Evaluation

This module was based on landscape photography in Hartlepool. The module was more challenging than the others as I had to learn how to use one of the 5x4 view cameras which I have never used before. I started looking at artists such as Andreas Gursky and Robert Adams. I liked the strong lines and composition in both of their images. When I looked at Frank Gohlke’s work I realized that it looked a lot like the images I had already been shooting, the same with Stephen Shore’s work. I decided to stick with the theme I had which was along the lines of a lot of sky in the image with buildings in the center that had an idea of isolation to them. In some of the other images I had shot there was a look of symmetry to it that I really liked however I felt they didn’t have enough in the actual images to catch the attention of people. Another artist I liked was Edward Burtynsky who shoots his images showing a similar thing I was looking for. Again his images had a look of symmetry to them, but they were also very industrial landscapes which I thought, although my images were of factories, they were of buildings. I feel like both Burtynsky and I were trying to show a similar point, how there is just so many “ugly” things such as buildings and factories in the way of what could be a beautiful (stereotypical) landscape. I also feel as if the emptiness around the main part of the image is an interesting way of drawing the viewer in and making them look at your images closer. I then decided to take my research in a slightly different direction. I watched a film called ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’. This film (as well as being an amazing film) has so many landscape shots it is just a great way to get inspiration, although many of the shots in this film would probably not be possible in Hartlepool, it still gave me ideas of compositon from a cinematographer’s (Stuart Dryburgh was the cinematographer of this film) point of view rather than a photographer’s. This film has a lot of “stereotypical” landscape shots, however usually in those images there are no people, however, as thins is a film and based on people, it did often include at least one person. I didn’t want to include people in my images but seeing this film opened up my eyes to what other “rules” I could change in my photography. This module also challenged me in the darkroom. The machines we used to print were different than ones used previously, we also got told that we could use filters if we wanted to alter the contrast, so naturally I wanted to try them and see what effects they had on my images. I didn’t use filters on all of my images though as some of them seemed to be good enough to print without them, I also used the ‘burning’ technique for two of my skies in this project which is something I had never done before. Overall I enjoyed this module as it was introducing me to a lot of new things that I hadn’t done before and pushed me further in my learning and understanding of photography.

The secret life of Walter Mitty

To me, the landscape shots captured in this film by Stuart Dryburgh are one of the best I've every seen. A lot of critics have compared it to flicking through and National Geographic magazine. 

If some one said 'describe landscape photography to me', I would probably show them something similar to the scenes in this film. 

Even though there is a general "rule" (I use the term extremely loosely) that there shouldn't be people included in landscape photography, I think that is what makes these shots more interesting to the viewers. If the actor wasn't in that shot, quite frankly, it would be quite boring to look at in my opinion. 

I feel as if to make landscape more appealing to viewers (especially if its in black and white which we are shooting) there should be at least one thing in the photograph that stands out, as I said about the last image, it would be quite boring without the person in it. The same goes for this image above. However the first image I put in, if you took the person out, it would still have a main point of focus, which would be the main rock that is just off centre. 

Like in this image, even though it does have people in, if you took them out, there is still the road that adds something to the image. I feel like this is something I want to try and achieve in my work, I want to give people more to look at rather than the usual things that come to mind when you mention landscape photography.

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky's outlook on landscapes is very inspiring as it doesn't look at a typical landscape of nature. He photographs urban landscapes. His work caught my eye as it looked like what I wanted to replicate in the photographs I was taking, it was very symmetrical and orderly in the way the images looked. 

He has a way of making industrial landscapes something to take notice of whereas if you lived near them you wouldn't look twice at them. The image below is another image of his that stood out to me as the lighting on it is really beautiful. Again it has the symmetry in it that I would like to recreate in my work. I like the idea of things looking quite baron but also like there is something worth looking at in the image. 

Today Helen and I went on a walk to see what we could take pictures of for our last few pieces of film. I was looking to stick with a similar theme as to what I want my final prints to look like. 

The image above is one that I quite liked the look of as it fitted in well to what I want my images to look like. When I'm printing I might crop it a little so there is less of the ground and fence in the image. The image below is another one that I think will really come out well. Although I think I will crop that image too so I get more of just the building in the middle rather than all the grass in the foreground but I will see what it looks like once I have made a contact sheet of the negative taken on the 5x4 film as it might look different. 

Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore has been a widely published photographer for the past forty years. His landscape work stood out to me because he uses similar patterns that I have found in my work. 

In the image above he photographs buildings which is something I want to concentrate on. When people say 'Landscape photography'  people usually think of pictures of things like mountains and nature and things like that. However I decided to look more at buildings in urban landscapes. 

I'd like my images to all have a certain similarity to each other in the way they are composed. I like the idea of capturing a lot of sky in the image with something in the centre which is a focus point of the image with minimal ground in the image, like Stephen Shore's image above. 

