common ground

/kəˈmjuːnɪti/

I absolutely love editing. Using Premiere Pro and After Effects is my favourite past time. After all of the footage was together, Emily went through it and selected the best shots to create the first draft. It went from twenty three minutes to seven, and from then on it fluctuated between five to eight minutes.

I used After Effects to animate some of the questions used for the interviews, as well as some other bits and pieces. 

At the same time I also used my Zoom mic to record two short speeches and colour-graded the clips one by one on Premiere Pro. It involved a slight increase in contrast and playing around with the temperature through intertwining other colours.

On Thursday evening I swapped with Emily and took her hard drive to spend the night editing. It actually took longer than expected for me to look through the footage again. The main problem we had was that the documentary was very visual at the start but then faded away into a more interview based ending. To attempt to fix this I cut it up slightly more, mixing it up with some of the shots we had filmed around town and within Farnham Park, although that won't make the final cut because we've decided to change it for more News footage.

The main editing I did was in the middle part where it focuses on what community means to different people. The storyboard started off as family, then going into religion, university etc. I changed this to be family and then go into music, fading away the sound afterwards to go into the speech about how community is more of a feeling. After the music shots, it was followed by the visuals I filmed (the seaside town being my newest community) and then changing into the next community, all connected through the audio track.

I enjoyed the short period of editing more than being the director of photography, and I do wish I could've animated a shot or two, as it was something I had been wishing to do since the very first idea I had back in October, but I'm glad I got to do some things on After Effects. I also enjoyed having the chance to put my opinion in the film as well through the audio.

The draft:

I think community's more of a feeling than anything else. You can't really describe it. Someone anonymous told us for them it's religion and their church. For other peers it's our creative university and the people they meet along the way. And who's to say it has to be physical? Poets are connected through poetry, perhaps they're not acquainted yet they're aware through words. And back when we were young, just children, weren't we all a part of a community as well? The playground was all ours. So.. that's what a community is.

initial ideas & a wordy reflection on week one

At the start everyone in our production group had a drastically different idea for the topic they wanted to document. These included poetic (mine being about questioning the idea of a community and whether it had to be a physical one for it to matter; I wanted to explore the relationship between different poets and their connections) and musical documentaries, a documentary on Farnham Rants and another one on student finance.

In the end we sort of came up with a topic that managed to more or less intertwine all of them. The idea was to create a poetic documentary collaboration by using opinions supplied by others, written work, animations (both visual and text) and explore the meaning of community instead of focusing on a specific one.

We thought it would be interesting to see what people thought community really was and if they feel like they're a part of any, and whether the word community is associated with only positivity It was originally inspired by Ai Weiwei's amazing Sunflower Seeds because of the idea of people coming together to create (in this case, create a visual representation of community), and for my original idea the inspiration was this documentary on spoken word by Kate Church.

Initially the plan was to film in Lion & Lamb, however after I got in contact with Farnham Council and they informed me it was privately owned, it soon became obvious it would be very hard to actually get in contact with the agency that owned it. Instead, we moved our interview shooting location to Farnham Park.

On the day before the interviews, I wrote down the questions we were going to ask (just a reason for me to add some behind the scenes photos, really):

Looking back at it now, I wish we had put more thought into this. The questions were alright but they were... closed (thankfully the people we interviewed chose to follow up with what they meant). At the same time, they were also way too long and wordy, so in the end we got very different answers to the same question that barely linked together which proved to be difficult when we got to editing.

We had planned to shoot interviews on the 27th, however the morning was rainy and dark, so we moved the date to 28th and instead spent time filming the storyboarded intro which would be the opening shot with a cup of tea, following the poetry lines of 'What is a community? Is it a cup of tea shared with a friend?'

I said the lines out loud and it was quite nice, although later in post-production we realised that it was slightly too underexposed and dim for an opening shot. I later re-shot it in my own apartment in the morning to get more light. Personally I feel like it's quite a nice and colourful shot. The same happened with our projector shot that Emily later swapped for a recorded screen.

My role for the production was cinematographer. I was excited and couldn't wait to shoot. Reflecting on it, I'm not very happy with how some of the shots ended up looking. The interviews were very quick and there was a lack of directing so the people didn't stand in the framing I had previously set up, thereby we ended up with ever-changing shots as I had to adjust them for every single person. Perhaps this is only a small issue, but as the cinematographer I wanted to push myself to the highest of my ability and I don't feel like I did.

