Competitions

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I am officially a finalist in the AOP: Student Awards 2016 :D

I doubt I will win as the competition is very strong in this category alone, but I am so proud of myself to have even gotten this far.

This may have been the first photography competition I have ever entered, but it certainly wont be the last.

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AOP Selection News!

After months of waiting, I today received an e-mail in relation to my submission for the Association of Photographers: Student Awards 2016. Out of the 6 images I submitted, 1 has been selected to be exhibited!

Considering I have never before entered a photography competition, I am so pleased that my work was even considered, let alone chosen to sit amongst the work of other fellow students.

I am not ashamed to admit that I am very proud of myself and will continue to enter more and more competitions as my work progresses.

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A few alternative re shoots of my final set of images.

I wanted to photograph my work from different angles to show how they work together as well as separate. I also genuinely love re-photographing photographs to give a completely new outcome.

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Over the last few weeks, I have been going through my photographs and slowly editing them down until I have a definitive amount of images that I feel tell a story. There was no limit to the amount of images that could be submitted, so I made that decision based on the images that stood out to me.

It was a very long decision and I also played around with black & white and colour images. I want my images to be able to work together as a series and singularly. I have chosen each image for different reasons, but primarily because they all tell a different part of my partners story at crucial points in his situation.

I decided on having all images black and white to have a consistency through out my images and help my work to flow.

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After almost 2 months of being practically housebound, my partner finally felt well enough to get back into his favourite past time. Its the first time I had seen a glimpse of the person he used to be before his flare up and it was so satisfying to watch.

True enough, he became tired very quickly from over exerting himself but he still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, his current state of remission will not last forever and he will inevitably experience many more flare ups in his lifetime,

For now however, we can at least be thankful that my partner has regained some sense of control back into his life.

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Earlier in my journey, I visited the basement of this location in order to investigate the use of silhouettes.

I revisited this area in order to use what I had previously learnt in order to convey Jake’s story.

The use of silhouettes is something I have been adamant on using from an early stage in this process. I played around with angles, positioning and composition. I made sure to have dramatic lighting present within this work and made it a continuous feature throughout. 

I had flicked between colour and black and white to look at different potential edits and to see which is most effective. I feel that both work well at this current stage. 

I am going to do more research and other shoots back in Jakes house, but use what I have learnt to inform the decisions I make in relation to my photographs.

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Jake and I revisited a favourite location of ours that also holds relevance to Jake’s employment; managing maintenance of the building.

The dilapidated state of the buildings numerous floors was a perfect reflection of how Jake was feeling. The size of the rooms in relation to Jake also became relevant, reflecting the feeling of being alone and ‘out of depth’. 

The rooms chosen were picked based on the lighting, size and ambience of the room. Before taking any photographs, I took a quick tour and had a quick discussion with Jakes about each rooms potential before proceeding with the shoot.

It was a good learning curve and whilst I had ambitious intentions, I'm not sure whether I effectively communicated Jakes struggle as well as I could have, That being said, I knew that it would be a difficult task to undertake but I was determined to tell his story.

I will continue to pursue this narrative in an attempt to convey an important message to others.

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Revisiting my close up angles on location.

I have made these photographs very intense with the editing and the letterbox cropping. I have made the lighting harsh on one side of the face and given a high contrast shadow on the other side.

These images are detailed and intense.They are meant to feel invasive yet soft. The letterbox crop is meant to symbolise the opportunity to ‘peak’ into Jakes life experiences whilst allowing room for opinions to form.

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After my practice shoot was less than successful, I chose to make the best out of this disappointment and decided to vary from wide angles to close ups.

This change in angle prompted a change in the intensity of the image.

I was able to photograph Jake in a closer proximity and show a more vulnerable side to him, to perhaps invade his space to a degree in order to dig beneath the surface.

Jake has never been one to talk about his emotions and bottles things up a lot. Although we have been together for 9 years, he still finds it hard to talk about how he is feeling because he is afraid of admitting it, not to me, but to himself. 

These photographs are much more intimate than my first, and have a completely different feel to them. These are generally much more successful, but I would like to develop this further as another route of exploration.

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A little ‘teaser poster’ for my competition work. 

I have titled the series ‘Relapse’ to communicate the reoccurring nature of the disease to others.

Watch this space.