I also want to try and get a sort of symmetry in my images, not so it is obvious, but more so there are similar shapes on both sides of the image. Like the one above, it is not perfectly symmetrical but it is in the sense that there is a centre point of the image in the middle (the double doors), and then a single door on each side which creates the symmetry. The symmetry is also in the second image with the furthest hill in the background being the focus point of the image, with a hill on either side of it. Even in the first image, there is a look of symmetry as there is one small building in the middle, and then a high rise building on either side. 

Frank Gohlke

These images I picked from Gohlke's website stood out to me as there are a lot like a few of the shots that I have taken already. They have an idea of isolation in them which I really want to put into my work as I think its a really interesting way to compose images as it just gives you one things to focus all of your attention on to. 

Robert Adams

Robert Adams work is very dark in the way it is shot/printed however I think that it adds a sense of individuality to his work. I think the contrast between the light grey sky and the ground which is a lot darker, completely black in some places, makes the images stand out more than if there wasn't this amount of contrast. This is something I will look into when printing my final images.

I really like how the clouds stand out in these images, I plan to go out and shoot on days that are cloudy so I can try and get a similar affect as I think it adds texture to the image. I think it also really helps give the image depth.

Andreas Gursky

In these images I found by Andreas Gursky, I really liked the way that there was a very clear divide between the sky and the land. Also in the bottom image I think the straight lines in the image give it a very strong structure which I would like to try and introduce into my landscape work. The images have a very "documentary" approach to them which I find quite interesting, I think with my work being in black and white, if I decide to include some of these ideas of composition it will make my work look even more like documentary images.

Evaluation

When we first got the brief for our narrative module, we were told to find an idea and stick to the initial idea that we had. I decided to do a narrative based around my family, more specifically my Granddad. At home my family always have Sunday diner together and it is not uncommon to share stories about people that have passed away. As I am the youngest of my family, there are a lot of stories I have not heard or were not able to witness. I thought that a good idea for this module would be to film things around different members of my families houses that they have felt were significant enough of my Granddad’s to keep. I also decided to include images of my Granddad and members of my family, a mixture of recent and old images as I would also be recording my family members telling stories that they remember of my Granddad and they would vary from recent stories to older stories. I decided not to put these in a chronological order as I felt they would work better that way.

One thing I liked most about my narrative video was the fact that it was so open to interpretation. Everyone who watches it will bring their own experiences and therefore will see it in a different way. Personally I didn’t see it as a video that would make people sad as it is so often that my family will tell these stories and they are most likely stories that will make you laugh so to me this is a positive bonding experience for my family as it is something that brings us all together. However I know a lot of families aren’t so open about things like this so they might see my family sharing these stories so openly as a negative thing or it could possibly bring up memories of their own that are not necessarily pleasant for the to think about. I put a small clip at the end of my video of everyone I interview had smiled after they had finished telling their story, this was to try and convey to people who are watching it that for me this is a positive video, I decided to put it at the end so it gave people enough time to make up their own minds about how the video made them feel before seeing how it made me feel.

It was a different experience working with my family, obviously they were very cooperative however it felt like there was a lot of pressure on me to get this project as perfect as I could as they all wanted to see it and I wanted to make sure they liked it. It also felt quite strange telling them what I needed them to do and if we had to do another take or if they had done something slightly wrong. However I also thought it probably helped a lot that I knew all my subjects as they probably felt more comfortable telling these stories to me rather than telling them to a stranger which creates a less robotic feel as they are talking about a very personal thing. Another thing that was challenging about this module was that I had never done filming before and I had never recorded professional quality audio before. I decided to go to the film department to get help from one of their technicians. He looked at my camera and talked to me about my project and told me what microphone would be best to use, he taught me how to use it and gave me all the equipment I needed. I had also never worked on editing a video so once all the components for my project were filmed and recorded I used iMovie to create what I wanted my video to look like and then asked the film technician to help me use software that linked the audio up with my images and synced it with the video. I would like to create more Video based projects in the future so this module really helped me expand my knowledge of the different technologies and software that I can use.

I found it very difficult to find artists that related to my work. My main influence for this project was Michael David Murphy, specifically his video ‘Success Story’.

Michael David Murphy's video 'Success Story' was one of the first video narrative's we watched. When I watched it I decided I wanted to do something similar, I wanted to create a narrative based on video clips and images with a simple voice audio to play over the top of it. 

In Murphy's work, he uses a mixture of images that link with what is being said over the top. I think this is another way of backing up how you want your narrative to be perceived by your audience. 

The above image is how the narrative starts. There is no introduction to the video telling you what it is about or who is talking or anything on the website that tells you about the video. I think this is a very interesting idea as it is then so open to interpretation from the audience, and is something I want to bring into my own work. 

In the end if his video he added a short clip of the woman telling her story. In this short clip you can see that she is smiling, therefor showing the audience her point of view on the story, which then informs the audience of how they could of seen the narrative if they had interpreted it in a different way.