Photography Visual Diary

Natasha Brennfleck Online Visual Diary for photography rotation for First Year BVA

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These are my final works, and I am proud of what I have acheived… For this series, I really wanted to create works that explored the presentation of the self as self-portraiture to me is important in exploring my own personal development, emotions and my self-perception. This series of works explores myself in my current state of mind where I feel life is happening, and it’s hard for me to remain aware of my inner self. The images were photographed in low lit situations with a little light lamp/orb which was the main light source. I used the orb to illuminate certain parts of my body and create different types of light. I feel the experimentation with the different types of lighting and colours has allowed for multiple meanings to be incurred; some photographs obscure the subject that symbolises my own confusion about my inner state, whereas others present a still and pristine quality reflecting on how different situations illuminate different reactions and create new life experiences.

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(absent for w5 class)

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These images are from my second test shoot and I think they achieve more of what my goals were with this project. I really wanted to explore how I present myself infront of the camera and explore different ways of using light. 

To create these images I used a small portable lamp/orb and held it close or far from me to create different lighting situations. 

I like the first image because it shrouds the viewer in colour and they don’t understand what they’re looking at until they see an eye in the corner of the frame and recognise it’s a person. - I feel this image really captures how sometimes I can hide myself and my true thoughts behind a veil of emotion and excitement.  The second image seems a bit more “”sophisticated”” in it’s execution. The image is sharp and has a clear focus on the centre with some parts of the body being illuminated. I really like this image because of the tonal quality of my skin created by the lighting.  The third image depicts my face and I feel the blurred motion of the subject signifies how elusive knowing the self can be. 

I think the shoot turned out very well and I will be using the successful images in my final series for submission.

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Project Three: Idea Change

In exploring and doing my first test shoot for the third project I have found that when doing self portraits you are still setting yourself up to be seen by the camera, and with that knowledge comes a very strange feeling that is very difficult to describe. 

I’m really interested in this feeling that you get when you take a self portrait, so I have decided to photograph and explore that feeling of “the presented self” through a variety of ways, mostly to explore myself in the most visual and physical way possible but also to hopefully learn about myself through allowing myself to be the subject of this project.

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Project Three Test Shots: 

These photos were all taken on the same night when I was insanely tired after a very busy and full planned week. 

I used a very large aperture (f1.8 / f2.0) because of how dark it was in my room, this also enabled for a sharp focus on my face and hair. 

These images are currently unedited and I really want to change the colour temperature to something more natural and less orange looking. I can do this in Photoshop.  I’m not too sure how I feel about these images, there are some nice ones from the entire shoot, but I think I might need to expiement more in terms of composition and etc to acheive my goals. 

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Project three idea

For project three, I really want to challenge myself to make a work that I’ve never thought about before and make it as personal and intrusive as possible. I really enjoyed working on voyeurism within suburbia, but I want to make this project a lot more personally challenging as well as technically challenging. 

My idea is to create a series of intrusive self portraits exploring myself in spaces and places where I only view myself, in a mirror or otherwise. I really want to do self portraits as I feel it really signifies my personal development within a short space of time, artistically, intellectually, as well as personality wise. I really want to challenge myself to appear as honest as I can in my practice and although self portraits seem the most obvious representation of my honesty and development self portraiture has always enabled me to express how I feel about myself in an artistic and interesting way. 

My goal with this project is to challenge myself technically as I am not very practiced in portraiture photography and I would love to learn more about it, as well as challenging myself to appear in front of the camera and for others to see me in such a raw and honest way. 

I am very excited to undertake this project, and now I must notice at what times I am completely alone and in my own space, and what kind of portraiture would be most effective. 

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Collage from class 4 

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Class Four: A Summary

-Decided to look at peoples work from project #2 first. 

Favourites: Erin: Very nice use of lighting, silhouettes, and I love the theme and representation of inner turmoil exhibited through the shapes, shadows and digitally manipulated double exposures. Bec Sach: I really liked the theme of exploring intimate spaces and photographing people in their spaces. Bec has a really beautiful aesthetic and I would really love to see more work from her.  Amy:    I really like the general aesthetic of Amy’s images. They were almost creepy in a way, like a bad dream that’s unsettling but you want to see how it turns out.

Lighting:

We went into the lighting studio to play with all the lights, we used the flash, the ‘red head’ and the Snoot light to create different kinds of lighting arrangement; balanced shadows, harsh shadows, etc. 

Creating collages

We swapped groups and learnt about how to overlay images to create a collage using photoshop. 

