Idea

New direction

I was stuck on a concept for part one of this project for a while as you know but after listening to Antony talk about what narratives in photography are and could be i have a whole bunch of ideas going through my head. 

I now know that a narrative in photography could be anything. even something as simple as a shoe on the floor, everything holds a narrative and seen as though i live in the north east it automatically by default about the north east also. 

Thinking about the fact it could be about anything and represent anything real or not got me thinking. 

I know i want it to be about something real. Just like my ideas for the second part of this project i want it to relate to my life and people in my life. This way it makes it more meaningful and personal to me and it makes the narrative easier for me to relay to the viewer i think because i know exactly what it is opposed to a made up story.

I've decided that i want to do something that involves memories, I think this is such an interesting topics and there is so many ways you can portray this through photographs, this is my first real idea so i will look into in and mess around with different ways to do it before i make my mind up and i will also look at other photographers too for certain spells of inspiration. 

Initial direction for part one

Today we had a seminar session with Antony and we looked at photos and he really made me understand a lot more about narratives within photography. A engaging narrative in photography can be about anything. Real or fake, true to you or not, something you have experienced or not, from the past, present or future. It doesn't even have to be real if you don't want it to be.

This made me think about the new project in a whole new life. Before i was worried that i would be able to think of subject matter for this project, i had no real idea what kind of story i wanted to tell within this single image. 

But now i have got a main 2 main ideas that i want to try out and see if i can achieve what i would like to with them.

But i need to do further research on photographers to be more inspired. 

Photography and narrative

What is narrative photography?

Through my own research i have come to the conclusion that most people if not everyone's perception of narrative photography is that it is a form of photography that is all about being able to capture a story within the media of photography.

Its about being able to capture an event on record, in a photo, whether it is candid or not. Almost like a picture book. You should be able to know exactly what was going on in the image just by looking at it. Without the aid of a story or explanation. 

New project

The newest project as you can probably tell is all about photography and narratives within that. This project is split into 2 parts. 

Part 1:-  This first part is all about capturing a story in only one image and there is no guidelines and also no boundaries with what this story is going to be about. The only thing that is said is that is needs to hold within it an engaging narrative. At the end of the project we should be prepared to present this single image in front of a group. We also need to be able to talk about the image in front of this group. 

Part 2:  The second part of the project is based on capturing the North East of England. But this time it can be in a series of images. The subject matter can be anything that we chose to do as long as it is your own piece of storytelling relating to aspects of life within the North East. Again like the first part of the project we are asked to be prepared to present and talking about our work to a group. But this time the work will be presented in a digital slideshow. 

Initial thoughts

PART ONE:     My initial thoughts on the first project aren't to great, normally straight after getting the brief i can almost instantly think of where i would like to go with the project but i didn't have that kind of experience with part one of this project.  

Nevertheless I am pretty sure if i do some further research into narrative photographers etc i will find my own direction to go in.

PART TWO:     My experience with this part of the project was different. As soon as i read this part of the brief i had floods and floods of ideas. This was not a shock to me as i am a northern lass. I was born in North Yorkshire and i have lived there all my life. 

Despite all of the ideas i had none of them really fitted in with the brief saying 'it should be your own bit of storytelling relating to an aspect of life within the North East'. It actually took me ages days and days to actually get a real idea and i felt like kicking myself after discovering this idea. 

As it has to be your own bit of storytelling i definitely wanted it to be something close to home. Something that was not just general of the North East but something i have experienced in my life that to me sums up the North East. This for me was the industrial side of the North East. As most know a lot of the North East is infact industrial and has been for a long time. Some of the industrial work we have still and have had in the past are: glass making, coal mining, steel and iron work and ship building. 

These forms of hands on labor are what i personally have experienced in my life and to me would describe in my own story aspects of life in the north east, this is because my dad has working at Allerton Steel in my home town since the age of 15 he is now 44 years old. When he started out working at Allerton Steel he initially worked on the 'shop floor' cutting and welding steel that would in the end be used for things like bridges all over the country. Through the years he has been promoted and got higher and higher in the company and is now working in the main office of the company opposed to welding steel. 

This is a good thing because my dad knows the company and the jobs inside and out. 

But i digress. 

As i have seen my dad do this job since i can physically remember life i have always known the kind of work he does and having gone to work with him on occasion etc it did become a part of my life growing up and for me the fact the industrial side of of the north east is so well known and the fact that my own dad works in a company and always has done that is industrial it was a perfect fit for this project because i am infact telling my own story about my experience of life in the north east.

