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Final project

Brief: Choose 5 images (three different photographers/artists), and make a copy/parody. ———-> look at the technical skills and interpret them. Be realistic in your ambition. Look at the lightings, the composition, and the framing. ..................................................................................................

For this last project, I decided to produce copies of very different images.

The first image I decided to imitate is a self-portrait taken by Francesca Woodman, an American photographer, known for her black and white pictures featuring herself or other female models.

Original Image

The image shows the left part of a female body; the lighting is quite uniform and not harsh.  The arms are positioned in a really unnatural pose and the subject is pressing on one arm with her right hand.

My image

Settings: ISO: 640   36mm    f/3.2    1/60sec

The composition of my image is quite similar to the original one. The biggest problem I had if the position of the right arm. It was quite impossible to copy and I  am now pretty sure that in the original picture it was another person's arm.  The original picture was probably taken in a studio, and since I couldn’ t do the same, I used a black cardboard and the light on a mobile phone diffused with a silver reflector.

The second image I decide to imitate is a still life of a pepper taken by Edward Weston. “Pepper No. 30″ depicts a green pepper that actually looks like a human body.  In the photograph, there are really strong highlights and shadows.

Original Image

It seems that in the picture there is reverse vignette because the corners of the image are lighter than the inside.  

My Image

Settings:  ISO: 1600    35mm    f/8.0    1/6sec

My aim for this picture was to recreate simal shadows on the pepper and make it look like a part of a human body.

I used a really high ISO to give the impression of an old-fashioned photograph- At the beginning of the process I desperately tried to find a similar looking pepper, but that, of course, was impossible; so, at the end, I decided to communicate the same feeling with a common looking pepper. I really like E. Weston idea of communicating something completely different with a common object.

The third image I chose is a painting and not a photograph. Anita Rée was a  German avant-garde painter of the 1920s.

The image that I decided to copy is a self-portrait of the artist with a yellow background.  The main focus of her paintings lies in the search for one’s own identity. I found this image strikingly beautiful for her use of the colours.  

Original Image

This painting is extremely symmetrical and the position of the arms frames the face of the subject. The artist is facing the viewer and the subject shows no clear emotions.  The light comes from the right and the left part of the painting is slightly in shadow.

My Image

Settings:  ISO: 1250   26mm   f/2.8   1/60sec

For this picture, I tried to recreate the same feeling of the original one. My aim was to make it look like a painting more than a photograph.

I had to use a massive quantity of makeup on the model’s face and body and put a different texture on the original image during post-production.

The position of the hands is slightly different as the colour of the whole image but I found really difficult to recreate the exact ones.  

The fourth image I chose is by John Coplans, a British photographer who took black and white self-portraits that shows his naked, ageing body.  He never photographed his face.

Original Image

The picture I decided to copy shows the photographer’s feet against a plain background. The artist probably took this image with his feet against a glass surface. The contrast is poor and the only point of interest in the image are details of the feet and the shadows created by his legs.

My Image

Settings: ISO: 1000   35mm    f/2.8    1780sec

This is the image I had more problems recreate. It was almost impossible to find a big enough glass surface. I decided to use a glass chopping board and make the model put his feet against it. I extended the surface in post-production with Photoshop and I defined the legs’ shadows.

The feet of my model were of course highly different and so the final result is a bit different from the original picture.

Overall, the image gave the same feeling of the original one: emptiness and non-sense.

For my last image, I decided to recreate an image by Tomoko Sawada, a Japanese feminist photographer. With her self-portraits, the artist reflects on the concepts of identity, culture and gender.

Original Image

In the image, we can see sixteen self-portraits with different clothes and hairstyles. The light is not harsh and it is the same in every picture.

The photographer explores Japanese stereotypes with a humorous and delightful effect.

My Image

Settings:  ISO: 250    25mm     f/5.6     1/60sec

For this image, I decided to communicate the same humour of the original image.

I took the self-portraits against a white wall, always with the same settings at the same hour (2.00 pm) for three days.

I tried to imitate her hairstyles and her expressions. The final results it is, of course, different but it conveys the same irony.

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Visual exercise 3--> portaits

For this third exercise, we had to take three portraits of the same person. I was initially very scared about this assignment because I am not used to this type of photography, but after a while, I realized that with the help of  a reflector everything changed.

Settings: ISO: 1600   70mm   f/5.6   1/80 sec

To take this cinematic portait I used a reflector and a spotlight. Thi photo was shot near Leith, by the sea. I tried to enhance the contrast between the dark blue sky and the strong light on the subject’s face. 

