Sunday 25 March 2012
Saturday 17 March 2012
The Comission Unit - Idea & Research
Through doing some digging, I have found a photographer called Ken Graham, who takes photographs on behalf of National Geographic. When musing on the particular subject of Waste, or even more specifically Food Waste (which I've chosen as my subject of focus), Graham's photographs are extremely relevant, and live for a cause. This particular image of his was taken off the coast of Barrow, in Alaska.
This food waste and general trash has made it's way into the waters of the sea due to simple carelessness. Some of it decomposes, some of it floats onto the coastlines littering the beaches polluting the land's sourced water. Worst of all, it all harms the marine creatures which mistaken the rubbish for acceptable food. This attitude towards our planet's health is intolerable and must be stopped. This is just a small impact of how our food waste can disturb the environment.
Pollution is a quite obviously a worldwide problem. This is a section within the area called Manila Bay located in the Philippines where it is full to the brim of discarded food and trash, it's almost possible for a person to walk across the trash as accumulated grounding. The sad thing is, this boy is there to see if he can fish out any trash that's worth selling, let alone the feeling of wading through it all. Seeing this just makes me shudder. This is just the tip of the Iceberg though, metaphorically speaking. There are many more places within India that have a similar problem and right now there doesn't seem to be a solution being put in place.
As I reflect upon this subject, I aim to brings it's relevance towards my own project, I will attempt to source my own images of relevance on the subject within the Medway area. I shall either hunt down a place to make a journalistic photograph or construct my own image. The idea of leftover food and the packaging/trash that is left behind is my main focus of subject for this project. What I hope to achieve is similar in concept, but largely different in aesthetic. My initial ideas right now consist of scattered rubbish, lots or little, but having it as as the centre of the photograph, with the camera's small depth of field creating a blurring of unimportant objects around the food rubbish. I want it to be dark and empty around the main subject of food trash and packaging, as I find that it creates a metaphor for the attention this issue is largely getting from all people, that is to say, it's being ignored and people need to notice - therefore, I choose the high aperture to create a suggested focus of the subject, for the people.
Thursday 1 March 2012
Film Review - The Bicycle Thieves
In this touching yet sympathetic film, the character Antonio Ricci finds himself living the life of a poor post-world war citizen, scraping around for money. He soon finds a job, to his delight, and is told he needs to have a bicycle in order for him to have the job. When told "No Bicycle, No Job" his family manages to scrape some money together for a bike, but ends up losing it while putting up a poster. This film is fascinating when representing a realism or "neo-realism" concept, as it originally was created with non-actors in mind. The film's main character best represents a natural realism as he is actually a factory worker in real life.
The awakening theme is that it is realistic, to the point of poverty being displayed, in a no-truer form than real life. Antonio makes it his mission to go after the thief who stole his bike, eventually he starts to create accusations against people who are actually innocent. This idea of him searching to fulfil his own needs of having a bicycle ultimately transforms him into a bicycle thief himself. This can be seen as a larger metaphor for life itself. He tries to hunt down an opposition and ends up becoming what he's chasing after. There are many ways this can translate into modern society. The government is a great example, the fact that they reinforce laws and regulations to ultimately make it safer for people in the world and to be free from injustice, is ironic as some people accuse the government of stripping them from their own rights to free speech, this in turn creates the government as a tyrant that people need to escape from to create the freedom they truly need. The fact Antonio makes a transformation from the character at the beginning that's wanting to put himself up for the job, and be a part of society, into the character at the end who is a thief, shows exactly how some people end up where they are in life. Sometimes it's a misunderstanding or judging of their realistic character. We can apply the sympathy we may give to the main character at the end, to the thief at the beginning, and we've come full circle in understanding the realism of society. Everyone has their reasons for ending up where they are.
To conclude, the main character can represent all people in society, and a larger picture of any person that may be judged for what they do, but the fact is, we only observe from the outside, as the main character at the beginning, therefore we cannot see on the inside who they are. The main character is misunderstood for what it looked like with the young thief and Antonio at the end, because they were all judging on the initial sight of what had happened with the young boy having a fit on the floor. Antonio was judging the young boy, and he eventually became judged himself. The realism associated to this film is that we can only take in what our senses show us, but essentially we can be enormously misunderstood in our judgements.
