don't feed the wolves, they said, • but they are my thoughts and • i don't really want to starve because i •
am already empty everywhere else• and the complexion fades per day
This is a photographic replica of a human being, detached and dazed. These images are views and reflections, discreet and almost impossible for a human eye to see in real life. They're states of mind, and the feeling of unease, they're each other's compliments and they tell a story of a fight with our own thoughts and doings. The purpose of this series is simply to let you feel and assemble the scattered fragments.
These photographs were taken using thirty small, sharp mirrors, done over two days whilst the subjects were in a variety of moods (as I felt they shouldn't be fabricated and instead true to self) to portray a fictional story of a being, for lack of a better term, who finds themselves without control over their mind, thoughts, interactions. The poem is in five parts.
I: don't feed the wolves, they said,-
talks about fuelling our self-destructive thoughts and how that shouldn't be done
II: but they are my thoughts and -
they are a part of the person and their characteristics, so without them the person is incomplete
III: i don't really want to starve because i -
talks about how it's impossible to cancel out something that is within ones head
IV: am already empty everywhere else-
the feeling of confusion and disorientation that is so strong it makes one feel empty (of strong feelings)
V: and the complexion fades per day -
the person feels all over the place whilst to others it is unnoticeable
The five images to start with. I like unevenness of having an image in the middle that does not have a pair. From the five photos above, I have only truly decided on the three middle ones. The two on each end are not necessarily the strongest ones so I'm still planning to review this before making a decision.
The images tell a story within a poem, which I'm going to add as soon as the final photos are picked. Something I didn't really cover previously is just what I want from my series visually. Mind you, this might come across as rather artificial but I want to bring texture into my images through adding text with a pen (and maybe some paint). I realise this is risky because if I get something wrong, it's the print ruined, but perhaps quite stupidly that's what I want from the outcome. I want it to seem rough, like a note to myself. In the editing process for which I've used Lightroom I have played around with the tone curve and content of red, green and blue within the images, but most importantly I have added a small amount of grain.
Recently it's become an unusually controversial thing to add grain. Some say it's defying the whole point of it being digital. Some say it's overused, unnecessary, pointless. Some say it ruins the image.
And that's fair but the reason I add grain is because I am so sensitive to whether there is or isn't any. The grain reminds me of when I used to mix paint with spoons of sand to create a textured painting like Anselm Kiefer or Gerhard Richter. To me this digital grain is that little bit of sand, that small amount of dirt that makes the photo imperfect and flawed, and thereby touchable. This might just be me babbling nonsense but I am simply a fan of adding that pinch of texture.
And like I wanted to at the beginning, I have decided to crop the images in a different aspect ratio - 9:16. I still plan to mount them on a foam board, although I did initially consider using clips (this might be a useless excuse but all my lovely rode gold clips are packed away in the bottom box of the storage place where all my stuff is whilst in the process of moving.. so unless I can miraculously get a hold of them, it seems I'll have to stick with the good old board).
I was very upset because I couldn't think of a journey my images could portray, nor did I know what I wanted to achieve. Apparently my first idea was discomfort and so I pushed myself to come up with a list of visual changes I could use in my work which was my first mistake because that's what got me stuck.
It was only after Avery told me to spend some time consuming art did I find something that I was actually excited to try. I had bought those little triangle mirrors at the very start of January because their shape really stood out in a music video by Garrett Borns but I pushed this idea away because I felt it wasn't good enough to create a journey. But soon enough I also found this photograph by Erik Johansson called Impact (2016) and suddenly I knew what I wanted to do. The photograph is surreal but warm, and it focuses on the man standing in the middle of the image but because there's so much going on in the image, it almost takes the attention away from him. That's what stood out for me.
As a starting point, I carried my little mirrors with me everywhere, waiting for the perfect moment to shoot. Because I had been stuck for so long, I was suggested to think of the written part before I tried to do the photographs but I found that as soon as I took the first image, the text started forming in my head and helped me find a narrative. After that, I found it easy to just keep going.
I had a lot of fun using the mirrors because, as I found out, there were a lot of different things I could do with them. One of the most fun is actually this image below. It was difficult to take because even the smallest movement would ruin the alignment of the lens info and the eye but it remains one of my favourites simply to me this was the point where I started enjoying what I was doing.
