Artist Comparison

Steve McCurry

Colours of Cuba

What interests me most about this photo is the very contrasting and vibrant colour used, yet they are ironically sed in an environment that is unkept and looks dishevelled. The person in the photo is seen on the border between the 2nd and 3rd third, and due to them being a silhouette it is difficult to work out whether the person is walking towards or away from the camera. This makes the photo more interesting to me, and also creates contrast between the completely black silhouette and the colourful environment.

The photograph also gives a sense of isolation and mystery, with the person in the photograph being completely alone and shrouded in darkness. This imagery is one usually seen in horror or thriller films, and is used to help give the villain or a character a dramatic entrance or give them a sense of mystery, though in this context they seem to be an average person.

My photograph is fairly similar to The Colours of Cuba by Steve McCurry as both feature very unkept yet colourful environments (though mine to a lesser extent in terms of colour) and a single isolated person walking into the distance. 

The main difference between the two is that mine features a more modern and open environment, whereas The Colours of Cuba feels fairy enclosed, furthering the sense of isolation. s mentioned earlier, the colours in my photograph are less vibrant and more muted than the photograph taken by McCurry, despite there being more of them comparatively. The Colours of Cuba also feels a lot warmer than mine, manly due to the high saturation of colour, whereas mine seems quite cold and unpleasant.

Photograph Analysis

I think this photograph works well because of the variation in colour, and the distance the photo reaches. Without the larger buildings in he background it wouldn't have worked as well, as it would lack depth. I also like the perspective of the road and the buildings.

The photo feels very glom and unpleasant, due to the water drenched roads and the grey cloudy sky. The fact there are very few people walking around helps to give the feeling that its an unpleasant day, and everybody has chosen to drive.

The vibrancy of the colours contrasts with the dirty and dishevelled impression that the photograph gives. For an image like this a more common colour scheme would be dark browns and blacks, but instead theres orange, green, blue and red. This contrast in terms of colour and with the tone of the photo makes this really interesting to me.

The colours in this photo usually imply very different things to how they are used here, for example; green would usually be seen on plants and green grass, which would be associated with nature and summer. Blue would also be associated with clear blue skies, another common piece of imagery seen with photos during summer. Instead these colours are used in a busy photo taken in a built up and industrial environment, unkept by society and filled with our waste.

The bin bags being left by full up bins gives the feeling of a place thats been forgotten, with objects left to pile up forever.

The person walking alone down the run down and rain soaked street gives a sense of isolation. Despite the ranged colour palette it still feels lonely and cast out, sine it doesn't look to have been cleaned, and just felt to rot. The only things that are in good condition are the cars, which are also the only things that will only be there temporarily.

Its also ironic how he is wearng a high visibility jacket, and yet is completely alone, as if being ignored.

I like the contrast from the left to the right hand side of the street. Left being filled with shiny cars that have been cared for and cleaned, while the right being bare brick wall coated in graffiti, and a lamppost covered in stickers next to a pile of rubbish.

Due to the use of dramatic perspective, the image seems warped and abstract, almost as if its being sucked in. This gives the photo a sense of movement, and is fitting since the bridge is supporting a train track above. The photo almost looks like a painting in the sense that the sky is completely white, as if its part of a canvas that hasn't been painted on. I think this makes the photo looks really interesting, and it gives you some breathing room, unlike the other ones which are very full and have alot of detail crammed in.

The overgrown environment makes this photo stand out against the others, as the others focus more on the unkept and run down indstrial areas, while this on shows a glipse of nature reclaiming the environment.

Birmingham Trip Video - Version 1

The purpose of this video is to resent my final images for Documentary in a way that incorporates sound and the kind of atmosphere present in the photographs. The intention with the mix of audio is that it makes you fee like you're actually in the photograph. The audio for this was mainly recorded by me in Nuneaton town, though in this version there are some placeholder sound effects which i found on YouTube. These are to help me get a better idea as to what i need to record for the next version of the video.

The improvements i am currently woring on are:

Cut the duration of the nitial photograph in half, add a title showing the subject name and my name, lower the volume or change the audio around the photos with less people for something more ambient (no people in photographs - no people in audio), Quieten video at around 1:17 for a few seconds and replace with the sound of footsteps, have less cars / traffic audio around 2:02, add some train sound effects around the bridge photograph and add end credits - showing the source of the audio, subject name and my name.

Trip Planning

For the trip to Birmingham i plan to primarily take landscape photographs in the more industrial areas where there are factories and a lot of run down buildings. I find this sort of setting a lot more intriguing and i feel that i can take higher quality photographs if i focus on these sort of areas.

I'd also like to take photographs of large crowds of people, mainly by busy roads, from an eye level angle and from a high angle, looking down on crowds of people. I also think it would be interesting to try and capture large crowds or main roads using a low shutter speed, to show passage of time.

I plan to try and focus on areas that are fairly run down and unkept, as i feel that it would create more interesting photographs. I would also like to capture the busy streets aswell in order to create a contrast, as if its two completely different places combined into one.

Exhibition Review

During our trip we visited the Walsall gallery and looked around an exhibition of work by Mat Collishaw. 



I decided to analyse one of his photographs of crushed moths, as the amount of detail and the scale of them intrigued me. I like how they made something that we see as being so insignificant into a sight to behold. The colours were also very vibrant and strong, which contrasted very well with the black background.

