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Inspiration from mock exhibition

Week 8

Feedback and response to my own work

My work was described as intriguing and interesting, many people found the images themselves to be strong, however, they were confused as to how they fit together to create a narrative, with many people not understanding what the context of the imagery was about. I realized this was due to the fact that I had chosen, in my opinion, the strongest images from each of my shoots so far, but had not thought about cultivating them to work together as a series. 

It was also suggested additionally proposed that I experiment with different image sizes and shapes. I knew that I wanted to experiment with printing bigger, However, I had not thought about developing the image formation by trying different sizes within my ‘scatter’ effect. 

Mainly, it was suggested that I should use the exhibition to further the plot of my images, rather than a layout that was aesthetically pleasing. 

What I learned from others work

When walking around the exhibition, I was inspired by many other of my classmate's work, even though the context and print style was different to my own. One thing that was really highlighted was how big an A1 or A2 piece of work could look when printed out, but then once it has been placed on the wall it sort of vanished and really didn’t look big or abundant, which is what certain individuals were working towards. I hadn’t printed my chosen images large scale yet, however, I did have an A2 size in mind, after observing this with other peoples work I discovered that I wanted to print larger, possibly testing out A1 or A0. 

How I’m going to move my project forward 

I’m going to finish shooting so I can begin working out how I’m going to organize my work as a series, and also figure out the best way to use the ‘scatter effect’ to allow my images to tell their story. 

Finalize editing my photos in colour, as I think this will help accentuate the series. 

Work on my printing process by trying out different paper styles as well as generating test prints to work on the tonal range of the series. 

Once I have finished printing, curate another mini exhibition working out what images work well with each other, asking other classmates and lecturers for their opinions. 

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prints and preparation for mock-exhibition

Chosen images 

layout inspiration 

Wolfgang Tillmans 

Whilst I was searching for inspiration for how to display and mount my work at the mock-exhibition, I came across the works of Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. He is an artist that explores Still life, portraits, and political issues with his work. However, what makes him notably one-of-a-kind is the way arranges his images for his exhibitions. I enjoy his use of scattering his imagery, as though he has just placed them on the wall and no thought has gone into it, yet they all work so well together. I think his variety of scale with prints also creates an interesting dynamic, it makes the viewer question why he has chosen to do this. Lastly, I enjoy his use of portrait and landscape, when cultivating a series, it is common to be advised to shoot in either landscape or portrait and not to mix the two together, Tillmans has broken this rule and proven that if done correctly, images in these different formats can work well together. 

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Artist research:

Duane Michals

Duane Michals (/ˈmaɪkəlz/ "Michaels"; born February 18, 1932) is an American photographer.[1] Michals's work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy

Duane Michals, This Photograph Is My Proof - “This photograph is my proof. There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It did happen. She did love me. Look, see for yourself!” USA, 1967

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Development from the first two shoots

How has my idea been shaped and changed? 

Initially, I was struggling to figure out what I was trying to convey with this photographic project. I knew I wanted to generate a relationship between the viewer and the subject but I wasn’t sure how to do this. I also wanted to give the model of my images some creative freedom to represent themselves how they wanted to. 

My first test shoot for my idea behind ‘room’ really helped me to work out what I was looking to aesthetically create, it made me realize what angles and equipment were going to work best for my images. 

The second shoot was my first shoot with another person for the project, I really enjoyed physically creating a narrative around her room and realizing how she had linked it to her characteristics. It also, as a photographer, taught me how to get the most out of the model and how to make them feel comfortable being behind the lens. 

How I’m going to move forward with the project 

Moving forward with the project, I have five more people I want to shoot, each from different cultural and societal backgrounds. I’ll be interested to engage with them and see what they have to put forward to the shoot as well as the project idea. I think the comparison between each shoot will be interesting to witness as well, as each person has different personalities and has therefore cultivated each of their spaces differently. 

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Images working as a series

‘series’

noun

1.a number of events, objects, or people of a similar or related kind coming one after another.

Introduction

Through the process of my shooting for this particular project, I have been reminding myself of how I want my images to look and what kind of aesthetic I want to produce, nevertheless, I have at point been forgetting that each of my individual shoots will have to work together as a series in order to convey a narrative. In order to gain inspiration to create this within my own work, I decided to look at how other artists had developed their own work into a series. 

Examples

Duane Michals 

When researching Photographers who work with sequencing, an artist who particularly stood out to me was Duane Michals. I have found many of his works particularly emotive and engaging, due to his ability to delve into his subjects personal lives, telling their narratives along with the authentic imagery. 

The reason his images work so well as a series is his ability to imitate the way photo frames would be used to create a film in old cinema,  what then furthers these images is his ability to manipulate this aesthetic and mold it to generate his own plot. 

What makes him unique to me is his use of text alongside his images, a series where this is conducted particularly well is ‘Talking Pictures’. I love how he has so cleverly used text to document his images and create a theme of movie advertising adding a whole other narrative to each image.