Now the question is how to capture this. I have sent my dad an email proposing that i go to his work with him for 3 days and over the course of these three days i will try to capture the essence of not only his job but the welding and the cutting etc this way i could capture all aspects of my dad career dating back to when he first started thus actually capturing real life from within the north east. I just need to now get approval from the owner or the company and if he says yes that i think i could capture some really cool photos! 

Let me tell you i am so excited about the second part of this project! 

Evaluation

Evaluation

At the start of this module I was pretty unaware about Hasselblad cameras and capture one, one thing I had some background in was studio work and simple forms of lighting, but nothing compared to the professional facilities CCAD have in their studios.  

Throughout the project I didn’t seem to have one certain direction I just looked at getting the shots I needed and I wanted the images I had taken to stand out to me. I think this was mainly because I was unsure about the camera and I wanted to get a feel for how the photos would look opposed to a certain theme like other people in the class.

I started out with little experience of the studio and lighting so I had to get comfortable with this before attempting to start shooting.

Once I was comfortable with this I started out by taking shots of Courtney, Lauren and Ben.  I then went on in another shoot to photograph Jodie and then again Ben.

I ended up choosing 4 images, two from the first shoot of Courtney and two from the last shoot of Ben. I chose 4 instead of 3 because I felt the four images I chose went together well. In the end I sent my images of to digital lab and got them printed in gloss without a boarder.

My final outcome does meet the requirements of the brief I feel and If I was to improve my work I think I would have given myself more time to know the camera, studio lighting and also capture one for editing. So that I could achieve the best photos of my ability with the tools I was given.

Some of the problems I encountered during this project was to do with capture one at the start I wasn’t familiar with the software and alongside the project whilst taking photos we had to learn this new software and this proved difficult on more than one occasion.

But this leads me to say I have learnt and I am still learning a new skill from this project.

The assignment challenged me by putting my completely out of my depth. I was new to pretty much all aspects of the equipment we needed to use to complete this project but this I a good thing as it makes you want to succeed.

If I were to do something differently I would look more into what I was trying to achieve with my portrait shots. I would have liked to make them look like they had a theme opposed to them just fitting well together. I also think I would have given my self more time to edit my portraits instead of leaving them until the last minute.

Hasselblad.

Hasselblad

For this studio module we had to create 3 or more portrait shots using a studio and a Hasselblad camera with a digital back. I had never used this camera before so this project was a massive first for me. 

At first the idea of this and learning how the studio lights work and other various things like capture one was quite stressful because it all seemed complicated. 

In the end i did discover that although it was slightly difficult it wasn't as bad as i thought and i ended up really enjoying using the Hasselblad, the studio and capture one.

Background info about the Hasselblad camera

The Hasselblad camera was created by a man called Victor Hasselblad AB who at the time was a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras and other photographic equipment in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

My opinion

After using this camera i do think i like this as much or maybe more than a normal digital camera. I love how you have to stand over the camera and look down into it to see the image. The only downfalls i felt came with the camera was that i couldn't see how well in focus the image i was taking was until i saw it come up on the computer screen and it was some what difficult to position the model central in the frame. 

Over all i really loved the camera and it actually makes me want to buy one myself and try it out. 

The final 4 edited portraits.

David Bailey

David Bailey

David Bailey is one of my all time favorite photographers. 

He is someone i have used for examples and sometimes just for inspiration in my work through the last 4 years of school. 

I love his portrait work. The portraits are maily black and white and the majority have light backgrounds either being light gray or bright white, although some do have darker backgrounds.

The subjects in the images are only shown in really limited amounts of colors, mainly being just black and white but sometimes there are slight gray tones. 

I like how his work has limited colors and sharp high contrast colors its almost iconic and makes the work memorable for that reason. 

I honestly believe i would be able to point out David Baileys work out of a sea of others because of how unique it looks to me. 

I have chosen three examples of David Bailey's work to talk about.:

As well as showing the high contrast images i was talking about i wanted to throw in an example of an image by david that has lots of different tones and isn't that high in contrast. 

This image to me looks like a typical portrait photo. 

The stance of the man being on a slight angle, the almost blank expression and the neutral coloured background. Of course not all portrait have to follow this format but this is what i would say a school portrait photo is like and this image really reminds me of that. 

I wanted to include this because this is an image i have actually used in part of my coursework at the start of my A Level studies. I used it as a transcription so i actually had to try and recreate this image which did prove harder than i initially thought.

This is a perfect example of a high contrast piece from david The bright white background teamed with the harsh deep black colour.

This is a beautiful image. As well as the high contrast in this image making skin her effortlessly mix with the background, which in return makes her features such as her mouth, eyes and hair stand out massively, there is the added feature of using what i am assuming is a fan to blow her hair out. 

All of these features together make this a really beautiful image in my opinion.