On top of that, midway through storyboarding the documentary, I realised there wasn't much work for me to do at all as there were so many individual animations such as stop motion, adobe animate and adobe after effects that there was almost nothing for me to shoot specifically as everyone ended up being a cinematographer anyway. That's probably the main reason I got so upset during the production - I felt lost in what I had to do.

Despite all this, I still had a quite fun filming week and it was a nice experience.

I learnt that:

• I would work much better in a team where all roles were specific to
  a single person rather than blurred
• communication is very important to relieve stress
• more time needs to go into planning out small details such as questions
• ...apparently cold weather can also affect productivity

subliminal

ISO 400, 24mm lens, aperture f/5.0, shutter speed 1/8 sec

This is my final portraiture choice. I've titled it Subliminal as a reference to the idea behind it which is that this is a double portrait of a person I know and a stranger - the subconscious - through the reflection in the mirror that gives the viewer a different angle to look at the subject.

Personally this was my favourite photo from the shoot because of multiple reasons such as:

📷 contrasting colours, temperatures and brightness

🔅 eeriness and confusion within the setting - the flower set-up, an untold story

📷 looking into portrayal of oblivion - peaking through the door

🔅 attention on the subject's face through the torch light

📷 the different expressions on his and his reflection's faces
🔅 barely noticeable - blurriness of movement of a flower by the mirror

The only few things I'm not very happy with are parts of the actual location, such as the visible thermostat and ventilation in the door, as well as the heaviness of the curtains. These are things I couldn't necessarily change as they were all within the location. Perhaps the other thing is the angle the subject is leaning in, however I had difficulty finding a way to shine the light on his face without it ruining the bond between him and his reflection.

mirrors and double portraiture

My three main ideas at the start of this project were:

strangers

lights

colours

For a while I was considering taking photos of complete strangers. After looking into Crewdson's work, I was thinking about creating a relationship between two subjects of a portrait. There proved to be a difficulty for me to find a 'stranger' because I had decided I was going to take the image in my flat and I didn't really feel comfortable inviting people I didn't know.  So instead I had a rather strange idea to capture the relationship between the subject and the photographer. 

First came the 'making' of the set. This involved rather a lot of work tying strings to around fifteen roses and carnations. 

To bring in the idea of exploring the relationship between the photographer and the subject I would need a way to allow myself into the image as well. Earlier in November I visited 180 The Strand where this piece by Ryan Gander stood out:

I be... (xix), 2017

The playful yet complex practice of Ryan Gander (born 1976, UK) is stimulated by queries, investigations or what-ifs, rather than strict rules or limits. His newly commissioned works for EVERYTHING AT ONCE consider the psychology behind looking, feeling and wishing.

[..] Collectively titled Dramaturgical frameworks for structure and stability, in reference to Erving Goffman’s sociological approach that uses theatre to portray and evaluate social interaction, these figures also play on the notion of spectatorship, shifting the relationship between spectator and spectacle. [1]

So here's what the first few photos looked like:

The problem with this, however, was that I didn't enjoy taking these photos as the camera obstructed my face and there was no way to have a light facing me without ruining the scene in front of me and its feeling. I kept a conversation going between the subject and I so he wouldn't have time to really prepare a single facial expression for the camera. I suppose I don't really have many good directing skills as I just naturally prefer to let the subjects of my images to do what they feel like doing whilst having a conversation with them.

There also seemed to be too much going on to focus on one thing. This is the one problem I always touch upon when I try to realise my ideas. I am very fond of intertwining different props, lights and thoughts, but I'm not usually aware of how cluttered things look until after the image/film have been taken/recorded. After realising the first image was too messy, I decided to get closer to the subject, going against my previous plan to take the photo as if I was peaking through somewhere (the door gap in this instance). The second photo was slightly more appealing, but I realised I didn't want myself to be the second subject anymore.

I remained closer to the subject for the next few shots, however I asked him to move the mirror so it was reflecting him instead, going back to something I had mentioned in one of the previous posts - strangers within an identity. And as soon as he had done that, I realised that's what I wanted from my final image.

