Analogue - A bit of progress...

So here's my next step with the analogue project. I found that I needed to inject a bit of personality into my images, so instead of photographing the exteriors of buildings, I chose to look at the interior - my bedroom to be specific. I did some quick test shots, and got them developed and printed by a shop. Obviously, if I chose to continue with this idea for my final images, I would send the film off to be developed and make the prints myself.
I am yet to attempt to sew these together, that's my plans for the next few days.

Given that these are low quality prints, the colours between each image varies dramatically. However, if I were to print them myself I would balance the colours properly. Also, I shot these in the evening, meaning that the ceiling light casts a yellow glow over the photographs. In order to improve, I would shoot the images on a brighter, more neutral day and print them myself. Originally i did a 360 degree panorama, but next time I will focus more on just one side of the room, given that the opposite walls are relatively dull anyway.
Now, time to get the needle and thread out...

Major Practical Project - Test Shots

So I felt like it was time to put down the books and pick up the camera. So here are some very quick test shots. I do want to point out a few things that I would already be doing differently for my final images.
- Photos will be shot on colour film, either medium or large format.
- I will be photographing my family home, to which I feel much more of a connection.
- Images will be shot over the series of weeks/months so as to build up a portrait of sorts, but of the family home.

So here are the results of an hours shooting with a DSLR and using only available light.

I was attempting to capture some of the unique aspects of the place I live - a real messy, studenty flat - just as a test to see whether I can create an interesting enough project just within the boundaries of one building. I'm not the greatest fan of these particular images, but then I wouldn't expect to be making images I was proud of with so little time and effort.
The photographs do remind me a bit of the work of Nigel Shafran, which tells me that, with a bit more preparation, this is a workable avenue to go down for my project. Another thing to think about is lighting. I had only considered using natural, available light for my final images, but it might be worth experimenting with external lighting, even something as simple as lamps, to create more highlights and shadows. Lamps would keep the set-up feeling homely and natural, and would also cast the yellow-orange glow I have been thinking about.
I do worry that the project will end up feeling a bit too much like a load of snapshots, so I will have to work to make sure this doesn't happen. I can probably avoid it by making sure I spend time with each photograph I want to make, not rushing, and taking plenty of photographs so I can learn from any mistakes.
Heading back home for 3 weeks over christmas should give me the opportunity to shoot plenty of images at a time when I feel most attached to the place where I grew up.

Major Practical Project - John R J Taylor

John R J Taylor is a photographer that covers an absolutely huge range of subject matter. The project that relates the most to me however is entitled 'Domestic Bliss'. On his website he describes that he is interested in "non commercial fine art imagery and the interface between fine art and design" However, looking at the photographs it doesn't seem that there is much of a personal interest behind the images, they are composed very matter-of-factly and with no hint of emotion or attachment.

For me, although these images are technically quite good, I do feel they lack emotion. The home usually elicits at least some kind of emotion for everyone, and it seems that Taylor has approached each place in a very cold manner. It's interesting to see the varying ways that photographers tackle people's homes, and I know that not all will resonate with the ideas feeding my project. What I do take from these images is the photographer's use of colour casts. The first and third images are very cool in colour (blues and greys), whereas the second image is almost completely neutral. Perhaps this is Taylor's way of displaying his feelings about the place, rather than altering his clean, clinical compositions. Like Colin Gray, it might be worth investigating what it is about photographs can evoke such strong memories - if it is the colours I might need to alter how I print them, if it is the tactile nature of a photograph maybe the final images will need to be handled by the audience to get my meaning across.
As harsh as it sounds, this project has informed me of the direction and style I don't want to take. Although his images work as 'fine art imagery', I need the images to mean more to me. I want to use photographs to document and convey the nostalgic emotions I feel towards the house I grew up in, and I feel that this dead-pan style of shooting does not necessarily lend itself very well to this. My next step is to start shooting some test images to really find my feet in the techniques of interior photography.

http://www.johntaylorphotography.com/

Major Practical Project - Colin Gray

Colin Gray describes himself as a "commercial and fine art photographer", his largest, and most personal project being 'The Parents'. Here follows his statement about the project:

"The Parents series started in 1980 when I moved to London. I felt alienated and, perhaps, memories of the isolation I had felt when I was younger began to surface. On the few occasions I went back to Hull, I borrowed a Hasselblad from the photographer I assisted. I felt comfortable with the camera’s square format, perhaps harking back to my Dad’s box Brownie. I now felt the work with my parents was becoming a serious project. The early pictures were looking at my relationship with my parents and their relationship with each other, often expressed in a humorous way. Many of the images involved enactments of a memory or fantasy, interwoven with past events, domestic rituals, and the encroachment of old age."

