DOCUMENTARY Assignment - Part 2 : Task 1 : Research : Leeds 2011

For this assignment we have been given three themes to choose from and photograph using documentary photography. The first theme is 'Leeds 2011'

Possible ideas for this could be photographing a particular aspect of a place. In the brief we were given the theme of Leeds 2011 but as I live in York I may photograph York instead. I could focus on certain aspects such as:
- homelessness
- stereotypes: goths, punks, chavs
- showing the nice parts of York and trying to advertise it
- showing the awful parts of York for a more dramatic effect
- street photography could be used to photograph people and architecture

I personally love York and am very proud to live there. It is a beautiful city which is very photogenic so could work well for this project.


Martin Parr:

These images were taken by Martin Parr of Leeds. These show different aspects of Leeds from people in shops to workmen on their break to a prisoner having his lunch. These images primarily involve people more than Leeds itself, for my own project I think I will focus more on the architecture of York because it is so attractive.

York Photographer : Ross Photography 

DISCLAIMER: None of the above images are my own.

I really like these images taken of York. These are really nice examples of street photography and conveys well the old architecture and the life within York. If I was to go out and do some photography along this theme I would try to capture the history and tourism within York.

DOCUMENTARY Assignment : Part 2 : Task 1 : Research : Person X

One of the themes we have been given for our Documentary assignment is 'Person X'. Possible ideas for this topic is 'a day in the life' style photography where I follow someone around. I could follow my mum around going about her daily activities and possibly follow her to work.

These photographs taken by Julian Germain are a very good example of 'Person X'. They show an elderly man in his own evnironment at home and in places such as his car. They also show personal objects that obviously mean something to the man in the photographs such as old photo albums.

Richard Billingham:

DISCLAIMER: None of the above images are my own. 

I really love this idea and how the set of images delve into someone's world and show different things about them that someone who just knew them wouldn't normally see. I love the quirky little images in this set that show different objects that describe the subject in the images; such as the garden gnome, the photo albums and the kettle. 

I would really like to work with this style myself and have chosen this theme for my own project on 'Person X'. I think that I will follow my mum around her life, this could be at work, at home, lunch with my grandma, etc. I will also focus in on objects that describe her such as her own old photo albums. 

Test Images :

 

 

Here I have tried to create a depth of feild (like in the Julian Germain images) by adding a gaussian blur to the background of this image. I like this idea, however, I think it looks quite artificial trying to recreate a depth of feild, and now I know to really try and use large apertures when shooting futher images.

I really like the depth of field used here as the sign-in sheet in her reception is in focus and my mum sitting at her computer is blurred out but you can still see that it is her. I really like this because it shows what her job is.

Here are some test and development images on my chosen theme 'Person X'. I have chosen to photograph my mum to illustrate the narrative "What Mum's Do". I have tried to immitate some of Julian Germain's images by editing some of my images in Photoshop, applying a Gaussian blur to an entire image except for a certain aspect, e.g. my mum and the food she was serving in the top image are in focus and the background is blurred. I think for my final images I will try and create this more in camera by using a large aperture to create a narrow depth of field because my images are at risk of looking quite fake if I added too much blur afterwards in Photoshop. I think the effect works quite well with the image of the fax machine because it shows that she uses it a lot in her job as a receptionist.

DOCUMENTARY Assignment : Task 6 : Bibliography

Zed Nelson - Gun Nation / Love Me: http://www.zednelson.com/?Home

Richard Drew - 9/11: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/photographer-richard-drew-captures-9-11-1314681196-slideshow/

Richard Avedon - In The American West: http://www.richardavedon.com/

Weegee: http://www.amber-online.com/exhibitions/weegee-collection

Rosalind Solomon: http://www.rosalindsolomon.com/

DOCUMENTARY Assignment : Task 5 : Evaluation

Overall I have really enjoyed this Documentary assignment. I have enjoyed looking at how photographers use narrative within their images. This is something that I have never looked at before, and I didn't know how powerful an image or a set of images can be to convey meaning. I have especially enjoyed looking at the work of Zed Nelson. He uses his sets of images to show a theme/meaning and convey his opinions on the subject he was photographing. I can definately see myself using this technique of having a theme in future projects. I really love how the images can show the theme obviously or in a subtle way.

