Guy Catling
Guy Catling is a photographer who takes old images and uses photoshop to replace details in the photograph with patterns which completely change the mood of each image. As a response to Catling's images I have decided to take old images and photoshopped optical illusions into different parts of each picture, hopefully changing the feeling the image creates in you.
I decided to replace parts of historic photos with geometric patterns which I believe changed the emphasis of each photo.
Jan von Holleben
Jan von Holleben is a German photographer who uses children lying on the floor to create a seemingly real yet unreal image by capturing it from above. He uses these impossible spaces to bring back an element of fantasy that you would've had as a child. Using a step ladder and different props I used von Holleben's style to create my own scenario.
It was difficult to get the model in the correct position so that their body shape seemed believable, here are in my opinion the best looking shots.
David Levinthal
David Levinthal is a photographer who takes pictures of toys out of focus making them seem like realistic settings. The images themselves create an emotion linked to childhood memories and the relationship you have with that particular time of one's life. I am going to create images in the style of David Levinthal using toy cars which were a major part in my childhood.
When taking the pictures I tried to get as much stuff in the background as possible to contrast with the reality of the toy cars.
Peter Fischli & David Weiß
Peter Fischli & David Weiß are two german artists who use different objects precariously balanced on top of each other. Here is my response to their work.
I believe the image on the left is the best, perhaps not in the style of the previously mentioned artists but due to the vibrancy of the flowers linked with the perspective makes the image very effective.
Laura Letinsky
Laura Letinsky uses a mixture of real 3d objects and paper cut out to create a physically impossible scenario. As you can see in the above image the peaches are cut from paper but the bowl they are in is real. Here is my response to Laura Letinsky's work.
film noir
Using inspiration from 40s & 50s cinema we explored film noir, which has notable characteristics such as; low lighting, high contrast, shadows and silhouettes. I generated most of these effects while taking the pictures whereas some things such as contrast and the black and white effect were added in photoshop afterwards.
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Around half way through taking the images I realised that the images looked better when the f. was greater and the image was being taken in monochrome.
Strand 1; People//places
The relationship you have with a certain location is very important. And a person's favourite location can tell a lot about themselves. In this strand I will explore the relation between people and places, asking them where their favourite place in London is, going to that place and hopefully encapsulating their personality in the photos.
JASPER JAMES
Jasper James is a photographer who merges photos of people and places. He mixes the personal feel of the silhouettes of the people in the portraits and the very impersonal images of the scenery creating a juxtaposition which is very effective. I am going to use a similar way of changing the opacity as Jasper James but hopefully I will have a more personal feel to my images.
Cristoffer relander
Cristoffer Relander uses a slightly more complicated way of merging people with places, focusing more on the portraits themselves but also mixing the two layers. This makes it so that the person and the place are more connected than in Jasper James' images, which is an element that I hope to achieve within my images.
I first took photos of three people and then asked them what their favourite places in London were. After this I travelled to these three places and took pictures.
When taking the pictures I had the portraits I had taken earlier in mind and aimed to reflect the people in the images I took so that my final pieces were more effective.
Jules//St pauls
Jake//Tate Modern
Sam//the shard
Strand 2; POSSESSIONS
Sleeveface by Carl Morris & John Rostron
Sleeveface is a series of images by artists Carl Morris and John Rostron. It mixes the idea of interests and possessions. I am going to use this as inspiration but rather that copying Sleeveface I will use my dad's obsession with vinyl. Not only the vinyls themselves but the process of playing and listening to it.
I aimed to create abstracted images using things associated with the vinyls. I did this by getting close up to the turntable and the vinyls stacked together.
I like how in this image you can see the wear and tear of each of the sleeves showing how used some are compared to others. I think this adds a personality to the image.
Using the above video as inspiration I decided to make a film of my dads vinyl player using a macro lens. By using the macro lens some shots were very abstracted which I liked. There ware also some shots which i didnt like because my focus was slightly off.
Moving on I decided to try and expand with the relationship people have with their vinyls, the music and the physical objects themselves.
This video shows the amount vinyl records mean to people. Some people, for example the man in the video, are obsessive and the collection and listening of vinyl takes over they're whole life, whereas some people treat records as purely nostalgic, for example someone's first album they bought. Between these two extremes are a large amount of people with varying feelings towards records, showing how much people care about vinyls.
