Assignment 2 – Photographing the Unseen – ideas, planning and research

Photographing the unseen
Start by doing some reflecting in your learning log. What kinds of subjects might be seen as un-photographable? How might you go about portraying them using photography?  List a few examples of things you’re experiencing now or have recently been thinking about. This doesn’t have to be too in-depth or revealing, but it can be if you want. Equally, it might be something as apparently trivial as how you’re going to fit everything into your busy day. At first you may come up with literal examples, but the more you think about them the more those ideas will develop into specific and more original ones. 
Make a list of at least seven ideas. Try and keep to things you have a personal interest in or curiosity about. Keep a notebook with you at all times and make notes when ideas strike you as interesting. (This is good practice for all stages of the degree and beyond.
Ideas books are something to be revisited time and again for ideas and hints for the photographer you’re becoming.)
Now implement one of your ideas. Aim for a tightly edited and visually consistent series
of 7–10 images.

So here’s the reflecting in my learning log 😉

I was immediately drawn to this one of the two options and did keep my notebook with me at all times.  In fact it’s amazing how many times, I woke in the middle of the night and added something to it.

What kinds of subjects might be seen as un-photographable?

  • Connections (between people or environment) you can place a person within an environment or next to another person, but it’s very difficult actually capture the emotional connection between the two things.
  • time – you can photograph the effects of time on a person or object but how do you capture time or the concept of time itself.
  • Memories – 
  • Emotions / feelings
  • thoughts
  • touch
  • dreams
  • ideologies – religion / politics
  • sound
  • absence
  • love

most of these things are things that are experienced by a person within by your senses.

Fraenkel Gallery 2013 – The unphotographable [accessed 02.01.2019] 
The Unphotographable, s an interesting article about an ambitious exhibition exploring the history of that which cannot be photographed. A lot of these images are abstracted and distorted, does this imply that to represent something unseen, it has to be unrecognisable. they are said to represent sound, absence and love.

Touch – this is the one that really interests me – I’m really drawn the idea of trying to capture how it feels to touch something.  Not photographing the act of touching an item but trying to represent how it feels.

The video I found here about photographers trying to represent food they were eating blindfolded.  The results were really different and very interesting.

using your senses to create an image

As photography is a visual medium and I want to create a visual representation of the feeling, it seems logical to remove the visual element of my senses and try to create an image that is inspired by touching something.

My idea is therefore to ask 10 different people to give me an object to touch whilst being blindfolded.  I will write a brief and ask people to help me. I will expand on this more in a separate post.

Assignment 1 – Two Sides to the Story

Create at least two sets of photographs telling different versions of the same story. The aim of the assignment is to help you explore the convincing nature of documentary, even though what the viewer thinks they see may not in fact be true. Try to make both sets equally convincing so that it’s impossible to tell which version of the images is ‘true’.

Real Corners Reconstructed

I have understood this brief to be about how I as a photographer consider my work, the approach I take and how I convey that to the viewer.

Real Corners Reconstructed is an exercise in what is real and what is not.  Focusing on mundane street corners that people pass everyday, I have taken a series of images in and around Littlehampton in West Sussex. I have then used these images to create a second set of composite images, ‘reconstructing’ the corners in order to test whether they are distinguishable from the real ones.  They are presented on double sided postcards without title or comment so that the viewer can make up their own mind as to the validity of each image and to which set it belongs. Here on the blog, they are shown randomly.

Planning and Research

In researching for this assignment, I was struck by the fact that Dorothea Lange was given a ‘list’ of scenes to capture and wondered about the ‘truth’ of the images that were published.  Her photo  ‘Migrant Mother’ is acclaimed more for it’s aesthetic appeal than the story it told.  Today’s viewers are bombarded by imagery, do they even notice it’s ‘fake’? 

The idea for the street corners was inspired by Chris Dorley-Brown‘s ‘Corners’ series. I like the idea of not knowing what’s around the corner and it reminded me of an image by Guy Bourdin which I came across during the Expressing Your Vision course. I was also intrigued by Sarah Pickering’s Public Order series, where nothing is quite what it seems at first viewing.  This led me to the concept of reconstructing real street corners to create new views 

Approach

There were a number of things which needed to be considered for these images. The corners needed to be shot with the same depth of field (f/8) so that they were easier to match, they also needed to have similar sized buildings or areas that could easily be masked and the angles needed to align.  Shooting on days that were grey and overcast meant that the light was flat and defused which meant that shadows and time of day were less important.

Selecting Images that could be used for the composites was quite instinctive and I had an idea when I took them, which they might marry up with.  This didn’t always work as getting the perspective right was probably the most difficult thing to get right in photoshop.  Below is an example where it just didn’t work.

an example of an image I couldn’t the the perspective right in

Contact sheets can been seen here

to read the Technical Information Sheet click here –  (spoiler alert: don’t read this until you’ve made your decision as to which images are real and which are reconstructed)

Reflection

To obtain some feedback on this idea I gave a copy of the prints to my family during a family get together and some of my work colleagues.  I was actually surprised and pleased by the level of conversation it generated between the people in the room.  Those that knew the area found them a bit ‘freaky’ because even they were getting confused about which were real and which were reconstructed.  In the end they were all trying to examine them in detail trying to work it out.  No one actually got every set right. I found getting feedback as I was developing the idea very useful and definitely helped me improve my approach.  As a result I changed the presentation and amended a couple of the images.

