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Final Images and Statement:

For this assignment, I knew that I wanted to build off my previous work by using architecture at the forefront of the manipulations. My original plan was to look at feelings of isolation through architecture and landscape, however, after some test manipulations I found that the work was not developing how I wanted it to, and I was not feeling excited about what I was making. This caused a change of plans, where I went back to my previous assignment and found that I liked how certain colours and types of buildings have connotations that when presented together, tell a specific story, or generate certain feelings, therefore, finding myself more drawn to warm lighting, and the emotional nostalgic response I got from it.

I have a deep appreciation for old architecture, and I often find myself imagining what life was like at the time of these buildings’ creation. This inspired me to explore the idea of nostalgia through architecture and landscape. Old photographs often have a sepia tone that people can recognise as being vintage, so I decided to create my own versions of vintage photographs by manipulating my images using a warm sepia/brown colour palette, alongside photographs of old houses and churches.

Within these 3 images, I have explored how specific lighting, combined with landscape and architecture, can generate a nostalgic emotional response. I cut out parts of my own photographs and merged them into 3 separate images that work within a set, exhibiting different perspectives and scenery. While manipulating these images, I thought about Jonas Bendiksen’s The Book of Veles, in which he manipulated fake photographs to trick the photographic community by playing into stereotypes of a drug-ridden European city. This was due to multiple cases of fake news and hacking coming out of Russia, causing him to fear that it would not be long until documentary photography could no longer be based in reality, but instead, fantasy from powerful digital tools. This interested me as I realised in some way, this is what I was doing. I was creating imaginary compositions and trying to make them look as though they were from hundreds of years ago.

These manipulations are intended to be seen in a book but if they were to be seen without context, would viewers believe that they were actually REAL vintage photographs? This made me work hard to try and get my photographs to feel as nostalgic and old, through the sepia tones and subject matter, as possible. To help myself achieve this, I researched other photographers who had taken and edited their photos to be sepia-toned or to showcase warm lighting such as Rick Keller, Daniel X. O’Neil, and Peter Fodor.

The ideas presented in Bendiksen’s Book of Veles were instrumental to my overall direction with my idea of nostalgia. My 3 image manipulations use vintage stereotypes and cliches of sepia tones, combined with photographs of old churches and houses, for the purpose of presenting them in a book as if they were real photographs. This reminded me of the important ethics surrounding photography and manipulation as the lines between what’s real and what’s fake slowly start to blur. I believe this project was beneficial to me through how creating my own manipulations taught me to always consider what is real and what is fake.

REFERENCES:

Miller, Jessica. Fake News: how Jonas Bendiksen hoodwinked the photographic community with The Book of Veles. 14 February 2022. https://amateurphotographer.com/book_reviews/fake-news-how-jonas-bendiksen-hoodwinked-the-photographic-community-with-the-book-of-veles/.

Sante, Luc. Colors/Sepia: Picturing Nostalgia. 2004. https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/14/sante.php#:~:text=Viewed%20in%20this%20light%2C%20sepia,had%20become%20objects%20of%20nostalgia.

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Week 11 Class:

This week we got a chance to see each other's work and give some written feedback. I got a lot of feedback so I will just summarise some points here.

Everyone who viewed my work was able to see the direction I was working in and could understand where the idea of nostalgia comes from and fits within the work. I got some good advice on how to continue working on the images to do with brightening and overall lighting which is helpful. People also think my work works well in a set/series which is very encouraging.

For this class, we did have to have our 500-word draft statement written, and I had not yet written 500 words and didn't exactly have it written in a coherent format so that did impact the amount of feedback people were able to give me, but overall I am pleased with the responses.

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Artist Research:

Peter Fodor:

Daniel X. O'Neil:

Both of these photographers have manipulated their images to appear vintage and sepia-toned. I have included them as part of my research as I felt it was significant to see how lighting and overall composition can work to create a nostalgic feeling. In O'Neil's photograph, the upward direction of the camera towards the sky feels nostalgic as it reminds me of being a child and looking up towards the sky, whereas Fodor's photograph has an overall vintage photograph feel to it in quality and filter, etc. Both are interesting photographs and will be taken into consideration when further editing my own photographs.

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Week 10 WIP:

With this image, I have spent time creating and manipulating together a landscape and have only just started to work on placing a sepia type of filter over it. I am also needing to still work on tidying up the nature surrounding the house and adding lighting and shadow in places.

This image has turned out a lot better than I expected it to as I was using photographs of the building which have an upwards angle to them and I thought it wouldn't work very well, but I am surprised by how much I don't actually hate this work. I think I still need to work on lighting and shadow and fixing the tone of the image. I like how the lighting turned out within this work, especially in the background landscape.

A lot still needs to be done with this work in regard to fixing the outline of the building and the shading, lighting, and tone of the landscape, especially within the sky. I do quite like how the building fits into the landscape surrounding it though and am interested to see how this turns out in the end.

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Week 9 Photos:

To work with my new direction, I went out and took photographs of old buildings and houses to hopefully use in my manipulations.

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Week 9 class activity:

For this activity, we were given a photograph and had to fill out the call sheet with what we thought would be needed to take the photograph and what the photographer would have done to manipulate the photograph. This was really interesting and was a good exercise to think about what goes into photo's such as this.

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Research:

According to this article "viewed in this light, sepia fulfills the dual purpose of evoking the flavor of its time and of leavening and retouching its less creditable aspects. Sepia was thus predestined to be the color of nostalgia, well before the subjects of photographs printed in sepia had become objects of nostalgia."