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Artist research: Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin

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Artist research:

Margaret Durow 

margaret durow

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Information behind the images 

The subject of this shoot was my friend, Martin, because of our friendship prior to the shoot we had already built a relationship with each other, which I think can be seen in the images due to her seen comfortability. The reason I decided to photograph the subject removing her clothes was to give an illusion to the viewer of the image that they were being allowed to watch her going about her daily activities, I also think these images make the series feel less ‘posed’ and more lifelike. Beforehand, I had asked Martin to go around her room and identify key things that were important to her and why she has chosen to place them in her personal space, after looking through them with her, I then went onto photograph the items that I thought would manufacture an intriguing narrative, for example; I chose to photograph the books because she studies English literature at university plus, she has a passion for reading and writing. 

Strengths and weaknesses of the images 

In my opinion, The main weakness of the shoot would be the inconsistent lighting, the day I planned the shoot was meant to have plenty of natural daylight- but due to temperamental weather it ended up being quite dim. Due to the fact that I shot on RAW, I knew I would be able to edit the images in Lightroom. Highlighting the strengths of the shoot, I would say that what worked well were the portraits, the way the subject is directing their eye contact into the lens allows the viewer to feel as though they are making a personal relation to them. 

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Practice Shoot The initial idea for ‘Room’ 

After gaining feedback from my previous shoot, I decided to go back and re-evaluate my idea, I knew I wanted my work to focus around portraits and using them to tell an individuals story, but how was I going to do this? 

Something that I had always found quite interesting was a person's home space, in my own family, I had noticed that each person had quite often conducted the space around them to match their personality. For example, my great grandparents really enjoyed 3D art, their house was always filled with sculptures from many different decades. In particular, my great grandfather really enjoyed nature and wildlife, you could witness this from his collection of plants, birdhouses, and ponds which he built himself, as well as the many nature books and art that he filled his flat with. 

I chose to do a practice shoot documenting my own home space, analyzing the different features and aspects that matched with my personality

Image style exploration 

Upon researching and practicing the art of the portrait, I had discovered that the lens which gave me the best outcome was the 50mm lens, I liked the ‘soft focus’ appearance it gave the images, as well as the use of aperture and focus it allowed me to give the subject of each image. 

I think the point of closeness each image contains allows the viewer to make a connection to the subject (which in this series is myself), I also wanted the images to be shot from a point of direction, so the viewer is looking upon the images as if they were in the room themselves. 

Personally, I perceive this image to be the strongest of the series, simply because of the direct contact created between the subject and the viewer, upon closer examination, the fact that the viewer is only given a restricted view of the face, as well as bringing the eyes to the forefront of the image, allows for the viewer the consider more about the subject and question them; 

‘What is this person feeling?

‘What are they trying to communicate to me?’ 

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‘stripped down’ studio images 

When looking back at the responses to my first studio shoot, many people were intrigued by the idea that items of clothing could be a key representation into someone's personality. This made me think about the psychology behind this- why do we clothe ourselves in a certain style to convey parts of our identity to others? 

I decided to explore this idea in my next shoot- I wanted to experiment with the bodies form and how the viewer would judge a person when they don’t have use of their clothing to express themselves. 

I decided to use an anti-portrait to also distance the viewer from the subjects facial expressions, as this can often create a ‘mood’ to an image. The only thing I wanted to gage from the viewer was their response to the body language and nudity. 

Feedback 

Who am I taking the images for? What is the purpose of the images? What does nudity convey to the observer of the image? 

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Artist research: 

Saul Leiter 

Saul Leiter, 1950′s

more

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exploring portrait styles

‘Day in the life’ film portraits 

The purpose of the shoot 

As a photographer who is quite new to the concept of portraiture, I decided to explore the use of it in an ‘everyday’ image style. There was no concept or idea behind this shoot, I simply wanted to document a day out between friends. This notion also influenced my decision to shoot on film, I wanted the images to be authentic and in the moment, I knew that if I shot digitally I would have tried to create a more perfected image. 

Analyzing the images, I realized that there were actually many different styles of portraits with each of them. 

How I’m going to use these images to further my work 

This shoot mostly taught me about engaging the viewer. For myself, these images are extremely interesting, I see my friends as the interesting and creative individuals that they are. However, for a viewer who knows nothing about myself or my friends, these images would just look like two friends having a day out together. If I want to communicate a story to the viewer, I need to make my images more gripping and compelling, creating a narrative through imagery. 

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‘If you could only use one image to represent yourself to thousands of people walking through a gallery, how would you pose?’ 

Initially, I found responding to the brief to be quite challenging, when I read the title ‘the social production of space’ my thoughts immediately ran to street photography- a narrative I wasn’t particularly familiar with. However, upon reading through the brief again, I began to think about representation and how we view each other based on body language, clothing, and facial expressions, for example, on the tube if you see someone dressed in a business suit, you��re going to assume they’ve been working in an office for the majority of the day- or if you see someone slouching you’re going to assume that they’re tired. Neither of these assumptions could necessarily be true, however, we as the general public have learned to internalize these assumptions through image conditioning. I began to further consider this idea when thinking about the relationship between the subject in an image and the person viewing it. When walking through a gallery, the viewer will immediately create a perception of the people they view within the images- when in reality, the models are most likely creating a persona through body language to fit into the photographers narrative. I thought about giving the subject more control over how they are perceived and how this would change the dynamic of an image.

