Tag: Eva Stenram

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Assignment 3 – pre-feedback reflections

It has taken me a long time from making these images to finalising the assignment for submission. I’m not sure if I really don’t want to have to put myself in the picture, or I wasn’t happy with the concept. Eventually though, I came to the conclusion that if I don’t submit the assignment and get feedback from my tutor, I’ll never improve them and probably won’t finish the course!!

In actual fact, I do like the set, it’s new thinking for me and very different to the two pieces of work I’ve already submitted, so in that respect it is a success.

Demonstration of technical and visual skills

In this assignment, I have used a variety of technical and compositional skills to capture the images. I wanted to show the shoes in the context in which I use them, so this required me to plan the shots for each pair of shoes and consider how best to compose them.

  • Images 1, 3, 5 & 9 were taken using a camera on an tripod with a timer and / or a remote control.
  • Images 2, 4, 8 & 10, are taken from my point of view
  • Images 2 & 4 are taken with an apple iphone, whilst the remainder were taken with a Nikon D810 dslr camera. I have edited them in a way that means it’s not obvious.
  • The images were all taken in a 2×3 format and have been cropped to a square format in photoshop.
  • I created a 3 x4 template in photoshop to mock up how the images would look on Instagram and had to remember to post them in reverse order, to achieve the layout I wanted.
  • A new Instagram account was created in order to display this work.

Quality of outcome

As I always intended for this set of images to be presented in a digital format on social media, I used my knowledge of the Instagram App to present the work in a way that I felt best displayed them as a set. The composition of each image was considered as an individual as well as part of the set. I am very happy with the subtle toning of the images and feel they work well as a set.

Demonstration of Creativity

My aim was to create a set of images that said something about myself, without giving away the whole story. Having reviewed other student’s responses to the brief, I feel that I have found an innovative and creative response. I do think I could expand on this and may continue to add images to the thread, ready for the final assessment. I haven’t yet explored other times of the day or even other seasons, when I may well wear different shoes, so this could add more to the story.

I have also shown creativity in the composition of the images, making the shoes the main focus of the image in some and incidental in others. I have also tried to vary the viewpoint and ensure that each image adds something new to the story.

Context

I have researched a number of photographers for this work, with particular interest in Eva Strenham’s idea of hiding part of the person in the portrait in order to make the viewer have to look at in more detail to make out what is happening. My images do tell a story, but are not particularly intimate, in the way that Elinor Carruci’s are. This issomething I would like to consider emulating in the future.

In posting them on Instgram, I am putting a bit of myself out there and also giving others the opportunity to comment. A fact I am both reticent and excited about!!

Although I am now waiting for Les’s feedback, at this point I am happy with the outcome of this work overall and what I have learned in making it.

Assignment 3 – Putting Yourself in the Picture – Shoes

Putting myself in the picture isn’t something I would usually choose to do! Part of the brief was to keep a diary which is something I’ve tried to do before, but have never succeeded in completing a whole year!! This time, I decided to take a different approach and bought myself a planning diary with lots of stickers.

Planning diary kept for this assignment

This actually worked quite well for a couple of months. In stead of writing reams, I was able to just write a line or a phrase and then set about choosing an appropriate sticker. This made the book look pretty and the snippets of information were enough to jog my memory. This was going ok until one day I realised I hadn’t written in it for a week! and there endeth the story of they diary!

I concluded that I really don’t find myself that interesting!

I considered my approach for this project would be ‘self-absented portraiture‘ as I don’t like being in photographs. However, I liked the idea of concealing myself and yet revealing myself through the use of a surrogate object.

In Eva Stenram’s drapes series she deflected the viewers gaze by covering parts of the women’s bodies, creating a scene that leaves the viewer without all of the answers and forces them to explore the image for further clues about the person. Like most people I am complex and multifaceted, but as an introvert draw my energy from within and therefore, don’t always show the ‘full me’ to many people.

I was very drawn to Elinor Carruci’s work which has a much more intimate feel. She is able to capture very graphic moments of life in a low light style using members of her family and herself. I really like this approach but didn’t feel that this would work for this project.

I have chosen to depict myself through a surrogate; my shoes. My aim is to give a glimpse of myself whilst giving the viewer the opportunity to explore the image for more clues. I have used natural daytime light to capture this set, so by that token focused only on my daytime activities.

In researching people using shoes in this way, I couldn’t find many, if any, examples. The majority of photographs of shoes are taken in order to sell them. Therefore, I wanted to make ‘real’ life photos with shoes that are worn in and being used. In some of the images the shoes are the primary focus of the picture, whereas in others, they are incidental in the image. In a few of the images, you are seeing the world from my point of view. On reflection, I think this is a good analogy of me.

We seem, these days, to think we know people because of the images they post on social media, this gave rise to the invent of the selfie and a trend of people posting hundreds of images of their face. But how much does this actually tell us about them?

I have chosen to present these images on Instagram because this is one of the most commonly used apps for sharing self-portraits. There are 12 images in this set, because this is the number of pictures you can see in a grid form on your phone when you click on someone’s profile. This is also why I picked the square format.

Below is a screenshot and a link to my Instagram page. I would like people to view them through this media and comment.

https://www.instagram.com/debsoca517222/

my research and planning can be seen here

click here to see the contact sheets for the assignment

my pre-feedback reflection and assessment criteria points can be read here

tutor report and post feedback reflections can be read here

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Assignment 2 – Feedback and Reflection

. . a thoughtful submission that fulfills brief . . .

Read Tutor Feedback report here

The first thing to say is that I again had a FaceTime conversation with Les, my tutor which I have come to really enjoy and find it so enthusing to be able to discuss and debate my ideas. Far from finding it daunting and worrying about any criticism I have learned that the conversation is really stimulating my thoughts and leading me to research places and people, I wouldn’t have found on my own. I so wish I’d started out doing this, because actually having those discussions really does help improve my work.

I also made the notes this time and submitted them for Les to amend and add references about photographers and artists we’d talked about. I’ll mention them later.

I think I ended up with more questions than answers from this assignment, but I don’t think that is a bad thing, quite the contrary. In all aspects of this assignment, I have had to discuss my objectives with people. From those that gave me items, to my husband who helped manage the process and to showing the final images to my tutor and others. If feels like a real collaboration and really helped me engage fully with the brief.

I am conscious that I mustn’t reflect and reminisce too much as I still have quite a bit of the course to complete.

I have set myself a goal to research each of the photographers, authors and artists that Les and Moira mentioned during the conversation and reflect on their link to my work for the final submission. I won’t however, attempt incorporate their ideas into Assignment 2. In stead, I think it will show better progression in my work if I incorporate it into subsequent areas of the course.

Research items:

http://lesmonaghan.blogspot.com/2016/12/who-would-want-to-be-face-of-poverty-in.html

Moira Lovell’s area of research

Stephen Bull’s – Photography p45, 67-70

Karen Barad’s On- touching – The Inhuman That therefore I Am (v1.1)

Phillyda Barlow, working with the idea of denial of touch.

Gillian Wearing’s – masks

Eva Stenram – Drapes