March 2016 – Ellie Ryell

March 27, 2016Eleanor Ryell No Comments

Found Object

For this brief, we had to take images of still-life. This was narrowed down to objects that we had found in a specific area that our tutor gave us and we had to then bring these objects back with you and take photographs of them. We were given an area near a junk yard, where there was a lot of objects lying around, mainly rocks and bits of wrapping, plastic or cardboard. I found it quite tricky to take interesting images of objects that we don’t usually find visually pleasing. Due to this, I researched photographers who have taken a piece of what we call ‘rubbish’ and then turned it around to make it interesting. I looked into photographer Keith Arnatt as he completed a series called ‘Pictures from a rubbish tip’ which I thought would be useful to look at. Looking at these images gave me the idea to take a piece of rubbish and then contrast it with something else, something cleaner to give the image more depth. Although the majority of these pictures have been taken outside of a studio in natural light, I was still interested in the composition of the images.

Miss Grace's Lane, by Keith Arnatt — Miss Grace’s Lane, by Keith Arnatt

As we were to be taking our images with artificial lighting, and inside a ‘studio’, I researched Stephen Collins series ‘Out in the dark’. I really like these images, and I felt inspired by the way that he uses the light to bring the objects out of the black background and make them look interesting. I want to use a black background for my images, and I hope to be able to use my light to make my objects look appealing and colourful. I think that using a plain black background aids with bringing your attention solely to the object, and this is something that I want to achieve.

Stephen Collins ' Out of the dark' — Stephen Collins ‘ Out of the dark’

Practice images

Before I had collected objects from the desired location, I used objects that I had with me at the time to practice using lighting with. I did not have a lamp at the time, and I think that this would have aided my greatly as I do not really like the lighting in the images. Also I think I would have benefited from using black card behind the objects like I had seen in my research. However, I have learnt from taking these photographs, and I now know ways in which I can improve my final images.

Final Triptych

For my final images I wanted there to be an obvious link between all three of them. At first I thought about the link of colour, as I had previously taken pictures of blue glasses and I had a blue feather. When taking these images though, I did not think that they looked like a triptych. I found a plastic container and then had the idea of finding smaller objects and placing them into the container. This way they would link immediately and the images would flow much better than my previous idea. From my research I knew that I wanted the images to be taken on a black background and for the lighting to be quite moody as opposed to being bright. I think that the lack of light makes the objects appear more intriguing and there is just enough light to separate the objects from the background. These images took me a while to get correct, as I struggled with the placement of the light – I didn’t want direct light, and the light was a bit bright even when faced away – and I had to be careful when using the ISO as I didn’t want the photos to be too grainy. I am pleased with how they have turned out and although I would have liked more colour on the first one, they are how I wanted them to look.

References

Tate (2015) Keith Arnatt: Pictures from a Rubbish Tip. Available from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-pictures-from-a-rubbish-tip-t13171. [accessed 27 March 2016]

Unfinished Business at Wallington (2011) Stephen Collins. Available from http://unfinishedbusinessatwallington.weebly.com/stephen-collins.html. [accessed 27 March 2016]

March 21, 2016Eleanor Ryell No Comments

Home

When we were given the brief for ‘Home’ we were asked what the word home means to us and how we would convey this through a series of six photographs. To me, when I hear the word home I think of my hometown in Kent and the surrounding areas that I used to visit all the time. Home is a place in which I feel safe and makes me feel secure. Home is wherever my family is, and my closest friends are also like a home to me. Lincoln is a new home for me as this is where I spend most of my time. For this brief I thought of taking images of my dog, as he is a significant part of my life at home. Tracey suggested taking images from his point of view for the brief, and this gave me a good idea as to what I wanted my series to look like.

I wanted my series to be a visual representation of going away for a while and having a good time, but then that feeling of security once you are back ‘home’. As I wanted to use my dog, I thought about doing the series of images in a ‘day in the life’ style in which the images are from my dogs point of view when he is being taken for a walk. This is to represent the feeling of isolation and insignificance that you can sometimes feel when you are away from what you call home. At the end of the pictures he will be back where he feels safest, with his family.

During my research for another brief, I found a series of images by Keith Arnatt that gave me further motivation to try out my idea of landscape photography. His series entitled ‘A.O.N.B. (Area of Outstanding Beauty)’ definitely gave me some extra ideas and knowledge of images that I could take for the home brief. His photographs are all in black and white, and I may try this out when I decide what images I want to use for my final piece. His images bring about the feeling of being alone and isolated, as there are no people or animals in them, and this was an idea of mine when exploring the topic of ‘Home’ – as when you are not where you feel safe, you can feel extremely alone and intimidated by your surroundings.

An example of Keith Arnatt's work — An example of Keith Arnatt’s work

A photograph I took inspired by Keith Arnatt's work — A photograph I took inspired by Keith Arnatt’s work

Another photographer that I looked at was landscape photographer Tristan Campbell, as I knew that I wanted my landscape photography to be of nature. He primarily focuses on taking images of woodlands and forests, and as I live near these I thought that I may use these as a subject of the photography. The majority of his images are in colour, and this was something that I was planning on doing when I first started thinking of the brief. However, since my research into Keith Arnatt, I am not sure whether to have my images in colour or black and white. I think that I should make all of the images one or the other so that the images flow together. I like using natural light for my photography, so taking photos of landscape is something that interests me a great deal.