I have also really enjoyed looking at the work of Richard Avedon and have especially enjoyed recreating it. I liked seeing the images develop in photoshop as I changed the colours to look like Avedon's black and white images with sepia tones. I have also really enjoyed looking closely at the technique of a photographer and breaking down the images to understand how they showed narrative and how to recreate the images. Instead of just looking at the original impact of an image and how aesthetically pleasing it is, we explored how photographers have used different colours and techniques to convey different meanings.

I am really pleased with the outcomes of my recreating work. I recreated the images of Richard Avedon - In The American West, Richard Drew - 9/11 and Zed Nelson - Gun Nation / Love Me.

IMAGE AND TEXT Assignment : Task 5 : Recreating favourite images

Here are my favourite three images using in-camera techniques and how I have tried to recreate them:

Bokeh Effect : This effect is created by holding a cut out shape over the lens of the camera and making the image really out of focus. The aperture then believes that the hole has changed from a round one to the shape of the cut out in front of the lens. In this case the cut out shape was a heart. All of the lights in this skyline would have been round blurry dots but the bohek effect has changed them into hearts.

This is my own images using the bokeh effect. I lit 5 tea lights and made the image out of focus. I then held a cut out of a star over the end of my lens to create this effect. 

Confetti Filter: This effect has been created by applying confetti to the lens. I really love this image because the confetti isn't opaque and therefore you can still see the dog through it. It makes a simple image really artistic and looks like the dog is showered in love.

This was my first attempt at the confetti filter effect. I wanted the dog to be in focus aswell as the confetti but I couldn't achieve this and so my dog is in focus with just lots of coloured blurry dots surrounding him. 

In this image the confetti and the vaseline that I used to stick the confetti to the lens are in focus and the subject (the remote control) is out of focus. I really love the original image that I was trying to recreate, however, I found recreating the image really difficult because I could never get a happy medium between focusing on the confetti or the subject.

Vaseline Filter: For this effect Vaseline (Petrolium Jelly) is applied to the lens. This could be all over the lens to create a whole blur or just a section (in this case - the outer edges). I really like this effect because is draws your eye to the centre of the image or the focal point and almost creates movement within the image.

This is my favorite in camera effect because I have found it works really well in trying to recreate the image I had chosen. I really love how raw the image looks compared to if I had edited it using photoshop. I also love how seamless the blur is and how professional it looks. It really draws the audience's eye into the photograph and the focal point of the image.

STUDIO TECHNIQUES Assignment : Portraiture : Peacock : Task 10

1/125 F5.6 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F4.5 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F5 ISO 100  ^

I love this image and the depth of field between the models eyes in the background and the peacock feathers in the foreground. The disadvantage of this image is that the eye on the right is at a very high risk of being cropped out of the image. 

1/125 F4.8 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F5.3 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F5 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F4.8 ISO 100  ^

I love this image and how the light is being reflected off the models face.

1/125 F5.3 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F5 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F3.8 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F4.8 ISO 100  ^

I really like this shot but I don't think it contributes a lot to the set of images because the main theme of this set of portraits is the theme of a Peacock and the close up beauty style shots show represent the theme better. 

1/125 F4.2 ISO 100  ^

1/125 F4.8 ISO 100  ^

The colours of the eyeshadow really picks up on the colours of the Peacock feathers.

1/125 F16 ISO 400  ^

I really like these images, I layed out the feathers to make it look like the feathers on a peacock when they display them all fanned out. They work really well with my models flowing red hair and peacock earrings.

These photographs match my proposal because I wanted to create photographs based on the style of beauty photography, and on the theme of peacocks - inspired by James Nader. My images are based on his work but are in my own style. I could improve my photographs or other shoots by intensifying the makeup and making it more dramatic so that I could get close ups of the models eyes - these kind of photographs may be very stunning and have a big impact on the audience. I think that my photographs look really good in high key, too. It would be interesting to see how a blue/green background would have looked and changed the appearance of my images, but unfortunately there was only white, yellow and red available and white was the only appropriate colour. I think my model looks very beautiful in my photographs and the colour of her hair happens to look really good with the colours of the peacock feathers. The fact that I tried out and researched different makeup looks before the shoot really helped me when it came to the shoot because then I would know what I wanted to do instead of wasting valuable time in the studio trying different make-up looks. I bought various different probs (e.g. feathers from a seller on Amazon, feather earrings from Claire's Accessories and a peacock feather ring). These really enhanced my photoshoot so was well worth spending the extra money on. I am very proud of my final images and think my work has paid off and I think that I have a really nice set of images that work well together.