At one point the subject had been a stranger to me, but now I could confidently say I knew him very well. It's this contrast between characteristics that I love so much, and I adore how in the reflection he looks completely different to his direct portrait, has a whole different expression on his face - caused by the tilted angle and lights.

Still, I was unhappy with the issues I had framing these - the first one cuts off the mirror and the second one cuts off the side of the bed frame. The one thing I did love was how the torch cut his face halfway and brought attention to him straight away.

Overall, this shoot successfully intertwined the three ideas from the beginning of this project: strangers ✘, lights ✘, colours ✘

However, it wasn't any of the images above that I chose for the final portrait. The final image was constructed through the knowledge of what I had to do:

- place the camera outside the bedroom door
- get the mirror and bed in frame to avoid awkward crop
- have the torch on the subject's face


Bibliography:

[1]  180 The Strand (2017) Artists. At: http://everythingatonce.com/ (Accessed 17.11.2017)

ravaging through the flat

Jack and I haven't had heating since we moved into our new flat. Some time ago we purchased one of those cheap yet electricity-consuming heaters so that we wouldn't actually freeze to death. The best thing about it though is that it glows. Quite literally it is the brightest source of campfire-like orange colour I've ever seen.

At the same time, I also bought a LED strip that comes with a RGB & white remote and you can change the colours and get every other shade in-between. I only realised how bright it was once I had set it up. 

The orange of the heater and the blue of the LED splits the room into two. It reminded me mostly of this photograph I found in one of Crewdson's books:

I love the contrast between the coldness and warmth, the darkness and the artificial light.

That got me thinking about whether I could introduce another light into the image as despite both current light sources being quite bright, they were still too dim and simple to really bring out the subject of the image. I happened to pop into a hardware store after work one day and found a quite cheap torchlight, which seemed to be worth the investment. In terms of light I have it all figured out. I am still debating about the choice of subject/subjects and props. 

Following my last post, I decided I wanted to take the image that would be a shot from the ending sequence of a film. For this specifically I imagine it being a wide shot that peaks through a gap.

Previously whilst researching Crewdson I realised I wanted to make the image somewhat surreal, like it was part of a story that remained untold. I also mentioned that I loved his usage of flowers because that was something I was quite interested in in my Foundation year when doing my short poetry films. 

So here is the list of what I think my 'set' should have:

• LED lights, torch and heater
• fresh flowers (mainly roses)
• strings and tape to attach them to the ceiling
• plain duvet covers + pillowcases
• tripod as the shoot time is going to be in the evening

stranger /ˈstreɪn(d)ʒə/ n. : a person with whom one has had no personal acquaintance

Today was a game changer. Bear with me.

My parents came to visit me for my birthday. This was going to be the first year I wouldn't have seen them and I was very upset. They came, and then they left, and now I'm sort of left here feeling like I don't know what's happening anymore. Everything that could be going wrong is going wrong repeatedly, if that's even possible.

That's how I ended up in a type of a purgatory. Half of me wants to quit everything I've been working for and just go home to help my parents, and the other half is terrified of how close the first half is to actually packing its bags and leaving.

Somewhere between that I realised that strangers are everywhere.

Before you judge me for sounding cheesy, I'd like to point out that it is true, no matter what everybody says. You know a person, but you never really know them. You never really know what's in their head, or what they're thinking about. You see what they choose to show, or what they're comfortable showing. 

And then I sort of realised that those 'halves' I was talking about are actually just two strangers within my own head. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with that. I hope this doesn't sound like an existential crisis, although perhaps it is.

Anyhow, this opened my mind to some ideas to think about, such as:

• relationship between the two subjects in the image (as I want to experiment with a double portrait)
• relationship between the photographer and the subject
• exploration of the subject's mind

I'm also thinking about the distance between the camera and the subject. In most of my photos I'm close to the person I'm taking the image of.

However, it would be interesting to take it from further away, sort of like peaking at them? I don't think I can currently take a studio-like image without the subject actually knowing they're being photographed, but perhaps there can be an implication of oblivion.

spotlight, frames and stories

Crewdson is indeed working on the creation of a completely constructed world, one in which every detail is just right and the whole model cosmos is only fully comprehensible within its own hermetic logic. Photography is his preferred medium because it allows him to create images of a 'perfect world.' [1] 

Gregory Crewdson - Twilight (Plate 5)

Gregory Crewdson - Untitled (Flower mound)

Rather strangely I have so much to say about Crewdson's photos I don't feel like I can say anything at all. I am in love with the eeriness and quietness of the photos, I enjoy how light interrupts the reality of these images. Instead of being a single frame of a longer story, these photos create an atmosphere that develops its own story without needing to know what's happened before and what's to happen next.

