Monday 14 March 2016
Thursday 4 February 2016
Sunday 31 January 2016
Wednesday 20 January 2016
Overall Project Evaluation
To begin with, my project
consisted of Street Photography, whereby I visited Norfolk, Leigh-on-sea,
Brighton, and London, Spain as well as shot photos in my hometown. These images
within these shoots consisted of photos of strangers walking past, as well as the
'tourist attractions' of each place. For instance, in Brighton I shot images of
the beach, the Brighton Wheel and the pier, which is what Brighton is best
known for. I did the same for each place I visited, as I wanted to express the
'Identity' of each place, through the tourist attractions that they are best
known for.
However, after 5 shoots I
decided that each shoot was producing similar images, which I wanted to move
away from. Therefore, for my shoot 6, I decided to shoot in my hometown, and
focus on Location Portraiture. To do this, I focused on different backgrounds
and different places within Harlow such as a park, an underpass and Staple Tye.
I enjoyed this shoot a lot more as I did capture the places best known in Harlow,
but I also had a sole focus of the model I was shooting portraits of. This
shoot was also very enjoyable because I was able to experiment with different
portraiture techniques, and figure out which backgrounds were best for these
techniques.
After this shoot, I
continued shooting Portraiture, but used the studio a lot more. For instance, I
did two shoots revolving around Emotional Portraiture, whereby I used different
types of lighting to depict different moods. For instance, I used multiple
coloured gels to express different emotions, such as blue for sadness, red for
anger, and yellow and pink for happiness. I also used both black and white
backgrounds deepening on the emotion that I wanted to emulate. I also reshot
this shoot, but only used dark or high key lighting, to express sad and happy.
These shoots helped me discover different lighting techniques, and also work
out which lighting is best for different shots.
After researching different
Photographers, I came across Gillian Wearing who shot a project titled
"Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say", whereby she asked
strangers on the street to write down a few words on a piece of paper, and hold
them up whilst she shot a photo of them. The best known one being a well
dressed man holding up the sign "I'm Desperate", it is because of
Wearing's work that I was influenced to create my own Sign images whereby I
asked models to write really heart provoking and emotional sentences on a piece
of paper, and hold them up over their faces. This follows on my emotional theme,
which continues throughout the portraits in my project.
It is because of this Sign
shoot that I decided to focus more on Mental Illnesses and sad thoughts. Which
influenced my next shoot, whereby I shot self-portraits of myself pulling at my
face, with tape over my mouth etc. I also used different editing techniques to
make these images more thought provoking and shocking. For instance, I used
different blur filters to blur everything out of the images apart from my face.
I also used black and white to emulate the depressing and dark feelings that
the images were indicating.
I have completed to shoots
experimenting with water, whereby I used two different models, one of which was
in the shower and the other was in the bath, followed up this shoot. In these
shoots, both models were "drowning" in the water. I did this to
portray the feelings of frustration, numbness, emptiness and overload of
emotions and thoughts that come with suffering with a mental illness. These two
shoots were the most experimental out of my entire project, and I believe the
final straight images came out very well. I also used the black and white
effect as well as different colour toning to depict dark, light and cold
feelings.
All of my portraits are
thought provoking, and each portray a different emotion which should make every
viewer think about the models story, or why they feel that way, or what made
them feel like that. I wanted my photos to create questions, and to really show
what Mental Illnesses are like and how people feel when suffering with them.
Overall, I have enjoyed shooting both street photography as well as portraiture
as I have been able to explore two completely different and unique sides of
'Identity' and have been able to experiment with all of my images, as well as
learn new skills with my camera and in the editing field.
Connecting Essay 5
My Image:
Image I have found on the Internet:
My image was taken in my
shoot in Harlow, whereby I solely focused on Location Portraiture, as I wanted
to move away from Street Photography gradually. In this image, I asked my model
to walk along the center of the road, walking away from the camera. Therefore,
this creates a mysterious feeling for the image. This also creates depth as the
road narrows the further away it gets from the camera. I also like that the
lighting is bright around the model, but the model himself appears like a black
silhouette as he is wearing dark clothing. I like this effect because it makes
the model the boldest and darkest part of the image.
The image I have found on
the Internet is of a lady standing in the middle of a pathway, walking away
from the camera, in between a street of buildings. From this shot, we can see
depth as the road and buildings narrow as they gradually get further away from
the camera. Also the effect is a yellowy-Sepia colour, which makes the image
look old and rustic. I also like that the model is really far away from the
camera and facing away, so that they are just a silhouette. I also like that the
lighting is rather bright because it is reflecting off the middle of the road,
which looks like the path that the model has walked.
These image slink because
they both show a model walking away from the camera along a road/pathway. Both
images also have quite high key lighting, which makes the model look like a
black silhouette, making the image quite mysterious. I believe both of these
images depict a story as they raise questions as to why the model is walking
away, rather than walking towards the camera. We also cannot see either of the
models faces, so know nothing about them. Both of the images show depth as the
pathways become narrower as they follow to the background of the image.
Connecting Essay 4
My Image:
Image I have found on the Internet:
My image above was created
for my Mental Illness shoot. To do this, I shot multiple self-portraits of
myself pulling my face in odd directions. Within Photoshop, I then layered
these images on top of each other, and lowered the opacity of each one (except
the background image) so that all the images could be seen. This has created a
shocking, and quite disturbing image as the final photo shows myself pulling my
eyelids and lips in various directions all at once, which makes my face look
extremely strange. I also made this photo black and white to add to the
creepiness. I enjoyed creating this photo, and the concept behind it was to
show the feeling of being trapped and pulled apart, like somebody suffering
with one or more mental illnesses.
The image I have found on
the Internet is a portrait of a man, looking wide-eyed, directly at the camera,
with six different hands grabbing different parts of his face. This photo is
very dark and spooky, because of the black and white effect, but also because
the hands are sinking in to the mans skin and mouth. This photo is incredibly
creepy because despite the man being pulled apart, he is still looking directly
in to the camera. Also, the image is obviously extraordinary as there are six
hands, so it could be seen that the man himself has six hands, each pulling at
his mind.
These images link because
they are both black and white, and both show hands pulling at somebodies face.
The image that I have created was actually influenced by the image that I found
on the Internet, as I wanted to recreate the concept but using transparency
through Photoshop. I like the idea of multiple hands pulling at different parts
of your face, because both images could be seen that the individual themselves
are pulling apart their own minds, trying to get out. This idea was linked to
my mental illness shoot as I wanted to express the feelings of suffering from
different mental illnesses, one feeling being frustration and multiple thoughts.
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