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'