FMP Week 6

Weekend
Did my final shoot for the second image of Mae, it was quite hard to get the hair looking right so we decided in the end to cover it mostly with flowers- I think after some touching up in Photoshop it should look fine. I think I definitely need to be more invested in planning the hair beforehand as it is a very important part of the image. After we had shot the pictures I needed we made use of the makeup and the sun outside and did a few more shots just for fun of fairies in the wild. Shooting outdoors is great because it allows much more room for spontaneous ideas and inspiration because of the environment you're in. It differs a lot from being stuck in a studio, but of course then you can meticulously plan your photos and lighting which yields a different kind of result.

Tuesday-
Did more editing and had a conversation with Tom. We had a pretty long conversation about what I wanted to say with my art. He brought up the fact that I shouldn't just be regurgitating what I hear in the media etc but actually show my own views- something that really makes me tick. I had a think about it and I came up with this:

In fact I'm not really going to go in to details as the reason I'm a photographer is to communicate through imagery and not through writing this blog post! I tried to write it out many times but it just felt kind of wrong and wasn't me, the short story is I got thinking about my real motives for this project and I'm now considering that while editing these images.

Wed/Thurs-
More editing today- now I'm getting so far into it I'm starting to be less happy with the images. Perhaps I'm overdoing it or heading down the wrong path? I will talk to the tutors again tomorrow.

Friday-
Talk with Othello and Chris- realised I need to reshoot with a simpler concept. Othello was saying he really liked my 'Bleed' and 'Flightless' images for their simplicity in visuals and concept. I decided to look through my Pinterest board where I save all of my inspiration and noticed that most of the pictures I've pinned recently are simple, delicate portrayals of the female form. I then got sketching and came up with the idea to put the gold liquid like I had for the 'Flightless' image on the female form in different positions- and no extra frills. I think this should work much better and raise more questions. Luckily Ailsa is free to shoot over the weekend, so fingers crossed this goes well!

FMP Week 5

Tuesday-
Today was a tube strike so I decided to stay at home and get on with editing the picture of Ailsa and the flowers. It took quite a while to fake all the skin where her bra originally was, I think if I'm going to keep doing more of these nearly-nude photos then perhaps I need to find another model who would be comfortable showing a bit more as it would take forever if I had to do this on every shoot. I think it's okay for now though. I had to add in a few extra flowers to cover up her chest a bit more as during the shoot it was quite hard to balance the flowers around there. I used the same drip photos as before to add some coming out of the flowers on her chest.


Wednesday-
I had originally planned another shoot with Ailsa to possibly get a 'fairy in natural environment before everything went wrong' picture but the weather was not that great so we decided to postpone it until the weekend. I could have shot the images but I wouldn't have gotten the lovely speckled sun coming through the trees.

Friday- Today I went back to the Natural History Museum to get a cleaner, sharper picture of the cicada wings to possibly use on the current picture. I also popped in to the Science Museum to look at pipes/steam powered contraptions. I had ideas to possibly put some pipes and machinery at the edge of the picture to look like Ailsa was lying on some sort of steampunk operating table, I'm not super sure about this idea- it could be too much.

FMP Week 4

Tues-

Today I had a jam-packed day of gallery visits. I first went to the Barbican to see the current installation 'experience' they had at the moment, I wanted to see how other artists were engaging their audiences. When I entered the room it was completely dark and I instantly lost my sense of direction, but as my eyes adjusted I could see faint lights in the distance. As I walked towards the lights I could make out the silhouettes of other people in the light, there were also faint sounds coming from the lights, the swinging of the lights was mesmerising, I could go on. Basically, it was pretty great experience that successfully captivated me and transported me to another world- I could definitely take a leaf out of this book.

