Introduction
For my personal investigation I plan to explore new ways of creating pictures while investigating my own interests as a photographer. I have always been interested in cityscapes, modern and brutalist architecture in particular. This could be because of my upbringing in London and being surrounded by buildings that have this very urban style. I’m also fascinated by the eerie feeling that comes with urban architecture and how lifeless buildings can seem so mysterious and even sinister. Another subject I would like to display in my personal investigation is nostalgia. Gritty, textured photos depicting objects or subjects that bring the viewer back in time. For my personal investigation, my aim is to capture what I’m already interested in but also broaden my skills and curiosities in photography.
Exercise 6 - Sound Pictures
I want to approach this exercise by firstly finding and selecting sounds i want to mimic in photographs. This way, i can focus on the actual photography rather than matching sounds to images I took without any intention and then matching them up to sounds afterwards. I think this will both create a better outcome in the photographs themselves but also relates more with the exercise.
Ralph Eugene MeatyardMeatyard's strange and somehow enchanting greyscale photographs were created as he worked as an optician in Kentucky. He created a series of long exposure images, belonging to a project named “untitled”. Each of these images resemble sound in the way that they display movement. The long exposure eliminates the feeling of stillness there is in most photographs and this not only allows the viewer to think more about the photograph itself rather than what the photograph is depicting.
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Meatyard seems to take a more creative approach to photography rather than simply capture what is already there. He only started to photograph in later adulthood, when his first child was born. This could explain the burst of strange and creative energy in his photography. After not expressing his creativity for the first part of his life and working as an optician, living a suburban lifestyle. Allowing himself to explore his creative side must have opened this fascinating door. |
My Interpretation Of “Sound Pictures”
SOUND 1 I recorded this sound from a horror video game called Silent Hill. I wanted to represent the sound of the ambient background by representing the tone of the music which felt spooky but made me think of orange and also mimic the whirling spinning noise of the music by creating movement by long exposure much like Meatyard.
SOUND 2 This sound came from rattling necklaces and other jewellery and tapping wine glasses with a spoon. This sounded very metallic and crisp so I wanted to take focused photos with flash to capture the metal and rust on a mirror where my mum hangs some of her silver jewellery.
Overall, I think each of my photoshoots for each sound were successful. When it comes to each mini project within my "sound pictures project, I would say that sound 1 or 3 were the most successful and sound 4 could have been done in a differently.
Sound Pictures: Online Exhibition
Exercise 8 - Streetscapes
For the streetscapes
Streetscapes: Exhibition 1
This exhibition was more of a test to see how well the green paper and plant concept was going to work as I was not sure since it drew so far from the original colours of the photos I took. I did end up liking the idea so I would like to make an exhibition outside with more images and naturally growing plants.
Streetscapes: Exhibition 2
This fence covered with ivy looked like the perfect place to exhibit and to continue and elevate my idea of using the green prints against plants. I think this exhibition was successful in presenting my photos in a way that unified them and displayed them well. I like how I got some of the leaves and vines to obscure the prints which made them almost combine with their background.
Sound Pictures: Exhibition 1
Although I liked the idea of a light and surrounding it with images that relate to sound, I think the exhibition could have been better. I think that the subject of sound pictures should flow and move in the same way as sound does; this exhibition felt too rigid. In my next attempt I may still include the light but perhaps create a more random, natural feeling layout. I also want to find a way to include the sounds I made into my exhibition.
Sound Exhibition 2 - video
I wanted to create a video on premier pro as i thought it would make the images seem more in line with the sounds I created for them. I think this was successful in making the photographs look better in most cases however, something seems not quite right about sound 4. It seems out of line with the other sounds and i just don't really like how it looked when I edited it as seemed a little childish and sort of brought the other sounds down. However i am otherwise very happy with this video for all of the other sounds and i prefer it to the online exhibition. I also figured out a way to make the sounds actually audible which is much better than the muffled and quiet sound when I tried to upload the sounds from my soundcloud.
Streetscapes 2
In my first attempt at streetscapes, a lot of the photos were not actually in the street. This time around, I wanted to take advantage of the streets near my house. Walking past them every day, I have stopped noticing the incredibly urban aesthetic of my area but photographing it has made me see it in a different way.
This photoshoot was also a reason for me to practice editing photos after I had taken them, so I had a bit of a play around with the curves, lighting and contrast to see the results. I also took these photos on my sister's old Samsung to get a gritty old school feeling that I felt would pair up well with the subject of streetscapes. Although this was a nice idea I perhaps should have practiced my editing skills not some more crisp photos with higher resolution. However, I am happy with the rusts and I do think this was a successful photoshoot.
