Introduction: Initial ideas & Development
My coursework is based on my chosen theme, ‘past, present and future’. The reason I chose this as my area of study was because I was interested in researching about the past and was particularly interested in the whole concept of ‘old is vintage’. For example, I was always interested in how the old photographs had that sepia tint over the image and how the images always looked a lot more interesting to look at. This interest is shown through my work and research on my ‘Buildings’ page. One pair of photographers called The Bisson Freres really attracted me to the idea of taking images of buildings as they themselves were architectural photographers who photographed historical monuments from all over Europe. I found their work very classic as to me their style of photography was the perfect example of architectural photography which had that old, vintage look to their work, which is what captivated me to their work.
To start with I had brainstormed many ideas; however some of the ideas were weak and lead me to nowhere, such as entertainment. Even though I didn’t use these ideas I still put them on my ‘My Ideas’ page to illustrate my progression by showing what had changed from my initial ideas and how developed upon my starting points for the project. I had 3 starting points which I later developed upon, which were; photographers of the past, fashion hair and make-up, the future, and social issues. Each was only a starting point as further on into the project I went the ideas slightly changed.
To start with I had brainstormed many ideas; however some of the ideas were weak and lead me to nowhere, such as entertainment. Even though I didn’t use these ideas I still put them on my ‘My Ideas’ page to illustrate my progression by showing what had changed from my initial ideas and how developed upon my starting points for the project. I had 3 starting points which I later developed upon, which were; photographers of the past, fashion hair and make-up, the future, and social issues. Each was only a starting point as further on into the project I went the ideas slightly changed.
‘Photographers Of The Past’ was one of 3 main ideas which was a starting point to research different photographers and take their styles of photography and implement it in my own work. However as time went on, the concept behind this idea slightly changed as I was hugely influenced by my photographer research. I noticed that a theme began to surface while carrying out my research on photographers of the past, which was all my photographers were architectural/landscape photographers. This then lead me to the idea of focusing on architectural photography and recreate and reinterpret my photographer’s ideas and concepts. An example of me doing this is using the Bisson Freres concept of photographing monuments all of Europe, as I photographed in my local environment London. However, before creating a final piece for this sub-area of study I did a lot of experimentation which involved Photoshop manipulation. The ‘past’ section of this project is where I had done a lot of experimentation as this is where I had to recreate images which looked old and vintage with that warm sepia colour overlay. This experimentation was particularly successful as the images fulfilled the objective of looking old and vintage like Atget’s work and The Bisson Freres. I feel that overall this project was successful and was quite strong as I had shown development and progress through my initial idea, research, experimentation and final pieces.
‘Fashion Hair& Make-Up’ was my second area of study which turned into ‘Icons’. I first wanted to start this sub-area of study by looking into each decade and researching into the styles that decade held. However when researching for this I realised that icons were huge influences on fashion, hair and make-up and still are. Taking this into consideration I wanted to research one icon that influenced fashion on a large scale and in some ways still does today, this being Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was seen as one of the largest sex symbols ever who created a new fashion statement that voluptuous is sexy. She was known worldwide and was associated with some of the biggest names in history like J.F. Kennedy. Whilst researching and looking into her style I came across one artist, Andy Warhol who was most recognisable for his pop art work of Marilyn Monroe. I was really inspired by Andy Warhol as I wanted to work in his style of work which wasn’t actually in a photographic style but in painting. He was hugely influential on the American Pop Art Movement which is another reason I found him so interesting and why I wanted to work in his style of work. This also involved me carrying out Photoshop experimentations such as air brushing which was unsuccessful as the final results looked fake and the images ended up being blurry. This project took me not only to experiment digitally but also creatively by using the lighting equipment in the green room. I found that the pictures I produced at the end of the lighting experimentation were relatively strong as the lighting looked unique and complimented most of the pictures as well as it reflecting the work of the photographers I researched who photographed Monroe (Bert Stern).
In this project I also looked at the present day icons and ended up looking at Lady GaGa as she is one of the most influential and well known people in today’s world. I came across a set of Lady GaGa photographs which lead me to my next idea. At first I was purely and simply going to carry out a fashion shoot which was inspired by the over the top look Lady GaGa portrays through her crazy hair and make-up. However whilst looking into the set of photographs of Lady GaGa I noticed that she liked to use signs and gestures in her photo shoots to get her message across. Also acknowledging the fact that she speaks out personal rights and linking this to her peace sign photographs I decided to look into silhouette photography. I wanted to challenge myself and experiment in a new style of photography I had never used before. I experimented in the style of silhouette photography as part of my Lady GaGa present day research because I wanted to create photographs which were dramatic like Lady GaGa and her gestures in the images. This was a hard style of photography to follow because the images are dependent on the positioning of the sun, so it was hard to capture the essence of this style of photography. However, post production helped me achieve a product which was much closer to the aims and objectives of this project. I used Photoshop to make the models in the image appear darker by using the lasso tool to select the outline of the model and then decreasing the brightness and contrast to black them out.
