Update & Summer Work

Hello Passers by; I haven't really posted much over the summer as I haven't had much opportunity to work due to personal circumstances, however an idea has finally sparked for my third year project which is a relief but, talk about better late than never!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I wanted to concentrate on Polaroids (my latest obsession). When I started university, I had digital photography on the brain - it was all I knew about, and apart from disposable cameras I had never really worked with any form of film photography before. However, in my second year I wanted to create something real, something delicate you could hold in your hand, and from working with disposable cameras I moved onto my new love for instant film. Many fine artists and photographers have used polaroid in the past, and so I wanted to begin to experiment for myself. After passing my second year of university, I left kind of drained and wanted away from photography for a while and focussed on other creative mediums such as painting and reading. The weeks went by and nothing was inspiring me, but I knew in time something would come to me, I just wasn't sure what.

This week, I suggested a trip to Whitby. Whitby has been one of my favourite places since I was a child, and so I thought if I was going to get inspiration from anywhere, Whitby would be the place - and it didn't fail to deliver.

I have two FujiFilm Instax camera's; an instax mini 7S and the Instax 210 which takes photographs with wider film. Above are just a few examples of the photographs I took that day and I found that the larger photographs seem quite painterly, which finally inspired me (yes, it's that simple, it made me happy). 

Then I had a thought to myself; over the past two years at uni I have tried documentary photography, I gave it a go with portraiture and editing and last year became fascinated with landscape photography, and that was all fine and I got steady grades, but it wasn't allowing me to be as creative as I wanted to be. I've felt over the past few years my work has been missing something, compared to my college work or even my school work, the creativity has been sort of sucked out of it all and I finally realised after trying everything else, Fine Art is my thing. The thing I did all along, turned out to be my thing. Photography itself, doesn't make me happy. Labelling myself a photographer almost makes me feel nauseated (wow, how pretentious does that sound?) because to me, when you label yourself as something that specific, it's like throwing the possibilities of everything else away. I don't want to be a brand, I don't want to be known as a landscape photographer, documentary photographer or anything that ends in 'photographer'; I want to be a creative individual, an artist. I want to be able to express myself in whichever medium I see fit, and one day inspire others to do the same. Photography isn't my main artistic interest, but  it probably was at the time I chose to study that pathway, so for one last and final year, I have to make the most of it. Make it mine. 

For my third year project I am going to be going on a Fine Art Photography route (like I said before, it's my thing). I'm not going to tell you what that is yet, but work with some very traditional fine art themes and showing my own interests within my work, using instant film as my main medium. It will be expensive, but it will be worth it because when you take an Instant photograph it's like holding a small painting in your hand. There is only one, it's unique, honest and simple and creative. All of my favourite things in one image. 

The Northern Rocks

These are two final pieces from my recent project The Northern Rocks, which was originally titled 'The Dales'. You can view the full project and details at this website.

Sneak Preview

A little preview of my latest landscape project called 'The Dales', creating British landscapes from the Yorkshire Dales National Parks. These photographs are taken at my two chosen locations; The first photograph was taken at Malham Cove and the second photograph was taken at Brimham Rocks. More will be up soon! 

A Thought for the Day

These are some photographs I created using my FujiFilm Instax 7S camera. Polaroids are a timeless medium in photography. The colours are honest and real and the quick development helps capture a moment instantly.

The I got the idea for the first photograph after having a specific, a good one for once, and my alarm going off and waking up in reality once again. The second photograph, is based on a recent feeling I have been experiencing lately.

The images help give me an idea for a new project, photographing narratives and little scenarios in this format and creating a book of small 'life stories' within this medium. This is an idea I plan to develop on in my third year of University. I became more interested in film photography after my previous project Time Pieces, and wanted to explore the different ways in which Polaroids can be used and I feel that there is something very special about a Polaroid image, and the photograph in itself is its own masterpiece without being too complex or creative.

Time Pieces - Part Two

Now, in my last post I said something about a book. Well I created a book along with Graphic Design student, Jonathan Martin of my final images. The books showed photographs of ten final country day images and ten city afternoon/night images starting off with the earliest getting darker as the book goes on. 

I came up with the title 'Time Pieces' because I was working with the two strengths of my project; Documents of time and Photomontage. I also thought that when you think of a time piece, you tend to think of something delicate and dated, much like the media of disposable cameras as everything now is digital, and using a disposable camera is seen as a very dated method of photography. 

