Proposal

My proposal is to create a folio of contrasting images. Four will be dark and the other four will be light. I wish to capture a range of emotions using various lighting techniques as well as age and gender of subjects. I wish to create images where the location creates a depth for the photograph and reveals more about the subject.

Formative Brief #6

Formative Brief #6

Topic: Your Favourite Photographer/Photograph

Task: Choose one of your favourite photographers and identify what it is about his/her images that you find so attractive. Then choose one image to have a visual conversation with.

And so began the task to pick a favourite photographer! There is just so many to choose from so I went back to one of my old favourites Andrew Zuckerman. I Find his portraits to be very inpiration. In his book 'Wisdom' he has created portraits that give a beautiful insight into his subjects. He has a very identifiable style to his work so I decided to base my photograph using this style.

Some of Andrew Zuckerman's Work from his book 'Wisdom'

Andrew Zuckerman's Website: http://www.andrewzuckerman.com/site.html

I decided to photograph my Grandpa to follow on with the theme of Andrew's book of photographing respected seniors, and there is no one that I respect more than my Grandpa. He is a very important person to me and I wanted to capture his joyful spirit in the photograph. He had his 80th birthday earlier this year.

'Grandpa Roy'

Formative Brief #5

Formative Brief #5

Topic: Cultural Identity

Task: Think about cultural identity and how you can represent it. Try to work beyond the obvious cultural cliches - it is not a project about "selling Australia", but thinking more about cultural values and their meaning in relation to your own individual cultural identity.

Statement:

I guess my views of the world can often be quite naive. I have lived in the same house my entire life and travelled overseas once. I found this to be a bit of a culture shock and it got me thinking a lot about the world and the country i live in. I guess i take a lot for granted with out realising. Considering Silvia's statement on "you do not often have a sense of the culture you are immersed in" I find that it is very relevant as I guess you grow up not knowing any different and after 20 years of being in the same surroundings it is just what you are accustomed too. I guess I find that my cultural identity is still developing as I learn more about myself, the environment I live in as well as learning more about the world and other cultures. Like many people my parents have played the strongest role in developing my identity but also shaping my beliefs and values. I think living in a culturally diverse nation there is always conflicting views and opinions on identity but i guess that Australia's identity is unique in that sense and is forever changing and adapting.

Response:

When brainstorming for this task I found it extremely hard to come up with unique ideas as i constantly had Vegemite, swimmers and kangaroos jumping around my head. I figured an abstract approach would be a simple way to attempt to step away from cliche images. The sand represents the earth (obviously) but it represents all aspects from the beach to the red desert, the lush green grass to the oceans and waterways. The colours represent the multicultural background within Australia but in particular the way that all the colours are intertwined within the bottles depicts a nation living as one. Originally I had one bottle standing alone but when adding in a second bottle it made me consider my family and they way I have been shaped over the years. Australia is an amazing place to live but we still have conflict between race and gender so the disfigured bottles represent the fact that Australian is continuously changing and developing.

'Bottled Earth'

Jabberwocky

Formative Brief #3

Topic: Visualising Music

Task: Choose one of your favourite songs, bands or singers. Research any images that have been produced and respond by coming up with a new and different approach to portraying this band, singer or song through photography. The image should still make a conceptual and formal connection with the chosen song.

I found this task to be a real challenge as music is something that is important to me and inspires me. I found it extremely hard to pick out a song as all I could think of are my current favourite songs and bands. It seems that so many songs these days are all written about love and I just wasn't feeling the whole love angle so instead I decided to look at mate ship and friendship because I think that is a very important aspect of life.... And what better friends then buzz and woody! Yes because I love Disney and grew up on Toy Story and the most recent movie just come out I picked the song 'You've Got a Friend In Me' Yes childish I know but in terms of representing this song photographically I wanted to look into it a little bit deeper.

So to start of with a few images that represent the song...

'You've Got A Friend In Me': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB2gPZRsz0Q



http://www.benintendo.be/images/ToyStory3.jpg



http://comsewogueclassof1987reunion.wikispaces.com/file/view/ToyStory1.JPG/33130727/ToyStory1.JPG


http://www.myfreewallpapers.net/cartoons/wallpapers/toy-story-aliens.jpg

http://manveet.wordpress.com/2008/11/

So after browsing through the many friendship images the most common style was the very cliche 'two friends with arms wrapped over each other look'. So initially I planned to stay away from this but eventually I felt that seeing that this cliche is so symbolic and iconic I would look at it from a different angle of mate ship.