Streetscapes 2 - Online Exhibition
For this online exhibition, I placed the photographs close together to create a organised chaos because i naturally like the idea of things looking busy and neat at the same time. I also chose to use this close spacing of my images to mimic the buildings in the streets i photographed.
Streetscapes: Exhibition 2
I wanted to exhibit a combination of both my first and second photoshoot for streetscapes in my final exhibition for the project. To make the two different photoshoots seem more cohesive, I edited the smaller images to make the blue values more intense and then for the bigger images, I sprayed them with blue watercolour. This resulted in a fun texture that mirrored the rough, peeling paint on the blue wall. I decided to exhibit this project here because some of the photos in it are from that part of my garden and Ive always wanted to use this blue wall as an installation and I thought this blue theme would work well.
It started to rain as i was installing the exhibition which i thought was going to be a big problem and possibly destroy the whole thing but since it was so light it just sprinkled little dots of water on the wall which mimicked the watercolour i sprayed onto some of the photos and actually had a nice effect.
Scan in some of the images you sprayed with watercolour
Exercise 3 - Pictures Within Pictures
Sabine HornigSabine Hornig lives and works as a visual artist in Berlin. She received a M.F.A from Hochschule Der Künste in Berlin. In her photography, she works regularly with the idea of frames within frames, often using reflective surfaces to capture more than one photograph within a single frame. All of her images seem to be obscured or interrupted in some sort of way but are neatly framed, making the busy looking image still be pleasing to an onlooker. I am influenced by her ability to keep such messy photos tidy along with how she uses frames and want to maintain a similar theme in my attempt at creating pictures within pictures.
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Pictures Within Pictures - Photoshoot 1
for my first photoshoot, I used a digital camera with increased vibrancy and with the flash on in hopes of seeing interesting and contrasting colours in my photos. I began the shoot walking around, looking for frames that I could see naturally in structures around my house. I then continued on to find, use and create frames to photograph through.
I am very happy with the way that my pictures within pictures photoshoot came out. Im glad I decided to use flash and increased vibrancy as I am pleased with the blue and orange colour palette that this combination created. The flash also added and accentuated an eerie but almost nostalgic feeling to the photos and made strange things happen to the light where it was obstructed in various ways. I think my favourite part of these photos is the colour. I was really surprised to see the white blue and cyan gradients in the photos and how well it contrasted with the oranges and reds of the rooms I was photographing. I think I managed to maintain the same themes that Sabine Hornig inspired me to do in my attempt at this photoshoot while also maintaining my own style and keeping it not too similar to her work.
Windows and Mirrors
The idea that there are two ways to photograph or two types of photographs. Windows; a photograph that displays or shows something. Mirrors, an image that reflects something, revealing something about the photographer. I think whether a photograph is a window and a mirror is not a black and white concept, but more of a spectrum
Defining wether a photograph is a window or a mirror depends on all its elements, the photographer, the subject matter of the photo, where it's displayed, what its displayed with as well as the observer/viewer of the image.
Defining wether a photograph is a window or a mirror depends on all its elements, the photographer, the subject matter of the photo, where it's displayed, what its displayed with as well as the observer/viewer of the image.
A classmate and I created a scale to display the spectrum between how a photograph can be more like a mirror or more like a window. Most images seemed to fall somewhere in between these two types of photograph. We organised the photos based on whether we felt that the images were displaying something already in existence or revealing something new about the photographer. I noticed that we seemed to place the more abstract looking photos or photos photographed in a more unconventional way towards the side labeled mirrors and the more literal or realistic photos towards the windows side.
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I made my own scale consisting of photos i had previously taken for my personal investigation as well as previous projects to further understand how I perceive what makes a photo more like a mirror or a window. Looking back through the photos I think i try to make mirror photos more than windows as even when i photograph something plainly i try to give it some kind of mystery or uncomfortable feeling whether it be in the editing or using flash where it wouldn't be used usually, cropping, colours etc.
Photoshoot - Windows and Mirrors
I approached this photoshoot by taking mini-shoots over different times of day, different locations and using different media- phone camera, digital camera and a 2010 Samsung phone. I did this to see if I could create more variety in the photos, however the shoot ended up looking very messy all together. I think if I edit some photographs and create an online exhibition, they would make moire sense as a collective. However, I do not regret making the photos so different from each other as the concept of windows and mirrors is better represented.
