Inspiration, Motivation.

I had a whole line of things I wanted to do. Some of which I still do right now in order to get into the "zone" as it were. When I was younger I used to love singing, I loved to dance, I liked to express my feelings through paintings, drawings, to fully understand myself. I had this huge fixation with drawing hands, and this period was during secondary school. Every time, I was in any class i'd always want to vent out this fixation I had. I drew on newspapers,library books, text books and work books. Then as the years went on, my fixation moved onto hair.

Mike Song is one of my favourite contemporary dancers. His movements are so suttle and so intricate. 

When I dance, emotions that were kept in are being shown through the movements in which I make. I feel both free and myself . But I had also felt the same way with photography and illustration. So choosing the path that i'm on right now, was quite hard. I was on the brink of choosing illustration, but lent more towards photography. My inspiration came through people, getting to know people and knowing their pasts experiences that had shaped the person who they are today amazes me. Contemporary dance inspires me. But nowadays inspiration, its so hard to keep inspiration and motivation consistant. I used to rely on these to motivate me, but I think i've moved on.

Marcio Mascarenhas and Rasmus Vasli

We had guest speakers that had came into our lecture and kindly talked to us about their work. To which was then led to us asking questions after. First up was Marcio, I really liked his work and it was one of which in some aspects relate to. He used photography as a medium of communication and had expressed it a fine art. He stated that "I focused on thinking about the other, to find yourself." This whole idea is my line of thinking and it was interesting to know that i'm not the only one. That in order to find ones self, you find yourself   through others. He also stated that he "looks back at his photos and thinks about it only pleased his own ego." Not only I but everyone could relate to this, it's something thats always been about pleasing ones ego. Making an image beautiful, exaggerating the image that wasn't how it was before. Everything is just a cover up.

The Bodies I Live In

(Inspired by a movie called "The Skin I live in")

Marcio Mascarenhas

Another guest speaker that had kindly talked to us was a photographer by the name of Rasmus Vasli his line is completely the opposite to Marcio's. Before starting photography, he still wasn't sure what direction to take. He was considering fashion, but apparently he had ruled that one out. He had shown us a body of work, called "Relative Values" and it was interesting to see these people in their own psychological space. Some of which seemed to be awkward standing next to each other, some of which you knew weren't blood related. He stated ,

"What can a photograph tell us about the people that are gathered in it? How are they related? How do they get along? Can a simple hand gesture, face expression or body posture give us the answer? Or do we have to look deeper into the details of the photograph in order to make a decision?"


It was pretty much down to the viewer to make a decisive judgement, to me this body of work and the subjects within it looked fairly misplaced. They don't look comfortable. There were some questions which I never got to ask. And that was was there any meaning behind the places he's decided to place his subjects? What got me questioning was, in one of his photos it had a door open. In an other image, it had the family standing next to another door but there was a wall that seemed to have been painted, but was incomplete.These weren't straight up family portraits. I thought that he wanted to get the viewer to know the space that there in.

"Relative Values"

Rasmus Vasli

Jitka Hanzlova

Jitka Hanzlova, a Czech-born photographer whos intentions on photography are the same as mine. She 'examines the individual and their surroundings' and also the landscape they live in. In her body of work in "female" she had travelled around europe, USA and north africa. She omits the concept of distance by bringing the lens closer to her subjects. Her work is spontaneous in terms of how she photographs these females, I say that because she takes these portraits on the street there and then. In total in this series she's managed to produce 53 portraits, but this work also reminds me of the works of Rasmus Vasli. Where he randomly speaks to people, sometimes not all the time and ask them if he could take their photograph. He'd then ask the subject if he could have their email, in order for him to send the work to them. And still ask if they if its ok if they can be in his body of work in which he's attempting to produce.

Jitka Hanzlova

Analogue Vs Digital

It's become apparent that technology has progressed and will keep on finding ways to actually making everything  more and more efficient for us. But is it necessary? Before coming onto this course I knew nothing on the technicalities on photography, I did a graphic design course for 2 years. I thought that coming into the course i'd learn a few things to which I'd never knew about photography. That there was more to "Digital Photography" and now my views on this type of photography has changed. And now i've grown acoustmed and prefer using analogue. Even though this type of photography seems to be dying out slowly, I think anyone who has a strong passion for photography, that one of the necessities in which they should consider and think of learning is this type of photography.

