Continued: Week 2 portraits

The hunt for light

 These two images are my mum's and my nan's hands and a light from the floor is shiningdirectly below. Because of the blur it kind of reminds me of those old movies where an alien is approaching and they add blur around the outline of the creature, which gives that unsettling feeling that you don't know what is infront of you.

My Nan came trundling up the path to my house yestarday, and as usual she was carrying a ton of shopping in each of the 4 bags she had with her. My mum had just brought this whopper of an Umbrella and the shopping, my nan, and the umbrella gave me this idea to take some pictures under the street lights. We headed out around 9:30 and it took us a little over 30 minutes to take all of the pics. It took a little while to look for the right spot with good light, but eventually we settled down the road from my house in my local GP car park.Even though my nan was a bit annoyed (I think you can tell in a few of the photos) that she had to stand out side for so long and some of the shots are a little too dark or out of focus, it works for the majority of them and adds a softness to some of them.

Week 2 portraits

 

Out the two...

I'm unsure which photo looks better.

They are all abit too dark. I have a bit of trouble getting lighting right when I take photos.

I can't choose which shots out of this selection look best. Some are blurred, some aren't but I like them all. I really wanted to find a lone street light, that was shining brightly while my nan stands underneath it,  looking like a lone traveller with only the bright lights watching over her journey, and guiding her home. It reflects on alot of who she is- quite stubborn, stands alone, strong. This makes me worry sometimes, because she is alone so much that no-one would watch over her if anything was to happen. 

Sketchbook examples

A few of these are digital versions of sketchbooks, but I still think they look rather interesting and could be done in a similar way using traditional media.

Dust

This idea was extremely difficult to get right. I had to juggle my lamp in one hand and the talcum powder in the other. It took me over an hour before I called it a day, and stop trying to shoot it exactly as I pictured. I think I had the sandman in mind for this shot. It is supposed to be as if i'm the keeper of dreams, the ruler of my subconcious world in this shot. The talc pwder didn't work too well mixed with the glitter, I think the glitter was weighed down by the powder, so it refused to move an inch, or I wasn't blowing hard enough, but I didn't want it to look like a dust cloud but more like a stream of dust.

Altered the image levels alittle on one of my computer programs that came withthe camera. Highlighted the hand and the surrounding area, by changing the contrast. The dust blowing away is the most important.

Tears

I'm not too sure what the idea behind this particular shot was. I think this was the last set of shots I took on the Sunday gone and I needed to hurry because my battery was almost gone. I had the idea of doing something with war paint and tears, but I didn't have a wide collection of face paints left so I just did white tears- probably because I found my collection of Hans Christan Andersen short stories over the summer, and The Snow Queen popped into my head. I only took two pictures before my camera decided it had enough and died on me.

Scatter

I think I gave up too quickly on this idea. This one I took yesterday night again in my bathroom with a sheet of black paper behind me and my desk lamp to one side. The idea was that I would chuck the glass chess pieces up in front of me, and I would watch them fall. I picked certain pieces out, of course the king, queen, knight, bishop and a couple of pawns and threw them up in front of me because it was supposed to be as if my "kingdom" was falling apart around me, everthing was in disarray and all I could do was stop and stare.
The photo didn't turn out to too well, because the focus was not quite right and the shutter speed wasn't fast enough to capture a better outline of the chess figures. If I was to redo it, I probably would hhave zoomed out abit more, to capture more onf the pieces in the shot and framed and focused it better.

Zhang Jingna

Her mainsite

Her deviantart page

Her Flickr

 

Images from her Angel Dreams and Forgotten Fairytales series. I really love her work she is one of my all time favourite photographers. It's really amazing how she produces such beautiful work when she has only really been doing photography professionally for 2 years. Her dedication really shines throughout her work. The forgotten fairytale works of hers isn't directly based on her life, but the ideas behind it, the composition and feeling that has been put in to them are quite powerful and link into her dream-like quality she has with her images.
Her Angel Dreams Collection is more personal, it mainly made up of the things that have influenced her and her work over the years, such as the Japanese Culture through music, movies, manga, anime and her stay in Japan. Again her images are really delicate and dreamlike, as she is well known for her images to possess this quality, And through her memories and images it helps you to understand her how this culture has helped to transport her to her own place and create her own little world that has influenced her greatly.



More Info on her Angel Dreams Exhibition HERE.

Submersion

Only took 3 photos to do with this idea. I think the lighting could have been better, but I made do with my desk lamp. I was frantically shaking the jar from side to side to try and make the water seem like it was rising and like I was kind of being consumed by the water. Like when you are in a dream and everything is distorted and you feel helpless and disorientated, because something around you is happening but it is out of your control.

This one seems to be abit too dark, I quite prefer the firdt shot, above, but there is something about this one that I like. This one seems more timid and meek and the way the hand is crawling out from around the jar is quite interesting.

My altered version. I think the green colour makes the image more ominous. It works well with the shadows, as things seem unsettled, but the water is still, the eye is looking out through the glass, the hand is grasping out.  You almost ask: Where is this and what is going on?

Double-Vision

Diplopia

Two faces. Two different views. Two different versions of me.

I like this shot most of all the ones I took. I had a spare set of glasses ad decided to take the picture in this way to reflect the different ways I see things; when I see with the aid of glasses and with out. It also ties in with my theme of how the mind has a distorted view of things, and how it is different from actual reality. Kind of like how different Jekyll and Hyde are.

Frustration

One of my first attempts- I hope my frustation shows.

Took a break and had another few attempts

Started taking pictures for my self-portraits assignment around 11 on a Sunday Morning. I decided to take them in the the bathroom, because if I made a mess when creating some of the images, it would be easier to clean up (plus the living room was occupied). My hope was that I would be able to use 7-10 good shots for my self-portrait homework, but I only managed 5. I wasn't aware how difficult it would be to take pictures of myself. My first idea took me over an hour to take before I gave up trying to capture the photo exactly like I had envisioned. I tried to change the position because the light behind me wasn't stable andept ling down, but judging where to move so the shadows created on the the tracing paper was not an easy task.

I really did not likethis image at first, but it is rather interesting, now that I look at it again.

Decided to use this image. -The more I look at it, the more I like it.-

I decided to chose this photo overall because I thnk the shadows were slightly softer and closer to the image I had in mind. If I was to do this again I would try to find a larger sheet of traving paper or position more lights around or attch some kind of protection or shade around the naked bulb to create a softer effect.


I think I want the majority of the images I take for this project to be studio based. I want the theme for my images to surround the mind and help show case how the thoughts, feeling and any other happenings we conjure up within ourselves are just abstractions of our reality. Creating these ideas in a studio setting would be good because the studio is like an artificial reality.

Nicholas Méphane

Windows

Becoming a Monster

His website 
His deviantart page

These images are from his Narcisse collection which which is the French word for Narcissus. I like that he is playing with this idea of beauty and self and how this vanity can change you or consume you. You can see how these images are full of feeling and emotion and in some of his pictures, where he is hiding his face, it gives us this sense of annonimity and the images doesn't seem so personal. I also thought that it could be his way of trying to get rid of this 'mask', like he is trying everything he can to discard it. I think I want to try and make images based around thoughts and emotions, images that are quite concept based.as it would be interesting to explore different ways to bring them to life on camera.

Metal

Second Skin