The photograph looked almost like it was in space, and it was like a huge ship exploding, as all of the small pieces appear to be floating away with a completely black surrounding. This helped to exaggerate its size, and made me feel very small by comparison like our positions had been switched.

Another piece of worked that i looked at was of food. shot in low key lighting and with low saturation, and also high contrast. The use of these made the food look extremely unpleasant and as if it was off or mouldy. 

The meals are recreated meals which criminals have chosen while on death row, and serve as memorials for the dead. Though instead of the usual memorial which usually includes flowers and celebrating their life, instead the memorials are made to look extremely unpleasant and almost sickening. This is most likely because it reflects Matt Collishaws opinion of the people these photographs represent.

It is like a complete opposide to his photos of the crushed moths, as the moth photos almost act like memorials but are highly saturated with colour and are printed on an epic scale. They make something that is seen as so insignifant into a significant impact on the room they're in. Instead, with the photgraphs focusing on the meals, the memorials have impact due to the lighting and low saturation, making them look depressing - as if to focus on the impact those people had on the world instead of the people themselves, therefore the depressing look to the photograph. They almost emcurage us to look down on those people, rather than up at them, which is the case with the crushed moths.

Documentary Title Page

Evaluation - Portraiture

My initial aim was to incorporate the style of Catherine Balet used in her body of work 'Stranger in he Light', along with the theme 'My World is Beautiful' and diversity in terms of race and ethnicity. I feel I was able to capture the style of 'Stranger in the Light' fairly well, though I found it hard to incorporate 'My World is Beautiful' and the diversity aspect. The diversity aspect would have worked if I photographed more than one person, but since I was photographing the same person, I couldn't show diversity in any way. My interpretation of 'My World is Beautiful' was that I would include nature and / or wildlife into my photographs, but due to the lighting was working with, I found it very hard to incorporate this, as it was too dark. This meant that I had to take photos by main roads in order to get enough lighting, but not too much that it would prevent me from capturing the style of 'Strangers in the Light'. I also tried photographing in the day so I could incorporate nature, but it was too bright for me to use any lighting techniques, which relate to Catherine Balet.

 

(A photograph of one of my 3 plans.)

In my planning sketches I spoke about how i wanted to use all 3 of my chosen themes, though my final otomes only contained the lighting aspect i spoke about in my plan, but even then, the location was changed.
 

A key technique that I carried over from my technical project was shutter speed. Since it was so dark, I lowered the shutter speed in order to let more light in, and also to create some interesting lighting with cars driving past. I feel that this was executed fairly well as the lighting that i was able to capture was very interesting and quite unique.

I feel that what was most successful was recreating the style of lighting that Catherine Balet used in 'Strangers in the Light', and was the only aspect that I feel went to plan, as the other two themes I wanted to incorporate were not present, or at least my interpretation of them. To help me be more successful I need to work on my planning, as it was my panning at fault when it come to not incorporating diversity in race and ethnicity and my interpretation of 'My World is Beautiful'. Had I planned more I’d have been able to get another person or a few more people involved in order to show diversity, and also taken one of my photographs at a time where there was more natural light, so I could incorporate nature into my final outcomes.

 

(One of the unusable photoraphs taken while i was shooting my final outcomes.)

This was an attempt at using tree branches in order to incorporate nature, but none of the photographs taken using this idea resulted in being usable. The branch was also too hard to see in the lighting that as available.

An obstacle I had when it came to these photographs was the lighting, since it was nearly pitch black, though this was easily solved with lowering the shutter speed, which also allowed me to be more creative with the lighting. The lighting was also a huge improvement over my final outcomes for the first part of the course, and makes for much more interesting photographs. This is due to me being forced to be more confident with different settings and messing around with the shutter speed, aperture & ISO as a result of the lighting situation.

 

(One of the unusable photoraphs taken while i was shooting my final outcomes.)

Due to the high shutter speed i decided to use, alot of my photographs were blurred in areas that i needed to be very sharp.

For my final outcomes I feel I had quite a variation as I had one close up and one environmental portrait. Since I am relatively new to portraiture photography I feel I was quite experimental and I they turned out a lot better than I expected.

My ideas when it came to lighting were very strongly linked to Catherine Balet and 'Strangers in the Light' and so my artist research really helped my final outcomes. Without the artist research my photographs would have turned out very differently, since I hadn't considered incorporating the ides used by Catherine Balet before my research. Though I did try and add something f my own to it - for example, instead of photographing inside I decided to photograph outside in an attempt to incorporate nature, and I also made the contrast between light and dark a lot more present, as where there is no light it is nearly pitch black, creating a sense of isolation.



Photograph by Catherine Balet.

 

(One of my final outcomes.)

In my photograoh it is generally pich black where there is no light (higher contrast), unlike the work of Catherine Balet where the lighting is softer and evetually gets darker as it gets further from th light source.

To improve on my final outcomes I could have tried painting in some of the trees behind who I am photographing to help it link more to 'My World is Beautiful' and also have another photograph in which I use more than one person. Having two more photographs which are instead photographed earlier in the day when it is still dark, but light enough to see trees could have also added a nice amount of variation and also helped it link to one of my key themes.

If i were to shoot these again I would also shoot on a wider variety of locations, such as where there are more trees, or somewhere that lighting is more interesting. Another improvement wuld be to incorporate more light sources, such s using flood lights to create  stringer light, but one that was still clearly artificial. I could also try using a wider variety of angles, such as high or low angles, to give the photograph a different tone.