Evaluation

For my FMP I have photographed a series of photographs, these are fruit& Vegetables and also parts of the body and slightly a few portraits to go with the body ones as well as it is to do with the person.

My idea did change. At the start of the assignment I wanted to do something what was different to everybody else’s, I felt like everybody else would do something like, Portraits, Landscapes. My idea was to take images of perspective images where the man would be closer to the camera and then for example he would be holding a spoon with the sun or moon above it with their mouth pen so it would look like the man or woman is eating the moon. The whole idea of perspective was for it to look quite comical and different than everybody else.

My second idea came that I wanted to swiftly change ideas onto similar work that Bill Brandt creates. He takes images of people and their body’s but puts a slightly twist onto it so you either know what the body part is or you don’t. The main important thing what grabbed me was that it was in black and white and made me think how I could create my own ideas from this inspiration.

looking at other artists which included Arno Rafael Minkkinen was tricky, I absolutely love work he produces but I thought that if I wanted to replicate my images to be similar as his then it would be difficult because one of his images which I love would be impossible to do because of the people who would be willing to do what his models do and to find a similar place or even better location.

from this I then realised I wanted to start taking images of the body in black and white so that the greys can also show up to give a lovely in depth monochrome look to the image. Even though I researched the ideas not all of the body poses what I wanted to re create were easy to make so what I did instead was look for something else I could do in black and white what was possible, what objects or something could give me these shadows what I wanted? This then brought me onto the subject of Still life and fruit.

As this idea was my back up plan I thought this worked out perfectly. Even though originally I was supposed to be just taking images of fruit my idea had changed to fruit and vg because of the different shapes and sizes of what veg can offer.

I then photographed parts of the body and some face shots also to compliment the shoot; I then took images the week after of the fruit and veg which worked out really well how I wanted it to look.

The equipment I have used is a Canon 5D in the studio, I have used Bowen lightening and different types of lighting also. I shall describe the names of the lights. When I was working on the body images I was told about the Barn door light and also the snoot light. I used both of them in both weeks of shooting also. I found out and worked out if you wanted to highlight something specifically then that would be better to use a snoot light than a barn door because the snoot is a small circle at the end and directs the light straight down which I needed. This also gives a great shadow on one side of the body too.

Techniques I used for the body shoot would be that I would shine the light behind a person to develop a great shadow behind the person or the other way round so it shows off the shapes. I would bring the light closer to the person so it would show the shadow darker more and also that I would get more definition of the body shape, for example if it was a leg that was showing.

Still life Origins

Resesarch

Still Life Origins.

With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greek/Roman art, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture. Still life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Some modern still life breaks the two-dimensional barrier and employs three-dimensional mixed media, and uses found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound.

Laura Letinsky

Laura Latinsky is an photographer who takes immensly slick and simple images of still life on clear plain backgrounds.

Here is some of her work also;

 As alluded in the title Morning and Melancholia these scenes are often filled with a fresh, clear light, as though one is viewing from the perspective of the morning after, what the host failed to clean up the evening before.

When I look at these images it makes me want to be there, it seems like such a calm place to be, but for saying that if you were at that scene there may be loud music playing and it may not be so controlled as people think. It may be looking like a calm environment but there may be rock music thee or screaming kids so it an give off my messages.

 

 

If I was creating a a simple, yet divine, elegant, messy looking but beautiful at the same time still life shoot I would think to re create a shoot like this.

When I look at these images i think of peace and tranquility. I think of space and calmness, for the picture underneath I like the use of colour with the background at the same time,you have a creamy blue cloth with nice dark green and bright orange which contrast it slightly. 

 

 

Laura Letinsky documents the aftermath of a sumptuous gathering or dinner party. Faded flower petals intermingle with empty glasses and crumbs of food on partially cleared tables, often covered with a white linen that bears the mark of spilled wine.

When I look at the images below I think that it reminds m of being in a cottage, it makes me feel calm and re assured at the same time, with the picture below it makes me want to know why ad how come the flowers are not in the vase and why they are scattered on the table instead.