The awakening theme is that it is realistic, to the point of poverty being displayed, in a no-truer form than real life. Antonio makes it his mission to go after the thief who stole his bike, eventually he starts to create accusations against people who are actually innocent. This idea of him searching to fulfil his own needs of having a bicycle ultimately transforms him into a bicycle thief himself. This can be seen as a larger metaphor for life itself. He tries to hunt down an opposition and ends up becoming what he's chasing after. There are many ways this can translate into modern society. The government is a great example, the fact that they reinforce laws and regulations to ultimately make it safer for people in the world and to be free from injustice, is ironic as some people accuse the government of stripping them from their own rights to free speech, this in turn creates the government as a tyrant that people need to escape from to create the freedom they truly need. The fact Antonio makes a transformation from the character at the beginning that's wanting to put himself up for the job, and be a part of society, into the character at the end who is a thief, shows exactly how some people end up where they are in life. Sometimes it's a misunderstanding or judging of their realistic character. We can apply the sympathy we may give to the main character at the end, to the thief at the beginning, and we've come full circle in understanding the realism of society. Everyone has their reasons for ending up where they are.
To conclude, the main character can represent all people in society, and a larger picture of any person that may be judged for what they do, but the fact is, we only observe from the outside, as the main character at the beginning, therefore we cannot see on the inside who they are. The main character is misunderstood for what it looked like with the young thief and Antonio at the end, because they were all judging on the initial sight of what had happened with the young boy having a fit on the floor. Antonio was judging the young boy, and he eventually became judged himself. The realism associated to this film is that we can only take in what our senses show us, but essentially we can be enormously misunderstood in our judgements.
The Commission Research for Ollie Gapper
Who would you look at and what ideas can you take from those photographers/artists in order to structure the project?
Whilst discovering different photographers that focus their journalistic photography on that of War and Suffering, related to the waste of life, I go no further than to look at the work of Peter Turnley. His imagery is shocking and real.
Whilst discovering different photographers that focus their journalistic photography on that of War and Suffering, related to the waste of life, I go no further than to look at the work of Peter Turnley. His imagery is shocking and real.
You can find more of his series "The Unseen Gulf War" if you just simply search it on Google Images. It's pretty nasty stuff, but it truly does depict a realist view towards ongoing wars and wars of past tense. The image above's aesthetic is ironic, as the contrast isn't that strong, depicting a dull yet (cleverly) lifeless image. This could be seen as a binary opposite to that of the subject within it, most notably a dead body. It is important to note that his work is not to be taken lightly, as his passion is shown through the Journalistic photography.
This set reminds me of that which is Robert Capa's (not to be confused with ... your own surname), "The Falling Soldier", which is a well known photograph among those concerned.
This particular image can be seen from many different viewpoints; you can see it as a comical still from the movement of the soldier if you remove yourself emotionally, but when you consider what's been captured, you essentially have what is a capture of the moment between life and death. This soldier is killed and the camera catches the very last moment of his life, it's quite profound. This particular reflection on the imagery is one I think that you should incorporate into your own set to fully construct a reflective sympathetic audience.
War is incredibly relevant to your topic and to take the route of staging photography that's within the action of soldiers battling would not be far off in terms of focus. A great photographer in that instance comes to mind - Julia Jacobson. She's associated with the press, but she has taken some fantastic photography that really captures the moment of soldiers in intense war.
As you can see, this photograph has that style captured incredibly well, so it's always something to consider when drilling down to what you want to focus on specifically.
If you strive for more of a dead aesthetic around the film as well as in the subject, you can go no further than Matthew Brady. This is the most haunting of images shown here, and probably the most relevant from what I recall you wanting to focus on. The photograph holds a picture of dead bodies, on what seems to be from a destroyed worn down film negative. This is what I personally think represents your idea best.
