the Canon Powershot SX400 IS, which has a 30x optical zoom. I've had this camera for about 6 years and was my first ever camera to own. This little camera is amazing and I think I'll always use it especially when I need to zoom in, the detailing it has picked up of the moon is incredible. When I transferred the images on my laptop, I edited the brightness and contrast and applied a filter to them.

The only problem when photographing the moon is that you need to make sure that the sky is clear and the lighting is good, if you are in a place with a lot of light pollution then you may find it a little of a struggle to take photos of the moon. I would also strongly suggest using a tripod, as when zooming in you could easily lose your framing and would have to start over again.

Overall I'm very pleased with these outcomes, once I have a little more time on my hands I would like to try and capture a whole months moon cycle, but I think ill have to wait till the summer months where I'm more than likely guaranteed to have clearer nights.

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I Want To Be Able To Feel Music Again…

These are a collection of photographs that I had captured from numerous events that I have been too over the past couple of years before covid hit the world. I am missing live music events so much; I cannot wait until we're able to attend these types of events without the conciseness of coronavirus lurking around. If I am able to get my hands-on tickets it would be to attend the lost village festival.

Not only do I love to be at one with the atmosphere when going to live music events, but I love to capture the stunning visual displays and to also capture the heart and soul of these occasions. Over this summer I will make it my mission to be able to attend or even work for free, so I can expand my skills within photography and start to be able to build myself a portfolio of the different types of abilities I have. Rave photography is something I have been massively keen towards for a long-time, this is something I also came across at the Electronic Exhibition. Displaying the culture, unity, and love at these events, or being able to capture a shot of dancing bodies with strobe lighting getting in-between them creating mysterious scenes.

I’ve linked a few photographers who’s work I love and think they have been able to capture the pure freedom of these events back in the 80′s and 90′s

https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvnjn3/london-madchester-1980s-photo-feature

https://timeline.com/edm-rave-culture-history-ae647e587a13

https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/4888/kiev-now-we-own-the-night-rave-culture-identity

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Narrative Project Animation Storyboard 

Here is the storyboard of my narrative project. The two locations where I will be shooting the animation will be at the blue bridge in Kingston near the Knight’s Park campus. The second location which will be the visual representation of the women's mind will be shot in my bedroom, I will be using LED lights and fairy lights as props for the shoot. I designed the storyboard on paper first then cut them out and put them in sequence order. Once I did this, I took a panorama and imported the image on to my laptop. From there I put the photo on to Adobe Photoshop where I added image ideas and locations of where the animation will be made and what I visually want to achieve by the end of this project. I will start to create the animation next week; I will be treating this as a first try and not the final product. I will be using my first animation as a reference for myself but also thinking of other ways as to how I will be able to improve it.

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Self-Lockdown 

After researching artists for my narrative project. I decided to start test shooting using the long exposure technique. To be able to achieve this way of working I set my camera mode to manual and slowed down the shutter speed to at least 5 to 30 seconds. I also set my ISO to 100 and aperture between F6 to F11 depending on when and what I am shooting. When working in this technique it is probably best to use a tripod, since you will want the camera to be as still as possible while it is capturing the movement of people or objects within the image. I also decided to use fairy lights, similar to Zee Nguyen. I feel that using the lights will help bring the story to life and also to bring a sense of being trapped. Through the images, I have been able to accomplish exactly what I am looking for in this project, I want to be able to have a visual representation of someone's mind. As you can see there are two photos where I did not use a tripod nor fairy lights, it did not have the same feel in the photos. My aim for when I start to shoot my animation would be to have more fairy light and possibly to have a strip of LED light to add a pop of colour to the images. Overall, I am happy with how the photographs have come out, and I believe I am on steady progress to achieve the final project I envision. The next step will be to design a storyboard of how I want the narrative of the project to go.

The first photograph was inspired by Edward Honaker, the fabric draped over his head almost as like being suffocated. I have been able to create the same effect but using fairy lights.

