India Hicking 15619420

These are the final images for my portraits section of my blog. These were taken of strangers outside their room numbers in a student accommodation, but taken out of context could mean anything. The idea and influences behind these photographs are the de3tails portraits by Olive Edis, who created beautiful monochrome imagery of singular people without context. I wanted to reflect this kind of mystery into my images with not having context as to what the door numbers represent and therefore having connotations of prison or a mental asylum. Another practitioner I looked at was Eleanor Antin with her use of multiple photos, for example her project: ‘carving: a traditional sculpture’.

Looking back I wished I picked a time more students were in the flat to create a larger body of photos. However, it was what was available at the time. I am disappointed that they are all a little underexposed, but are more equal in composition and equally lit unlike my other portraits.

This is my first attempt at my final project idea on the word “synchronicity”.

I will be re-doing these photographs as they are not 100% what I wanted to achieve. For starters, I want to do these images in lower lighting to create a more eery and ghost-like effect. I also need to change my composition as they are a little wide and can easily become stronger images by focussing on the groups of people rather than their surroundings. Also in some of my images they aren’t straight, which can be sorted in photoshop afterwards, but hopefully I won’t need to with my second lot of images. I started practising my long exposure at a busy walkway, then moved to the train tracks where I wanted to do my final project, and experimented with the movement of the trains to create an almost see through effect. I have decided to only take photos at the train tracks as each long exposure is completely different and tells a story within itself. I believe it fits in with my theme very well and doesn’t need extra locations to tell my story further. I will make sure the train tracks are busier next time and focus more on the people instead of their surroundings.

Looking for inspiration for my final project I looked at the work of Gjon Mili and Michael Wesley, both of which use movement within their photography but in completely different ways.

Gjon Mili uses electricity-like movement, creating images which are much more abstract than any other practitioner I have looked at. He uses strong lighting and movement within his photos to create fluid images. I have also noticed a pattern within his work that he uses people doing a particular movement/within a particular profession. e.g. a ballerina, a dancer, a juggler. The inspiration I have got from his work is mainly movement and use of lighting. This could be included in my project of synchronicity and the use of street lights/lights from cars, and the movement of people, cars and even trains.

Another photographer I have looked at is Michael Wesley and his use of time and architecture. His photographs create a story within them, portraying busy cities but within a calm environment, something which could be reflected in my own work.  He has created these images by doing long exposures of buildings during their construction. I definitely want to play upon his use of a long exposure within my final project as I am aiming to capture a busy city but create the people as one fluid motion.

Both Michael Wesley and Gjon Mili create images in black and white, along with Alexey Titarenko’s work, which is what I will reflect within my own project.

This is my first attempt at my portrait project. This is going to be modified and re-done to create stronger final images.

My thoughts behind this project are that they have no context as to what they mean. There are young adults stood by a door number. This could be interpreted in a number of ways: student accommodation (the real story behind the photographs), or perhaps something more sinister such as a youth hostel or even a child detention centre/prison.

I shot these photographs on a 50mm lens which actually was not the right one for this task. Because the corridors are so narrow this lens couldn’t capture the subject’s faces and the room numbers together. Therefore my composition was not as I wanted and needs to be adjusted.

I am going to re-do these with a 30mm lens and also get the person in the photograph to hold a reflector under their chin so there is more even lighting underneath their face. Although I used the available overhead lighting, it was actually right for the context in which my photographs were being taken.

My favourite photograph is “P12”, as the positioning of her face is more interesting than it just being straight on. The next time I attempt to do this project i will try to get all the students to angle their face this way.

Alexey Titarenko’s “city of shadow’s” is a library of images of the public at a long exposure which creates ghost-like images/photographs.

I really like the effect of the long exposure as it creates a sense of movement and fluidity within the photograph. This effect could be reflected within my final piece by highlighting the movements which every person makes together daily and therefore links into the word ‘synchronicity’. Having looked into his work, I love how he managed to capture actual features, like a person’s hand or leg, so you don’t lose the persons individuality/personality.