As you can clearly see, this image isn't for the faint-hearted. The dreary edge that the negative accumulated clearly adds to the overly capture. If you don't think any other image shows best the waste of life, this one most certainly does.
Sam Horne
The Commission Research by Ollie Gapper
Who
would
you
look
at
and
what
ideas
can
you
take
from those
photographers/artists
in
order
to structure
the
project?
More recently the work of René Riis has come to light, notably with his place in the Hasselblad masters, under the theme of food, with his clinical series depicting food undergoing surgical-type procedures.
I feel this idea, in terms of aesthetic approach could easily be manipulated into a style that would suit the themes Sam wishes to communicate in his work. This visual style has heavy links with still life and macro photography, which may not be the best style to adopt in terms of highlighting waste, as this is an idea more commonly and succesfully communicated though vastness, images that have a kind of endless repetition to them that the eye and mind struggle to comprehend.
Someone that links to this idea of mass and vastness would, of course, be Andres Gursky, with his images of landfills that boggle the eye. His images from this series all use a kind of visual seizure-style to overwhelm the viewer as to the immensity of the actuality his images are representing.
Chris Jordan is another artist I would look into for his body of work 'Midway: A Message from the Gyre', where he documented baby albatros's who have been killed from being fed plastics and other rubbish, collected by their unwitting parents from the Pacific Trash Gyre. The idea of this waste then being mistaken for food could be interesting to look into, as it could be a counter argument to the idea of food being mistaken as waste. His style delivers an idea of both vulgarity through content, whilst juxtaposing this with a soft aesthetic style, through the use of limited colour palettes and vast tonal ranges.
What visual tools would you use to represent the concept (what would the viewer encounter in your image)?
I would incorporate the use of repetition, whether the style is that of landscape or macro, to connote the sense of immenseness in terms of our problem with wasting food. If more landscape style images were to be used, then I would wholly encourage the use of a large format camera, as the larger film plane allows for far greater amounts of detail, tonal separation and hierarchy to be achieved.
What would the visual elements of your image be (composition, objects/subjects within the pictorial frame)?
I would look into carefully composing singular elements into the frame of an image, with the intention to print them larger than real life, if I were running with the macro idea. With the landscape idea I would be tempted to very sparingly include horizons in my image, opting to fill 90% of the frame with repetitive mass, rather than sky etc.
What would be your visual choices in the images (focus, distance, lighting, camera position etc)?
In either image styles I would opt to use a very great depth of field, with very small apertures allowing for maximum sharpness and clarity throughout the focal range of the image. This would be harder to achieve with the macro, due to the nature of close focusing, but entirely possible through the use of studio lighting and long exposures.
I have found that in still life images, especially more close up images, the use of acutely angled lighitng works well to accentuate the shape and form of the subject being photographed. Karl Blossfeldt is one of my leading inspirations in terms of this, creating perfect documents of natural forms that interested him, with clinical precision. This may be another good reference point for Sams visual choices, in terms of both lighting and depth of field.
What practical experimentation would you undertake to visually refine the concept?
I would decide on the style of objects or subjects to be photographed and begin shooting in either 35mm or medium format asap. I, personally, have always found it very fruitful to take a Mamiya 7 to my intended location and shoot off a roll, experimenting with angles and perspective, whilst simultaneously testing the light and scouting locations to shoot and/or avoid. With studio tests, even just setting up a single light and a Horseman can really help in the decision making process, allowing you to see the frame as it would appear in the final image and allowing you to use this to decide upon lighting (simply by moving the light with the modelling lamp on). The sooner one begins to experiment and test, the more likely you are of achieving a far stronger outcome (and it gains points in the time management section too!).
More recently the work of René Riis has come to light, notably with his place in the Hasselblad masters, under the theme of food, with his clinical series depicting food undergoing surgical-type procedures.
I feel this idea, in terms of aesthetic approach could easily be manipulated into a style that would suit the themes Sam wishes to communicate in his work. This visual style has heavy links with still life and macro photography, which may not be the best style to adopt in terms of highlighting waste, as this is an idea more commonly and succesfully communicated though vastness, images that have a kind of endless repetition to them that the eye and mind struggle to comprehend.
