The Body

For the body unit I was interested in the psychological relationship between the sitter and ‘me’ (the photographer) where this intimate experience was to allow viewers to visually recognise and relate to ones emotional narrative. For this project to succeed I had to decide and find a model where I could represent what I believed to be their true personality and character. I decided to ask Reece the security guard who I always encountered at the entrance of UCA. I was intrigued by who he was, as whenever I left or arrived at UCA it was Reece’s face that I would always meet. He was a complete stranger to me but I felt I already new him from the perceptions I attached to his face and job role. Initially I wanted to represent Reece to be this threatening and even frightening individual who had an authoritative presence. My initial first impressions could not have been more wrong where I had completely misjudged his character.  As I got to know more about him I realised that actually the authoritative figure he portrays out to be is actually a mask behind what I felt was a vulnerable and isolated man. With this in mind I dramatically altered how I wanted to represent him and looked at photographers Irving Penn, Steve Pyke, Richard Learoyd and Etienne Carjat. These photographers approached and explored the stability of isolation and loneliness in their portraits and I was inspired by their technical and creative choices they made to support this. It was from this research that I decided upon making a portrait of just Reece without any props and to capture the emotion of ones vulnerability through likeness alone. To support this idea I employed the use of soft and even lighting with a shallow depth of field which I felt would effectively illustrate a direct focus onto his gentle temperament. I also setup I playlist of selected songs to not only help relax Reece into the studio but to also create a certain atmosphere and mood, where the slow melodies would help seal a more thoughtful and emotional expression.
On the shoot day I found it extremely difficult to capture the emotion I wanted from Reece and to break down the barrier of his strict disposition. On reflection there are several improvements I would have made, I would have firstly chosen a much longer lens as because there is very little shallow depth of field in my photographs from being so close. I would have also framed my composition so that Reece was slightly looking up at the camera enhancing the sense of fragility where the viewer seemingly has more power. From this I feel I have not successfully made the correct photographic choices to translate my ideas but understand how the precise attention to detail is vitally important in portraying my concept.

The Environment Appraisal

 The City

For The City Unit I have chosen to demonstrate the anticipated view of the city rising to prosperity against the experiences of loneliness and isolation. My final piece is formed of three photographs in a vertical panoramic sequence of a night scene in a busy London street.I was initially inspired by Edward Muybridge’s panoramas and adopted this method where by extending beyond the photographic frame I could illustrate the sheer height and scale of man-mades structures. The concept of night photography was inspired by both Thomas Weinberger and Sohei Nishino where the city visually transforms through the illuminating lights. This dramatic change in the atmosphere I feel only emphasises the sense of power, hope and greatness that is associated with the city. Even at night London is just as busy with the noise of moving and flashing lights. But beyond the perception of the city being a source of greatness and power my own experiences conflicted with this view. On you own London can be a vey lonely and isolated place leaving you vulnerable and can even be an intimidating experience. Andreas Gursky ‘Hong Kong Island’ showed human references to the abandoned construction works where he seemingly captures the still and emptiness of the developing city. I was inspired by how any human presence is deserted to the evidence of the connotations implied to the activity and gestures of our own making. I applied this notion by familiarizing viewers with the typical traffic cones on our streets to build a stronger relationship. This also signifies the constant development of our city and reinforces the belief of its growing fortune. As the street view takes hold of the audience what is usually a busy packed scene is instead one of silence and emptiness. People do not even register on my film, cars do not appear but instead a stream of light is the only residue of their existence. Among the chaotic and active surroundings I wanted to pause the viewer to experience complete solitude. The high risers looming above are almost daunting and overwhelming just to look at and I feel this is visually expressed through the vertical panoramic sequence. The sheer height of these buildings could not be appreciated and valued enough to be contained in one frame. I wanted to illustrate how minor you are compared to the large scale of London’s richness and to express the perception of power against the experience of solitary quietness. 

The Land

In response to ‘The Land’ I have chosen to address the changing landscape that is so mechanically ingrained into our journeys. I have produced a sequence of three images taken on my train journey of the different scenes that I was transported through. I felt these views were not appreciated enough by other passengers and I became fascinated by how these familiar scenes sit into our unconsciousness without as much as a flicker of thought. Shooting through the windows of the train carriage I have combined both the interior and exterior where the motion of the landscape fuses together my journey. I became a tourist intruding into unknown territory where the only thing that separated me from this space was the glass window.

            With this primary concept I studied photographer Ori Gersht’s series ‘The Clearing’. These photographs were taken on a moving train surrounding the area of ‘Kosov’ in the Ukraine, and explores the essence of time and history. Shooting continuously through the window his photographs are unrecognisable from the snow filled country side. His long exposure carries the most history but they are transformed into unfamiliar landscapes. It was from this series that enabled me to consider time in my own photographs. I started to consider how I could represent the motion of time and demonstrate to viewers of this one journey. I also looked at Naoya Hatakeyama’s ‘Slow Glass’ series that combines two different environments through the glass window of his car. The glass symbolizes a portal into another world just as the window view through the train. Depth of field is of major importance in this series where the external scene is distorted through the droplets of water forming a shallow depth. The concept of designing reality through this same format establishes the English city to be identically the same and could have been taken anywhere. I was inspired by how the glass becomes this magnetic portal of combining two environments.

            The technical aspects of this project proved as much of a challenge than I originally thought. Using long exposures of half a second to express the movement of my journey I choose to shoot only on cloudy days to avoid any dark silhouettes that would underexpose the train carriage. For this unit I wanted to approach the landscape through a different perspective of a typical postcard picture. The diverse habitation that humanity has adopted is not appreciated enough and I aspired to engage a new understanding of the environment we are surrounded in. In a sense the train carriage exposes the familiar scenery of our consciousness and the external landscape exposes our unconsciousness. Overall the most difficult challenge was to translate my idea onto film where shooting in two different settings was a test of trail and error. If I could reshoot again I would like to experiment with using a portable flash to remove the yellow/orange colours made by the tungsten lighting inside the train and I would also like to find a way of enhancing the colours where I feel they are slightly bland and dull.