Usually, I don’t tend to work in a studio as I prefer to work with natural light, however for these set of images I felt that a plan setting and controlled lighting would better fit with the narrative, as well as making the models feel comfortable. before I started to shoot, I asked each model  ‘If you could only use one image to represent yourself to thousands of people walking through a gallery, how would you pose?’. I also stated that they could choose to represent themselves in a way in which they were not, for example, if they perceived themselves as shy or timid, they could choose to try and convey confidence in the image.  

Elise 

For Elise’s portrait, she chose to represent herself within the image through her clothing, before university she had not had much opportunity to use style as a tool for self-expression due to uniforms and dress codes. She uses her taste in music to influence her style, combining band t’s, ripped jeans and doc martins to reveal parts of her personality.

Beccy

For Beccy’s portrait, she wanted to convey herself as a ‘calm and bubbly’ person because this is how she views herself, But in terms of how she is perceived by the public, she doesn’t mind what they think of her, because she knows that she is being herself and that’s what is important to her. 

Brittany 

For Brittany’s portrait, she created an anti-portrait (without either of us realizing it) and decided to mainly showcase her hair, as it is a strong red colour, she says this is what many people use to identify her. For example, if someone was going to explain what she looked like to another, one of the first things they would use to describe her is long, bright red hair. 

Feedback and response 

When showcasing my work to a small group, the response was mostly positive, with people really enjoying the narrative and meaning behind the work as well as finding the idea of giving the model control a good start to developing my final work. The only criticisms were the use of black and white on Brittany’s portrait, as it doesn’t allow the viewer to see her red hair.

Paula suggested for me to go forward and research;

 Anti-portraits

 The ethics of a portrait (as I hadn’t read many insights into the art of the portrait)

Read the text by Lucy Salter

To think about how I would make this portrait an installation piece 

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nature reclaims- twin screen

To view twin screens: 

https://youtu.be/VKvqbeUdQdk

https://youtu.be/dNeekwjIuYU

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Crystal Palace shoot

After having to delay this shoot due to prior weather conditions and confliction in peoples schedules, we decided to do this shoot after university lectures when we knew everyone would be free. We chose to shoot in this location due to the abandoned buildings, as many of them have overgrown foliage which we thought would be interesting to include in the nature part of our twin screen. 

As we arrived we noticed that the abandoned train station had too many barriers around it to shoot through, so we decided to move on and shoot some flower beds, we also went onto a large field and shot some ruined statues. Overall, I think I gained a lot from shooting as a group, I learned about patience, as you had to wait for everyone to finish before you could move to another area, however, this actually meant that I spent more time on my images, therefore getting the camera settings more accurate. It was also good to bounce ideas off of each other- as everyone wanted to shoot in different locations, some of which I wouldn’t have chosen to shoot in myself. 

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.Final studio shoot

Even though we liked many of the pictures we had taken in the first studio shoot, and wanted to use them in our final production, we still decided to do a final shoot so we had a variety of images. I would also be modeling in this shoot so this would give us a chance to observe and compare different body types. We struggled to re-create the lighting that we had on our first shoot as we couldn’t find the notes with the lighting numbers as well as camera settings, so we decided to get pictures up from our first shoot and try to re-create it. 

Reflection 

Overall, I was really pleased with this shoot, I think we created some really interesting compositions that could be put forward for the final twin screen. On reflection, I think the lighting for this shoot could be better, as looking back at the images they do seem flat as well as not matching up well with the first shoot. However, we knew we could fix this in the editing process. I also like the comparison between Rebecca’s body and my own, as I think this shows the viewer that not all bodies are the same and we’re built in our own unique way. 

I had never modeled before this shoot, so this experience was very new to me, I had no problem with exposing my body as I knew it was for a good cause and was also being presented in an artistic way. I feel as though this experience has really helped me to accept my body and I found confidence in being behind the camera rather than in front of it.  

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Nature reclaims; first studio shoot

To begin preparing for our project, we decided to have a practice session in the studio working with different ideas that we, as individuals, all brought forward to the project. We also knew that we needed to practice working with studio lighting, as most of us had only had previous experience of working with natural light. We bought fake flowers, glitter and bubble blowers as props to experiment with how these would work in the shoot. 

Reflection 

This shoot ended up going really well, we were really happy with the way the lighting turned out and the arrangement of the flowers as props. We decided that we would actually like to use some of these images in our final twin screen and attempt to re-create some in our final shoot after the Easter Holidays. If I could change anything about this shoot I would have like to have tried different styles of lighting, to see what kind of mood this would create, such as using a golden reflector to give the images a warmer tone, however, these are techniques that we will apply in our final shoot.