This article helped give me some insight into sepia and how it has been used in the past, and how it is still used today. It also helped me understand and find clarity with my ideas surrounding nostalgia and sepia.

I find that the idea of nostalgia will be best presented through sepia-toned images as sepia and warm tones such as this hold connotations with nostalgia and remind people of vintage photographs as they were often produced this way and sepia feels very of its time. This will work well regarding my manipulations as I plan to photograph old buildings and pairing the old buildings with a sepia-toned landscape could help with the idea of nostalgia. I also find there can be some feelings of isolation due to the connotation of vintage and old things as it feels quite far away and empty.

Some examples of Vintage sepia photography:

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Artist Research:

Martin Fry:

Martin Fry is a photographer who manipulates his photographs by merging and mixing together different textures and painting styles on top of the image to ultimately change the image until it achieves the look he was trying to create. This is something I feel is important to see regarding my own work as the ways he layers and adds texture to the work to make it feel old and like a painting is something I will be experimenting with (not so much the painting aspect). The fact that this image was originally just a photograph is really interesting to me.

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Artist Research:

Rick Keller:

Rick Keller is a Photographer who specialises in landscapes, architecture, and real-estate-based photographs. I found how he writes about editing this specific photo of his, to ultimately change the lighting and overall reading of the image, particularly interesting. The ultimate goal was to create the feeling of seeing this image in real life so people could experience what he himself experienced when taking the photograph. This is significant to me as I am going to try to replicate imaginary lighting, and seeing how someone has changed their lighting within an image to benefit the overall impact of seeing the image, helps give me knowledge and ideas for how to continue.

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Artist Research:

Paddy Scott:

Paddy Scott is a photographer I looked at due to how he used lighting and sepia/warm tones to add emotion and depth to his images. He is a Landscape photographer who enjoys working with natural lighting. To me, these images feel like childhood nostalgia and it's due to how the lighting works with the subject matter of deer in a forest. It feels Disney-like. I think that through seeing how another photographer has used the kind of lighting I want to use, and how it effects the overall reading of the image, is important to ensuring I am getting the right results with my own work.

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Change of Plan:

After my previous test manipulations, I realised I no longer liked the direction I was working towards, and found myself constantly getting stuck on how to move forward with the assignment. I realised I found myself more drawn to warm lighting, and the emotional response I got from it, e.g., nostalgia and comfort.

I plan to explore how this lighting combined with landscape and architecture can create a nostalgic emotional response for a place that does not exist. I think this kind of warm light can make the images feel quite old and vintage as it feels reminiscent of how vintage photographs look - the sepia tones, etc. I am also creating completely fictional landscapes that feature real places, but the way in which they are presented together makes them not real. I feel slightly inspired by Jonas Bendiksen and his Book of Veles.

I also plan to include slightly the feeling of isolation and being alone within the landscape as I think this feeling can happen quite naturally with old photographs as there is that disconnect of time, which can make someone feel like there isn't anybody present within the image.

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Week 9 work plan:

Take final photoshoot of buildings.

Old-looking buildings like fancy houses and churches, etc.

Expanding on the previous assignment's idea.

Continue researching.

Combining building and landscape with each other, exploring themes of nature, buildings, and isolation - possibly even the sublime?

See how my own voice and interests come through the work, rather than focusing on having strict and direct 'artist models'.

For next week's class:

Have 3 draft manipulations that work together in a series - must all be landscape or must all be portrait - no mixing.

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Test manipulations:

These manipulations are purely tests. I wanted to experiment with dark lighting and see what it would look like. I found it interesting, but don't think I will continue with it as I'm not the biggest fan of how it looks and it is very hard to see.

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Work Plan:

Idea: isolation and loneliness using landscape and architecture.

Next steps:

Research contextual ideas.

Research artists.

Create test manipulations testing out dark lighting.

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Week 8 Photos:

This week I decided to continue taking photos of nature and the sky, however, I chose to work at dusk/early evening to get an overall variety of images to work from.

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Week 8 Reading:

After reading the articles and watching the video about the ‘Book of Veles’ by Jonas Bendiksen I found myself interested in his ways of manipulating the photographic community with his photographs. With this book, Bendiksen explores the relationship between what’s real and what’s fake by focusing the project on the town of Veles which had a reputation for producing fake news and spreading misinformation, particularly surrounding the US election of 2016.

In the article “Fake News: How Jonas Bendiksen hoodwinked the photographic community with The Book of Veles”, it states that “Bendiksen became increasingly frustrated reading reports of Russian hacking and fake news. He feared a tsunami of advanced all-digital technology and began to question how long it would be until documentary photojournalism could have no basis in reality other than the photographer’s fantasy and a powerful computer graphics card”. This is an interesting point as it makes me reflect on how far documentary-based photographers can go with photo editing before it crosses a line into manipulation. In his photographs, Bendiksen created fake people and made them look stereotypical of a city run with drug-dealers, etc. This led to people seeing the photographs and not realising they were completely fake, as Bendiksen played into ideas about Veles and made them look realistic. This highlights how narratives such as this, presented as truth, can shape our perceptions and beliefs.

Through these images and the stories they tell surrounding ideas of truth, fake news, and manipulation in the digital age of photography, Bendiksen invites viewers to question if what is presented to them is truthful or accurate of what it claims to depict. It highlights to me the importance of photographers working ethically, especially in a documentary sense where one aims to depict real life, and makes me reflect and question my own ability to see and understand manipulations and fake news online.

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Break Photos:

Over the two week break I went on a trip to Hobbiton and Rotorua and this is where I took all of these images.