Someone that links to this idea of mass and vastness would, of course, be Andres Gursky, with his images of landfills that boggle the eye. His images from this series all use a kind of visual seizure-style to overwhelm the viewer as to the immensity of the actuality his images are representing.
Chris Jordan is another artist I would look into for his body of work 'Midway: A Message from the Gyre', where he documented baby albatros's who have been killed from being fed plastics and other rubbish, collected by their unwitting parents from the Pacific Trash Gyre. The idea of this waste then being mistaken for food could be interesting to look into, as it could be a counter argument to the idea of food being mistaken as waste. His style delivers an idea of both vulgarity through content, whilst juxtaposing this with a soft aesthetic style, through the use of limited colour palettes and vast tonal ranges.
What visual tools would you use to represent the concept (what would the viewer encounter in your image)?
I would incorporate the use of repetition, whether the style is that of landscape or macro, to connote the sense of immenseness in terms of our problem with wasting food. If more landscape style images were to be used, then I would wholly encourage the use of a large format camera, as the larger film plane allows for far greater amounts of detail, tonal separation and hierarchy to be achieved.
What would the visual elements of your image be (composition, objects/subjects within the pictorial frame)?
I would look into carefully composing singular elements into the frame of an image, with the intention to print them larger than real life, if I were running with the macro idea. With the landscape idea I would be tempted to very sparingly include horizons in my image, opting to fill 90% of the frame with repetitive mass, rather than sky etc.
What would be your visual choices in the images (focus, distance, lighting, camera position etc)?
In either image styles I would opt to use a very great depth of field, with very small apertures allowing for maximum sharpness and clarity throughout the focal range of the image. This would be harder to achieve with the macro, due to the nature of close focusing, but entirely possible through the use of studio lighting and long exposures.
I have found that in still life images, especially more close up images, the use of acutely angled lighitng works well to accentuate the shape and form of the subject being photographed. Karl Blossfeldt is one of my leading inspirations in terms of this, creating perfect documents of natural forms that interested him, with clinical precision. This may be another good reference point for Sams visual choices, in terms of both lighting and depth of field.
What practical experimentation would you undertake to visually refine the concept?
I would decide on the style of objects or subjects to be photographed and begin shooting in either 35mm or medium format asap. I, personally, have always found it very fruitful to take a Mamiya 7 to my intended location and shoot off a roll, experimenting with angles and perspective, whilst simultaneously testing the light and scouting locations to shoot and/or avoid. With studio tests, even just setting up a single light and a Horseman can really help in the decision making process, allowing you to see the frame as it would appear in the final image and allowing you to use this to decide upon lighting (simply by moving the light with the modelling lamp on). The sooner one begins to experiment and test, the more likely you are of achieving a far stronger outcome (and it gains points in the time management section too!).
Fashion/Constructed Image Project Presentation
This is our power point presentation which we had to prepare for our initial tutorial:
BABA YAGA
These are the notes from the presentation that explain our slide show a bit better:
SLIDE 1:
We started by looking at folklore in general and different things to it. Through researching the genre, we found many things associated to it. We looked into Greek mythology, Children's fables, and folk festival stories. From the definition of Folklore, we discovered that people rely on folklore to communicate stories to people which could be compared to the media today as they may be seen to influence people by spreading information.
SLIDE 2:
We then created a brainstorm of our Initial ideas:
Inspired by greek mythology
Chronicles of Narnia – childlike creation of a magical world, good and evil characters
Lord of the Rings
Franklyn (film)
Hansel and Gretel
Wizard of Oz
Witches throughout history and popular culture
Modern Paganism
Stigma attached to witchcraft through Medieval ages, Salem Witch Trials
SLIDE 3:
As a group, we chose folklore as our genre of focus, we were most intrigued by therussian folklore of Baba Yaga, a witch who has had many stories written about her from different cultures.
