SMART Objective: Major Photographic Project

Andrea Sunder-Plassmann

Mensión, 1988

Analoge Großbild Fotografie (13x18)

 This term I will be creating a photography project based on portraits, the concept will be my own disappearance.  I am aiming to create a collection of 10 images, these will be created using an Olympus OMD Mark II and I may also use a polaroid camera, I will also use Photoshop as I may create my disappearance through post-production as well as in-camera in the portrait images.  On the polaroid I can use different film and camera techniques that will affect a partial disappearance in the image and on the Olympus I can use overexposure, flash and other methods such as slow shutter speed. The final portfolio will be completed the beginning of March and will be a photographic gallery on my website.

Studio Portraits Practice

 We spent yesterday completing studio and natural light portrait practice.  I stayed in the studio as I was directing the model and tutoring the students in settings. I took some test shots and created contact sheets

We began this shoot using ISO 100, Aperture priority and then we adjusted setting as we took different set ups.  I will now discuss some of the shots, the set up, composition and settings for each shot.

We have arranged the different poses through visual research and the model had the poses in front of her so we could change these quickly in the pre-planned set ups.  This is the model pose that we used 

F5.6, 1/8 ISO 100. 0 exposure bias

This is the final result, my shutter was a little slow here but the pose and the high key set up worked well here in colour with the bright clothes.

Another set up was on a low key background and using over the shoulder poses so that there was a good contrast with the light skin and dark clothes and a more moody set up 

F5.6, 1/6, ISO 200, -1.3, FL 42mm

In this shot the expression of the model and the framing work really well low key light - the shutter speed is a little too slow here and if I was doing a longer session I would have used a tripod to ensure a higher level of sharpness to this shot.

F5.6, 1/8, ISO 200, -1.7, 34mm

Again good framing and composition and the light work really well here but the shutter still too slow and this is a little soft, the use of exposure compensation heightens the low key set up. 

F5.6, 1/13, ISO 100, O step, FL39mm

This is  a good clear,, high shot that I took just at the beginning of the set up to test light as can be seen I used a low ISO of 100 and there was no expsure compensation as the skin colour and brightness was correct here. 

F5.6, 1/13, ISO 100, O step, FL46mm

A closer-up shot using the over-the-shoulder pose but in high key again really highlights the model's face and this brings the viewers' attention to her eyes, this shot does have some good impact. 

This was a good shoot, obviously, I have only the test shots here as I was setting these up for students but it was a good introduction to studio work and some good use of camera settings and I'm hoping it will assist students in the use of the lighting set up in the studio. 

Milanote: Exploring Research Ideas

 For my major project I want explore absence and my own in disappearance in the photographic.  I created a milanote with my ideas of what I am intending to research.

Milanote: Absence in Photography

Photography Project: Initial Ideas & Plan

 This term I am working on a project that I can use in both Digital Arts and Creative Media Production, specifically this must include photography.  At the beginning of the term I was thinking about disappearance and absence in the image and this is what I want to include in this project.  As in Creative Media it has to be portraits, I will need to create a set of photographic portraits.  Previously I had written about Charles Cohen and and Absence in the Image and I really wanted to expand on this as I really enjoyed this idea. 

Charles Cohen (2007) From Buff Series

Cohen's images in the Buff collection are a series of porn stars on set and then the body removed just leaving a white silhouette.  The absence of the subject gives these images a new meaning and as a viewer we respond differently, the images no longer really induce any erotic desire - they are a shadow almost of something that has happened.  

Moving forward from these images, The article 'What Photography has in common with an empty vase?'

What Photography Has in Common With an Empty Vase 05 © Edgar Martins. 3rd place, Series, LensCulture Art Photography Awards 2018

'In What Photography Has in Common With an Empty Vase is suffused with piercing loneliness and the sense that something is missing. At times, this absence is marked directly' (LensCulture n.d.) The above image really shows that absence, perhaps the outline, which reminds me of a police outline when someone is murdered is drawn around their body.  Perhaps this man was once here and now he is gone forever, his absence here is a presence as a idea of a man in the outline. 

