Feedback

I received more feedback from my class regarding my recent images of the decaying plant. 

I was told to look for more objects and i'm planning to take images of fruit/veg decaying and at the same time search for objects that are either from the beach or street that are decaying. 

A suggestion i was given which was to take the images on a black background to see if it gives a different effect. As still life painting and photographs have a tradition of the objects taken against a black background. And to see if it still looks anything like forensic photography still. 

I was also told to shoot in Raw to get better detail in my images.....

Finally i was told to research more artist related to my work such as Guy bourdin, Taryn Simon, Dutch still life, Irving Penn and Paulette Tavormina. 

Forensic photos

I have taken on board the information on forensic photography and have created my own using the style used. I used a dead decaying plant as I am focusing on decay in my work and used it as I was taking images of important evidence.

I am very pleased with the way the photos have turned out I'm happy with the focus in most and the detail. I edited them slightly to make it brighter and up the saturation but I'm not happy that the background isn't completely white and has shades of grey in.

 

 

 

 

Forensic Photography

I am just going to do a little background research into forensic photography. Here is a definition I found for forensic photography and I thought explained it very well. "Forensic photography, sometimes referred to as forensic imaging or crime scene photography, is the art of producing an accurate reproduction of a crime scene or an accident scene using photography for the benefit of a court or to aid in an investigation. It is part of the process of evidence collecting. It provides investigators with photos of victims, places and items involved in the crime. Pictures of accidents show broken machinery, or a car crash, and so on. Photography of this kind involves choosing correct lighting, accurate angling of lenses, and a collection of different viewpoints".

Taking image of the object like it says above has to be clear and show the object from every angle to show the object well. With bright lighting and colour to get the best image as possible.

"Crime or accident scene photographers usually capture images in colour but also in black and white. Colour pictures are generally preferred because colour may be an important aspect of the trace evidence.

Various forces and different countries have different policies in regards to 35 mm film or digital photography. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Conventional film photographs, even using disposable cameras, have a high resolution, enabling great enlargement should details in a picture need closer examination.

 Pictures from surveillance cameras are a growing source of evidence for courts, as are pictures taken by bystanders on mobile phones. The former are being used increasingly at accident black spots, and bystanders may take pictures of events when no police officer or investigator is present, but yet may be critical to a case."

I found this set of information interesting that the image are usually in colour and that I found colour had a better affect with my feedback from my class as they thought it showed the viewer more information. I also found it interesting that it talks about surveillance and how that can be used as evidence in a accident or crime.  

After recently doing work on surveillance in critical practice i wanted to refer to some things i learnt. In the lesson we read  "Louise Wolthers, self-surveillance and virtual safety". And i found it very interesting as it talked about a particular artist called Hasan Elahi and his web project called "Tracking Transience". The lesson  linked to the documentary lecture as for example Walker Evans watched the people and then recorded it. Another piece of work i found interesting which relates to surveillance is work by Sophie Calle. http://tiffobenii.wordpress.com/surveillance/sophie-calle/. Sophie very first work involved following people around Paris. She soon discovered that observing the behavior and actions of these strangers provided information with which to construct their identities. I think this is really interesting pieces of work how she had sat and watched people and observed there actions and picked a moment when to take the best image. Another piece of work which i am going to look further more into is work by Taryn Simon. Who takes images of objects that have been taken off people at customs. 

Here are some examples of forensic photography the pictures are taken fromhttp://www.deviantart.com/photography/?q=forensic+photography and http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=forensic%20photography. 

Feedback

I received very important feedback from my group who gave me advice and asked me questions about my work. I found it very helpful as the questions made me think where I want to take my project .

The advice I was given firstly was - Take a look at 20th century still life. Which I am going to look at the work done than and take a look at other centuries of work and see if their is a comparison.

I was asked - At what scale would you print your work at the end of the project? After discussing the work the class thought on a large scale to make comparison to how small the object is as the metal pipe was small.

When showing the class the images of the metal rust pipe there was a class discussion about the images. One pupil said they didn't know what the object was and to my amazement I never realised that they wouldn't know what it was as it is zoomed in so much. I got suggested taking the work a different angle and doing images of objects that the viewer wouldn't know what it was as it was so close up.