 

Irving Penn

Irving Penn's repertoire also includes portraits of creative greats; ethnographic photographs from around the world; Modernist still lifes of food, bones, bottles, metal, found objects, etc.; and stunning scenes from photographic travel essays. That said, his fashion photography is paramount to his career, and his creative eye helped to shape the post-World War II feminine chic and glamour photography of the mid-twentieth century.

Penn was among the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and used this simplicity more effectively than other photographers. Expanding his austere studio surroundings, Penn constructed a set of upright angled backdrops, to form a stark, acute corner.

I am going to take some of his images and at the same time try and re create them.
   These are my images I have manipulated to the inspiration I have found;

In my photo shoot I have tried to re create these images but in a slightly different way. The images below are the photos I took for my FMP shoot.

When photographing the fruit, my main idea was to try and get the different shades of black and grey in the image to come out asap. Even though my images and my artist researchers images are completely different in shade wide i have tried to copy the direction and composition of the images,

I have copied the way that on the right hand side of the image they are placed next to each other,  

Compare & Contrast Board Layouts with Artist Layouts

These below are experiments of what I will be putting on my board in the final exhibition.

 I was origionally wanting top put all of the images onto the board in black and white which was the first image.

I like the way they look and they have gained what I was looking to do originally where I would be taking images of fruit and vegetables in black and white and the shadows would be in different shades of grey.

I showed my tutor the look of what it would look like and he suggested that it should be kept in the original colours because the fruit looked vibrant.

(below)

 

I like the way that this is formatted. I think that I would go with this image but the only problem is that the image at the bottom would be too low for the board so the audiences eye would go down the bottom of the board onto the floor. 

Comparing this to my new board layout I am more happier with the results because It is going with my original idas which was body art.
Dont get me wrong I did like the fruit or the shade and the contrasts but I think that the body images have more depth in them. 


Below is my final board images:

 Comparing to artists/photographers:

 

Comparing my work to Bill Brandts exhibitions and Man Rays Exhibition I think that If I was to re put up my work snd had more money I would have put my work in frames which were black or maybe white.

 

I would do this because the theme I am doing is in black and white at the same time and also theit frames are in black and white.

 

Bill Brands work comes in different sizes so I think that if iIwas to create moe images lke his i woud make some of them small (the ones what wasnt so great) and then also the ones which were better would be a bigger size; these both would be framed black or white. depending what suits each image.

 

Next tije I would also copy my ijages like Man Ray. I would have all my work going from left to right and not up and down. This can make my viewer walk oninuousy in a ine wih the all being a the ssame level.

With the images being different sizes, in my artists work they have put small images in small frames because its only a little picture so if it means allot they dont want the viewer to see into that much unlike the big images you can see allot so there is not allot to come out so I would also try and make that point.

Tamryn Lowe

Tamryn Lowe is a photographer who takes images of food photography as well other things aswell, Her theories of why she takes images of fruit and food photography is because of the shapes of what the fruit looks like . She is interested the colours of the food, textures and the shapes of the food. 

She also photographers people and weddings at the same which has grown on her. The images below are what I wanted to re create in my shoot. I have took inspiration from these and manipulated them by changing them slightly but still have the same look and feel to them.

 The image on the left I shall be re creating with a piece of garlic but my food will be smaller. I am going to take off the outside of the shell of it and place the layers around the garlic. 

 I think that it gives a good message that the food I advertised on a white background because it brings attention straight to the food.

 The next images following are pictured in black and white. This was one of my original ideas of photographing things in black and white, wether it would be food or a self portrait or body art.  I like the image above because half of the image is in black and the light is particularly shining on one side of the image; I might do this in my FMP images but the only difference would be that there is more than one fruit on the image.

 I like this image because of the direction the vegetable is going, the texture makes it look soft but sticking out at the same time;

If someone looks at the image and is told to feel something I think that it would send more of a creepy side to interesting, I think that the lettuce or salad object sends more of a vein look.