In this project I also looked at the present day icons and ended up looking at Lady GaGa as she is one of the most influential and well known people in today’s world. I came across a set of Lady GaGa photographs which lead me to my next idea. At first I was purely and simply going to carry out a fashion shoot which was inspired by the over the top look Lady GaGa portrays through her crazy hair and make-up. However whilst looking into the set of photographs of Lady GaGa I noticed that she liked to use signs and gestures in her photo shoots to get her message across. Also acknowledging the fact that she speaks out personal rights and linking this to her peace sign photographs I decided to look into silhouette photography. I wanted to challenge myself and experiment in a new style of photography I had never used before. I experimented in the style of silhouette photography as part of my Lady GaGa present day research because I wanted to create photographs which were dramatic like Lady GaGa and her gestures in the images. This was a hard style of photography to follow because the images are dependent on the positioning of the sun, so it was hard to capture the essence of this style of photography. However, post production helped me achieve a product which was much closer to the aims and objectives of this project. I used Photoshop to make the models in the image appear darker by using the lasso tool to select the outline of the model and then decreasing the brightness and contrast to black them out.
National Portrait Gallery visit for inspiration
‘Social issues’ was my final idea that remained the same as it focused on global and local issues. However once I had started this project I realised that it wasn’t actually going anywhere and was too late to abandon this idea. I found that this was the hardest topic to document photographically as I struggled to come up with ideas to do so. This was also the weakest area of study as I felt that I failed to answer the brief with this section as lead me to a dead end. I did very little experimentation within this project because I had no ideas to branch out to and had very little to document. Even though this project lead me to know where I still found this topic interesting because I was finding out information about our planet and what goes on and how it is rapidly being destroyed. For Example, I found out that the Amazon rain forest only covers a small 6% of the earth’s surface when it actually used cover 14%. This is huge reduction which made me realise that the earth is rapidly dying.
My Final piece question was ‘How does a child’s perception alter through time?’ At first I was going to answer this question using models and a location but learning through my experimentation I knew this would be difficult and unsuccessful as my experimentation didn’t go well. The problem with this idea was that I had no control over the building which meant that the lighting would be flat. I also found achieving the right composition was extremely hard as it was hard to make the model look abnormally smaller than the building and vice versa. To get the effect of ‘a small girl lost in her surroundings’ was hard to photograph so I decided to photograph the girl and the building separately. I photographed the girl in the green room using one light lamp to create shadows and darkness to symbolise her place in the image and how mysterious and scary the huge building may seem. The concept of this idea was to create illusions with the size to answer the question.
Girl Photographed In The Green Room
Girl Edited Into Separate Photo Of The Building
However as time went on I wanted to do something different to answer my question. I wanted to challenge my question by doing something which would make people think. My final idea was to take extreme close ups of ordinary household objects and make them appear abstract and different to what they actually look like. How does this answer my question? Well this does answer my question but in a less obvious way because while I was thinking I thought about how I could make everyday objects appear larger than normal. I got this idea from thinking about how normal things such as fences, tables, chairs etc. seem large. My final idea takes this though and makes everyday objects appear extremely large and mysterious as it is not clear what the object may be. This is the same as a child viewing everything around itself large and mysterious which is where the concept came from. The abstract of my photographs adds the element of mystery to my photographs. To sum up what I have done is I have taken the concept form my original idea and photographed using them but using a different style of photography to illustrate my answer.
My Final Idea
I feel that my photographs for my personal response was very successful because I think that I have answered my question well by taking my original concept and challenging myself to create a creative final piece which demands some thinking of how this could answer my question as I have done this in a less obvious way.
My inspiration for the colour scheme of my photographs came from my artist research Howard Sokol. I really liked the way he used the colours in his images of the apple and exaggerated them and turned some of them into black and white in the same image so they contrast. Each image consisted of basic editing by adjusting the brightness and contrast and then clicking the desaturation tool so it turned my image into black and white. The two red images which is wine in a glass was kept in colour as the it is the redness of the image which makes the image look abstract. I tried the images in black and white but didn’t look effective at all as it looked dark, weak and lifeless.
Howard Sokol Inspiration
In this project I have learnt a lot about camera composition and lighting as these were two main techniques which I used throughout my project. The buildings project helped me look at this project with an abstract view whereas the icons page helped me with post production editing on Photoshop such as brightness and contrast adjustments. I also learnt how to use colours in each photograph to its advantage as Researching Andy Warhol has helped me learn how to contrast colours whilst making my images look flattering.