I am very happy with the concept and I think the images work well as a set but I think I might like to introduce a greater variety for the final set. I do feel that I have met my own brief on considering my work, the approach I take and how I convey that to the viewer.

Assessment Criteria

For this assignment, I have demonstrated the following points:

  • Demonstration of technical and visual skills – Materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills. 
  • Quality of outcome – Content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas. 
  • Demonstration of creativity – Imagination, experimentation, invention. 
  • Context – Reflection, research, critical thinking.
References and Links

Assignment 1 – Technical Information Sheet

Camera and Settings

All images were taken using a Nikon D810 Camera with a Nikkor 18-35mm 1:3.5-4.5 AF D Lens at f/8 to ensure consistency of depth of field.  IOS and shutter speed varied depended on exposure, but tried to keep ISO the same and wanted to match images.

All images to were taken handheld at my eye level in  order to maintain plain of field for photo merging and were taken on different days in December 2018.

Editing

The images were edited in Adobe Lightroom:

  • Basic – profile converted to ‘Camera Standard’, highlights and shadows adjusted, vibrance decreased
  • Detail – Luminosity adjusted
  • Lens Correction – adjust to Nikkor lens
  • Tone curve added to some images to brighten them
example of Lighroom editing screen
Image set 1 – The Real Corners
Image set 2 – The Reconstructed Corners

All of the images were composited in Photoshop, using layer masks, cloning and tone curves. Details of how each image was constructed are listed below:

Image #2 was created using images #1 and #8 using the left side of. The colour of then end of the building was changed and the roof of the one building extending to create corner building.

Image #5 is a mirror image of image #8, but with all the signs reversed so that the writing is the right way round.

Image #6 is created from images #14 and #1 – In this image it was the background that was changed leaving the viewer to believe that the corner leads to a different place.  In testing this was the image that the majority of viewer got wrong.

Image #7  is created from two images below: One of the houses in the street was replaced with one from another corner.

Image # 9 was created from from the two images below.  Leaving the traffic lights was deliberate in order to try and bring  images together.  It also required a bit of perspective warping to try and get the perspective right. I have to confess that the ‘original’ image is also not original as I added the lady crossing the crossing from another image (Oops)

Image #10 – used two images of internal corners. I also retained the car on the left to try and maintain the perspective.

Image #12 – This seafront appartment block sits quite comfortably behind this hedge on the corner. A reflection of a lamp post in one of the windows was removed as somone picked that up during my testing.  Otherwise this was one of the ones viewers got wrong.

Palestinian Protester

Captured on October 22 by Mustafa Hassouna of Turkey's Anadolu Agency (Getty Images)

This image just came up in my facebook feed: it was taken just a few days ago by a photojournalist in Gaza, Palestine.  I think this demonstrates beautifully the distinction between photojournalism and art.

The image went viral on social media, such as twitter because of is likeness to a famous painting by Delacroix’s, Liberty Leading the People.

Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People

The first article I read about this focused more on the asethics of the image and likeness to the artwork than the real story and context in which this image was taken and that shocked me!

But having researched more, it seems that the argument about art versus reality is allowing other writers to push forward the realities of this very real modern day struggle.

Another article by the Independent argues that we should not be romanticising about this and gives a more balanced report.

The Aljazeera News told how Laleh Khalili, a SOAS University professor person, who posted the image on twitter also linked it to Delcroix’s painting generating agreement from other users and ‘creating the narrative’.

google search for Palestinian Protesters, showing less iconic images, which over more context and reality

Like Dorothea Lange’s migrant mother, the man in the image, Aed Abu Amro, may not personally benefit from this image, but he may indirectly bring the situation to a wider audience.

As it was reported that this idea of ‘liberty’ has been floated before in Gaza, one one wonders if like Lange, the photographer was sent out with list of images to get.  After all it is quite clear from the google search that many people carry flags whilst they are protesting!

Project 3 Exercise

Exercise
Find a street that particularly interests you – it may be local or further afield. Shoot 30 colour images and 30 black and white images in a street photography style.

In your learning log, comment on the differences between the two formats.
What difference does colour make? Which set do you prefer and why?

I found this a very interesting exercise.  I like black and white photos, but usually just convert them from colour.  So actually taking them in black and white gave it a new perspective.

In order to take photos in black and white I had to learn how to set my camera to Monochrome in the shooting menu and then because I use a DSLR,  I had to use the live view on the screen rather than the viewfinder, which obviously doesn’t change.

I chose this village street, because it had a number of different elements that I thought might be interesting. Ultimately though, the time of day and the lighting didn’t add much value to the images.

I decided to take the colour photos first and then take black and white ones, as I didn’t want to mix them up.  This turned out to be a good plan because as I had taken them in RAW, Lightroom subsequently converted them all back to colour when I downloaded them.

For the purposes of this exercise, jpgs would have probably been sufficient.

As it was a very ‘bland’ day, lighting and weather wise , the colour images are only enhanced where there are blocks of green or dashes of colour to lift them, but they do give a feel of the time of year and almost deserted streets.

The black and white images however, don’t offer the same information about time of year.  They could have been taken at any time.  I also found that they are much more structured and detailed.  There are not some many images of the trees and flowers and more of buildings and items where there is a greater contrast between the elements of the image.

 

I’m not sure I really have a favourite set of these images. They both do different things.  I think on balance I prefer the colour ones here.  Only because you get a better sense of time of year.