Holly AndresTo begin our mini project on narrative photography, we looked at Holly Andres work and her series of images titled 'The Fall of Spring Hill'. This series shows a story where a child injures themselves on a playground then the mothers reactions by breaking it down. It shows symbolism in her images and you're left to assume what's going on and what the story is. Dave EggersFollowing our research and study of Holly Andres, we then had a look at Dave Eggers short story: "Woman Waits, Seething, Blooming". It's about a mother who is sitting at home waiting for her son to return home in the early hours of the morning. You read about her anger and the vivid use of description leaves your mind to wander about the unlimited images that could be formed. We were given the task to do a shoot based off this story, we had to take a few images inspired by this story and told the story in a narrative way, using things like symbolism and hidden messages like Holly Andres used in her work This is my shoot plan I did in response, I took multiple phrases out of this story and had a couple ideas for each part:
Further research for my shootIn response to the short story we read, I researched a multiple of different street and urban photographers to inspire me to take an image to tell a part of the story. The story gives a sense of depression and sadness as the mother waits in the dark for her son. I found a series of images by photographer John Darwell who did a collection called ‘A Black Dog Calling’ which I felt showed the depressing, unhappier side of everyday life. I really like these images because you don’t think of this sort of narrative behind them, of depression, but it’s just an instinct, you don’t see these images as being positive, it’s just the norm. The first one is a use of the pathetic fallacy because of the rain and the selective focus, because it focuses on the rain and blurs everything else out. I love the other two images because they have dark, grungey and minimal colours. Each of them have multiple different potential stories, you can portray them in so many different ways. I also thought I would research some other photographers who take neutral street photography rather than the negative feeling images. I found a US photographer Trent Parker. He takes a lot of Black and White photography which I absolutely fell in love with but wasn’t what I was looking for with this subject, it was his candid imagery of people in colour images that more suited what I wanted. These sort of images is what I really want with my work, i love the use of strong colour and the way that you can focus on anything to be the subject matter and there are no obvious topics. My WorkAbove is my response to the task given for the shoot inspired by Eggers story. I'm rather disappointed with this shoot in general, I had so many brilliant ideas, and I ideally wanted to focus on the idea of having the boy as the subject matter, but unfortunately I was short of willing male models so I had to make do with the idea of the mother and the wine. Images that went well: 1) I chose this image because I feel the red in the wine comes out really strong and rich, It stands out well and the lighting masks the image perfectly. 2) This image is very similar to the style of the images by John Darwell, the lighting is very low and dark and I like the way the shadows frame her face. It's got a slight lens blur which I feel worked well. I like the symbolism in this image where the mother is waiting, she obviously isn't very happy and the shadows portray that well with the mise en scene. 3) This one went well because of the lighting in the image and the use of rule of thirds I used, It has the potential to be edited really well and I could adjust the brightness and contrast to look more like Darwell's images and like my previous image. 4) I have some really good ideas for this image, the way it focuses on her face and her motion has so much potential and I really look forward to editing and manipulating this image. I think the way she's staring right at the camera really portrays the moodiness, how angry she is at her son, as if we're in the eyes of him. 5) I'm really happy with this image, I like the idea of my model having no identity, you can't see what she looks like, you can't tell her emotions. You're left to wonder about what's going on, what she's thinking and what will happen next. It opens up so many doors. Images that I'm not pleased with: 1) I'm not impressed with this image because I just feel it's so boring, the flash ruins the image and there isn't anything special going on at all in it. 2) This image didn't go well because it's got bright nasty lighting and it shines too much on my model. I guess it can be edited to avoid this but the image itself isn't overly exciting nor means anything anyway, 3) This image is so rubbish, I hate it so so much. It's boring, like the one to the left of it but the difference is that with this one, the flash is so artificial and glares against the carpet, ruining the idea I had about having no identity, because the focus is on the flash rather than that. 4) BORING. I'm not happy with this at all, there is nothing happening, nothing to focus on and again the flash ruins it. I've chosen my three favourite images here and edited them all on photoshop. I've edited them in similar ways to make them all have the same general message and vibes that I love off Darwell's images. Overall, although I wasn't initially happy with my own work or what I did, I've managed to bring them to a standard where they don't look too bad. I still wish I had done a different idea of mine but this one isn't too bad and it'll do. After all, it shows narrative, which was the initial idea. I just know what I would do in the future if I were to do this again. As well as editing my images on Photoshop, I decided to experiment and manipulate one of my images with Adobe Illustrator. I'm not sure why I initially did this, I wanted to make myself comfortable with the programme because I feel knowing my way around illustrator will help me with my work in the future. For my first time, I'm extremely happy with it and feel it worked well. As I started to do this, I felt having this drawing gave the story more feel, it made it come across as more of a narrative because of the illustration. Furthermore, I haven't fully completed the image, for example her lips aren't complete, she doesn't have both arms and she's missing an ear, I chose to do this because it's very simplistic, it leaves you to imagine the rest of the story. I lets the reader/viewer complete it for you. I'm very excited to continue using illustrator to manipulate my images.
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