SLIDE 5:
Through looking at all of the cultures, we took some key themes of the many written stories to see where she is with her own morals. We found that she was spiteful to those who cast her out because of how different she was to the rest of society. The other theme we found cropping up was the fact she envied people's youth. In the story, she would drink the Blue Rose tea to sustain eternal youthfulness.
SLIDE 6:
When researching the character's background, you can find artists impressions based upon the original tale. These two images in particular set the style of story. Particularly, the one on the left gives us a colour palette to keep in mind. The purpose of the drawings is to evoke fear within the viewer, because of the how the tale goes. The aspects that achieve this could be the eyes, necklace, and skulls. This imagery we will incorporate.
SLIDE 7:
After picking our chosen folklore Baba Yaga, who is a witch, we looked at other witches to find and compare similarities between them. Even in Stardust (top right), she uses her dark magic to ultimately bring her back into youth. This seems to be a recurring theme among these characters.
SLIDE 9:
We want to modernize the story and make social comments on modern beauty and what effects it has on both us as individuals and the fashion industry.
There is always a constant desire to be young from people today. As our image is ultimately going to be fashion related, we have to be able to translate that within what we create as our final photograph.
SLIDE 10:
We drew most of our themes from symbolism – following the storyline whilst picking up on the morals behind the idea, including cultural references relating to the story itself and its origins, countries, regions etc.
For example the evil eye symbol which shows her evil characteristics. The evil eye may also show her vulnerability and fear – she may be scared because of her isolation.
We’ll also include candles/crystals and other superstitious items to relate to the folklore aspects and the pagan-type lifestyle
Photograph of her before – younger, happier, before she was aware of modern ideals of beauty, age and awareness outcast her and she isolated herself.
SLIDE 11:
As we look to achieve a style, we could be influenced by the photographers of these images; Paolo Roversi, Ellen Rogers, Sarah Moon. Other photographers such as AlisonScarpulla and David Hamilton will aid us in our styling, as all their models look slightly out of focus, and their faces are concealed, to create mystery. His photos also frame the model to create focus on the characterization of the subject.
SLIDE 12:
In the story of Baba Yaga, it talks a lot about her home as it's a significant part of the story. It helps us understand her personality by showing us her belongings. These two images above are from the Romanian gypsy caravans; we thought these were quite relevant because they are only built for one person – this is referenced in the film 'Stardust.' Modern fashion is influenced by past cultures and lifestyles, we recently saw the Bohemian trend, which borrowed heavily from the Romanian gypsies.
SLIDE 13:
In the interior, we wanted to bring external elements within her home, to help us aid in presenting her character, but to also show she is at one with nature, as she uses the forest to conceal herself. The photo top left is a similar aesthetic that we will strive for as it has fragmented elements among it.
SLIDE 14:
Joshua Hoffine – camera position – made for audiences perspective, elevated.
Tim Walker – photograph made by styling of model and set, alters viewers perception of scaling
Model should be looking directly at the camera, direct connection to the viewer, can understand the emotional conflict.
SLIDE 16:
Refined props, not overwhelming to the viewer, just enough to keep it relevant and give enough information about the character that we communicate her properly.
The combination of indoor and outdoor will again bring this 'oneness' of her home and nature.
Symbolic personal items, such as the blue rose (the type of tea she's addicted to), will be heavily incorporated to present her character.
SLIDE 17:
These images are stylistically quite relevant to our aesthetic, they also have a relationship with nature but a darker feel. There's an olden, worn kind of impression. Pagan and folklore references are in the styling, drapery and natural links within fabric.
SLIDE 18:
Casting – model with quite an angular face, balance between strained and gaunt and fragile and delicate. Suggestion of evil – emotional angst but a sorrow and desperation behind it. Combination of these two models and represent both sides.
Her desire to be more beautiful than any one – yearning for the unattainable
Heinrich von Ofterdingen, the 1802 unfinished novel by German romanticist Novalis' and Tennessee Williams 1944 book The Glass Menagerie
A Clone – unreal, altered self so much in the pursuit of beauty that she’s hardly who she was before.