Online Exhibition
I think displaying the photos in a more aesthetically pleasing way immediately made them seem more in harmony with each other. for this shoot, I was inspired by some of my previous shoots from both my personal investigation and other extended projects. For example, I was inspired by my sound photos project to create the long exposure images oof my living room that turned out like glowing smoke.
Where We Belong
A workshop with Alejandra Carles-Tolra
Where we belong is all about blending the line between staged and candid photographs as well as fiction and reality. Carles-Tolra created a project after discovering the strange festival that celebrates the work of author Jane Austin. The Jane Austin devotees or Janeites dress in regency clothing and come together to celebrate her work. The project "where we belong" explores themes of identity, community, escapism and belonging. In the workshop we completed various tasks to dissolve the line between fantasy and reality, matching words to Alejandra's photographs, creating scales to visually display the spectrum that is fantasy and reality in photography. Eventually, we created our own photographs inspired by the same words and scales showing how our own photographs displayed both fantasy and reality.
Carles-Tolra explained how
In Alejandra’s work, the use of different photographic styles is used to blur the threshold between fiction and nonfiction, between past and present. Working in small groups, we made the following photographs (in no particular order):
- A close-up double portrait featuring at least one hand
- A tableau (group portrait) of at least three people sharing an activity e.g. sleeping, talking, eating...
- A still life of an item of clothing or object normally kept close to the body (e.g. phone, make-up, keys etc.)
- A close-up portrait of a direct gaze (e.g. subject looking into the camera)
- An environmental portrait of at least one person walking or running away from the camera
- A landscape (e.g. in nature or an urban setting. A space that gives a sense of place)
- A tightly cropped group portrait of legs and feet
- A photograph of someone taking a photograph
- A portrait of someone sitting alone, viewed side on (in profile)
Words in Photos
Fear. same. freedom. liberation. family. friends. similarities. light home community sisterhood candid togetherness collaboration freedom friendly understanding performance. reality. fantasy. escapism. fiction. playful. empowering. painterly. loneliness. posed. forced. enlightened. dreamlike. surreal. resting. privacy.
I am very happy with the eerie feeling that i captured in some of my images. I focused more on words like loneliness or fear as a lot of my photographs were isolated and lacked people. I like the colours of the images, the blue green and pink, even though on separate images, i think they work well as a photoshoot displayed together. I think the variety between the images is also good and each photo is different from another which makes the photoshoot work better as a whole. I would like to work with more people in my photos to express more of the words like friends, collaboration, sisterhood even though i did try to represent words like light, liberation, freedom, I think as a photoshoot it seems unclear as they all have this eerie uncomfortable feeling which i find myself drawn to.
Portraiture
we experimented with portraiture. me and another classmate decided to do studio portraits which was a refreshing change from my usual environmental photography.
After photographing locations on my school so often, I wanted to change something about the photos i was taking. I tried to use different positioning, composition and perspective than i usually would.
Nico Froehlich
Nico Froehlich is a street photographer well known for his beautiful and sometimes surreal depictions of south London. Nico was born and raised in south east London and focuses on social realism and working-class life in his work. I think the way he uses lighting and the urban landscape to his advantage is what makes his photographs so fascinating and enthralling. His photos range from basic in composure to very complicated as he begins to use reflections found in the urban environment and more settings to photograph.
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- High-angle creates a strange perspective as though the spectator is looking down on the people in the image.
- I like the proportions and composition. The way the blue bridge curves in in the top right corner and the pillars come down next to the man. The the shapes of the road and the shadows on the road and then the elongated, distorted shadows of the people. -he light hitting the front of the man creates a silhouette with a slight outline from where the light hits him looking very dramatic. It looks very cinematic like a man wondering the desert in a western film. The contrast of this with the urban setting of London becomes confusing but beautiful. |
Hicham Benohoud
Environmental Portraiture
A classmate and I created portraits inspired by Nico Froehlich and Hicham Benohoud. I am happy with the outcome of this photoshoot even though the process is not my usual way of making photos. The process felt much more serious and organised than how I normally take photos and I think the images themselves reflect this. Although I could argue that I find these pictures more rigid than I would prefer, I do like the documentarian feeling that they have.
I also Took some environmental portraits that better mirrored my own personal aesthetic using some of my friends from outside of school and one stranger. It was the first time i have asked a stranger to take their photo and i found it a bit stressful. It also didn't come out in focus but i was too scared to ask him again but i think it was all good practice. Even though the focus is off, I still prefer these to the ones of my classmate as i find this style of photography more interesting.
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