Next I went to the Ronchini to go see some photography, I have to say this experience was far less exciting and immersive as the Barbican. The shop front was really the only redeeming feature, it was completely filled with on of the photographer's images which was nice and invited you in. When I got inside things weren't as great, everything was very squashed together in a very small space and there was an office space that was practically merged with the gallery space. There also wasn't enough interesting detail in the images to actually warrant seeing them in full size, to be honest I got exactly the same experience just viewing the same images on the website! The one funny thing was that this gallery was situated just off Oxford St and if I'm honest the clothing stores were a much better experience than the gallery!

Wed-

Today I did a shoot with Ailsa- this one was quite experimental. We tried out different poses that were inspired by sculptures I had seen at the V&A, it was quite hard to get it right when using an actual human with all the inflexibility, kinks and bulges of a human body. In the end we opted for a simpler pose which wouldn't squash or contort any part of the body, in the end it turned out to be quite effective. One challenge I had to overcome was the trouble with getting the angle of view right when taking a picture straight down, also the challenge of fitting most of Ailsa in the frame without going too wide angle. I managed to stand right on the top of a ladder positioned at her knee level and stretched my camera out to her chest level, pointed straight down to avoid enlarging her lower body. I used a 35mm (50mm eqiv.) lens to get adequate compression for this type of shot. We took shots of the flowers separately for each part of her body to multiply the few flowers I had so they could cover enough of her body.

Thurs-

Edited 'Bleed' image, main shot would be 3/4 length- but I liked the framing of this shot with central focus on flowers. Had good idea with running paint when I had time to sit down with the images. I often find myself coming up with new ideas after I've finished the shoot.

Shot paint running down my arm and shopped it in.

Friday-
Today we had interim assessments but instead of being assessed by tutors we did peer assessments. I was put with Alice and Greta, both of whom had very different projects. When I was looking at Alice's work I noticed her sketchbook was very in depth and she had done a lot of research into psychology and other theoretical things. I could definitely take a leaf out of her book in that area, I don't think I work in quite the same way as her but I can definitely be inspired by her process. It was quite helpful having the crit with Alice as she had strong research but weaker experimentation while I had strong experimentation but weaker research- we swapped tips. Greta had an interesting project. She was creating a website, which is all fine and dandy, but she was in the Lens Based pathway so we weren't too sure how this fit. She was also focusing more on the coding side rather than the design side, we gave her some advice that she might need to focus a bit more on the design as that's what will actually be marked- fingers crossed she did some good design stuff after that!

FMP Week 3

Day 1-
Today I finished editing my image titled ‘Vulnerable’ which was one of the spur of the moment shots from the shoot with Ailsa. I often find that a lot of good ideas come when I least expect them- I should remember to not get too hung up on necessarily meticulously planning everything in advance and leave some room to be freely creative.

One thing I had to tackle while editing today was the fact that initially your eye was lead to the top of the frame to the dress as it was the brightest point; I wanted the viewer to instead be drawn to the flowers at the bottom. I tried various ways of drawing attention to the flowers, initially I created a glow behind the flowers but that ended up just washing the flowers out. What ended up working was increasing the saturation in the flowers as your eye is not only drawn to the brightest and biggest element in the image but also the most saturated. I learnt this concept in Lindsay Adler’s posing video, it will be especially handy when I come to do more busy compositions.

When I initially exported the image to upload online I did my standard thing of raising the black levels to give the image a more painterly feel but after looking at similar images with deeper blacks I decided I might have been taking too much black out. I uploaded a few different versions and I eventually settled on a version where the blacks were still raised but to a lesser degree than before. The image with pure black was just a bit too modern-looking for my liking.

Easter Weekend- 

Shot 'Scandal of Grace' playing off the same theme as my gold fairy tears/blood
You could look at the Easter story as being similar to my story of the fairies, they are innocent but yet abused- just as Jesus was.