She’s a bit self indulgent, vanity has overtaken her lifestyle but she exists to constantly make herself even more beautiful, endless routine
SLIDE 19:
Our sophistication is definitely not shown through this image as this is just a quick mock-up to give a better visual idea of our aim towards the final. Our final will hopefully present a much more professional look obviously, but this is just to aid your imagination with the research presented previously.
BABA YAGA
These are the notes from the presentation that explain our slide show a bit better:
SLIDE 1:
We started by looking at folklore in general and different things to it. Through researching the genre, we found many things associated to it. We looked into Greek mythology, Children's fables, and folk festival stories. From the definition of Folklore, we discovered that people rely on folklore to communicate stories to people which could be compared to the media today as they may be seen to influence people by spreading information.
SLIDE 2:
We then created a brainstorm of our Initial ideas:
Inspired by greek mythology
Chronicles of Narnia – childlike creation of a magical world, good and evil characters
Lord of the Rings
Franklyn (film)
Hansel and Gretel
Wizard of Oz
Witches throughout history and popular culture
Modern Paganism
Stigma attached to witchcraft through Medieval ages, Salem Witch Trials
SLIDE 3:
As a group, we chose folklore as our genre of focus, we were most intrigued by therussian folklore of Baba Yaga, a witch who has had many stories written about her from different cultures.
SLIDE 5:
Through looking at all of the cultures, we took some key themes of the many written stories to see where she is with her own morals. We found that she was spiteful to those who cast her out because of how different she was to the rest of society. The other theme we found cropping up was the fact she envied people's youth. In the story, she would drink the Blue Rose tea to sustain eternal youthfulness.
SLIDE 6:
When researching the character's background, you can find artists impressions based upon the original tale. These two images in particular set the style of story. Particularly, the one on the left gives us a colour palette to keep in mind. The purpose of the drawings is to evoke fear within the viewer, because of the how the tale goes. The aspects that achieve this could be the eyes, necklace, and skulls. This imagery we will incorporate.
SLIDE 7:
After picking our chosen folklore Baba Yaga, who is a witch, we looked at other witches to find and compare similarities between them. Even in Stardust (top right), she uses her dark magic to ultimately bring her back into youth. This seems to be a recurring theme among these characters.
SLIDE 9:
We want to modernize the story and make social comments on modern beauty and what effects it has on both us as individuals and the fashion industry.
There is always a constant desire to be young from people today. As our image is ultimately going to be fashion related, we have to be able to translate that within what we create as our final photograph.
SLIDE 10:
We drew most of our themes from symbolism – following the storyline whilst picking up on the morals behind the idea, including cultural references relating to the story itself and its origins, countries, regions etc.
For example the evil eye symbol which shows her evil characteristics. The evil eye may also show her vulnerability and fear – she may be scared because of her isolation.
We’ll also include candles/crystals and other superstitious items to relate to the folklore aspects and the pagan-type lifestyle
Photograph of her before – younger, happier, before she was aware of modern ideals of beauty, age and awareness outcast her and she isolated herself.
SLIDE 11:
As we look to achieve a style, we could be influenced by the photographers of these images; Paolo Roversi, Ellen Rogers, Sarah Moon. Other photographers such as AlisonScarpulla and David Hamilton will aid us in our styling, as all their models look slightly out of focus, and their faces are concealed, to create mystery. His photos also frame the model to create focus on the characterization of the subject.
SLIDE 12:
In the story of Baba Yaga, it talks a lot about her home as it's a significant part of the story. It helps us understand her personality by showing us her belongings. These two images above are from the Romanian gypsy caravans; we thought these were quite relevant because they are only built for one person – this is referenced in the film 'Stardust.' Modern fashion is influenced by past cultures and lifestyles, we recently saw the Bohemian trend, which borrowed heavily from the Romanian gypsies.
SLIDE 13:
In the interior, we wanted to bring external elements within her home, to help us aid in presenting her character, but to also show she is at one with nature, as she uses the forest to conceal herself. The photo top left is a similar aesthetic that we will strive for as it has fragmented elements among it.
SLIDE 14:
Joshua Hoffine – camera position – made for audiences perspective, elevated.