From there on out the series formed themselves and I was left with the difficult task of combining images and merging them with text, although thankfully I already knew what I wanted from them. My other favourite was the fact that without a camera - without getting very close to the mirrors and having the right depth of field, all that could be seen was the shape of mirrors and not the portraits of the people.
the echo repeats itself in the quiet ambience of the house,
don't feed the wolves, they said,
but they are my thoughts and
i don't really want to starve because i
am already empty everywhere else.
the complexion fades per day and that
is all you see, oh darling,
in life nothing is but complex shards
of sobs in a cold stranger's kitchen
and walking miles to go in circles.
i will smile for you,
and they will smile for me,
and we will all smile
and sip on that tea for the wolves.
For the past few weeks I felt what I could only describe as a photographer's block. I had so many ideas but none of them seemed good. I didn't want to create anything at all. I had an idea to ask people about what was the reason for when they last cried (hence previous edited photos with blue shapes) because I kept writing poems about sadness. Then I wanted close ups - to get really close and personal. I also wanted two people within an image and to get them into each other's spaces.
But the reality is that I simply cannot create for the sake of creating. I know, I know, it's probably a silly thing to say. Surely as a photographer you learn to just create what you need to create.
Well.. I honestly don't think I can. I don't think I can create a deep, researched background for my photos before I take them. That was my issue this time around - I wanted to make something absolutely amazing, something I had previously never done. It's quite funny, really, because I didn't realise just how much I was forcing myself to do something I didn't really want to until Leah told me to stop and think before I just 'did things differently for the sake of doing something I don't usually do'.
Truth is I'm quite an awful photographer. Sometimes I simply cannot create. Most of the time I hate what I make, and the rest of the time I don't even try because it upsets me so much.
And then other times it just clicks. Like with the photos above of Jack and Morgan on the stairs. It was 8am, and the fresh snow covered the ground. The house was quiet but everyone was beaming with excitement, despite our usual mood of anxiety and stress.
Or the photo where I just dropped some mirrors on a table in a cafe and snapped a shot of Jack's reflection in them alongside a little bottle of milk. (I was too shy to ask the barista but I felt really happy and decided I want to take a collection of photos of coffee shop baristas)
Honestly I'm not too sure what I'm trying to say with all this except that I was very confused and frustrated, and now I'm not. In fact I realised I really liked the image of the mirrors because it sort of touched upon the idea of fragments of a person's face so I've decided to pursue this style.
In the previous post I mentioned that my mind was filled with countless ideas of the style I wanted my portraiture to explore. Perhaps unsurprisingly I found myself so overwhelmed by the stylistic ideas that I felt like I had some sort of a photographer's block - I felt like I couldn't take any photos until I figured out a meaning or a journey. It was almost like I refused to try until I had finally developed a final series in my head. To no surprise, that is a very nasty, worrying feeling.
So I did what I do best and took a train, met up with my friend and just kept snapping images until the battery of the camera died. Whilst I wouldn't say this in any way relates to my previous train of thought, I did try to keep in mind that for these series I wanted to push myself to do something I hadn't previously done.
And in this scenario that was me directing. Properly so. All of these images are wholly staged, including clothing and make-up. To my own surprise I found it very easy to tell Clio exactly what I wanted from her, something I never thought I'd be comfortable with.
The last two and the bottom image are my absolute favourites from this shoot. I directed Clio to use her hands and legs as if she was moving to Madeline Follin's Funnel of Love - a feeling of free flow and feather-like lightness. I also tried a low angle - something I never do as I usually aim for shots from above or on the eye level. I found out that it is actually something that I like. On top of that, I really like the use of reflection I had in the first two images so that is definitely something that keeps sneaking into my photography recently, so perhaps I could explore that some more.
In the end, I realised that sometimes a photograph doesn't need a deep, thoughtful meaning - sometimes it creates it for itself after it's been captured. I'm thankful I did this because I finally don't feel stuck. Instead I just want to see what else new I could try.
And not to forget, Lightroom and Photoshop were a big part of why I feel these images are such a success. They were all individually toned and coloured, and I played around with the levels of rgb hue and saturation. Afterwards I added a thin white frame around them in Photoshop.
