Week 5- Planning my Project

For this week we had to answer a word document on our final project. Here are the questions and answers.

 

Which of the words given in the brief document have you selected, and why?
Division.
I chose this topic because I felt that I could do something fun with it. The other themes didn’t really interest me that much on first glance whilst division I had a lot of different ideas straight away.

 

 

What do you want to point your camera at?
I want to do a selection of images showing how people can have strong preferences on day to day mundane items. This could be the side the toilet roll people prefer it to be or the place they store their ketchup. I don’t want to do anything too serious or overly “pretentious” for the time being.

 

 

Why are you interested in this subject?
I think it will be funny to research and it is quite fascinating to see what people can get annoyed about, especially things that are seemingly significant. I find it interesting to study people and this would be a potentially fun project to do.

 

 

What do you hope an audience will take from your images?
Anger. I want the audience to get annoyed by the images, hopefully. And if not, maybe just a laugh out of them? I think it’s important to have a motive to your images if you can, but people will always take away what they want from an image whether it’s what is intended or not.

 

 

What areas of research are you considering to help deepen your understanding of the subject you have chosen?
I will need to research into petty human squabbles. I will also ask people what annoys them and see what a common ground is. After that, I will need to narrow it down to the most popular common things that everyone gets annoyed by.

 

 

What practitioner(s) or visual resources would you consider to have influenced you? This not have to be photographic.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3002112/Age-old-debate-toilet-paper-settled-patent-1891.html

This article by the Daily Mail is what inspired my decision. I thought it was quite interesting how widely debated the topic of toilet paper was amongst the world; this triggered a string of other questions I had about what people got into debates and were divided on.

 

 

What support or equipment might you need to achieve your goals?
Obviously I will need a camera, SD and lighting [as well as a suitable background]; however I don’t think I will need that much more other than the objects that I choose.

 

Week 4- Still Life

This week we were assigned with the task of taking a picture of objects we have found, borrowed or traded and create a classic Still Life image. For me, I had tried to go out into the world and find objects around the city [which I did find a bouquet of flowers which I shall include in my alternative images], however I resorted to asking my gracious roommates if I could borrow their things. I ended up scouring our kitchen and collecting things that in my mind slotted together nicely.

My Final Selected Image
My Final Selected Image

I chose this image because I like the reflections on the background, although I don’t necessarily know why. I think it makes it quite interesting and I think the image is in focus nicely. I also think it has a nice depth in contrast to the foreground and background with the lighting. For lighting I used the torch from my phone paired with flash from the camera- which was a Canon 700D with a 17-50mm 1:2.8 Sigma Lens. The items that I used was a tin opener, two joker cards, some scissors, a pot of pins and a role of sellotape. For some reason these all went together in my mind- it was probably the colours that made me pick these items.

IMG_9785
Alternative Image 1

 

Alternative Image
Alternative Image 2
IMG_9789
Alternative Image 3

 

The reason I didn’t choose these images is because I don’t think they’re quite focused enough/ they don’t quite feel right to me.

 

 

 

 

Below is an image of a bouquet I found on the way home from visiting the cathedral. I had considered bringing it home to try and use in a studio setting but I didn’t know when I would have access to the studio and didn’t want the flowers to completely die. Therefore I scrapped the notion but I still wanted to include the brief photograph to show some visuals to my other ideas.

Discarded Idea
Discarded Idea

Week 3- Photography Experimenting

For Week 3 there was no assigned task. Therefore, I decided to upload images I took the previous week where I went out with two friends to experiment with the camera. We took a hike up to the Cathedral and began taking photos just to see what we could do. The images I took aren’t necessarily any good [the focus is off and just in general it’s very amateur], but it was a learning curbs that I took away a lot from.

From this session, I learned that a high ISO doesn’t solve all of the problems for lighting as it makes the image incredibly “fuzzy” and that finding a focus point is probably the first thing to worry about when going to take a photo. My focus was way off and took away from a potentially salvageable image. I have uploaded one of the images from that day. Experiment

Week 2- Image Evaluation

 

 

3

 

What time period, decade or year do you think this photograph was created in? What visual cues support your choice?
Judging by the colourised photo, it wouldn’t be anything pre-1975 as that is when the first digital camera was made. The resolution of the image also suggests it was done digitally. I would guess this was taken in the 2000’s- potentially around 2010. However, the actual image lacks any major giveaways of the time period as the subjects don’t really wear fashionable “in date” clothing, and there are no logos or surrounding atmosphere for me to make a more accurate guess. The clothing does have modern day printing on it, but the symbolism [which I will move onto later] is supposed to echo that of the era of Jesus’ rein and crucifixion- judging by the photo.

 

Where in the world was this photograph taken? Again, please detail your reasons for asserting your choice.

It appears to be a less economically developed country, judging by the subjects race and the surrounding building I would guess somewhere like the slums of Brazil or somewhere in Africa. There is no pavement or modern brick walls, instead- it appears to be dried mud of sorts and hand smoothed walls that typically point towards hotter countries that aren’t as modern as somewhere such as New York or London. It definitely doesn’t appear to be in a city that has a lot of wealth. Also, only one of the subject’s wear shoes and even they are worn out flip flops that look inexpensive. Another giveaway it is in a hot country is the type of clothing that the subjects are wearing. The girls wear thin dresses or skirts with their hair tied up from their face, whilst the male subjects either wear shorts, no top or in the “Jesus” figures case- a modesty cloth.

In a short paragraph, how would you describe the key visual elements of the photograph? What is contained within the frame?

There are five subjects, one adult and four children. All of them are looking at the camera directly against a plain background which could potentially be a building as there is a window with a cage around it. This seems to be a symbolic image of Jesus and what he represents. The oldest male wears a thorn crown [as Jesus did], has nail marks on his hands where Jesus would’ve been hung up on- and in general [besides his skin colour] is the “ideal” of what Jesus was wildly believed have looked like, if he existed. The four children in front of him seem to be almost protected by him. The Jesus figure also holds up his bleeding hand, and to me that feels like symbolism for peace. I believe this because his expression is almost calm despite the obvious pain he should be in, However, the children have a neutral expression which is quite eerie. It feels quite disconnected from the ordinary. It also appears that the image’s only source is the sun and isn’t professionally lit. I can tell this because of the types of shadows casted around them [which there is very little] and the fact their eyes have no direct light in them which makes them appear almost soulless.

 

How is/are the human subject(s) of the photograph engaging with the camera/photographer?

 

All of subjects are staring at the camera and acknowledging it. The positions are very uniform in a sense of, it doesn’t appear they just happened to be stood in that way and someone came and took the picture by chance. They all seem to be looking at the same point too. The subjects barely react with each other either.

 

What, if any directions do you think the photographer may have given to the subject(s) of the photograph?

 

This is definitely a staged photograph. The photographer probably had a big say in what the subjects looked like. From the costumes to the poses there is nothing natural about the image. The photographer probably told them how to stand, where to stand, what order to stand and how to stand. The photographer probably had a strong idea of what he wanted the image to look like, he/she would have also had control over who he was photographing, and the subjects were selected carefully- especially the man portraying Jesus.

 

What do you believe the photographer wants, you, the viewer to take from the image?

 

I believe the photographer wanted to provoke thought about religion and race, however I don’t have a solid theory on their exact motive. Personally, I take this image as a father protecting his children with the belief of Christianity- and as long as they have their faith they don’t need anything else. I feel like there is a deeper background to the children but as I do not know the piece I cannot speculate without potentially thinking way too deep into the image.