Tim Walker – photograph made by styling of model and set, alters viewers perception of scaling
Model should be looking directly at the camera, direct connection to the viewer, can understand the emotional conflict.
SLIDE 16:
Refined props, not overwhelming to the viewer, just enough to keep it relevant and give enough information about the character that we communicate her properly.
The combination of indoor and outdoor will again bring this 'oneness' of her home and nature.
Symbolic personal items, such as the blue rose (the type of tea she's addicted to), will be heavily incorporated to present her character.
SLIDE 17:
These images are stylistically quite relevant to our aesthetic, they also have a relationship with nature but a darker feel. There's an olden, worn kind of impression. Pagan and folklore references are in the styling, drapery and natural links within fabric.
SLIDE 18:
Casting – model with quite an angular face, balance between strained and gaunt and fragile and delicate. Suggestion of evil – emotional angst but a sorrow and desperation behind it. Combination of these two models and represent both sides.
Her desire to be more beautiful than any one – yearning for the unattainable
Heinrich von Ofterdingen, the 1802 unfinished novel by German romanticist Novalis' and Tennessee Williams 1944 book The Glass Menagerie
A Clone – unreal, altered self so much in the pursuit of beauty that she’s hardly who she was before.
She’s a bit self indulgent, vanity has overtaken her lifestyle but she exists to constantly make herself even more beautiful, endless routine
SLIDE 19:
Our sophistication is definitely not shown through this image as this is just a quick mock-up to give a better visual idea of our aim towards the final. Our final will hopefully present a much more professional look obviously, but this is just to aid your imagination with the research presented previously.
The Commission - Seminar 1 - Analysis of three images
This photograph, created by Finlay Mckay displays great focus and sharpness on the subject at hand, yet the clouds and dark greenery creates a subtle negativity within the picture. This almost dull outlook on the general aesthetic can be disappointing to a viewer as the athlete displays great focus and determination, yet the general outlook of the colours presents little hope. This could represent the characters need to complete his task even while he ventures onwards through the darker roads.
Contrastingly, this image by Toby Glanville gives off a generally relaxing vibe due to the gentle light resting on the teacher and the back wall. The dull green, although not that pleasing on the eye, presents a sense of long existence (which could tie into the character) as the colour is aged and visually out of fashion. The subtle light and the subtle smile all present tiny quirks that can generally make the audience assume a positivity from gazing at this image, which somewhat differs to that of the image above.
Lastly, this image by Ulrich Gebert presents itself in a middle ground. The character has focus, yet the image shows strong primary colours. The use of strong and vibrant colours is simple, so it's easy on the eye and therefore pleasing to look at. The image places itself nicely in-between the first and second above, as the vibe given can be positive, and the expression shown is similar to McKay's character. I would say that there is a sense of hope, more so when compared to McKay's, but the subtlety of colour is not present. The colours are vastly different, with the lighting being much higher key.
This image has a sense of documentation shown, much like the second image, whereas the first image has a constructed, almost commercial aesthetic. The first image and the third's characters share a similar desire to keep focus on the task, but the general vibe of the second and third are more alike in there positivity.
Fashion/Constructed Image Project Idea
For this project our group chose to find an old folk tale that we could take and reinterpret in a fashion and current style. We chose the story of Baba Yaga - on old Slavic story, originating in Russia.
Baba Yaga is a witch that lives in the woods in a house built on the top of a giant chicken foot. In some variations of the story say that she kidnaps children and then eats them. Others say she flies around in a giant pestle and mortar . she ages by one year every time someone asks her a question but then this process is reversed if she drink tea with blue roses in it.
Our concept for this project will be a modern version of this story, choosing out a specific element that can be translated through issues within society that we see today. Our image will show women's obsession with beauty and the quest for youth and how some women hide away from society if they do not think they fulfill the media's ideals about what it is to look young. This relates to the story as it talks about Baba Yaga's isolation and spite towards others around her and what she undergoes in order to recapture her youth.
This is a timeline of what needs to happen in each week of the project and a list of each persons role within the group:
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