In My Eyes – My World

Final Evaluation - Individual Project, Individual project

Below is a series of images taken on a fisheye lens using a canon 300D with iso 200 Kodak colour film. I wanted to channel my depression into something positive rather than trying to show it in a visual form such as black and white. I didn’t feel black and white photography was necescary for the project as that’s not literally how I see the world with my depression, the way I see the world is slightly distorted and doesn’t really make any sense. Black and white has a very good way of visualising the illness but sometimes I feel we need to look at something that makes us feel calm and tranquil, something that will help relieve any negative energy. Colour can be used to alter your feelings, blue is a calm colour and this is consistently shown throughout the series. following from this, the places I went to were all places I go to chill out.

The series was taken in Gravesend but one, of which was taken in Whitstable. I wanted to show some places that make me calm so that the viewer can get a sense of this as well. I don’t think this series makes sense, but going with the concept I feel it fits. I feel I could have built a more consistent series from images similar to the red boat or having all images distorted to represent my world and have it appeal to people. I used a fisheye to distort the image with intention and also to have a circular frame so its like the viewer is looking into my world.

The work I do is very personal to me, I like to think that I am showing the world the way I see. Photographing the streets and people is definitely something I want to continue to do along with conveying a message through my photographs. Some of the work I done in Paris was abstract, the work I’ve done for this assignment is also abstract and conceptual. I want to keep creating this kind of work and embed it within my other interests within photography. Experimenting is key to me, as I don’t feel I’ve fully found my look just yet.

Brief summary of website…so far…

Individual project, Research - Individual Project

I chose to have a photograph that I have taken for the background of each page on my website. I feel the colours are pleasing to the eye and it adds a personal touch, rather than it just being the standard white backdrop to enhance the photograph. Looking at a photographers website we can see the majority of them have a white background, very simplistic so that nothing distracts the viewer from the photograph. When looking at Martin Parrs website (www.Martinparr.com) I can only see one shot along with a menu bar along the header of the page. The whole website is crafted like this, almost every page you click on has a gallery that you scroll through, every page but the blog and about section. The about section is written from a third person perspective, making it feel as if it’s an article written about this great artist.

I don’t have a specific look or field of work within photography, so I didn’t want to keep my website in a well organised and simplistic layout. All of my work is unique in itself at the moment and I still want to keep experimenting. I am a documentary photographer, but I also want to work within music and be creative and conceptual with my photography. I am creative, so my website layout is a reflection of that, along with the randomness to my work.

The idea for the backdrop also sprung to mind from a wix template I saw (which is the website I used to build mine), I could have kept to one image for the homepage but I decided to include a mixture of photographs from the work I’ve done so that it appeals to a wider audience. From a personal point of view, I feel the homepage to your website needs to have a strong body of all your work so that whoever was to look on your website has that first initial thought to whether they like it, want to buy it or want to hire you. The first opinion has an effect on the perspective of the audience.

LEE FRIEDLANDER

Individual project, Research - Individual Project

Lee Friedlander is an American photographer from 1948 being in the 1960/70s where he would cleverly include a documentation of the environment surrounding him. All of whats below is self portraiture and the majority of the images Lee doesn’t include his face but instead a visual language. The fourth image along is a perfect example of this, it looks as though the woman in the image is holding a camera and taking a photograph but this is the work of Lee Friedlander an he has experimented with reflections in a window, most likely a shop window. In terms of identity the concept I draw from image number 4 is that he is showing the femininity and embracing that side of himself through a visual language,  I can see Friedlanders shadow and reflection within the shop window along with a headless curvy female holding a camera maybe suggesting the feminine inside of the artist. The fact that Lee always hides behind the camera also suggests that his identity has merged in with this artists tool.

TEST SHOOT – IN MY EYES

Individual project, Test Shoots - Individual Project

I felt this test shoot went really well, I am happy with the results but mainly due to the fact they are distorted upon intention. I used a fisheye lens on my canon 300D to take the series, using 200 iso Kodak colour film. I wanted to try and visualise my depression as a way of channelling it and also helping to carry on making work that I am satisfied with. Distorting the pictures represents how I see at the moment, which is not clear. There are pictures of my room, showing how much is in it and how much of a state I live in, there’s a couple of my guitar, one of which has been taken close up and made to look out of shape and also a long exposure for six seconds of which I turned the camera in a circle whilst exposing. Most of the pictures have been taken in places I like to go when I’m not feeling too great, the beach especially as the sound and sight of the water takes my mind off things.

