Fine Art Portraits
My aim was to explore the themes of identity and more so the struggle to find individuality as an introverted personality. I see the tall weeds as loud extroverted voices and the figure attempting to find her way through and make her mark. Does she re-imagine her identity and deliberately extrovert herself to prove her worth? Or does she accept and continue to look inward to find some conclusions?
Portrait of a couple. This is brother and sister Chloe (5) and Jack (3).
Outtakes (there were many…)
Headlock poses…
Portrait Assignment 1
Outtakes (…of course)
Travellers
Week Two: In Class – further development (I did stray slightly from the Black and White theme and did some experimenting in photoshop)
2) Final series of 6 photos. I call this my ‘Dead Man’ series!
[Everythings best viewed BIG. Click to make it large!]
My subject is a former beachside Milk Bar, one of many defunct small businesses dotted along Melbourne’s Nepean Highway. In this work the Milk Bar stands long abandoned as a place of business, but presents a few clues to its repurposed life as a residence. Many of these old Milk Bars remain in a state of perpetual limbo. Unable to survive as their original intent amongst the super market monopolies, yet also unable to be removed or altered due to heritage overlays. My aim of this image is to capture life as it once was but at the same time as it currently is. The fading commercial advertising which would have previously lured us in is now juxtaposed against the heavy strung curtain and blocked out door telling us to quickly move on. To me this speaks volumes about the cultural shift away from small family run enterprises and the fast march towards modern 24/7 convenience.
Reflection Piece
Researching the history of photography and the work of other photographers proved to by a very effective source of inspiration for me personally in this project. I think I was able to draw inspiration easily from my chosen photographers, and was surprised with the depth of my intent and purpose in my final image. I drew little bits of inspiration from each of my three photographers I researched (Cartier-Bresson, Martin Parr and Eugene Atget), while eventually focusing strongly on themes of social commentary (Parr) and the quest for documentation before modernization (Atget). I initially struggled with finding direction and focus. I felt uninspired by my suburban surrounds and assumed I needed to travel into more interesting modern landscapes to get visually pleasing street imagery. I then became inspired by Atget’s shop front images in particular and then connected this with Martin Parr’s shop images full of working class societal overtones.
I began to reminisce about corner shops of my childhood. It gave me the idea of revisiting the Milk Bar’s I frequented along the beach at Seaford and Carrum growing up. The idea’s of past and present began to blossom from there on in. And from there a story unfolded and repeated itself from Frankston right up to Sandringham. Little abandoned places of business, once such a huge part the community I grew up in. The surprise for me was from where this process started, to where it eventually ended up. I questioned my own reasons for abandoning my local Corner Shop/Milk Bar for the bright clean and quick supermarket. Oh to realise I have a part to play in this cultural decay! Who knew a little bit of photographic research could lead me to question myself in such a way! This was a lot of fun.
Now for some outtakes …
Abandoned Motel & Milk Bar
Abandoned Garage & Service Station
You’d be proud of me Steph as I dug out my old SLR and found it had 13 frames left of 12 years passed expiry Kodak film in it. These are the results. No VSCO presets needed! I think the age of the film has emphasised the graininess. I really like them!
Double Exposure
Bibliography
Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation 2013, viewed 25th Oct 2013, http://www.henricartierbresson.org/index_en.htm
Jobey, L 1998, A Life in Picture: Guardian Article, viewed 25th Oct 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/1998/jan/31/photography.artsfeatures
Kim, E 2012, 10 Things Martin Parr Can Teach You About Street Photography, viewed 25th Oct 2013, http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/03/26/10-things-martin-parr-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/
Krase, A and Adam, E, 2008, Paris: Eugene Atget, Taschen, Cologne
Magnum Photos Profile, Henri Cartier Bresson, viewed 25th Oct 2013, http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZMYN
Magnum Photos Profile, Martin Parr, viewed 25th Oct 2013, http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL5357TF
Parr, M 2013, Martin Parr Website, viewed 25th Oct 2013, http://www.martinparr.com/
Taylor, R 2003, Tate Artworks:The Last Resort, viewed 25th October 2013, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/parr-the-last-resort-23-p78702/text-summary
Week One: Out of Class – 6 Black and White Photos
2) Colour Shadow (street lighting or sunlight effects)
My aim here was to make my husband look pretty deviant! We did freak a few people out in the dark alleys of Melbourne.
Here are the 6 black and white images I produced in class.
1st Lighting set up
I like the use of the hair light here, especially on the model on the right. I like how it brings her hair colour out. I also think she has amazing eyes (one green, one blue) so I preferred to keep this in colour.
2nd Lighting set up
I wanted the image on the left to be a bit warmer. I really like the laughing shot, even if her eyes are closed.
Here’s a random one of Nicoles model looking very Mona Lisa’ish! This was the same lighting set up as the top images accept with a snoot pointing at the background instead of a hairlight.
We weren’t necessarily supposed to blog this assignment for Andy’s class, but I find it helps me keep track of everything!
Instead of going down a more traditional collage type image I decide to play around with ‘Clones’ or ‘Multiplicity’ in Photoshop. This basically involves setting up a tripod and moving to different positions within the frame for each shot, stacking them up in Photoshop and removing areas of the image till eventually there are 2, 3, 4, 5, 1000 of you! Hopefully it fulfills the brief! It definitely involves, layers, masks, clipping selections, inverting, deselecting, nudging etc! I find I’m a bit of perfectionist with Photoshop so I get annoyed when things don’t look seamless. It’s all a learning process I guess.
I did a few different set up’s but went with this one as my final image.
I really HATE having my photo taken, so I hammed it up with the pose of my central self. You lose a bit of detail when the image is reduced down for the web but I purposefully made my makeup dishevelled (threw in the shoes) as if I’d been crying (or throwing a tantrum who knows!). The middle clone looks more like a serial killer then a hairdresser, but I kept her because I liked the double the shadow the soft box and the window created. I really wanted to add a mirror in the background and reflect another cloned me, but Husband (aka crusher of creative dreams … ok maybe a tad dramatic) wasn’t too keen on me putting a hole in the wall for art’s sake. I’m a big fan of the painter Diego Velázquez, and this is my somewhat homage to his very famous painting of angles and perspective, ‘Les Meninas’. There is a clone of a “photographer” there, but who is then taking the picture? Hrmmm, interesting… haha
I did a few warm up shots around my house. It had been awhile since i’ve played around with cloning. It is great fun, but I was reminded how hard it is in photoshop when your clones “overlap” and also how tricky it can be to get the same light across all images. Especially when outside.
When reduced down in size I lost a lot of the sharpness.
The light here was terrible but it was only a practice shot. I wish I had a more side on access bathroom. The clone brushing her teeth is lost a bit due to the angle.
Charlotte Gray 