I got asked questions such as, where did you find the object? and I explained I found it on the beach where I live and the class came up with maybe taking the pictures of the pipe where you found it. Or taking an image in its environment and than take it into a studio and show the pictures next to each other. Which I thought was an interesting idea that I might explore.

Furthermore I got told my pictures looked like forensic photography and I was amused by this idea and wanted to find out more. So I am going to look at focusing on forensic photography and seeing what I think to incorporating it into my idea. Also when showing my photos of the rusty pipe which where in black & white and colour I got told they prefer the coloured version better as it shows more detail and helped the viewers at first work out that the object was by the orange rust. They said to get as much detail I should take the image in colour and I agree also as it will add more depth to my photos.

 Photography Visit

Recently I visited an exhibition in London, The exhibition was The Sony World Photography Awards 2013. Here is a link to the website http://www.worldphoto.org/about-the-sony-world-photography-awards/. The exhibition was held in Somerset House in London. During the walk around the exhibition one piece of work really stood out for me in particular and this was the work by Vanessa Colareta. Her work was focused on still life I found the images had such an atmosphere to them and a story to tell. Here is a link to her website http://vanessacolareta.com/. After looking through many of her photos online after the visit I was inspired to experiment with this style of work. Vanessa Colereta won the still life award and I want to show some photos she entered into the competition and why.



 

 Here is some of the photo Vanessa entered after researching her work I found some very interesting background information to her work.

She uses this quote along side her work  "Through the analysis of food in different cultures one can find socially relevant cultural historical evidence" Elisabeth Hartung, "The Art of Eating"
She believes this quote and relates this to her work. The album on her web page called "Migrant" is images taken in Spain and she describes these images.
" Migrant" uses still life to talk about a current event: the migration of women in Spain. This work is inspired by the symbolism of the still life of Spanish Golden Age to photographically represent hybrid social processes such as globalization and migration. 

I found it interesting that she was inspired by the symbolism of still life in the Spanish golden age which was at the time of 1492-1659 and was "a time of extraordinary artistic flowering" They contributed to art, music and literature which is still used and studied today.  Here is an example of still life art work by Francisco De Zurbaran. (1598- 1664) . The paintings of still life is very similar to the photographs of the work by Vanessa but in my opinion still life all does look very similar anyway it has particular rules I think for example objects lined up on a table it seems like. I wanted to look up what the actual definition of still life is. The response it gave me was

-portrayal of something inanimate: a representation of inanimate objects such as fruit, flowers, or food, often in a domestic setting, in paintings, pictures, or photographs. In my opinion the definition is absolutely right all image painting of photographic are in an intimate small space with different objects.


Here is two more photos of the work by Vanessa.

The reason I have added this information about me visiting the exhibition in London was because I wanted to incorporate it into my current work. I am looking at objects that are decaying and want to do images of them using the still life definition.

 

 

Extra Photos

 

Finally I took more images but at different angles than the other photos I have added to the blog. The other images of the pipe was taken at a high angle looking down on the pipe itself using a tripod.

With these photos I have taken them using no tripod and got down next to the pipe so it gives a more three dimensional affect.

I still used depth of field to focus the detail on an area but there not as close as the other images are regarding distance taken.

 

 

 



Black and White

I edited the images of the coloured pipe on photoshop and turned it to black and white to see if it still gave the same effect as the coloured version.

In my opinion I do like the black and white photos as I think it gives a abstract feel to the photo but it is difficult to work out what it is but does give the impression of abstract work or forensic photography. 

 

Rusty Pipe

 

I found this pipe (below) on the beach. I found the detail of the rush fascinating and wanted to capture the components texture and colour in the photography.

I took the pipe away from the beach and took the photographs against a white background to make the darkened areas stand out.

I used harsh lighting to really make the detail clear and used a macro setting on my camera to really show this too. I used depth of field to only highlight certain parts of the pipe. The parts I wanted the viewer to focus on, as I thought it would narrow down even more what the viewer got to see. Furthermore I  photo shopped the photos slightly to enhance the white background more and the colour of the rust. I cropped some of the images too as some have masses amount of white background and I liked it to look filled out in the frame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Introduction

My idea for this first term is quite broad, I have a few ideas relating to still life and forensic photography. I am unsure yet to which direction I will take my project. I am going to start my blog by showing some photographs I have taken which started my whole ideas off.