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Test shoots for Project two:  I feel I am really tapping into the voyeuristic subtleties of suburbia by photographing from the footpath or road in front of houses. None of these images are staged and I feel like this has lead to the most telling and organic results. The top two images are from my first shoot, and the bottom two are from my second, I am planning to use a selection of both test shots in my final series.

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edited levels and curves

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Class Three: Summary

- Going through printing of project 3… can rather print one large format print with usb image submission, or print all series at a4 size. - Shhooting activities -Week 4 – using lighting studios -Week 5 – printing and editing -Week 6 – Printing and assessment

Image making Different styles and genres: -Documentary – photograph of ppl in the moment -Performative – staged and constructed -Narrative –  constructing scenarios , many visual clues and references , moment between moments -Snapshot – on the fly, spontaneous , not staged , somewhat thoughtful composition

photographic tools: -Vantage point – where you are in relation to subject -Significant interms of composition   -Frame – what is your composition?               Frame within a frame -Aids composition to bring focus to the focal point -Focus – shallow or wide depth? -Highlights subject // can also subtly allude to deeper themes -Time – organising or image -- Decisive moment

Elements of Design: -Line -Form -Shape -Colour -Repetition -Rule  of Thirds

These formal elements of design create a more interesting composition and allows viewer to explore image in a more effective way.

Points of interest Where are the points of interest within the frame? Where am I intentionally placing them?

Light -Quality -Hard light: clear sun, hard shadow, can create different shadows, can create different shadows , unfilitered light can give hard shadows -Soft light: sun filtered through fog or cloud casts soft shadows or almost no shadows , called diffused light , greater tonal variation. -Direction -Colour -Colour temperature, warm and cool,

Shooting activity photographing different scenes incorporating formal elements of design as well as exploring light types. 

---   Learnt to make keywords in brige for organising purposes Learnt about Levels and curves in Photoshop: Levels: Tells you your colour and Pixel value, helps you see whether your image is properly exposed. Most desired curve is a bell curve - mostly exposing midtones. Best effect when each colour screen is adjusted. 1. New adjustment layer 2. Click on image>adjustments>Levels  3. Adjust level sliders until perfect exposure.

Able to work on our images for Project Two and I found that when editing my images I liked to crop the images, this made the composition more tight and felt a bit more controlled and like I was surveying someone in their private space.

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Project Two: Defining my idea

For Project Two: Site and Space I have decided to focus on suburbia and the undertones of voyuerism I associate with living so closely to others. I have never lived in suburbia before this year so it is quite strange for me to adapt, even after living in suburbia for the past year. 

There are still weird things that irk me about suburbia, such as the lack of sound during the night (no night sounds, no wind in the trees, frogs, bats, or wildlife at all) how generally quite it is during the day as well. The feeling of looking out your window and seeing a neighbor, do something in their house/around the house, like you shouldn’t watch, but you do. For this reason and the weird feeling I get sometimes when I look into a house from the street and I see someone in the house I really want to focus on suburbia and it’s various irking undertones. 

My goal now is to choose an influential artist, and pick out nights/afternoons when most suitable to photograph houses with a subtle voyueristic undertone. And at this point, I am still unsure whether I want to “stage” these types of photographs, or create an authentic capture, I feel both could be effective in different ways.  

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Class Two Summary:

Discuss Project Two: Site and Space -Exploring relationship with spaces both artificial and natural -Dialogue between environments -5 resolved pieces

Influential Artists: Francesca Woodman:  Soft focus images, concealed figure, used herself a lot in her images, explored the relationship between the body and environments in a thought and emotion provoking way Gregory Crewdson:  Staged photographs. Images seem frozen in time, like a moment between moments, highly constructed, with tableau imagery Jane Burton:  Voyueristic elements, focuses on suburbia, and uses the body in interesting ways. Allows the gaze to be returned and not returned.  Stephan Shore:  Suburbian streets, compositions seem normal and banal, yet have a strong sense of rhythm, pattern, line, and perspective to them. Considered the master of composition.  --- Possible Ideas:  -Voyuerism: photographing suburbia from the street, through peoples windows and of peoples living spaces generally. Possibly capturing people unaware of me photographing them,  -Exploring personalised space by photographing people in their rooms, sleeping or passively being present. Adds an element of voyuerism and personality to the personalised spaces.  -study of transit, I have periods of my life where I constantly dream about trains, being on the platform, or being in a highly developed train station. I feel this will be interesting to explore train stations as a site for my own personal wonder and experience.  --- Learning how to process RAW image files: 1. Capture Raw image files on your camera 2. Import them into your computer using Adobe Bridge 3. Right click on the .CR2 file and select open in Camera Raw. 4. Edit image with sliders on the right, keeping note of the histogram in the top right to see whether you are loosing data in your image 5. open image in photoshop to continue editing. --- Looking at classmates W1 projects: MY FAVES: Rebecca: I really enjoyed Rebecca’s images, I found them really quite engaging to look at. I loved her idea in capturing the “Authentic moment” in human behavior, such as in conversation, and when we’re immersed in our own emotion.  Lukas: I really enjoyed Lukas’ work aswell, in the way that he interpreted the task in his own unique way and allowed himself to explore his own realms of editing to match with his practice and execution. I really enjoyed his images, they had a certain delicacy about them. I really enjoyed them and would love to see how he interprets Site and Space project.  Ja Yhun(?): I really enjoyed Ja’s work in relation to childhood memory from the perspective of adulthood. I really loved the juxtaposition between the spaces in which she grew up in taking on another worldy appearance and the integration of her old family photographs was such an interesting combination for me. I would have loved to see more of these and have just immersed my self in them for longer than time allowed on Monday. 