With this my second short film based on the theme of people and their possessions I focused on my father's love of vinyl. While editing the film I decided to not add the music after like in my first film because though the songs do not match up I thought it made you view the film in a different way to the earlier video. I wanted to extract the audio track from the parts with my dad speaking but due to the fact that there was music in the background of his speech I couldn't overlay them with other clips, after facing this problem I will record the audio of speech if I am interviewing someone with minimal background noise so that I can put the track over when editing the film.
Another thing I would like to change for when I am next filming is the focus of the film, which is the music and the vinyls themselves, which I seemed to have swayed from in my this film, focusing more on my father.
Georgetown by Lewis Khan is a piece I will draw inspiration from for my next film. In Georgetown I particularly like how the film allows you to see the personality of the man not only through his words but also through his possessions which links in well with my theme of the relationship between people and their possessions. Khan is considering the stigmatisation people have towards people such as the man in his video before knowing much about them, this is shown by how he shows all the different dimensions to the subject's personality. Though Georgetown has nothing to do with vinyls it does show how you can depict someone's characteristics through their possessions, from the kind of things they eat to the fluffy toys in their room Lewis Khan shows how this can be done with minimal filming of the subject themselves. Khan uses close up shots in his film, this allows the audience to literally get closer to the subject to allow them to know more about them as well as adding a feeling of abstraction with some of the shots.
For my final piece I am going to try to convince a local record shop owner to film inside his shop. If he allows me I will aim to try and gain an understanding of what its like in a record shop throughout a day, the kind of people that come in, the way they browse ect.
Building on my previous two videos and looking at them in hindsight I can see what I need to improve upon, for example the way that I capture sound could be improved by perhaps having an external microphone. As well as this overlaying the sound while editing also creates a better effect as I found out after making my first film. Instead of having just a film for my final piece I shall also include a range of stills, similarly to Lewis Khan in Georgetown. These stills will hopefully add another dimension to the piece, instead of being simply a supplement to the film.
Building on my previous two videos and looking at them in hindsight I can see what I need to improve upon, for example the way that I capture sound could be improved by perhaps having an external microphone. As well as this overlaying the sound while editing also creates a better effect as I found out after making my first film. Instead of having just a film for my final piece I shall also include a range of stills, similarly to Lewis Khan in Georgetown. These stills will hopefully add another dimension to the piece, instead of being simply a supplement to the film.
Final piece
On the last weekend I went to Alan's Records in East Finchley to shoot footage and stills for my final piece. I spent around three hours at the shop around 3pm in order to get the best lighting due to the fact that the shop was west-facing so that the sun entered the shopfront in the afternoon. While filming the piece I encountered some trouble with the quality of the film due to the fact that the fluorescent lights in the shop were creating a strange wavy effect which you will see in the film. Along with the film I shot stills at Alan's which I will print out to present along side my film.
Here are the two images I decided to print large, the first one I like because of the sunlight coming through the aisle of the shop which I think adds to the image. With the second picture the sunlight positively affects it as well, through the way it adds texture to the image.
Here is the first draft of my film.
After creating my first draft of the film I believed it didn't portray the relationship between the music and the people enough so I decided to shoot some macro shots of a vinyl player to enhance the theme of the relationship within the film. Another thing I didn't like about this first film was the darkness of some of the shots which I decided to take out.
I decided to add these images as I thought my stills from the shop, similarly to the film, didn't really portray the main focus of the piece which is the relationship between people and vinyl. Using the macro lens I did this due to how close up I was able to get to the record deck.
Here is my final draft of the film. While editing my film I decided to choose the song mainly because it was a nice song but also because in this recording of it, it has the crackly feedback from the vinyl player its being recorded from which I believed makes it suit the film. One thing I wasn't pleased with about the film was the strange effect the fluorescent lights had on the camera which I spoke of earlier, to make sure that this effect didn't happen again I would have to use separate lights and turn the shop lights off. My favourite part of the film is at 1:38 when the man rocks back ad forth to the record times up with the backing track, I believe this helps fortify my theme of the relationship between the music and the people.