The main task in this brief was to respond to a song in a new way so i looked at the contrast between the friendship in a children's song in comparison to mate ship in a time of struggle such as war.

'You've Got A Friend In Me'

John Simpson Kirkpatrick: Simpson and his donkey

Sculpture by: Peter Corlett, maquette for Simpson and his donkey, 1915

Lesson 4 : 9.8.2010 - Presented Brief #2

Today's lesson was similar to last week where we presented our recent brief assignment. Enjoyed looking at all the different responses that everyone came up with theres always so much variety in the way people respond to each task.

Formative Brief #2

Topic: Placement and Displacement
Task: Think about the spaces/situations that give you a sense of placement and a sense of displacement.

For this task I decided to look at the entry into and the exit from this world. I believe that the most at ease we will EVER feel in life is when we are still in the womb before we have truly entered this world and all the emotions and experiences that come with it. Before we can experience sadness, loneliness or see the cruel side of life we have that pure time within our mothers where we are shielded from any darkness.

I then looked at the opposite to this for displacement. When we leave this world we can never truly no what will happen to us, it is one of the greatest mysteries. And whilst there many people that have come to peace with dying there are many people that have died tragically or to young. I looked at this, slightly abstractly, using the technique of ghosting in a self portrait because at the moment I guess I still feel young and 'invincible' I cannot deny that whilst dying doesn't scare me at the moment, leaving things unfinished, leaving people behind and being forgotten certainly does frighten me.

Placement

'Calm Comfort'

Displacement

'Ghosts of Things to Come'

Lesson 3: 2.8.2010 - Presented Brief #1

In todays lesson we presented our first brief. We used a presentation style that we have not used before where we were not allowed to give feedback or say more than five words about our memory photograph. I chose....

'A changed person'

Really enjoyed seeing the rest of the classes responses to the task memories.

Lesson 2: 26.7.2010 - Portrait Gallery 'Present Tense' Exhibition

I really enjoyed visiting the exhibition. Whilst i found some portraits very bizarre the exhibition was all about embracing technology and what portraiture is in this digital age. Lots of mixed media work presented new angles for portraiture and how to capture a person and who they are. Artists are adapting their work to embrace the digital age with many turning to video to portray people. One work that really stood out for me was a series of portrait photographs that had been merged together to create one photograph showing the similarities between a group of people. Very unique outlook on portrait which brings me to consider what is real these days? The amount of manipulation used in portrait photography can range from simple lighting adjustments to completely altering a photograph. This leaves a lot to consider...

"Present Tense: An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age
22 May 2010 - 22 August 2010

Technology has been a major influence on art since the invention of the camera, particularly in the field of portraiture. The digital revolution of the 1980s-1990s has altered how portraits are made and what a portrait might be. This exhibition will explore how new ways of imaging reflect the individual in this digital world and the mechanisms of imaging that are used."

Extract and Images from: http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/exhibition.php

Formative Brief #1

Topic: Memory

Task: Choose a photograph from a family album that holds a special memory and produce a photograph that responds to this image.

Whilst looking through the thousands of photographs we have stored away in our garage I came across two studio photographs. One of myself and one of my brother. My initial idea was to find an image of my brother and I when we were younger and compare the strong childhood relationship to the loose one we have now. But when looking at the single portrait of my brother I noticed an even bigger change in himself individually than in our relationship. The once cheeky and adorable child has grown into a teenager who spends every waking hour closed of from the real world in his own gaming and computer reality.

I decided that this change is what I would attempt to capture. I found that no elaborate set up was required, just a simple portrait shoot would capture this change in my younger brother. I used a green background to link in his obsession for computers as he is currently studying animation and learning about green screen.

I felt that this was quite an important photograph to try and capture as the changes in my younger brother has been quite a long and sad process.

'A changed person'

Lesson 1: 19.7.2010 - Introduction

Folio Development I feel is a very useful class in developing our individual tastes, aesthetics and idea for what area of photography we will eventually branch out into. The key element of this class is to by the end have a body of work that reflects contemporary industry practices and their learning in related subjects and apply a range of professional presentation techniques to meet a broad range of industry and exhibition requirements.

Today we discussed the unit outline and had an introduction into the ongoing work we will be doing this semester in the form of briefs. Our first brief will be due on Monday the 2.8.2010. In this subject we will be required to develop two folios, one in studio and one at location. These two final folios will be developed from two of the brief assignments we found to be most inspiring. We are required to submit four images for each folio, total of eight images.

Looking forward to experimenting and developing my photography through the ongoing briefs this semester. I think i will find this task to be quite challenging!