Edward Honoker

Individual project, Research - Individual Project
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/edward-honaker-photography-mental-illness_n_55f0759ce4b03784e2777fbb?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS9jb2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW9uXzY0Njg2ZWNiLTEwZWQtNGUwMi05YWUxLWUwY2Y5MDQ4YzQ3ZCZsYW5nPWVuLXVzJmlubGluZT1mYWxzZQ&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGEdF3KVLx4U7l23e79e3EV7hqklstxELQ7w0ZIzyj6O2UYGXJQ5RIW71qw8_XF6czANQfPICO3H3lcRQpRVkTOn8RtsLQG8Z4tYAwcw9s4V_mmQFgjxzBXEMYYqU49CRFVuRxKgGu1BMkwpLNT2tzvnN7hpBy2kLQKC5io0LvdJ
Article from Edward Honoker explaining his concept

I was drawn to Edward Honoker’s self portraits mainly due to the concept behind them. At 19 Edward was diagnosed with depression and two years later decided to start creating self portraits. These communicated this visually and helped him cope with the illness.

I feel this image speaks a lot, it is very simplistic but this along with the fine grain to the image adds a delicate feel to it. Picking the image apart we can see a man laying facing away from view on a table. The man looks quite under nourished and fragile, he lays next to a glass bottle of which contains a dying flower. I get a sense that the man and the flower are connected, there is strong symbolisism with both factors. The man and the flower both look undernourished and wilting away.

Final evaluation for Unit Image Making

Evaluation for Unit Image Making, Image Making
paris_.book_cswilliams_final_print1Download

I have included a series of images along with some text depicting my journey through Paris for the day. I originally had a layout of the book of which I produced on indesign but had insufficient funds in order to get it professionally printed the way I wanted it. The book I had in mind would have been a lay flat with a red base, gold embroidered hard back cover. I still wanted to keep the quality of the images as they were but at a reasonable price, so I shrunk the images down and put them onto four A3 spreads in photoshop and printed in uni. I then binded the book with mostly single page spreads using a bookbinding tool kit consisting of a piercer, a set of large eyed sewing needles and beeswaxed thread. I feel the book handmade with single pages still works, hand binding the pages together gave it a much more personal feel. All pages have been printed on a matte finish but because of this and cutting the pages from the A3 spread has resulted in damage to the prints.  

I wanted to travel to somewhere I had never been before and explore along with document the journey, I went to Paris for one day and took seven rolls of film. My journey starts with a morning sunrise followed by the cemetery Jim Morrison was buried in, I then travel to the Picasso museum, through the streets to the Effiel Tower and finally end my journey through the catacombs. The only shoot I done for this project was in Paris, as I felt I had enough photographs to make a book out of my adventure there. 

I shot the majority of this project on film using the Bronica SQB so I thought the format of the book worked best as square format due to the format of the images. I also brought my canon 1300D along to take any shots if it was too dark, I used this mainly for the catacombs and one for the sunrise in the morning. Some colours taken on the bronica  are a little off and one of my images is back to front, I also have misspelt something and could not print another copy. I feel the single pages work but I would have liked to include the double page spreads that I had produced on indesign as the pictures worked well with one another together on the two pages, especially the road sign and portrait of the woman with her dog  

My dad designed the font for the front cover for me, originally hand painted and then scanned in and altered using photoshop. I used the magic background eraser tool so I could print the design onto acetate. The way my dad designed this also altered how I wanted my book to look, because I liked the way he designed the font I wanted to keep it exactly how it was. Printing it onto acetate worked really well. I thought the receipts underneath the design also adds a nice touch and makes my book unique to me, like an art piece.  

Peter Dench

Image Making, Research - Image Making

Peter Dench held a lecture and I had the opportunity to meet him and talk to him about my work. He suggested that I take more pictures of my friends when I am out with them. Dench captures moments on the field using flash to freeze his subjects, the flash also exposes both the sky and the subject evenly, bringing out more colours and detail in the image. I find his work humorous but also very raw. The way Peter described working on the field was very inspiring and funny, the couple that are kissing with the guy throwing up was a story to hear. The man that’s kissing the woman turns around to Dench and barks “oi, you better not put that anywhere”, Dench says okay but tells the lecture I was sitting in, “It got published in over 80 exhibitions, newspapers ect.. I can’t help that i’m press.” Be obvious was another tip Dench gave, it’s good to be obvious and kind of be in peoples faces slight because when you’re confident people tend to just carry on because they will see that you’re a photographer.

  • A skinhead bares his torso in a busy pub on a Friday night out in the Lancashie village of Bacup.