FMP Week 2 (Creative Making)

Tuesday-

As I was away on the first day I joined a group who had already been doing stuff, they were looking at fear and blindness. I suggested that together fear and blindness could be similar to claustrophobia. We discussed various ideas for environments that might make you feel this way. We then decided as it was quite hard to just pluck an idea out of thin air we would see what materials we had to work with. When we looked at all the materials and objects we had it became a lot easier to put together an idea around the theme. Perhaps if I’m stuck for ideas in future I could carry out a similar exercise where I challenge myself to make something out of a set of materials or using a particular location or theme- often putting limits and constraints in place can spark creativity.

Friday- Crits

When looking back on this week I have now learned a few things about installations and, with my project hopefully ending up in a physical gallery space, gave me some good ideas to start looking in to. We noticed various things such as the fact that the mask worked very well as people walking past were curious to look through and how that the experience could be much better if we affected multiple senses (using music etc).

This was not a final piece by far but a good experiment to lead to greater things.

The way that we arranged the rope with the wings suspended in between gave me an idea of a fairy with shattered wings, once beautiful but now mistreated and broken. This translated into a new shoot idea involving gold paint symbolising blood where wings used to be- bringing up the exploitation/torture again.

Chris suggested to look in to stereoscopic photography- could be a way to immerse viewers in my world more; I shall need to investigate ways of practically achieving that.

Weekend-

I planned a shoot today to respond to the initial ideas that I got from the creative making week. When I woke up in the morning it was the usual case of worrying whether my ideas would work or were good enough, luckily when Ailsa arrived things went smoothly. I am finding that no matter if I have a fantastic idea beforehand or not the pressure of having someone round to do the shoot usually kicks my mind in to creative mode, the best thing to do before a shoot is probably get a good night’s sleep. I remember watching an interview with Gregory Crewdson where he said that there wasn’t a morning where he woke up before a shoot and didn’t feel sick to his stomach about whether things would go to plan.

Today’s shoot was interesting as I was working with more bare body and human form than I usually do- it forced me to think about posing and posture in regards to the spine and shoulder blades as they would be important to get right in the image. I had just watched a tutorial series on posing essentials with Lindsay Adler on creative live; she brought up many useful points on foreshortening, negative space, camera angles etc. I tried to put some of these tips in to practise and I reckon it worked well as I had to tweak what I initially though would be a good pose on paper as it initially looked like Ailsa was an amputee as you could only see her back but not her limbs.

After we had got the shot that I had planned for we decided to experiment with some other shots, especially of Ailsa’s legs. We did a shot where she exposed the majority of her legs which when paired with the delicate folds of the wedding dress showed a sense of innocence and also vulnerability which I definitely want to show in this project.

Before/After

Crop experiments

Edited Plan- 

My first plan was unrealistic and also disrupted by the Creative Making week so I have decided to come up with a new plan


Week 3
- Research and experiments
Week 4
- More research and experiments, get ready for final images
Week 5
- Finalise exact images to shoot and shoot them. Start editing
Week 6
- Finish off editing and print final images. Final research for gallery space
Week 7
- Set up gallery space and finish!

Holiday

I spent a lot of time over the holiday playing the classic Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the N64. This was a game that really changed the face of gaming and inspired many amazing titles that have come since it was released. It is still today regarded by many as the best game of all time.

It is set in an ancient and forgotten past in which you play as Link, a small boy, on which the fate of the kingdom rests on. After you spend a while playing the game it becomes so easy to lose yourself in the loneliness and emotion in the story. The game starts out as quite lighthearted and adventure driven but after a turning point in the story it quickly turns into a very dark, haunting experience.
'Strengthened by a rich, surprising realism in-spite of its cartoon definitions, its dark half, a sinister overtone of dread and pathos, paints Hyrule under a canopy of rainy graveyards, masked cadavers, and the damnation of the Shadow Temple; notable for its leaden guillotines and the corpse figurehead embellishing its River Styx ferry.'- Eurogamer
The amazing thing is this was all done with very limited graphical capabilities as it was one of Nintendo's first forays into 3D games.

