Nathan Rawlings 9657 A2 Exam Blog

FInal Pieces

For my final pieces I have selected 20 images which I believe all link under one aspect of journey. Taking a lot of influence from the travel photography aspects of Stephen Shore and William Eggleston, I have managed to accumulate different aspects which remain unique to the locations, highlighting visual and cultural aspects of the area which may contrast heavily to everyday life in order to grant the audience a sense of journey. In London I have highlighted its rich history along with the diverse groups of people and cultures that can be found there. In the seaside area, I have used vast, empty landscape shots along with different items and subjects such as the beached boats which may not be seen in any other area. The goal of this is to cause the audience to look at the body of work that I have produced and feel a sensation of the journey that I have been on as they can experience the culture and environments that I have been introduced to. The use of composition and colour help to give the audience the tools to draw up their own connotations to the different environments, letting them have their own experience with the area. For example, the seaside shoot features very light toned colours which will offer connotations to summer, and holidays. This will cause audiences to perhaps bring their own past experiences and feelings when analysing these images.

Shoot 2 Work Diary-City Life

Coming from my last shoot it became abundantly clear that I needed to focus on London's unique image. For this I decided to focus on the cities rich and diverse history. I wanted to contrast the wide open, old fashioned landscape of the seaside with a cramped city life, highlighting unique people and cultural influence that is only common within the city. For this shoot I wanted to take influence from photographers which I had previously researched such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. A few examples from Stephen Shore would influence me when giving London a unique tone, focusing on the tone of the image, as well as the unique people and composition which evokes a sense of otherworldliness. Eggleston's work has influenced me to search within the culture of the location in which I'm shooting, highlighting people and structures which are unique to a specific time or place. Considering London's history, I should be able to find a lot of influence within this regard. I prepared for some of the methods that I would be using within my unit 4 shoots such as selective colour which allowed me to think about the metaphorical implications and connotations that can be drawn before hand and how they can be applied to the location.

This image features another example of the type of travel photography that can be seen within the works of Stephen Shore and William Eggleston as I focus on culture and people that is unique to the area of London. However I have developed this photography to express a more sticking visual style, while highlighting themes of contrast and culture within the frame. London has an abundance of life and culture, which is what I have attempted to show a glimpse of within this image. The man can be seen playing a violin. This is an instrument that offers connotations to an older time with a more elegant form of music. This contrasts heavily with the man holding the instrument as he can be seen wearing very modern clothing, appearing to not be of the high class society which the instrument is commonly associated. I wanted to highlight this contrast by using selective colour to bring attention to what appears to be a relic among a modern setting. This is done to emphasise the way that London is a hub for many different cultures and lifestyles to clash as it explores history and blends it with the modern day. This clash of cultures would not be as common within other areas which makes the location of London even more unique, helping my work appear to offer a further sense of journey and variation. For this image, I was dealing with varying amounts of light within the image as the ceiling was non existent in some places and low lit in others. For this I had a shutter speed of 800 with an ISO of 1250. This would allow me to shoot in low light with a crisp image.

This image is of a painting found within the National Gallery. For this I wanted to explore a number of different interpretations of journey. Not only does the image date back to 1600s era Britain, highlighting the journey through time that the picture has taken in order to find itself in the Gallery, it also relates to such a specific time, place, and culture. The clothing worn by the man seen within the image is vastly different to anything within our modern world with the exception of London. Royal Guards still wear similar attire which causes this image to draw conniptions specifically to London. The image itself is so rare and unique that it cannot be found anywhere else within the world, which causes my London photography to remain greatly unique to any other place in the world. This means, when the audience looks at my work, each location will feel unique, evoking a feeling of journey along with a sense of progression. I focused a lot on composition in order to get this points across to the audience, I wanted to frame the subject within the painting as I would any other person instead of framing the entire picture. I feel that including the frame will make people focus more on the painting itself, while composing the person in a specific way would cause the audience to think more about the person within the frame and his significance within London culture and history. Considering that the Royal Gallery has low light and I was not allowed to use flash photography, I had to adjust my camera settings in order to allow me to shoot in extremely low light situations. I changed the ISO considerably to 2500 and reduced the shutter speed to around 30. This allowed me to produce a bright image without having to sacrifice any image quality.