The second favourite detail was the use of flowers. This is not something I was looking at before but now I can't seem to get it out of my head. Last year I based a lot of my work around the form of flowers (pressing them, using them in parts of my films). I don't think it's the safety of going back to something I know - I think I just feel like there's more I can say by using them within my photos. Choosing the right flower for an image is already its own journey. That's just an idea, but I thought I'd mention it. I realise this looks more like a jumble of words than anything else. My three current interests in the final portrait are lights, story and colours. I want to be able to tell an insightful story about the person in the photo, although I realise it might need to be fictional. I also want to try and set up the scene for the image because that is not something I get to do often as I'm usually more of a 'right moment and luck' person.

Here's the few photos I took with these things in mind:

At the same time, I'm trying not to forget about the idea of strangers and what their portraits can tell to the viewer. For this I looked at Philip-Lorca diCorcia's photography because I fell in love (rather creepily) with how he got such detailed, studio-like images without the people actually knowing they were being photographed (series Heads).

Unlike the pioneers of this movement, however, Philip-Lorca diCorcia works in colour, using a large-format camera mounted on a tripod. Choosing busy urban scenes in the great metropolises of the world, diCorcia installs flashlights in the field view which artificially illuminate certain parts of the picture. [..] Individual eleents of these colour photographs are accentuated by what seems to be stage or film-setting lightning, lending these completely normal urban situations a dramatic and synthetic character. [4] 

On a different note, I really enjoyed this book on diCorcia, so I also want to quote the start of a different paragraph:

I was recently having a few drinks in a pub. After my second or third beer I had reached that unusual state of mind which I very much enjoy beingin and which I would describe as a heightened visual perception of my surroundings. [..] It is precisely in this scenario, too, that I begin to perceive certain details - objects, gestures, facial expressions - with extreme clarity. [4] 

I do believe the tip there isn't to go out drinking but rather how our brain can sometimes write off the most unique of details in everyday setting because of how used we are to seeing them - and that sometimes we need something to give us a kick so we can see clearly again.

A while ago I also had the opportunity to create a piece for OXO Bargehouse in London. It was a journey from absence to presence, as well as getting from a first impression to an overwhelming amount of detail.

Even for these photos my absolute favourite detail was the light on the floor, interrupting the simple contrast between light and dark. I'm struggling to explain why precisely it makes me feel like there's more to the picture than just a subject but I don't think I've yet come to a sensible conclusion.

The final photos are once again two examples of where I regretted not having my camera on me as I realise they are not necessarily good images but I enjoyed taking them 1) because of the simple colours of greens, yellows, whites and browns, as well as how the light and shadow met on my friend's face; 2) the unusual and unrealistic pattern of artificial light, and the style of the strangers in the picture. I just thought I'd leave them here as I did enjoy them so perhaps they can inspire me in what I want to do next.

Bibliography:

[1]  Berg, Stephan. Hochleitner, Martin. Siegel, Katy (2005) Gregory Crewdson: 1985-2005. Berlin: Hatje Cantz

[2] Lethem, Jonathan. Spector, Nancy. Harris, Melissa (2013) Gregory Crewdson. New York: Rizzoli

[3] Sante, Luc. (2001) Heads. London: Thames and Hudson

[4] Weski, Thomas, diCorcia Philip-Lorca (2000) Streetwork. Hannover: Sprengel Museum Hannover

layers of dream

shizuka yokomizo

Anonymity. It's almost impossible in this day and age when everything can be traced back to you and everyone can be followed. You can find out what a person likes just by typing in their name and looking at their profile. Obsession. Loss of individuality. Voyeurism. Worshipping. It's insane that we choose to put ourselves out there in such a pure form that a stranger can learn about who we are by simply looking at a screen. That's the initial reason I decided to look into Shizuka Yokomizo's work.

She plays with the idea of who a stranger is.

How would you define a 'stranger'? Up until now I'm fairly certain I would've imagined someone I've just met and haven't been introduced to. Someone I've not talked to.