Leonard Nimoy

 Leonard Nimoy is a photogrpaher who takes images of different people in different categories,   
He first experienced making photographic images as a teenager in the early 1940s. His darkroom was the family bathroom in their small Boston apartment. 
      His subjects were family and friends. He studied at UCLA under Robert Heineken in the early 1970s and later received an “artist in residence” appointment at the american academy in Rome.

Mr Nimoy’s photography is included  in many museum collections, including The Museum of Fine Arts, and Houston.

EA:  I think in Leonards image he is trying to show desperation, every image that he has he tries to reach out to the viewer and it makes you want to know more or if somethings going on.

I am hoping to use these images and use them in my photo shoot, to be fair I had used these images in my shoot without realising that this artists had the same images as well; this was a nice surprise.

My image is similar to this, the only difference is that I have the models face in the shot as well. 

I think that this is effective because half of the image of his face is covered in shade and the other half is not at the same time.

The second image on the right hand side is similar as well and I have got my own model to stretch his arms to place his hands on his feet.

 So I am doing similar work to the researchers but I am progressing the image at the same time.   

Unit 7 Criteria

P1

M1

D1

P2

M2

P3

Unit 6 Criteria

P1

 My work was going to be surrealism, but instead I have changed this to the body, and still life fruit. At the exhibition it will either be fruit or body art which will be showing. Not both because they are both separate things.
The research I am doing into my FMP is vital because I will be copying it so it will have a considerably high impact into my final images. My first artist research which is highly used in my final images is Bill Brandt.

The research source materials what I would use are the internet, Books, Magazines, people.These are 2 images are from the internet and these are what I would like to photograph and manipulate and change myself,
 and this is some information about him.

" During World War II, Bill Brandt focused every kind of subject - as can be seen in his "Camera in London" this excelled in portraiture and landscape. To mark the arrival of peace in 1945 he began a celebrated series of nudes. His major books from the post-war period are Literary Britain, and Perspective of Nudes, followed by a compilation of the best of all areas of his work, Shadow of Light"

M1

 When I am in the studio I am also going to do another idea of mine which I am inspired by Bill Brandt, where it is surrealism, this will be body parts up close to the camera using a macro lens and also making it abstract so the audience wont know what they are looking at.

These are the images I am going to try to re create with my own twist. I have found some images of his website and google. his website is:
www.billbrandt.com/

Another artist I have took inspiration from is Leonard Nimoy, there are a few of his images what I liked as well what I would like to re create. these are them; 

I want to re create the images with the closest positions as the models are doing in these images also. The only difference is that the image on the left will be male rather than female, and the picture on the right will still be a male.

(Book research)

 I have been doing some book research from the Library and have came across a few books what I have taken inspiration from.

The book what I  have taken inspiration from for the fruit and still life shoot is called: "Food Photography" (Below)

Inside the book are images of how people have created an image and it tells you about how they have added objects to the image and also taken them out at the same time, all on three separate images. 

I have used this informatio on my fruit and vegetable photo shoot by taking pieces of fruit out at the same tie and contantly moving and removing and putting back.

The next book I have approached for inspiration is the Photography: An Independant Art.


I have chosen to try and re reate the image on the left hand side. Inside the book it describes how Bill brandt ( who took the images) bought a second hand Kodak camera with a wide lens and had auctioneers and took images of them in rooms. 

The next book I took for the library was called the "The art of Photography" in this there was several images I particularly liked, the first image is this one, in am hoping to take a similar image to this and contrast it higher so the only definition would be the arm of the model  also the face, the hair but not allot.

In the same book I have found a image what I would like to re create as well. This will tie in with the fruit and vegetable idea. I like the image because it is in black and white. I also like how the fruit looks like it has been dropped as well which gives it a used and rustig look, I am going to try and re create  this image an use the fruit how they are, if I think it looks better bruised and battered then it might look better. 

P2
The board of 7,4 will be presented with my work on it, I shall have 2 or maximum 2 images on this board. 

My proposal is on another post. This idea has gone from surrealism to body art photography and also still life photography.
The images below are the same images I am trying to re create.  
 My images will be framed in a size I am not sure yet. This will be on the 7'4 board.