Overall I feel that I managed to achieve my goal within this shoot as I was able to build a visual representation of London that was vastly different to what had been shown within the seaside shoot. For my project as a whole I feel that audiences can look at my work and differentiate between the locations, paying attention to differences in culture and forms of journey while feeling a sense of progression as they make their way through the shoot.

Work DIary Shoot 1- Seaside

For my project I was looking to accurately evoke a feeling of journey within the audience through the use of my images. A major part of my shoots take massive influence from photographers whom I have previously researched. My first shoot especially derives themes that are featured within the work of Staudinger Franke where he features relics from the past and composes the image in a way that indicates how the subject may have been used at the time. I wished to use the low tide to capture the beached ships, focusing on a more metaphorical aspect of journey instead of purely travel photography. Across both of my shoots, I wanted to translate a sense of progression through environments, highlighting unique aspects of specific area and contrasting them with unique aspects relating to another location. This allows the audience to feel as if they have travelled by highlighting items and people that would not typically be apart of their everyday lives. This form of travel photography is one that I have taken much inspiration from photographers such as Tomer Ifrah and Stephen Shore as they both use composition and colour to make each place that they visit feel completely unique to the last. I planned to use seaside culture and a spaceaous environment which would contrast with my London shoot. A main concern for the day was the extremely bright weather which when reflecting off of the water, causing my images to appear over exposed. In order to counter this I set a higher shutter speed and dropped my ISO accordingly to around 100 and in lower light, up to around 600.

For this image I wished to imply a sense of journey through composition. Within this image I attempted to utilise themes that were present in Staudinger Franke's Mohawk shoot. At first glance, the image appear to depict a ship on a voyage across the ocean, a sense of journey is implied through the composition of the image, showing the ship travelling from right to left of the frame with land in the background. However the black and white tones of the image intentionally cause the ship to appear as if it is floating when in reality it has been beached. This shows a ship at the end of its journey as it sits in the sand to rust while at the same time suggesting what life was like at the beginning of the ships journey. This uncommon sight would also contrast greatly with London photography as you are likely to never see such a sight in any other location. For this image, I used a zoom lens on my canon camera. I was aware that I was going to make the ship appear as if it were floating, so I wanted to use less light in order to create more contrast. At the time, I was attempting to counteract the sun as it glared off the waters surface, causing my image to appear even more over exposed. I set a low ISO of under 100 while keeping a higher shutter speed to ensure a crisper image over a longer distance. I wanted to make the horizon appear like a journey's end for the ship so I used manual focus to blur the background slightly, focusing more on the ship.

For this image I attempted to convey a more literal meaning of journey. I was torn between multiple imagery and photo joiner when deciding how to show this literal journey, I opted for multiple imagery as it allowed me to show a more vast example of journey without being limited to a single frame. I used the same composition while choosing different backgrounds which varied in scope and colour. The familiar composition with contrasting backgrounds causes the audience to feel a genuine sense of progression. While capturing each image I wanted to have certain consistencies within the frame that would cause the multiple imagery to blend better. I had to ensure that colours would match and each image would remain at a consistent brightness. As a result, I selected locations with strong light so I could keep my camera settings relatively similar. I chose a low ISO of 160 for these images while keeping a fairly midrange shutter speed in order to ensure that the image was not too bright. The depth of field within the image helped to create a consistent effect as each background appears blurred, revealing small amounts of information to the audience regarding the location by offering connotations to seaside towns.

For the next shoot I wish to contrast heavily with seaside culture, choosing to focus on the hyperactive living of city life and the different cultures that can be found within it. I hope to find aspects that are unique to the city of London and expand the use of other photographic techniques such as selective colour in order to highlight these aspects. I believe that I succeeded within this shoot as I highlighted specific aspects of journey which will make the experience unique to any other location. I must now expand from what I have started and evoke visually different feelings of journey which relate to London.