At first I had problems with the exposure, because the light was too harsh. Another difficulty was the fact that I didn’t have an assisten to hold the reflector.

----> When I gave this portrait To Erica, the mode, she realized that this picture was similar to the poster of many action movies, so she decided to modify it on Photoshop, and I personally think that the result is funny and interesting.

Settings: ISO: 1600   36mm   f/10   15 sec

This was my first idea; i wanted to shoot an abstract portrait inside a shower, with a red light of a LED towards the glass, lightening up the water. I had to use a tripod because the only light in the room was the red one and I had to use a really close aperture to have the face visible as well. 

Settings: ISO: 200   70mm   f/6.3   1/50 sec

I took this picture near Bainfield, where I live. 

I wanted to shoot a classic portait, where the only focus where the eyes and the structure of the face of the subject. 

I positioned the model near a picket fence, and I tried to use the lines to create an interesting and simple composition. 

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Visual Exercise 3 --> research

Brief: Take a portait of a person in three different locations and with three different qualities of light. Make use of the skills that you have learnt in previous exercises on the module. Use this exercise as an opportunity to experiment with different lighting positions, reflectors, camera settings, lenses and compositions. Consider what is included in the frame and the positioning of the sitter in relation to their environment.

inspirations: 

“Once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of “posing”, I instantaneously make another body for myself, I tranform myself in advance into an image”                      

Roland Barthes 1981

1. Philip-Lorca Dicorcia: He’s an American photographer who usually combines documentary and conceptual elements of photography. I find his work really interesting for his use of lightings. He mixes artificiality and theatricality with the spontaneous and candid.

2. Marie-Jo Lafontaine: She’s a reknown artis, whose work includes photography, painting, video and multimedia installations. In her portraits she makes the subjects fill the frame, which is a clear metaphor of their confidence. 

3. Valérie Belin: She’s a French photographer, whose work explores the possibilites of digital manipulation. In a book called “Face. The new photographic portrait” I discovered her series “Mannequin” in which she captures a look that has been labelled a “morbid aesthetic”, where women’s faces look like artificial costructs.

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NEW TOPOGRAPHICS

During my researches for the visual project 2 I’ve read a book about the New Topographics.

During the 1970s Baltz and other photographers started a new project to modify contemporary photography in relation to society. New Topographics was organised by William Jenkins and the show comprised 168 works by ten artists.

The originality of the movement was the fact that the artist thought about themselves as individuals rather then the members of a movement. Their aim was to represent the landscape as a photographic subject strongly affected by the human impact of their society. Even though it is not commonly known the New Topographics was a turning point photographic history.

If we compare one of the landscapes of Ansel Adams’ pictures and one of the Robert Adams’ ones we can easily understand the new conception of reality of this movement.

Ansel Adams represented a landscape where human impact is totally absent.

Robert Adams instead showed a reality where human and nature strongly influence each others.

Those 1970s’ artists emphasised human despoliation and were concerned about cultural preoccupations. In their works there is a clear effort to understand and show the contemporary build environment. To put it more simply they were fundamental in the process of the institutionalisation of cultural landscape studies. One of their key concepts might be expressed in Lewis’ words: “all human landscape has cultural meaning, no matter how ordinary that landscape may be”. Therefore the New Topographics movement was able to represent in a new photographic form ordinary subjects.

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WILD WEST MORNIGSIDE ---> visual exercise 2

Morningside’s Wild West Town was built in 1995/96 to advertise a business called ‘The Great American Indoors’, which specialised in Santa Fe style furniture.

Edinburgh’s Wild West Town is currently up for sale and might soon be demolished or converted into residental flats.

“The only place that worked was the cinema, but that was well before my time. The rest is just for show.”, says Brian McLochlin, who worked for a year in the carpentry of the Western Town. He points out that the Western style attracts quote a bit of attention and visitors, especially during the festival. . The old cinema is now for sale, and the property agent Ryden advertises it as a development opportunity to convert into residential flats or commercial use.

The storage units are described by signs as “Saloon”,  “Cantina”, “Jail”, “Livery”, “Station” and others are presently used as workshops for joiners, storage units, as an office for a lawnmoyer, and most of them are work spaces for the garage.