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Artist’s Moodboard 

Through my creative process and visual research, I came across some photographers who have inspired me to expand my photography skills into portrait and self-portrait photography. Along with the animation, I will create a series of photographs using different techniques I found through these studies. I have put together a mood board of artists and techniques that have inspired my narrative project, I feel that if I work towards the similar styles of work that I have found, it will add value to the visual aesthetic that I want to achieve for this project.

  Photographers who have inspired me. 

Self Untitled — Sam Geballe (samfrancesgeballe.com)

Long-Exposure Self-Portrait Photography Tutorial · Zee Nguyen

Mental Health Awareness Week 2015: self portrait series on Behance

Photographer Documents His Own Depression In Dark Self-Portraits | Bored Panda

  These photographers are common to the theme and story of my narrative project. Creating awareness for mental health and also acknowledging their mental health and insecurities. Expressing how they feel through the art of photography and showing the raw emotions of ill mental health and being able to tell a story in this form within one image. 

  Edward Honaker has been able to capture the essence of his depression through his way of working, having simple touches of everyday life. But feeling like you are submerged into the pit of your mind, with no way out other than to be confronted with your demons. Another artist I related to myself is Sam Geballe. I resonate with the insecurities of body image. Sometimes it is not just the mind that can put you into a dark place, but also body insecurities. Through their body language and emotions that have been captured with the technique of long exposure photography, you can see that Sam once had anxieties around this issue but has now got to the point of self-acceptance.

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Client Brief Animation  

For one of my projects for a client brief, I created a short stop motion animation around creating awareness for suicide within teens and young adults; particularly since the start of the pandemic. Covid-19 comes with its own set of symptoms but many studies indicate that the psychological effects of coronavirus pandemic and global lockdowns have had a significant impact on people’s mental health. Suicide rates are at an all-time high and will most probably rise during the pandemic and post coronavirus world. There is evidence that death by suicide increase both after the 1918 flu pandemic and in the 2003 SARS outbreak.

During the first lockdown, my Instagram and Facebook page were no strangers to suicide-related post. Something felt weird about this moment in time, seemed that pretty much every week I was seeing a new death from suicide on my social media. First one to impact me was of an old school friend and second was a close family friend, it felt very raw during the first lockdown with emotions everywhere and not being able to process the situation properly, it left me asking a lot as to why? Why is this world so cruel? Why did it have to happen to them? Can we just go back to how the world was before this pandemic?

So I wanted to fuel this anger and upset in to was feeling into something. That was to create this short stop motion to help create awareness around this topic. Although, this was my first attempt to create a stop motion and I'm happy with how it turned out. I will be continuing this idea into another project with creating a stop motion around the same topic but with more of a story.

When creating the animation, I took the still images on my camera and used a tripod to keep the camera steady. Once I was finished capturing the images. I transferred them on to my laptop and imported them into Adobe Premiere Pro, in order sequence so it was easier for me to work with. I made sure the frame rate was set to 24.00 frames/second, saved in the format H.264 and can play in high quality 1080p HD

https://www.psycom.net/covid-19-suicide-rates

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ELECTRONIC 

On Wednesday 7th October, I was fortunate enough to attend the electronic exhibition at the Design Museum in Kensington where they had the likes of Kraftwerk, The Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin. I found myself lost in a rave-like environment while learning 'how electronic music rewired the world' (The Guardian). This exhibition was just what I needed post lockdown with loud music and strobe lighting that I had been longing for over the past seven months.

A comprehensive timeline which displays the first sounds and effects of electronic music in 1901 to which we would become to know as dance music in 2020. Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire were one of the earliest influences of electronic music as their techniques at 'The BBC Radiophonic Workshop' became influential globally and for many artists across various genres. Delia Derbyshire who arrived at the BBC in 1960 co-created the original Doctor Who theme song. Then a Decade later these experimental sounds move into cinema and pop music where Kraftwerk release Autobahn in 1974 inspired by space and future sounds, here was the birth of mainstream pop electronic music! 