The plan was simple. I was going to visit my friend and her roommate, and ask them to sit down in front of the camera. Little did I know that I would end up using toilet roll as a tripod and leaving the low-battery camera on for continuous shooting whilst my friend and I pretended to laugh at nothing (because the roommate was feeling too annoyed to accept the offer). And then at some point we actually started laughing (genuinely) and wouldn't stop until about 80 photos later.
So the hardest part was actually choosing images where the two of us didn't look like absolute bums, in disbelief of our bad jokes, and editing them to look somewhat nicely coloured.
I wasn't very certain as to what the starting point for my portrait series was going to be until I saw Martha Rosler's Make-up Hands Up. I had never really thought about how close I was to the subject in my images - only how far. In this image one can only see a part of the woman's face, filled with wonderful, warm colour.
This made me think about how for most of my images I only use an aspect ratio of 4x5 or 5x7, only occasionally wandering further and using 1x1. I like the length of the image, and I also love the fact that the whole of the person's face cannot be seen.
The square image on the lady's eye is also something that I find quite fascinating. It's black and white, it's larger than her eye, it's the main focus of this photomontage. And yet it is the fact that it doesn't belong within the image that makes it so important.
To me series means a narrative. It doesn't have to be a flow, it could be parts of a thought - but there has to be a connection. I've always adored things that are, for lack of a better word, aesthetic. I like my images to be similar in theme and colours, same in size, otherwise I feel like there is a disruption within what I'm trying to convey, and I feel uncomfortable with the outcome. I realise that perhaps this is something I could challenge with this series of portraits.
In the previous project I was particularly inspired by Yokomizo's series Dear Stranger, but one of my favourite photographers is actually someone who keeps a photo diary.
Jari Silomäki (born 1975) is a photographer based in Helsinki, Finland. His work captures scenes of nature and street, and intertwines them with news of the world. This is what spoke to me the most the first time I saw the images - the idea of simplicity and beauty merged with something that is so out of the artist's control.
I have always been interested in adding meaning to something seemingly unusual. I've always felt like photography allows me to capture what's going on in my head. I've always taken pleasure in imagining what soundtrack the drive through my hometown's forest would have, or what the voice doing the voiceover for my melancholic beach visits would sound like. What connected those was my need to show people how I felt - to create something so expressive that people would know and understand exactly how I felt. Everything around us has exactly as much meaning as we add to it.
'I woke up to Brexit. A moment after I took this picture the petrol can in my friend's hand exploded.'
'Warm July evening at the lake Kuivasjärvi. A moment ago a Malaysian airline flight MH17 was shot down in the east Ukraine.'
About two years ago I emailed Jari whilst he was travelling around Eastern Europe. I wanted to know what My Weather Diary meant to him. He replied by saying he wasn't ever looking for a 'good' image, instead staying true to himself by taking a single photo per day, one that he felt did justice to what he felt and also captured his thoughts. For him taking a photo has become a mechanical movement, a part of his life and that's what his series represent.
There are series that require more accuracy but in My Weather Diary it doesn't matter if there are flaws or mistakes on the surface of the image because that's what it is - a diary - and it doesn't need to be perfect. It's there to capture moments worth remembering.
Another photograph that really spoke to me was This Photograph is my Proof by Duane Michals. Similarly to Jari's photographs, the image itself doesn't necessarily hold as much meaning the first time you see it as it does when you look at it after reading the text underneath.
'This photograph is my proof. There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It did happen, she did love me. Look see for yourself!'
So with these in mind, I've currently come up with a bunch of ideas that don't quite link together just yet. I know I want to focus on doing more close-ups, and I want to experiment with the aspect racio of my images. I think I'm still interested in including text. Recently whilst in a shop I was looking at their prints of recipes (image on one side, recipe on the other) and this idea's been stuck in my head as well, refusing to leave.
On top of that, I made myself purchase a box of small, triangle-shaped mirrors and dried a bunch of flowers. The mirrors are in response to this video (at 00:21) by BØRNS and I can't really explain why but the shot of his reflection in this mirror - an object that everyone has in their homes - that is also uniquely shaped really spoke to me.
Similarly to this, I was also fascinated by this photo by Rupi Kaur. I feel like there's something really interesting about the idea of a poet being muted by something that they use as metaphors.
And lastly, a thing that's been echoing in my head since the lecture a few days ago - 'Imagination is stronger than reality.'
There's a lot going on in my head and I'm not quite sure where this one's going to take me.