The game world is very diverse, as Eurogamer states 'Hyrule is a snow globe of pockets requiring your attendance at their far-flung reaches, a broad ecosystem encompassing woodland elfin Kokiri, rock eating mountain Gorons, and capitalistic humans bartering every trinket they can lay their hands on. It's a world with an exclusive fantasy certificate, combining Celtic, Tibetan, Medieval, Egyptian, and Greek mythology for its armoury, temples and monstrous dungeon keepers'

Perhaps I could incorporate different races and elements in my project to flesh out the world I want to create?

Experimenting with magic triangle inspired by the triforce from Legend of Zelda. The triforce is representative of the power of the gods in the games, it is plastered all over the royal castle, on armour and also imprinted on the princess's skin- that's where this idea came from. I wanted to make it emit light as though something has activated it, perhaps it is some sort of distress beacon?

I had a trip to the aquarium and natural history museum to get some stock images of fish, animal, rocks and other stuff that I can use in composites if I need to. I can imagine incorporating some of the fish tank interiors into magical environments.

I also carried out various outings to Ashtead park to find some nice, natural locations to shoot my photos.

I did shoots with Mae and Ailsa experimenting with more adventurous makeup and beauty editing to continue on from my success with the 'Flower Girl' image.

I used the triangle concept in my shoot with Mae, I wanted to show someone who had been using the magic powers for evil and it was slowly consuming them.
This shoot was quite hard to pose properly as the makeup we had done was not exactly made to look flattering so I had to do a lot of tweaking in Photoshop. I think if I did the shoot again I would ask Mae to not make her lips/cheeks so loose as I had to do some clever liquifying to make the skin look a little tighter.

'Tainted Heart' Before and After

 I did a shoot with Ailsa inspired by the fairy fountains in the Legend of Zelda games. The makeup was particularly inspired by the Zora race. This time I didn't use the triangle but decided instead to use gold makeup (originally green as I couldn't make my mind up before the shoot) I found that the glitter we put on looks like tears- perhaps I could use this in my concept?

'Fairy Tears' Before and after

This led on to ideas about healing tears- perhaps the fairies are getting exploited? Are they being farmed for their healing tears?

This could challenge our ideas of what is human and what is not, should we treat these creatures like we treat other animals?

FMP Week 1

Week 1

Day 1-

 Initial thoughts and research about the theme, looking at the outfits and aesthetics of videogames I enjoy.

Day 2

Today I visited the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Britain.

The way that all the portraits were put together in pieced together in my mind the ‘world’ at the time; you could see people of different classes and nationalities, people’s job roles etc- I could almost imagine the whole collection translated to a fantasy world. I should explore this when deciding what images to include in my series and what

Tate Britain had a couple images that were very much my style- very detailed outfits with props and natural scenery. A couple of the images were almost uncannily similar to some photographers I admire now, it’s strange to think how old these paintings actually are. I should keep looking at paintings and other media as they may bring a broader range of ideas to my project as opposed to if I only looked at photography.

               

Shoot with Evie-

I did my first shoot with a makeup artist and also my first beauty-style edit which went pretty well although I noticed that I might have slightly overdone the reduction of shadows underneath the eyes in the edit. I reckon my first few beauty edits won’t be the best but I’ll keep practicing so that I’m ready for my final images.

               

Day 3- Crits

The crits today were very helpful, people suggested various references that I could look at. We also talked about using common words in our universe to mean something completely different in another, for example a fireman might be the person to create fires instead of put them out. This concept could be interesting as the viewer will see the word and think they know what it means, I can then turn it on its head and hopefully make people think.

The most important thing I took from the crit was the fact that I needed to concentrate on creating a really solid ‘event’ or ‘turning point’ that my project and this parallel world would pivot on, because without a strong story and meaning it will be hard to have successful visuals. I may have to alter my plans for the FMP as I don’t think I’ll be able to start shooting final images until I’m sure of my concept and story.