Final Blog.

This is mainly a summary of my last few posts which have been image based. As I stated in my previous blog that I wanted to perhaps explore the topic of my relationship with my girlfriend; it was a very specific idea and then after the feedback session I was told to keep more of an open mind and not to rush about think about the final images. So since then I have been taking more photos with a few different ideas.

1. Not direct images of my girlfriend but images of items or places that would remind/associate with her.

2. The travel to see her. I was going to take photos of the journey and before and after the journey.

So I got on the train to see her and it seemed to turn out completely different. I didn’t like the photo's I had tried to take of those subjects. I decided to try take some less constructed portraits of how I really view my girlfriend (ie. some of the newer images I have put up.)

In the end though I think my project has turned out quite differently. While talking about 'Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, Chapter Six: Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire' in our last seminar, I was really interested in the whole idea of how we represent our selves through items an clothing and through images and image sharing websites (like facebook and myspace.) I though the whole idea of me representing my girlfriend as I see her. Because if she was told to do a self portrait project with the same aim it would be completely different. Fair enough some of my images are quite constructed but I find that speaks me as I trying to show people how I feel that she is special and is attractive as apposed to trying to make her look better.

But yeah, that’s all I've got, blog end.

One more edit.

Running out of titles.

These are an atempt at more natural and less possed contracted photographs, with the aim of trying to represent my girlfriend more realistically.

As you do.

Essays make my life hurt.

Rectangles with stuff in them.

Idea (Help would be nice)

After a lot of thinking with little outcome I have finally come up with idea that I would like to pursue. When we were first given the title 'My World' the first idea that popped into my head
was my girlfriend or family. As Hugh said, it wouldn't really work if your girlfriend or family lived a reasonable distance away. My girlfriend lives just out side Cambridge but I do see here every weekend but that still would not really be enough time. I do not see my family reguarly and I could not aford to go see them reguarly either, so that is out of the question. Then I thought about doing a project on my relationship with my girlfriend and the difficulties/purely what it's like to live far away from your partner.

My plan at the moment is to do two sets of images (4 or 6.) One set being images of my girlfriend; images of how 'I see her' and things that we have in common or specific things I associate with the relationship (good or bad things.) Then the second set of images would be me living without my girlfriend with a similar pattern of good and bad points.

In my previous post are some of my initial photographs which I took recently. I am going to put a few more up to show people but I will edit them down for my final prints.

What I want to do now is to flesh my idea out with more research and hopefully send me in a good direction. If anyone knows of any photographers (or artists) that they think I should have a look at that would be great because i am a bit stuck on that. It would also be nice to have a few opinions of the idea as soon as possible in case anyone thinks it would be a train wreck and think I should start again?

Photo's Today Explanation Tomorrow.

I am to tired.

Bad Photos.

Why? Because I just went out with my camera and a friend with no real idea what I wanted to and I wasn't particularly in the mood. We just went up to the top of a car park to see if there was a good view, no real idea behind it at all. It was interesting but nothing special. Top it all off it has nothing to do with my project and I was tired that day, boo hoo.

Cinema.

I still have one more photographer to write about but I'm going to quickly go off on a tangent and talk about and idea for my 'My World' project. It's possibly the most unthoughtful and vague idea but at least I'm trying. I am interested in perhaps taking a series of images that tell a story but to try and get the images to look like they have been taken from a film. I have accidentally and purposefully done/tried this before. I definitely need to flesh the idea out but here are a few shots from some of my favorite movies.

Garden State
Director/Writer - Zach Braff
Cinematographer - Lawrence Sher


American History X
Director/Cinematographer - Tom Kaye
Writer - David McKenna









The Machinist
Director - Brad Anderson
Writer - Scott Kosar
Cinematographer - Xavi Gimenez

Extention of 'Infulential Photographers pt. 1 and 2'

"Work out why you hate some of the previous photographers work and why you like the Bill Brandt's."

The work that I showed you of the first photographer I looked at (Lara Jade) were images I liked of hers. I did however mention that I disliked some of her work and did not indulge why. I can't really explain why I dislike the selection of her images that I don't like, but I can give a more specific example. She has produced a project called crime scenes (a few example images are bellow.) Aesthetically I really like the one with the girl in the red dress lying on the snow, it is a very bold and eye catching. The rest I do not find partially interesting. What does annoy me is that there does not seem to be any logical pattern to the project and the photos. Why are they all women? Why are they all elegantly dressed? What relevance does the type of death have? The red dress appears quite a lot but not always... why? And so on. She does not indulge the viewer in any of these answers. Then again it might be the whole point, the photos could be more irractic and less concise so the viewer has to figure out what happend/happening, much like a crime scene.

Personally I'm not sure, but it irritates me none the less. Maybe more than any normal person because I could see myself doing a project and making a 'misktake' like that myself.






It sounds ridiculous but I am rather stuck when It comes to explaining why I like Bill Brandt's work past the pathetic, 'I like it because it looks nice.' I think the first is that lack of contextual understanding of it (I am going to go to the libray and find a book about his work, hint, hint, sugestions.) What I do like especially with his nude photos are how strange it looks, strange in every good sense possible. His nudes are reasonable different comparaed to the.. well great majourity out there. Probably another reason why I like them. As for his portraits, I love how they all look quite smart, almost awkwardly formal.

Sorry about the very vague and confused entry, I will try produce something that actually comes from my brain next time.

Infulential Photographers Pt. 2

My second choice of photographer is Bill Brandt. When I started studying photography at A-Level and I had got to my artist study project I wasn't sure who to go with. This was predictable considering I had no real knowledge of many professional photographers, (plus I did not want to be the 100th person to study Ansel Adams.) My teacher, after considering my previous project, suggested I looked up Bill Brandt. I was not sure what to think when I first came across his close up nudes but I soon grew to like them and his overall dark, contrasty and gritty style. Here are a few of his images that I particularly, enjoy.





I loved the use of location portraits and I think I got this from Brandt and on a slightly less positive note; the over use of brightness and contrast in Photoshop (which I am trying to get out of the habit of doing.)

I will post more tomorrow.

Infulential Photographers.

I initially thought picking 5 photographs that had influenced me would be a simple process, but no. I have been racking my brain and searching through books I like websites I like (websites of photographers I like.) I really cannot pick any one image that has particularly influenced me. I seem to find myself thinking about specific photographers that have influenced me, not single images. I tend to find myself being influenced by their work as a whole more than 'that one image.'

When I first decided I 'liked' photography and I wanted to inflict my images on the world I sadly wasn't in any photography education so I did what most lazy people do. I bashed my computer on and learnt what I could from the masses of the ol' internet. After a little search I found myself on websites such as 'Flickr' and 'Deviant Art.' I came across a user who seemed incredibly more popular then the great majority online herds, called Lara Jade. She's a student studying in UCE in Birmingham. I don't like all of her work, I probably dislike more of it than I do like it but I do like her style and some specific images of her's really influenced my early photographs.

Here are a few examples:

I have searched on her website and read and article about her in 'Practical Photography' magazine but there isn't much written about her work. She does not really let people know what she means with her images more than the title, nor does she divulge into why she took them. You're left to you're own imagination. Perhaps in some cases its a good thing, others not so.

Here are a few of my early photographs I took in response to her (and other amateur work I had seen online):