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I chose to depict a freedom and calmness through photographing water highly out of focus, much like a colour field paintings. After some reflection I have decided to not include the human form in my images because water and my relationship with it is a personal experience and I want the focus to be on the emotion and peacefulness of the tonal-scapes not on a figure becoming the focal point. Furthermore I have always loved the water and feel most free when in water, either swimming, or just lying in it and relaxing. Water is an important part of my life and furthermore my identity.

Test Shoots: top two taken on the 30th of July. Overcast and windy weather, made for disturbed water and dullish blue hues.  Bottom two taken on the 31st of July. Sunny weather with no wind. Made for clearer brighter water, with still gradients.  Will be using my second test shoot’s result as final submission.

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From top left to bottom right: Blue Moon 2008, Blue Falling 2007,  Untitled (Nude Sand) 2005 Sand Slash 2007, Fading Falling 2007. All photographed by Ryan McGinley. 

These are my favourite images that emulate a sense of calmness and freedom, despite the subjects being in free fall or surrounded by nothing but sand. 

-Blue Moon (top left) centres on a figure in a uneven landscape with a pale moon just above the figures head. The tonal quality of this work is amazing, as it’s monochromatic does not repeat the same tonal quality. The inclusion of the figure creates a much more dynamic image than what would otherwise be an image of an uneven moonrise. The figure adds interest and creates a gaze that begins at the centre of the image and moves further out across and around the image in a slow manner. -Blue Falling (top right) obscures the body in such a subtle way that it becomes an almost ambiguous form. I really enjoy the tonal vairent in this image, it is subtle and gradiates slowly, creating a soothing effect within the viewer. -Untitled (Nude, Sand), depicts the wavey sand ripples caused by the wind and a cropped figure in the lower right hand side of the image, the viewer is caught off guard and even surprised by the nude, as the body completely blends in tonally with the background. -Sand Slash (centre) relies on the mark and the human subject within to create interest within the image. This image to me is far more than a person stuck in the middle of the desert. The image dictates the great expanse of space without nessesarily showing it. The deserted landscape allows the viewer to focus and settle on the centred figure whilst absorbing the gentle sandy yellow surroundings in a pseudo-calming way. -Fading Falling (Right) feels as though McGinely was using the human form to guide the eyes across the work to the focal point of the gradient work, although not as subtle as Blue Falling, the effect is quite similar in its execution, the form even somewhat obscured by the gradient, revealing what should truly be the focus of attention for the audience; The gradient. 

I have chosen Ryan McGinley as my influence for this week’s project because of his stylistic approach to his practice, as well as overlapping with the feeling I want to express and emulate in the audience of my works. I really enjoy the use of gradients in these works, they really make me feel calm and still when I view them. Although in closely observing these works, I have noticed that McGinely has used a reasonably high ISO, as seen by the visible grain/noise. I’m not sure why he has done this as I would imagine it would be aesthetically better to shoot these kinds of images with a less sensitive ISO. 

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My definition of “Personhood” is how you define the experience of being a human being different to any other sentient creature. And with this in mind, I am interested in exploring the inherent emotions and experiences people seek within their lives. Drawing from my own experiences I have chosen to depict a sense of freedom, choice and peacefulness that we all strive for and value as a part of our “personhood”. 

It is important to me to explore freedom and peacefulness photographically because I feel like I am always thinking, planning, and analyzing everything. This project and focus on examining what makes me feel peaceful and experience a sense of freedom, will help me realize an avenue of stress release and learn about myself. 

My goal now is to reflect on when I have felt the most peaceful, calm, with a quiet mind, yet felt free and had a feeling of becoming a more pure, whole person.  

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High Sensitive ISO Aperture: f/3.5  ISO: 6400 Shutter Speed: 1/1250