The photographer Ansel Adams inspired my landscape photographs, as I like the way that he experiments with black and white. When looking at his images I feel that I am isolated, due to the perspective of the photographs. This is something that I want to apply to my work.

His images, as they are of nature in black and white, make me feel lonely and sad. These are emotions that I feel when I am not at home, and I hope that my images have this affect on other people.

I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to photograph the area, whether I would do the images from the point of view of my dog or whether to include him in the images to add something extra to look at. I think that when he is in the images it takes your attention away from the scenery and I am not sure whether I like this or not. I prefer the images without him in but I am not convinced that they represent what I want them to without him in them. I really like the image of the lake with the trees reflected in the water as this does make you feel overwhelmed and small, just as I want some of the images to be.

Final Images

References

Tate (2015) Search art & artists: Keith Arnatt. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/search?aid=666&page=5&sort=date&type=artwork. [accessed 26 March 2016]

The Ansel Adams Gallery (2016) Original Photographs by Ansel Adams. Available from: http://shop.anseladams.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=71. [accessed 13 April 2016]

March 21, 2016Eleanor Ryell No Comments

Appropriation

For this brief, I was tasked with researching photographers and understanding how you can take an image and manipulate it in order to completely change the message. I started off with researching Richard Prince, as we were introduced to him by our lecturers. He is famous for a particular image of a cowboy that he took from an advert and sold as his work. He is controversial in his practices, and this gave me an idea for my own appropriation work. He got people talking and whether that is a good or a bad thing, his work was being spoken about and people were interested in it due to the controversial nature of his work. Whilst I was researching for inspiration, I came across famous images, and one of the moon landing immediately made me think of the conspiracy theory that the moon landing never happened and it was faked. This was my starting point, and it was partly due to thinking differently upon viewing Richard Prince’s talked about work. Also, one of the reasons he is so talked about is because he barely changes anything about the images, so this made me think that you don’t need to go overboard on changing every little detail in order to change the message. As long as the message you are putting across is clear I don’t think it matters how much editing you have done.

Although I liked the hard hitting aspect of Richard Prince’s work, I wanted to perhaps have a humorous stance on my images. I researched the collage work of Kurt Schwitters, as I knew that he liked to take parts of different images and put them together to completely change an image and create something entirely different. Whilst from Richard Prince I learned that you don’t need to go overboard on editing, from Kurt Schwitters’ work I learned that sometimes it can be good to use a lot of images and combine them to make something new. I used this technique with my last image which is of the Twin Towers, as I had an image in my mind that would be hard hitting, so I used a lot of editing in order to achieve this.

My images

When approaching this brief, I decided that the place to start would be to research the most recognizable famous photographs. Upon finding this image of the first moon landing in 1969, I knew that I wanted to manipulate the image to make it appear to be a fake, thus going with the idea of the moon landing conspiracy theories. To complete this, I used a simple technique to select the black background of the original image, and then delete it in order to place the green screen onto the image. I was pleased with how the final image turned out, as the message was put across as I had hoped, and this lead me to continue the idea of conspiracy theories.

I continued with the idea of conspiracy theories, and wanted to create an image that was perhaps less controversial than the other two images that I had manipulated. This was also a simple manipulation, as I removed the individuals from the photographs, resized them, and then inserted them into the image of the crop circles. I thought this image was quite entertaining, as opposed to hard hitting, and that was what I was aiming for. I also decreased the brightness of all of the images involved in the final piece, as they were quite pixelated and of I continued with the idea of conspiracy theories, and wanted to create an image that was perhaps less controversial than the other two images that I had manipulated. This was also a simple manipulation, as I removed the individuals from the photographs, resized them, and then inserted them into the image of the crop circles. I thought this image was quite entertaining, as opposed to hard hitting, and that was what I was aiming for. I also decreased the brightness of all of the images involved in the final piece, as they were quite pixelated and of poor quality.

This is my favourite image out of the final three appropriation images, as this was something that took me quite a while to finish. For this, my initial ideas were to have the twin towers behind a window in the Oval office, but I could not find a photograph with a window big enough to really see the towers. I then had to find an image with George W. Bush sitting casually at his desk, and this took me a long time, and the image that I chose in the end was a very small image unfortunately. I had hoped to have him holding a Playstation controller, but as he is holding a phone in the image, I settled for having it sitting on his lap – this is something that I didn’t want to make obvious, as the main focus was on the contrast between Bush and the towers. As with the other two images, I removed the background of the photograph on Bush, and placed the 9/11 image onto it. I then resized and rotated the controller and put that onto the image. Finally I desaturated the entire image, as I thought that this looked better as the images toned in with one another well.