According to the Morningside Memories by the Morningside Heritage Association 2003, there were about 50 cinemas and 30 dance halls in Edinburgh in 1951, and it was the neighbours who used the local facilities. Every Saturday there would be screenings in the Springvalley Cinema, which appears in the chronicles first in 1912 as the Morningside Picture House, then changed its name in the following years to Ritz Kinema, Evan’s Picture House, Morningside Photo Playhouse, Morningside Cinema, and Cine Playhouse in 1920. Springvalley Cinema, opened 1st of January 1931 with ” ‘Special Attraction’ with John Boles and Carlotta King in their greatest achievement The Desert Song- the enormously successful play.” The Cinema is remembered for its saturday screenings, when the entry fee was 1 penny or a jam jar.

Settings: ISO: 800    38mm    f22     1/250sec

This picture was taken in the entrance of the Wild West Town; I tried to show how this street is now abandoned as you can see from the car and the rotten wall.

Settings: ISO: 100   19mm    f6.3    1/10sec

It is really strange to enter in this street and realize how can such a different style coexist with a city like Edinburgh.

Settings: ISO: 200    23mm    f2.8    1/160sec

“Passport. Address. Debit Card. 02079003155″ 

What happens to a place when we forget it? 

Settings: ISO: 200    20mm    f2.8    1/80sec

People keep working where they can, even if the windows are broken and the walls are peeling.

Settings: ISO: 100    31mm    f6.3    1/20sec

It is not enough for a place to be cheap to survive.

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Visual exercise 2

BRIEF: Document a space in 5 images. Find a place and capture its spirit, look for something that inspires you. The aim is to communicate the essence of a space. Talk about the lights and the little things that defines the place. 

It has to be a sequence so  the order has a menaning. 

—————————————IDEAS———————————————

Weaverley Station: look for the lights created by the bis windows and the huge spaces filled with people or desolated. 

Balmoral Hotel: try to ask if you can take pictures of the inside.

Wild West Morningside: walk around this Cowboy style street and look for the little details that create the essence of this abandoned place. Try to look for the signs of what this street used to be when it was first built.

Abandoned Lighthouse: go to the Newheaven Lighthouse (maybe during the day when there is light) and try to capture the spirit of that place. Look for graffitis on the walls and for old bottles of alchool… 

———————————-INSPIRATIONS—————————————-

Robert Adams: 

The photographer took this picture and many others in Colorado and he was able to capture the essence of those places. There’s a tension to the beauty in Adams photographs. 

  2. Richard Wentwotgh: 

The artist took pictures of objects found on the street and his work is remarkable because he was able to transform found objects into works of art.

 3.  Lewis Baltz: 

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Settings: ISO: 100    12mm    f/22    1/5sec

Where the subject matter has the foreground and background integral to the image. This would be with a large depth of field e.g. f 22

This picture was taken in a cemetry near Meadows park. I went there during the afternoon so there was still enough light. I set my ISO to 22 and I used a tripod (Gorilla pod) to keep my camera still.  The stone in the bottom part is on focus as is the tree in the back and that’s thanks to the large depth of field obtained with the f22.

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Settings:  ISO: 3200   38mm     f/2.8    1/100sec 

Where a subject matter is isolated from its surroundings and where you selectively consider detail within the shot. This would be with a small depth of field e.g. f 2

I found this toy in a shop window when I was taking pictures during the night. I went really close to the subject’s head and I set my camera on f2.8 to have a really small depth of field. 

The only way of taking this photograph was to use a really high ISO.  

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Settings: ISO: 100    128mm    f/5.4    1/320sec

Where the subject matter displays evidence of frozen movement. This would be with a subject matter which lends itself to a fast shutter speed.

I took this picture on a beach near the borders betwewn Scotland and England. The subject was running fast towards me so to freeze the movement  I had to use a fast shutter speed.

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Settings:  ISO: 800    54mm    f:9.0    20.0sec

 Where the subject matter displays evidence of movement (blurring). This would be with a slow shutter speed. Use of a tripod will be necessary. 

I took this photograph in a dimly lit room and I used a tripod and a really slow shutter speed.  To illuminate the subject I used the light of a LED and turned it on and off every time the model turned her face. 

My aim was to show the movements, that we normally don’ t percieve, in a clear and unexpected way.

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Settings: ISO: 3200    92mm    f: 9.0    1/8 sec  

Where the ISO / Gain is set to high (i.e 3200) and your image is taken in low light conditions, making sure that your exposure is correct.

I took this picture in low light conditions, using a tripod and exposing the subject with just the lighter’s light. 

My aim was to show a small part of the face leaving the rest in dark.