For me, I don't particularly relate to his more staged images, but the ones that are just simple documents of his parents' lives act as inspiration for my own, similar project. 

'Plug 1983' ©Colin Gray

'Nic Nacs 1987' ©Colin Gray

'Cue To Snooze 1987' ©Colin Gray

 Although most of his images are comical, these are 3 examples of easily relateable situations or objects. There is a kind of humorous stereotype of the father figure in the family falling asleep in front of the TV on a sunday evening. For the most part, his photographs branch away from the majority that I have looked at, purely because they do actually contain people - they are portraits in the traditional sense. They also have that kind of yellowy-orange glow or cast that I have come to expect with old family photos. It was actually something I noticed about being back at home recently; that I associate positive, homely feelings with that orange-tinted lighting. 
Personally, I don't want to try too hard to make my images humorous. However, even in these examples that aren't staged with humour in mind, they do play up to those kind of mildly amusing british stereotypes of how children view their parents - collectors of random nik naks perhaps, being very settled in their ways and routines. Although I know these are down to opinion and upbringing, it might be interesting to see how my family fits into these stereotypes. What I also acknowledge in Gray's work is the way of making images seem nostalgic, even if they are newly shot. It had never occurred to me to use anything other than natural, available light. However, I might be worth looking at old photographs I do feel nostalgic about and seeing if it would be possible to recreate that effect using more modern techniques.

http://www.colingray.net/

Major Practical Project - Living Normally

So I mainly purchased this book to get a bit of inspiration a while ago, but recently it has really come to inform the images I want to produce for this project.

This coffee-table-style book comprises of photographs documenting several different people's homes, alongside around a page of text comprising of a description of the person and their situation and also quotes from interviews with the subjects. The photographer, Niki Medlik, has specifically chosen people from a range of different backgrounds and whose living conditions vary. Something in common with all the houses though is the focus on living - documenting the item as they were found, and the houses as they were lived in. These are not show homes.
For me, it is the quote by Francis Bacon on the back of the book that I feel really relates to my personal project...

 "Houses are built to live in and not to look at..." certainly applies to my family home. However, it is the unique bits of my home, those things that I would find it difficult to describe with words, that make me feel nostalgic. The blown bulb in the kitchen that's been broken for about 5 years. The way the old, horrible wallpaper feels as I walk down the stairs. It's these unique things that I need to get across in photographs.
Here follows some examples of the imagery within 'Living Normally' that I can use as a reference point for my own photographs:

So although I don't feel that all of the images work from a technical perspective, what they do show me is that you can really get an impression of someone's home, and therefore their life, by simply looking at the little details. Rather than sweeping panoramas or wide angle shots of whole rooms, Medlik has focussed her attention right down to the tiniest details - a light switch, a dirty pan, a bathtub. This allows the viewer to build up a view of the rooms through several images, rather then just being given all the information in one. I feel the photograph of the cooker is the most interesting for me - very simply framed and quite clean composition, but telling the viewer everything they need to know about this part of the subject's house.
After looking through this book several times, I feel that the way I want to approach this project is to take lots of photographs, on several different occasions, and allow the audience's image of my home-life to grow gradually.

Naylor, T., Medlik, N., Living Normally (2007), Thames and Hudson, UK.

Analogue - Dryden Goodwin

An extract from Goodwin's website about the series Caul (2008)

"A Caul is the name given to a portion of the amniotic sac that can be left over a child's face at birth. In some cultures, the caul has demonic associations; more usually it is considered sign that the child is safeguarded, even bestowed with special powers. Goodwin's title resonates with this association, reinforcing the visceral quality of the distinctive red lines that cover the faces of the people in the work, like blood vessels or raw tissue."

For 'Caul', Goodwin uses photographed images and then draws over the subjects' faces using a graphics tablet and image editing software. 

© Dryden Goodwin

© Dryden Goodwin

© Dryden Goodwin

Although I don't particularly see a connection between his subject matter and mine, and he uses purely digital techniques, these imges do interest me. What strikes me is that, although they become more interesting and more symbolic post-production, they are strong images anyway. However, when you read Goodwin's description, they take on an almost sinister feeling, particularly when he mentions the "demonic associations". This almost goes to show that context can become almost more important than the images themselves, that you can change someone's perception of the image simply by giving them some background information. It almost makes me wonder why he chose these particular people to photograph; was it purely for aesthetic reasons, or was he trying to say something else about his unknowing subjects?

http://www.drydengoodwin.com/

A Quote From My Mother

A quote from my mother on the phone yesterday. It sums up our family life...