M2

The techniques I have used in my first shoot are as followed. I used the barn door and snood lighting to purposely to highlight the models face, like I have described in my proposal, In some shots I have shone the light behind the subjct so there is a purpose shadow there, I also used diffeent materials as well on the shots such as a reflector board to bounce the light off it onto the subjects body.

This goes against the brief what I set because I wanted to create an image what it would look like in black and white would look like there was different shades and tones of black and grey. and with using the reflector it helped me gain this through the image.

P3
(on presentation post)

M3

(on presentation post)

P4

M4

P5

Experimentation on body studio.

EA= Extensive Analysing. 

These are the images I am going to maybe have as my final images. I have picked these images and also edited them and will be my final images. I have another appointment in the studio next week to re try but I think that the images that I will edit today may be good enough to have as final images so I will go with them for the moment. These are the images I have edited.

This first image can make you wonder why half of his face is in the dark, is it a specific reason?" s he hiding something perhaps? I also like how the rest of the image have dark deep shadows as well.

The first thing I do to my images are desaturate them so it looks like the research i have done elsewhere.

EA:

With the image below I like to send a message over with this picture and make people say ''I wonder what he is looking at'' or perhaps ' I wonder what is on his mind'' I like to make te audience wonder about my picture like its abstract.

I then crop the images and get rid of the unwanted parts of the pictures what I dont want. Most of the images listed are cropped so the viewers are is solely on the image and is not distracted.

EA:

I have tried to copy a picture which is from my artist research of half of his face is over in shadow as well as his body. The way his body his henched forward could mean that he feels like he is on the edge, and the look could mean that he might not be in a good mood. This could give a threatening response from the viewer.  

 

 The 3rd thing i do to my images are change the light levels. I use control and L which then brings up this box:

I change the light to very bright if it works with the image if I dont then I change the greys to be darker than what they are or lighter than what they are or perhaps maybe the black colour.

I think that this image on the right is like my artist research, where the lady is in the corner of the room, instead he is edited vastly white and contrasted highly which gives the specific contrast.

The body shape is specific and gives reflection onto the other side so even though one side is bright when you know that would be exactly the same because it is symmetry. 

Project Proposal.

The project brief is called Final Major Project, In this I am going to take pictures of fruit & Vegetables in Black and White, I think this will be better than photographing them in colour because when you change the colour of the image to black and white then it shows the different shades of the fruit which could be more appealing.

     When I am in the studio I am also going to do another idea of mine which I am inspired by Bill Brandt, where it is surrealism, this will be body parts up close to the camera using a macro lens and also making it abstract so the audience wont know what they are looking at.

These are the images I am going to try to re create with my own twist.

For the Body image the techniques I will be using are snood lighting and also barn door lighting. This will highlight the models face. I am hoping to use this one one side of the models face so one wil be lit and then the other half wont be. I am also going to use this light to direct the light onto parts of the body which I will be copying of the internet and adapting it in my own way.



My second main idea is to photograph still life fruit. I was looking along the lines of still life and realised how much i enjoyed doing my other previous still life work. As I was working in black and white in my other images I thought why not photograph fruit in black and white?.



When I researched the idea of still life fruit the images were attractive. when I researched the same thing but in black and white it grabbed me more. I think fruit look better if they are in black and white or if they have a slight tone to them, maybe a sepia or perhaps a green, off grey colour.

 The fruits also look much more attractive in black and white because of the colours and tones they give off, there is allot of shading on the images what makes me want to re create the image of it.

Surrealism Studio Idea.

My first idea was to shoot surrealism. I knew in my head that I wanted to photograph something not of the normal. I did not want to photograph what everybody else was photographing. I was originally thinking of portraits but then I thought of something along the lines of black and white and thought whats different?

I then came across the idea of surrealism, I started looking at ideas and photographers on google and then started to go with that idea, when I started seeing images of the body in black and white I then decided to like go for black and white body images separately so then googled that on a separate idea.