Photo taken by myself

Location: Paris, Eiffel tower

 Theres a certain feeling in which you get when you manually do things and producing the photographs. A feeling which you don't get with digital, to me anyway. For me, I like the spontaneity in film, with digital photography I find myself constantly going back  to the image in which i've taken and constantly trying to perfect the image. But during the process of doing so, I find myself losing to what I was trying to achieve in the end.

Orientation Project 1st semester 

"Displacement"

All images here are shot with a Canon EOS 500 Film camera.

For more of my work.

Foto Marvellini

Marvellini's works are none of which i've ever encountered, these vintage esque portraits are supposed to be ancestors of famous superheros.The Marvellini brothers had altered old family ancestor photos to which are quite comical in a sense, in a way you question the image more on top of the original image. This line of work, you don't actually ever get to see the person behind the masks.

In a sense when looking at these images, it does sort of question when we look at all portrait photographs, not just this line of work. It questions this visage we have of ourselves, a face. And these masks to me represent just that, no matter how comical and as much of a joke it is. It does bring a message that may not be intended by the photographer seeing as he himself might of had his own intentions. But I see it as something that breaks through conventions, and makes the whole idea of portrait styled photos less so serious. 

Jumpology

To start off with my 'representation' project. I had come back losing  the ideas I once had because of recent events, to which had lost all sense of meaning. I missed a months worth of work because ofthe loss of my gran. I was was mind blocked. But to start of with the project I just wanted my subjects to jump on the spot, and whilst descending i'd take the shot. I didn't want to take a standard portrait photograph, I wanted to see the expressions the subjects had pulled before and after jumping.

Photos taken from 'Representation' book.

Jumpologys orgins come from a photographer name, Phillipe Halsman. Halsmans idea on jumpology breaks the natural conventions of portraiture. "May I take a picture of you jumping?" apparently became the most successful questions in history of photography. And I do say this whole idea is a good thing, if you want you're subject to become more expressive in a sense, if you were to break the conventions of taking a portrait photograph. Halsman took photographs of famous people such as. Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Salvador Dali, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and others more in his book "jump."

Colin Gray

Colin Gray had started to produce a body of work during the 1960’s, his orgin of works were of pictures of outings with his family, be it celebrations or abroad. In his book “In sickness and in health” it maps out the final stages of his parents. It goes in fairly quickly in terms of how life can only come to an end at some point in our fragile live, in this case he has decided to document these final stages. This also springs up to mind of Susan Sontags work, how she had documented the death of her own mother. When thinking about someone dying, you do everything you can to be with them. To try and help in anyway way possible. People as a whole when they know someone is nearing death, they just stand and wait. But in Sontag’s case it seemed as if having the camera present, had helped her cope with her mother’s death . It seemed as if Colin gray’s shots are very up close and intimate within this book making the viewer to try and understand the type of emotion that he’s trying to evoke and make us feel.

Colin Gray

Week 1: Induction

We were shown various blogging websites, to introduce us as to what to produce at the end of this project. To give us a taste of what we're meant to produce for this semester. I own 2 personal blogs. I only decided to blog because I found it quite therapeutic to write something down. Then somewhere down the line come back to it at some point and maybe at that point in time when re-reading it, found it interesting on the thoughts in which I had back then, because they may or may not be completely different to present me. It's within self realizing this at the end of each post.

Like I mentioned I have my own blogging website which allows me to vent out my problems,thoughts, inspirations, past experiences. An online diary which allows the maker to edit posts which were once made. Here are a couple of snippets of my blog.

My personal blog http://bedspacebreak.blogspot.co.uk/

We were then shown other blogging websites such as

 http://cupofpea.blogspot.co.uk/

Couple other blogs I used follow

http://janis-roseanne.blogspot.co.uk/

http://elliebenuska.com/

http://www.andrewandcarissa.com

http://doreshandmade.blogspot.co.uk/

http://blog.fieldguided.com/