I also framed two final pieces; One day photograph and one night photograph. 

I chose these two photographs because I felt the represented each different scene the best. The country photograph shows a woman walking her dog on a quiet and lonely path and the city image shows the funfair part of the German market. I chose this particular photograph because I felt that showing the city as a funfair, especially the carousel represented city the best going round and round without a stop, and just the silhouettes of the people going in and out of the town centre. being so busy that you can't identify anyone. Comparing this to the country image which is much more mellow shows the exact comparison I wanted to create in my project.

Time Pieces - Part One

This is the project I ended up with since my last post. It seems so long ago now, but its over!
The main element I had in this project was to explore the different ways photographs can be merged or pieced together and so after my double exposures with a disposable camera, I decided to look for other ways photographs could be put together to make one image.

I then, thought about the possibility of Photomontage on a larger scale, meaning the pieces that would make up the photographs would be single photographs taken by a disposable camera, then when put together the photographs will line up to create one full photograph. I chose to use a disposable camera because I felt that it would give a more true to life view of what I was photographing, and would offer the best format once developed for what I was aiming to do. I returned home to Yorkshire to photograph the countryside, as I felt this was offer the best landscape especially with the time of year it was when I was taking my photographs. The first few photographs I took were tests, but I was quite pleased they worked so well.

These two photographs (which were used in my final book...yes, a book!) were taken in Ripon, North Yorkshire at the clock tower and the market square, facing the Town Hall. I was happy with the way they turned out, and how well they fit together to create one scene. The aim of doing this, is to make the viewer look at the separate photographs and see each part of the scene before then looking at the image as a whole, and taking in the different things going on in each piece. Anybody can look at a full photograph but how much do they miss? With the way the photographs are layed out on different levels, the eye looks along each one separately before registering each piece as a whole image. 

With the success of my test reel, I moved on to Harrogate, North Yorkshire where I began to be more creative. I was afraid that my images were becoming to similar and decided as I was becoming more comfortable with the disposable camera that I would try out different shapes and piecing them together.

This is probably the most creative shot I took; When walking through Valley Gardens in Harrogate I noticed this squirrel running around in the leaves, so I snapped a shot. Then, the squirrel jumped up on to the tree and I stood ready waiting to shoot (or waiting for that 'decisive moment' as Henri-Cartier Bresson, godfather of photography would say) and the squirrel looked at me and I snapped a shot. It would have been perfect had the squirrel run up to the top of the tree, but he didn't, so I snapped a shot of the top the tree hoping for the best. When I had the photographs developed, and put them together, I noticed I had a photograph that traced or documented the movement of a squirrel and it worked, but little did I know this would turn into a recurring theme in my project. 

This is another photograph put together from my Harrogate photographs where again, the document of movement comes into play as we can see the woman in the red jacket travelling through the photograph which makes the piece in itself much more effective as I am beginning to develop a theme within my photographs - a theme that I can work with and develop in my next photographs.

As I continued with my work, I realised there wasn't enough locations around me to create new refreshing photographs to make my work exciting, and so I decided to return to Birmingham and photograph the life in a city with the life of the countryside, so that my project follows along the same layouts but creating different scenarios for the viewer to look at.
It was late November, verging on December in the second largest city in the country and I was going out to take photographs...I must've been mental. However, I went and I survived and came up with some fairly good photographs to show for it, but that didn't come without hitting a rock first...

My idea was to show the country days and the city nights, and show the differences in the general atmosphere for example - country days tend to be very quiet and peaceful and city nights tend to be lively and busy where life just keeps going on until the next morning when everything starts again. When going out at night I had a disposable camera, but I have a flash so everything will be alright, right? wrong. I was left with these dark photographs with faint blobs of light. No good. So I had to time them right and go back at a time where it was dark but still light enough for my camera to pick up what was going on and everything was okay in the end.

These are the kinds of photographs I ended up with, even though they aren't as dark as I wanted I am still pleased with my outcomes. I feel that particuarly the second photograph I have shown still has that element evident in my photographs, so I was glad I could carry on that theme throughout my project. 

Even though I mentioned most of my really dark photographs weren't great, I was able to use some of them as more artistic pieces rather than time documents like some of the other pieces I have shown. 

For example, this image is very dark however it has that document of time there which you can see in the three close up shots of the three people walking past me in the time it took me to take the three separate photographs. So, even though some of the photographs were very dark they were still usable, and still  showed the themes that had been carried out throughout the rest of the photographs in the project.