"God forbid there would ever be a time when everything in this house works. You fix one thing then something else breaks. I've got Graham on the case though...come back to me in a months time..."

Major Practical Project - Nigel Shafran

Of all the research I have ever conducted for my projects, the work I feel I can most relate to is that of Nigel Shafran. His images celebrate the banal - the moments in life that happen to most people every day but no one really thinks about. The washing up, talking on the phone, supermarket checkouts, for example. They are not epic, not by any means, but that is not to say they are not powerful. His subject matter is, for the most part, the mundane, but photographed very simply and absolutely beautifully. The photographs are so easy to relate to, and I think that is what I'm aiming to emulate. Here follows a quote from David Chandler, Director of Photoworks magazine about Shafran's practice (accessed via Shafran's website)

"His current work is characterised by the quiet observation of daily life; focussing on deliberately low-key subject matter that is often domestic in nature: the washing - up, his Dad's office, and, repeatedly, his partner Ruth. Yet his work extracts from these everyday situations something profound and consistently beautiful, the sense of a natural order amid the chaos of ordinary things. 

Shafran has chosen to concentrate his work on what he knows best, on what he understands more then anyone else: his own life - the most personal relationships, the most familiar spaces and objects, the most ordinary, everyday situations. His work is about preserving identity and uniqueness: it quietly records what is unique to him. As he has said: 'My photographs are the ones that only I can make.'"

"4th January 2000. Three bean soup, cauliflower vegetable cheese. Morning coffee and croissants." ©Nigel Shafran

"7th February 2000.  Toast and herbal tea, sausage, mushroom, tomato, egg, toast, Galician tapas and beer with Jack." © Nigel Shafran.

"25th April 2000.  8.00pm by Terry’s watch. Branflakes, toast, mint tea at John and Sara’s in Glasgow. Picked up Iranian pitta filled breads in Glasgow [eaten on motorway], Chicken Dalgleish, potatoes and veg, strawberry and apple sponge with cream at Jill and Terry’s with Jo, Kathy and Ruth." © Nigel Shafran.

As Chandler describes, Shafran's work, although it looks clean and clinical, focusses on those parts of his life that only he can know, that no one else can, or would, make photographs about. He has not gone out of his way to make the photographs particularly extravagant compositionally, allowing the viewer to relate to their banality. Even the captions are merely descriptive, with no hint of the emotions the photographer was feeling about the image or the moment it depicts.

For me, it is the leaving behind of this homeliness that I have been thinking a lot about recently - the little things that only happen in our family home, that no one else knows about. I have been worrying about trying to make my work relateable to other people, but as Shafran has demonstrated, the fact that a photographer has documented these little mundane, personal moments every day does make you think about your own life. He is showing that not everything that is documented photographically has to be extraordinary, it can just be life as it really is.

http://www.nigelshafran.com/

Analogue - Stitching my street

So I haven't posted here in a while. I've had a lot of ideas floating around in my head and actually putting all of it into actual readable words is proving to be difficult. But I will get there. Eventually.

However, this is something I have been working on for my Analogue assignment.

I have been thinking about the idea of being able to alter and doctor images that have been shot using analogue processes. Editing photos is synonymous with digital imagery and photoshop, but the techniques often employed using this programme are named after analogue printing processes mastered years earlier. I wanted to play on the term 'stitch' by printing a series of images from film, and then physically sewing them together.
I have also been looking at the places I consider to be home. Linking back to Erlina Gotterson's piece about her street, I wanted to photograph the 2 roads that I have 'homes' on. This is my very first attempt at creating a panorama view using the stitching technique.

So this is not perfect. By any means. Not all of the images line up with each other, meaning that the image doesn't flow properly as it would in a digital panorama. Also, there are imperfections on the negatives which, when enlarged, become much more obvious. However, if I were to take more time, care and use a different camera when exposing and printing the negatives I feel that the piece would be greatly improved. However, I do feel the stitching technique is successful, and the subject matter interesting enough to sustain it as a photographic work even when viewed out of the context of being a mixed media piece. Keeping the stitches regular and in black thread makes them slightly more subtle.

Any comments and opinions on my work so far would be greatly appreciated!