#individual practice

[sammjoeyphoto-blog]

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson is an American photography who works with rather conceptual ideas of his own imagination or so to say his own world that he wishes to create.

The images seem to have this sort of dreamlike, other world like state which they all seem to belong to. His work is rather uncanning, dealings with the suburban landscape. They start to tell this story of an alternative reality or another world, but also are still relevant to parts of everyday in some way apart from there is this overarching sense of loneliness within Gregory’s work. There is a complexity to the works, the scene its self could be part of the mundane and banal everyday site and could be found the works of the likes of Stephen Shore. Yet on top of these scene he adds layers of loneliness and separation combined with cinematic lighting which then allows the works to feel that they’re from another reality. The lights are used in a way to suggest another beaning, the way that some of them shine down onto characters or in locations. In a way that looks like they’re ‘seeing the light’ or about to be abducted possibly. The types of works that he has made are clearly all from thoughts of his imagination and dreams, and this reflects as the viewer can get lost in the imagines and let their mind wonder with fascination and wonderment.

His work is mostly taken in and around the area of Massachusetts, and in his images they show the architecture, landscape and culture of the area. There is a level of intimacy to the images by doing so, you begin to build an understanding of the area, becoming familiar with the inhabitancy. The feeling about Massachusetts created in this work is that the area is almost frozen in time, you get a sense of Americana. The buildings all seem to be constructed in the 70's and the cars used seem to be around the same era as well. Would this be how it really is or would this be the time in existence where Gregory imagines this world? What is also interesting to see how the working class are in his image, they feel rather relatable to a viewer. Perhaps this is a suggestion to the type of people who live in the towns. The images suggest the struggles that the subject maybe experiencing, however due to the way in which the image is constructed it is up to the viewer to interpret what those struggles are. As well as this there is a sense of physiological conflict in the images, but this could come from Crewdson’s personal life of his original intent to follow his father’s career of phycology, and they could possibly depict from memories on when he would eve’s drop on sessions between his father and his patients.

What I can take away from the way in which Gregory Crewdson conducts himself is the sheer amount of consideration he takes into his images and this was part of the reason I have made the switch to using large format for my project as I wanted to slow myself down and make more considered pieces of work. Although I won’t be working on such a grand scale as he is with all of the cinematic lighting and assistants, the idea of the consideration in the images still scales down to the level of production that is involved in my project. And it is worth taking note and seeing how the levels of consideration and planning are on very higher end of the scale.

[sammjoeyphoto-blog]

Evaluation:

I have created a project that looks at the houses of the middle-class brits. It gives a side by side view of the different styles of houses they live in to give comparison. Allowing you to see intricate features of their houses such as how well maintained they are, the size of their driveway and what type of car do they drive. The houses themselves were selected due to their value being the average or above for the area (Colchester). I have selected 6 images in total due to the strength of them and how work with each other. They’re consistent through their composition and the way that I have edited them. I feel that anymore images would not have worked as well in the final format of them being framed prints on the wall.

I have chosen to create straight on views of the houses to allow for consistency within my imaging and then tried to create lines through my final images such as the line of the road, footpath and roofs where possible so that each image leads into one another. I do feel that perhaps I could have taken a slightly different approach to my project by adding in portraits of the home owners themselves rather than different views of the area the houses are in which is what I tried. By having a series of straight on views of houses and then portraits of the home owners, this would still allow for consistency in the outcome just with two different styles of images.

From this project, I think that I have learned a lot of new and different skills. I had never used large format before doing this and I now feel comfortable and confident when using it, I chose to use large format due to not having used it before and I liked the quality of negative it produces, I knew that I would be working with static subjects so there wasn’t the worry of exposure times. I also learn skills through my editing as before I had not done retouching of images to the level that I have been doing. In addition, I have been able to practice and enhance my skills with scanning film and colour balancing digital prints as this is the first time I have done colour ink-jet printing. Going forward I feel that I need more practice with my film scanning abilities so that I can start editing with a more balanced negative. I chose to use scanning over darkroom printing for my 5x4 negatives in order to give me greater control over the image as I wanted to do retouching on my images in order to remove certain distracting aspects from my compositions.

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Synopsis Draft 6:

Middle Britain:

 Middle Britain creates a view of the middle class housing within British Suburbs. The middle class is what falls in the middle of the upper and working class, they’re professionals, managers or skilled labourers. They have savings and disposable income at the end of the month, their neither rich or poor, they lead comfortable lives. They have the money and time to have well-kept homes with mowed front gardens, hedges or garden walls and weed free driveways.