The images I looked at next have a total removal of the sitters, the following images were old cabinet photographs taken in a studio and the sitters have all been digitally removed. The Independent Photographer States; 'By digitally removing the person from old cabinet card portraits, Rivera reveals an artificial environment created by the photographer to heighten the perception of the subject. Bereft of the individual, only a stage remains. The tension between presence and absence is heightened by the placement of objects' (“Lissa Rivera | Absence Portraits”)

Absence Portraits (2024) Lissa Riveria

I really like the absence of the sitter here with just the remains of the set, it is a remembrance almost of a person in the image.  I also watched 'Delete' a Thai drama from 2024 where the protagonists found a mobile phone that deleted the person when their image is taken I enjoyed this very much as it was played on the idea of the prolific nature of 'selfies' and images on social media and the idea that now so many images of a person exist - but what if you were 'deleted' or that your image was never seen again - this seems to be a question that might strike fear into the hearts of younger people who online keep stating they exist through their presence in images - I would like to disappear and never be seen again and it is this absence of image that I would like to work on. 

I was thinking this morning about Kirlian photography and I remembered some images form a David Bowie exhibition that used this method; 'In 1975, Thelma Ross of UCLA's parapsychology lab gifted David Bowie a Kirlian photography machine to capture images of peoples' "auras." This machine generates a high-voltage field to a photographic plate resulting in a glowing corona discharge image of whatever is positioned on the plate.' (Pescovitz 17/10/2017)

Kirlian Photography (1975) by David Bowie

My Plan is to photograph my rooms in my house with and without me and perhaps just leave my aura which I can create through post-production.  The images will then just have my imprint.  I will use my olympus OMD Mark II and I will experiment with both colour and Black and white and then decide which will work best for post-production work on this idea. 

References

LensCulture, Edgar Martins |. “What Photography Has in Common with an Empty Vase - Essay by Coralie Kraft.” LensCulture, www.lensculture.com/articles/edgar-martins-what-photography-has-in-common-with-an-empty-vase. Accessed 22 Jan. 2024.

“Lissa Rivera | Absence Portraits.” The Independent Photographer, 2024, independent-photo.com/stories/absence-portraits/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2024.

Pescovitz, D. (2017) The time David Bowie photographed his aura before and after using cocaine, Boing Boing. Available at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/26/the-time-david-bowie-photograp.html (Accessed: 26 January 2024). 

Above & Below: Class Practice

 Today we completed a class practice task called 'Above and Below' this was to practice taking high and low angle portraits and to practice the setting on the camera.  The settings we practiced were aperture, ISO and exposure compensation.

In class we looked at the images of Corrine Day and Terry O'Neill, here is another example.  In this low angle shot the faces of the Stones look down upon the viewer into the photographer's lens.  The shot works as there are triangles that interlock perfectly within the image and the faces fill the frame so the rooftop above does not dominant and the faces looking at you engage the viewer directly.  

The Rolling Stones (1964) By Terry O'Neill

We went out on campus and with a partner took portrait images, I did not have a partner so I just practiced low and high-angle images. 

When we returned we created contact sheets o Photoshop, to do this we Clicked on File - automate and then contact sheet and then we chose the file that we had created on the desktop with our images.

I then looked at the EXIF details of my images and I will go through a few of my shots here and explain how the functions and setting worked to create the shot along with the framing and composition

F5.6, ISO 200, 1/125 shutter speed, No Exposure Compensation, Focal length 55mm

In this high-angle image I have used a wide aperture of F5.6 so that there was lots of light coming in, the ISO was on 200 as it was a sunny bright day so the camera only needed to be low sensitivity to light and there was no exposure compensation so I did not under or overexpose the image.  The light works well in this image as it hits the side of the head and back of the coat and this is a rule of thirds image and there are no distractions in the background.  it is not a particularly engaging shot as you cannot see the woman's face however compositionally and technically this works well.