References

*All images used for my appropriation work were found on Google

Gagosian Gallery (2016) Richard Prince. Available from: http://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-prince. [accessed 25 March 2016]

Tate (2016) Kurt Schwitters 1887 – 1948. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kurt-schwitters-1912 [accessed 25 March 2016]

March 12, 2016Eleanor Ryell No Comments

Portraiture

For this brief, I needed to research the work and practices of several portrait photographers and then use this as a basis for my final photographs. During the lectures and seminars we were showed some work by Rineke Dijkstra, who is a Dutch photographer. She photographed a series entitled Beaches in which she photographed young adults in their swimming costumes on beaches.

I don’t really like the photographs, as the subjects look very awkward which makes me feel uncomfortable when looking at them. I prefer the subjects of photographs to look more at ease and comfortable. Other than this, I do like the framing of the images as they adhere to the rule of thirds. I also like the use of backgrounds in the images, as they bring other elements such as colour to the photographs. The people in the images appear to be very harshly lit and this contrasts them with the background. This does make a few of the images to appear unnatural which I do not particularly like as it adds to the feeling of unease when looking at the images.

Looking at this photographer inspired me to shoot some of my photos in portrait instead of landscape, so that I could fit more into the image such as the body language of the subject.

Although this image is landscape, I tried to incorporate Dijkstra’s style of shooting a subject in front of an interesting background. I regret not having the background in this image in focus as I feel that this would have better represented her work but I like the colour in the image and the background is still visible. I feel that the subject could have perhaps adorned a more serious facial expression, but I like the emotion that this picture has. Also, as this is my friend, she was more comfortable in this situation as opposed to a stranger would be, so the body language would never have been similar to that of the Beach series by Rineke Dijkstra.

'Beaches' series by Rineke Dijkstra — ‘Beaches’ series by Rineke Dijkstra

Whilst the top image is more of the style of Rineke Dijkstra, with the subject of the image looking slightly uncomfortable, I attempted to change the subject of the second image so that the photograph was easier to look at. As the subject in the second photo was smiling, and a friend of mine, she appears a lot more comfortable with me taking the photo, but I still shot the image in portrait as I was interested in the framing of the image. Both of the images deviate from the style of Dijkstra’s, as neither of the backgrounds are in focus, but this is what I had intended to do. I think that the background for both of these images was not vital to be shown, and I wanted the people in the images to be the center point of focus.

Other than learning of photographers in the lectures and seminars, I conducted my own personal research and came across the photographer Jane Bown. I found her images to be very interesting and they appealed greatly to me as her portraiture shots are almost always in black and white and naturally posed. I like this approach to portrait photography as I feel a lot more comfortable when looking at her images – as the subjects of the photograph look so at ease in them. She also only used natural available light for her images, which I think brings about a different vibe when looking at the images, as you feel like you understand the persons’ emotions. She concentrates on the subjects eyes, and this makes the images more personal.

Although Jane Bown likes to get closer to her subjects, I liked the framing of this image. I took this photograph of a friend during a conversation that we were having. I was trying to put her more at ease, and shot this image in the middle of her laughing at something that we were talking about. I like the spontaneity of the photograph and as this is an unscripted I feel like this image is more personal and you can really see the emotion that she is feeling. I prefer working with available light, as I like the natural beauty of an image – this is also why I prefer this image over the previous images, as I feel as though there is nothing more beautiful than raw emotion.

The images below are my experiments before I took my final photographs. I could not decide whether I wanted my photographs to be in colour, or black and white and whether I wanted the subjects to look at the camera or not. I knew that I wanted my final images to be shot in landscape, as I wanted to concentrate the focus on the facial expressions of the people in the images.

From taking these images I learned to focus on the eyes of the subject more than anything, and then from that point focus on the composition of the image. I kept my aperture as low as I could for my portrait images so that the only a select part of the image would be in focus – this being the eyes for all of my images.

Final images

Both of these photos were shot in the same area, as the subject in the bottom image is friends with my friend and I took both of these images at the same time. I used a similar technique to capture both of these images, which involved conversing with the people in the images and getting them to think of something that made them happy and emotional. Whilst the first image is more spontaneous, I got the person in the second to think of an object or person that they loved and directed them to look upwards towards the natural light. I wanted both of them to look towards the light as I knew that I wanted the eyes to be the primary focus of the photographs. The way that the light reflects off of their eyes almost brings out more emotion into the photograph which I like a lot. In editing, I tried to make as few changes as possible so that the images looked natural and untouched. I simply reduced the saturation and then altered the brightness and contrast of the images using curves on Photoshop.

For my self portrait I wanted it in the same style as the other photographs, so I took it with me facing the window to get the natural light. I again wanted a light reflection in my eyes, and I did not look at the camera as I wanted the image to appear more natural.

References

Tate (2016) Rineke Dijkstra born 1959. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rineke-dijkstra-2666. [accessed 26 March 2016]

National Portrait Gallery (2016) Jane Bown (1925-2014) Photographer. Available from: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp07814/jane-bown. [accessed 26 March 2016]

March 8, 2016Eleanor Ryell No Comments