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Experimentation

Here I have experimented with using lighting within the environment I intended to shoot in. These images are not be any means a finished product but are effectively a ‘practice run’ to see what works and what doesn't. I didn't want to go in to this without first testing the environment for its photographic possibilities.

Whilst I did get a few decent images from this, both Jake and myself agreed that this location was not the best use of space of choice for a shot. The idea of using his house as a hub for his struggles, relating to being house bound for almost 2 months due to fatigue, sounded get theoretically but not when practised.

This proves the importance of testing locations for potential; things don’t always work out.

My partner and I are currently in discussion about other locations which would still be relevant to his struggle in some way.

More to come soon.

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Through out this project, I have been constantly trying to think of new ways to photograph my subject matter. This manifest itself as a new working method or in this case, a new tool.

I have dabbled in Pinhole Cameras many years ago but know that the process itself can be quite time consuming and costly. In order to save time, I purchased a pinhole body cap in order to produce pinhole images with my DSLR. This way is quick, easy and fun. I can batch produce images and correct exposure mistakes quickly and without hassle.

I wanted to experiment with this method because I feel that the the ‘style’ produced when using this tools is nostalgic and filmic, which reminds me of the work of Gregory Crewdson. I wanted to approach my photography in a different way and felt that this could be a viable means of exploration for my competition brief.

I want to use this tool when I re-shot on set to see if this process compliments my subject matter.

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Briony Campbell

‘The Dad Project’ by Briony Campbell spoke to me on so many levels when I lost my grandfather. I watched her film over and over again because I couldn’t believe how relatable this project was to how I had felt and what me and my family were going through.

This project made me want to create work in memory of my Grandfather and will continue to inspire me for the rest of my life.

www.brionycampbell.com/projects/the-dad-project

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Jo Spence

The work of Jo Spence has long been of interest to me. The brash depiction of the body in these images is a stark reminder of the affect of an illness on the body. 

Jo Spence used photography as a method of therapy and used the experience as a way to deal with the upcoming struggles in her life. Her images are direct and brash. Capturing the reality of the situation at hand rather than ignoring the problem.

I love the honesty in her work and her willingness to share an experience with others. I hope to strive to emulate this honesty in my own photographs.

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Re shooting Jake in an alternative location with Gregory Crewdon style lighting. This was taken in the Observer Building, Hastings before we recorded a short performance Poet session. Again, this is an experimental image but I am excited to photograph more images in the style and layout.

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I spent the weekend with my partner in an attempt to compile a few images depicting the struggles of daily life. I didn’t go crazy with my camera but instead took photographs when it felt right.

The process at this stage is a research start point, enabling me to find out times at which he feels better or worse; times of significance, actions, locations etc. I want to be able to photograph him at optimum times of the day by anticipating his actions without being invasive. 

I want to document his feelings and actions to create a coherent narrative series that will hopefully appeal to the judging panel of the Association Of Phtographers’: Student Awards 2016.

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Competition Sub Theme Development

Over the last week or 2, I have been taking and compiling photographs for my 3 sub themes: People, Places and Things. This enabled me to create a foundation for my work to develop from over the next few weeks in relation to my competition.

I wanted there to be an underlying theme that connects the 3 sub themes together to make the work more coherent. I chose to have a narrative that flowed through out in order to connect the images with a story. The type of story depended on my models, but I knew I wanted to focus on a story of relevance in modern culture or a story that surrounded illness in some way.

Over Christmas, my partner became very ill with his Ulcerative Colitis when he developed a very severe flare up. He had to attend an emergency appointment with his specialist in which his was given the strongest steroids available to him in an attempt to heal his intestine quickly so his daily drugs could work. He had a particularly bad reaction to the steroids and had practically every single side effect of the drugs. His mental state was dramatically affected and his energy levels left him bed ridden. The way in which he is dealing with this has got me thinking differently about numerous lines of inquiry relating to the competitions briefs; particularly regarding the People sub theme.

After having a critique with 2 tutors, we seem to be in agreement that concentrating one theme instead of 3 would create work of a much higher quality and a stronger narrative. Due to my personal experienced discussed above, I have decided to concentrate on the theme if people and tell my boyfriend’s story, looking at the mental and physical problems he has and will continue to face.

I want to tell a story that is unconventional and personal to me, a story that certain people can related to in some way. I want to continue to use silhouettes in my work, but experiment with the arrangement of the model and surrounding. I want the focus to be on the mental side of an illness and how an individual deals with the stress and worry in their day to day lives.