These images are taken in the town of Colchester which has an average property value of £250k which is 15% above the national average. Particularly these houses are above the average value of Colchester. The people that live in this area are mostly white due to Essex being made up of 88% white people, for the most part they’re either Conservative or Lib Dem voters.

 Sam Smith

[sammjoeyphoto-blog]

Final Prints, Layout and Framing:

I have chosen to use dark wood frames for my final prints as I feel the colour reflects the tones within the images. I felt that white would have been to light as well as a light oak not being dark enough. A black may have been suitable but I don’t think it would have worked when printing full bleed so it would require a boarder which when I have downsized to 12”x10” to me there isn’t space to do so. So, from this I chose to do full bleed on a dark wood frame, this decision was also influenced by looking at Sara Macel’s exhibition of her series “May the Road Rise to Meet You” which gave the result I was looking for and If I was to upscale back to my desired 24”x20” I would possibly keep the images full bleed.

I then decided to alter the layout slightly from what I had previous decided. I wanted to put the mirroring houses on the top row as I feel these images are better to lead the project and then I swapped around the other row as I felt the houses which featured white would look better not next to each other so that they have space to breath with a darker house in-between due to the similar colours.

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Colour Balancing final prints:

I have spent some time now colour balancing the images that I have chosen for my final selection. I believe through using the colour balanced screens at university and making several test prints my images are now in a position where they’re all balanced as to the printer which means I will be able to make my final prints.

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Layout Testing:

My inclination with the layout for the images was at first to try and make the images read as one street so I tried putting the street views at the beginning and end of the layout but I feel this doesn’t work so well and would only potentially work if I was to have all of my images in a line, but due to constraints when it comes to the allocated space for hanging these images in the white studio this would not be possible to do so. As there is only a 4 foot in width slot allocated for the hanging of the work I will need to experiment with other layout ideas in order to make the series work and flow well within the space allocated.

The next layout I tried was to group selections of images, I have always said how there are two houses that mirror each other and then a bungalow that works well with them so naturally this was a grouping that I made first. Then I decided to group the remaining three straight on house views and places them in a sequence that I think makes them flow well into each other and then finally I grouped the views of the roads together and placed these at the top as the idea for these images was to establish the who location that the houses are in.

Overtime my mind changed and I felt that the road views did not add nor subtract from my series, so I experimented with no including them in the layout and I think that it makes the remaining straight on images stronger as it adds consistency through the work. The final thing that I will need to do to make the images consistent is to colour balance and match them all.

When it comes to my final sizing for these images I would like to have them at 20”x24” this being because It gives a reasonable sizing to the image that allows detail to be scene and it is a size that you can stand far away from the images and spread them out to give them some breathing room. This will also allow for the images to not change the original 5x4 aspect ratio which to me is important as I captured these images on 5x4 because I liked that size and aspect ratio to my images. But in order to fit these within the space allocated I will be required to downsize, in which 12”x10” will be my chosen size this will still allow for some breathing room within the space but still be able to fit them in a grid pattern.

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Synopsis Draft 5:

Middle Britain:

Middle Britain creates a view of British suburbs, looking closely at the house. These selected houses are those that are deemed to be owned by the middle class. Property values are more than the national average and above that of the area. They’re well kept houses, with drive ways and decorated front gardens.

These images are taken in the town of Colchester which has an average property value of £250k which is 15% above the national average. Particularly these houses are above the average value of Colchester. The people that live in this area are mostly white due to Essex being made up of 88% white people, for the most part they’re either Conservative or Lib Dem voters.

The middle class is what falls in the middle of the upper and working class, they’re professionals, managers or skilled labourers. They have savings and disposable income at the end of the month, their neither rich or poor, they lead comfortable lives.

This project just looks at the average, the common, the middle of today's society in referencing to the social classing system. To me there seems to be a lot of emphasis in photography over poverty, wanting to expose problems within our society or looking at the other end of the scale and looking at what we desire or the exotic. There is little to nothing based upon the middle.

My inspiration for doing so came from growing up consuming American based media which put emphasis on the romanticism of American suburbs, and what has been known as middle America. In turn this made me reflect upon my own surroundings which is ‘Middle Britain’. I wouldn’t consider myself middle class, nor do I agree with the classing system as such, but what I have done here is look at what the social classing system defines as the middle.