By 1978 we had Brian Eno with Ambient 1: Music for airports, where he took a calmer and atmospheric direction to the electronic genre, Eno was asked by the designers of Microsoft to compose music which resulted in the infamous Windows 95 start-up "The Microsoft Sound". By the early '90s, rave culture and acid house were in full swing and a week-long free rave that brought 40,000 ravers in the west of England together, quickly escalate out of control and lead to the 1994 legislation to make all outdoor raves illegal in the UK.

We then come to a more familiar time (for me!) the millennium, in the year 2000 The Chemical Brothers hit to headline the pyramid stage at Glastonbury and was named the best live dance act and French duo Daft Punk release House hit One More Time. By 2001 many DJs around the globe started to transfer from record turntables which were dominating the market, was quickly replaced by the CD player, which would go on to be replaced by a USB drive a decade later. Now we find ourselves at another turning point in the history of electronic music where DJs are now starting to use Cloud-based drives to store their music.

The finale installation which was an audio-visual performance by The Chemical Brothers of their 2019 hit Got To Keep On. Music pounding through the speakers feeling the sound waves bounce off the walls and through my body, I was so engrossed with what I was seeing on the screen with figures dancing to the music and strobe lighting that sent me into a trance-like state of mind for two holy minutes but made me leave craving for more.

This exhibition taught me a lot about a world that I only knew very little about but left feeling so overwhelmed and full with the knowledge of a genre of music that went on to inspire a whole generations culture, art, fashion and most importantly sounds! With all the history and humanity that comes with it – I could not help but feel this culture must need saving! 

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A Weekend In Bognor

The other weekend I was able to travel down to Bognor Regis and just purchasing my first DSLR camera I thought that would be the perfect chance to try it out and start to develop my skills within photography. Composition techniques that I felt I wanted to concentrate within were the rule of thirds - The aim of this is to bring a sense of flow to the images and gradually drawing the viewers eye around the whole scene. Leading lines - leading lines composition is when the viewer's eyes are naturally drawn along the lines, these can be roads, paths, buildings, rails etc. Symmetry - symmetrical images have a sense of balance, satisfying and are visually appealing and pleasing to look at with the human eye. one-point perspective - originally came from art that transcended into a photography composition, it’s the type of linear perspective in which relative size, shape and position of objects help create depth within the image meeting at a point in the horizon. Although i had these composition techniques in mind I did not want them to be my focus but just letting my creative photo-taking skills to happen naturally.

Once I had taken my photos, I opened them straight up in photoshop and started to crop, straighten and play with the brightness/contrast, Levels, curves and exposure. When I was finished with them on photoshop I opened them in VSCO and started to think about what pre-set filters I would like to apply to the images, which were KP6 for the image with the pier, C5 for the second image and then A6 for the third.

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Hey... Hi... Hello...

Hello, and welcome to my first blog entry for my production journal. Through this blog, I will be showing you a range of different projects that I will be exploring and learning throughout this module and by the end of it will have hoped to have produced three pieces of work that are photography, sound and animation. 

Over the first week, I have started to plan what I would like to do for the photo essay. I have started to think of ideas that have inspired me over the past few months and what type of images I have been capturing.

Ideas: 

street photography 

location 

protests 

seasonal changes

phases of the moon

So far, I have been taking the photos on my Samsung camera and using VSCO app to edit my photos, I have been using VSCO for around three years and have only used this app for when editing images. However, I have just recently purchased a DSLR camera so I would like to shift to this method of photo taking and using photoshop which I already know how to use but would like my skills to expand within this area of photography and editing. 

I have added these photos to the post so that I can start to build up an idea of what direction I would like to head towards and what type of outcomes I would like to produce. These are a few photos I caught this week and over the summer.