For Yokomizo a stranger is someone she will only see once for ten minutes through a window. Someone she knows nothing about. Her strangers are blank canvases she's chosen by the accidental happenstance of them living in the houses she's sent a letter to. She doesn't know who they are yet she's bold. She allows them to take part or to refuse. She never meets them. There's nothing but the images capturing this 'meeting' from afar.

The six portraits from 'Stranger' series:

With our personal worlds shaped by relationships of differing degrees of intimacy, the idea of a stranger interested me for being one of non-intimacy almost by definition. ^[1]

Born in Japan, Yokomizo moved to England in '89 to study graphic design but soon realized that she wanted to pursue photography and film instead. The 'Stranger' series developed after Yokomizo took photographs of her friends asleep in their rooms (series 'Sleeping'). She liked the idea of mental and physical distance which then lead towards the exploration of the relationship between an artist, a subject and the viewer.

The division between public and private has changed massively over this time period for many reasons. And taken as a whole, this is much more significant, I think, than cultural differences. ^[3]

All of the people in the 'Stranger' portraits have an important role - to be themselves. There are no other connections, nothing else that can tell the viewer - or even Yokomizo herself - what's going on behind the scenes, and no one else can dictate what the image should look like and how it should be composed.

I think that's the most mesmerising fact of all - these people chose to welcome a stranger into their homes. Even the window is no barrier as Yokomizo requested the people to look into the camera for ten minutes straight, meaning she and the people held eye contact for quite a long period of time.

When I first looked at these images, I didn't see much. I only saw the colours, the lights and the aspect ratio (which are wonderful! I really like the photo that's quite cool in comparison to the warmer ones. I also like how the aspect ratio gives the subject a space but doesn't show us too much). The technical side.

But the longer I looked, the more I felt like I knew who these strangers were. And that's incredible. I'm at a loss for words. That's a phrase that can be thrown around quite a bit but it's difficult to explain the connection I feel to those images. Perhaps my mind's straying too far off the topic but I think that the photos that tell a real story are the most valuable ones.

The most interesting thing is that when asked to cite her inspirations, Yokomizo says she's passionate about Keith Haring, Gilbert & George and Joseph Beuys. She says that what she creates now has come from what she's learnt and the way her perspective has changed. Some people are their own inspirations, I suppose.

Bibliography:

[1] Yokomizo, Shizuka (2002) Shizuka Yokomizo. Milano: Electa

[2] Yokomizo, Shizuka (1999-2000) Stranger. At: http://www.shizukayokomizo.com/6/4592958791 (Accessed on 3/10/17)

[3] What are you looking at? (2010) Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera. At: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/what-are-you-looking (Accessed on 2/10/17)

rgb & the wonders of light

The reds of daylight, the greens of a sunset and the blues of a twilight. It was without intention that I took these photos with a now rather obvious running theme of colours and sunlight. It was very recently that I finally understood just how closely photography is linked to light. 

I have always been aware of the importance of it - one cannot be oblivious if they make a pinhole camera or spend enough time getting to know a film camera - but I've never really thought about just how much good lights can enhance a simple digital photograph.

The realisation started with this image that I took:

This is truthfully one of my favourite photos I've ever taken. Perhaps even my absolute favourite. I can't believe just how lucky I had to be to walk past this exact cafe at the exact time the sunlight was illuminating this man who just happened to be the perfect subject for this photo with his copy of Joseph Connolly's Style in his hands. Suddenly it's low two-out-of-five star review doesn't even matter because it seems flawless in this setting.

Even more recently I went to Brighton to see some of the musicians that have inspired me over this past year. Jack and I happened to wander along the beach and visit the Brighton Pier just as the sun was beginning to set. I didn't think much of it until:

At that moment I regretted not having a camera on me. I loved the fact that the artificial light was so strong and prominent yet you could look through the windows and see the beach and the outline of the houses on the seafront. I'm thankful for this serendipity.

This is what I adore. Happy accidents. As of now I can't see myself taking any portraits inside a studio because I've only just discovered how light can speak through photographs and I think I'd like to focus on capturing that. On top of that, this week I also discovered how wonderful it feels to take a step outside my comfort zone by talking to strangers and taking their portraits. It was refreshing, and I think I'd like to explore that idea a little further which is why I'm now researching the Stranger series.