F5.5, 1/250, ISO 200, Focal Length 49mm, no exposure compensation

I picked this next low-angle image as it looks a little like one of those stock photos you get on brochures for universities with happy students and the student union in the background! here the three men are sharing something amusing on the phone and the light in this image is bright and comes from the right-hand side  There is the busy air of a university with people behind entering the DSU and above the students and interesting play on light is created with the sun hitting the windows above them.  the students are standing slightly to the side giving a pleasing use of the rule of thirds and are framed slightly by the window frame behind them.  This shot works quite well both technically and compositionally, in an ideal situation I would have photographed the students closer up so I could more clearly convey the expressions on their faces. here the shutter speed is faster as the image was brighter so the camera used less time to let light in otherwise this would have overexposed on a faster shutter speed.

F5.6, 1/1250, ISO 200, FL 55mm, no exposure compensation

What are these pair up to above?  One looks like he is angry at the other as he is close to his face or he could have just been particularly excited about something he is explaining.  The shot here the two are in the middle of the shot, the shutter speed is very fast as the sun is very bright.  The relationship of the two men in the image makes the viewer want to know what they might be saying.  The sign above them with the big woman's face looms and is balanced by the road name 'Mill Lane'.  The shadows cast in the foreground are jagged and are lines that lead to the men, which works well on a composition.  I like the curved metalwork on the left-hand side of the images this makes the framing more interesting visually.  Overall I do like this shot as has something interesting going on and I want to know more..  This was a practice and I think I would choose the last shot as my low angled shot

F5.5, ISO 200, 1/125, FL 50mm, no exposure compensation

The above shot I think I would choose as my best high-angled shot.  I really like here the balance of the girl in the foreground with the headphones and the girl walking the other way and looking across the road.  The eye is drawn to the girl's face and she has a slightly bemused expression with a Mona Lisa smile.  The signs on the road with the Bike and the arrow lead us to her position in the shot and I love the cracks in the road that she is about to step upon, there is a strip of bright light in the background but most of the shot is in shadow and the shutter speed is slower her to compensate for this.  this frame does really work and I am happy that I have two shots that I think are interesting from this short shoot.

I created a final piece but used another image as this juxtaposed better and the balance works here.  i call this Don't Look Now

I am looking forward to creating a more in-depth portrait project in the coming couple of weeks but this was a fun and interesting practice and made me consider more compositional techniques and framing. 

Object Lesson: Postcard of a Mental Hospital

 To begin the term we are doing a creative 'object lesson' exercise where we choose an object and then develop an idea.  I picked a postcard which is a photograph by Chris Steele-Perkins, The Courtyard of the mental hospital  run by the Edhi Foundation, Karachi, Pakistan, 1997

I picked this out at random from the box but I was drawn to it as I liked the 'windows' into the images - the image is obviously through a fence or wall and it gives these small insights into the place and through the windows you can see more of these little window squares on the opposite wall. Funnily enough, I was browsing Daniel Paul Schreber's 'Memoirs of My Nervous Illness' as I was thinking about the mental patients who stared into the sun, Bataille wrote about this and this idea that the mental patient is actually experiencing the sacred and the profane. In Visions of Excess, Bataille describes how a young embroider and painter in his spare time, 'stared at the sun, and, receiving its rays the imperative order to tear off his finger' (Bataille 1985:61) the man proceeded to rip his finger off with his teeth, apparently the man had consumed a large amount of rum and cognac the night before and was obsessed with the Van Gogh story that he cut off his ear and then sent it to a prostitute. I consider this and the work of performance artist Ron Athey who also played with the dichotomy of pain/pleasure, madness/sanity and perhaps thinking further that what looks like sanity is perhaps the ultimate madness.  

“Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear,” 1889, by Vincent Van Gogh

After reminding myself further of Schreber's madness where has created an entire system in which he has constructed an alternate reality; 'The complicated, mythic universe that Schreber in his captivity [the mental assylum] created - an affair of rays and miracles, upper and lower gods, souls and soul murder, voices of nerve language, struggles against the 'order of the world' - concerned itself with issues of reality and unreality, identity and fusion, power and passivity' (Schreber 2000:xix from the Introduction by Rosemary Dinnage).  Schreber anted to record his madness. his system and I like this idea of a diary.  Above, in the original image we see small windows into life, in the mental hospital, a face, a foot, a torso lying on the ground.  A diary is also like this, just small windows into days where the diarist feels like or feels compelled to write.

Therefore, when I was lying in the dark after work today, it came to me what I wanted to do to honour this object that has been bestowed upon me.  I will write a small diary, a novellette, an extract, this will be called: 'Geständnisse aus meinem inneren Bewusstsein' (Confessions from my inner consciousness)

Example/draft text:

8th January 2024

The year begins with a yawning, I don't mean a hole, I simply mean gähnende langeweile (yawning boredom).  I wake but always want to be awake, I want to not be consumed with the nonsense that takes up my time and does nothing to revive, refresh, excite, and enthrall me.  I look out onto the bitter cold and damp of the English day and imagine waking in France to maybe the same cold in January, but I will look out and there will be a crisp sky and sun whose light is so different in colour to the light of the sun here, there is a warmth the Charantaise sun, a beauty, as it lays its rays upon my bare thighs, I am enlivened, restored.

I will write the diary at the weekend and add this first small project to this post when I have completed it....

My little book is now complete and I have made this on Blurb..please find the link here: Confessions from my inner consciousness

References

Bataille G. (1985) Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

Schreber D.P. (2000) Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, New York Review of Books, New York

Welcome to Spring Term 2024!

 Welcome to Spring Term 2024!  Another term begins and in my tenth year, I wonder what I would like to discuss to kick off the term.  I thought as it is January and this is a time for self-reflection.  I would look at the self-portraits of Kimiko Yoshida.  Yoshida states; 'Transformation is, it seems to me, the ultimate value of the work.  Art has become a space of shifting metamorphosis. My self-portraits, or what go by that name, provide only the place and formula for the mutation.' (Yoshida K from; Bright S. Autofocus: 2010:P137)

Yoshida began taking self-portraits and these are all of the artists as a bride, the bride images span space and time from the mythological Babylonian bride to the cyborg bride. Yoshida was born in 1963 in Japan but as she felt oppressed as a woman she moved to France in 1995.  In Yoshido's images here her own identity is invisible, like Cindy Sherman, Kimiko Yoshida is every woman, in every time, she is an archetype and through her images she states; “I am basically saying that there is no such thing as a self-portrait. Each of these photographs is actually a ceremony of disappearance. It is not an emphasis of identity, but the opposite—an erasure of identity.”(Luntz, 2023)

Kimiko Yoshida (2006) Sakura Bride: Self Portrait

I enjoy this idea about disappearance and erasure as I used to think that it was important that the photograph was a remembrance and through the image there is immortality, however now I often think my disappearance and my absence are preferable.  Interestingly as a woman becomes a bride, her identity is in mortal danger, she is swallowed up, her name taken and she becomes 'Mrs' and the name of the husband.  In images, as Berger states; 'Men act and woman appear, Men look at women.  Women watch themselves being looked at.  This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves' (Berger J. 1973: P47) In images women become objects but now in this new world not just women, but it could be argued, everyone has become a false image of themselves, some believe that image to be true, but what true self-portrait is there now? 

Kimiko Yoshida (2004) Bride: Self Portrait

This is a question to contemplate and consider, as I embark on artistic work for this term...

References

Bright S. (2010) Autofocus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography, Thames and Hudson, London

Berger J. (1973) Ways of Seeing, Penguin Books, London

Luntz, H. (2023) Kimiko Yoshida archives, Holden Luntz Gallery. Available at: https://www.holdenluntz.com/artists/kimiko-yoshida/ (Accessed: 07 January 2024).