The Final 5

After heading to library and printing out all the possible photos I decided on my 5 pieces and printed them onto matte A3 paper ready for exhibiting. In keeping with my theme of stationary I'm presenting my pieces hanging from a piece of string pinned into the wall with pushpins and attached to the piece with big bulldog clips. I've always loved the simplicity of this type of presentation and as it fits so well with the theme I felt that this was the best time to use it. 

Now to come up with my artist statement and title, something I've never really thought about before so this should be interesting. 

I also need to decided whether I should mount it onto foam board first or just leave them as card, I'll have a think about that one.

Final Images, maybe, possibly....

So I went into the studio on Thursday with the intention of it being my last time in regards to my Reflections Photography project . My goal for the shoot was to have 10 usable images, so I took 10 books with me but for some reason I have only have 8 different books in my images - I remember using all 10 books however I'm beginning to think that some of them were rather similar hence why to me now they all look the same.

That confusion aside, I now have 8 usable images that I'm going to review with Leah tomorrow which will hopefully become my final project.

I do have some favourites out of the 8, 4 I'm pretty sold on, 2 I'm torn on and 2 I'm not too keen on although that could be due to me editing them in a weird way (they look quite different to the others, I think I missed out a step somewhere along the line!)

Favourites:

I have other versions of this picture that would edit better in my eyes, I just haven't got around to re-editing just yet. 

2 I'm torn between:

I really like this one because of it's obvious difference from the other books, I think the size gives it a very different structure and presence. However I think the post-it notes getting lost in the image isn't as ascetically pleasing as the others.

I was really looking forward to shooting this book, it's a notebook I've had for years and only just got around to writing in when I came to University. I thought the mirrored edge would be a great visual effect, I didn't however click on to the fact that you would see me as the photographer mirrored in the notebook. 

The final two:

This is a very small book on bugs I took out of the library with the hope of using extra large post-it notes in, when I was shooting however the post-it notes I had with me just didn't look right when I was shooting so I stuck the smaller arrows I had with me. If I went back and re-edited the image I'm sure I could find a way for it be more interesting but for now I'm not to sure on it being a part of my final presentation.

 

In this image in particular I think the image is just a bit boring, I was trying to go for a standard organised look but that combined with the build of the book has lead to a rather lack-luster image.  Although as I said for the last image I could probably re-edit the image to be a bit brighter and a bit more entertaining if needed.

But that is what I've been working on all week, I spent my Wednesday in the library with people giving me funny looks as I just walked around looking for interesting and diverse books - you don't get a lot of variety in academic libraries or local charity shops apparently, but I tried.  

Bookmark it.

So I went into the studio on Monday and started taking some pictures for a trial run of my photo series, I had diagrams that I was trying to follow based on how people go out of their way to remember textbook information. When I was in the studio we ran into some problems with the flash (how we connected all of our cameras plus next doors cameras to our lights we still don't know), since I was just taking trial photos I didn't think anything of it.

Unedited

unedited

I tried to keep a minimalist look about the photos wanting them to fall into similar sized grids almost just with different things filling them. I did multiple set ups but I didn't have all the dressing with me at the studio (I forgot a few things), because of this I finished earlier than I planned and decided to make the most of having the studio and started playing around with the lighting.


As I said in my presentation I really like the look of books when the pages are falling naturally, I decided that since I had copious amounts of post-it notes with me I would have a mess around with the different angles I could photograph the books with the arrows in it. After speaking with Leah and showing her the images, I've decided that it's that I'm going to take forward to my final photoshoot because the images I got I'm really happy with.

I'm going to go back to the library and find some books with post-it notes in them and ones with interesting structure, for instance if they have coloured spines, hardback/paperback things like that. After that I'm going to book out the studio again and take similar photos for my final edit.

The Science of Remembering

So when I looked back at my idea of preserving Digital Memory I started to think how humans preserve memory, which lead to me to a bit of scientific research.

After making my presentation Lawrence said he noticed that I mentioned books a lot, I expressed my interest in when people leave notes in books or bookmarks in library books, I've always found it interesting to see what it was about that page or sentence that made that person when to remember it.

So on Thursday I went to the library will the intention of getting out some books that had bookmarks, post-it notes or pencil marks in them and I found loads. I want to photograph them to show how people can leave a physical lasting memory whilst in their quest to remember something themselves.

I did however do a very vague version of my original project before I was told it wasn't going to get me the best grade. I found a video of my Gran during Christmas 2011 cheating whilst playing a pinball game she had bought for my cousin, I took all the colours I could find in the footage and made a graphic containing them. I did have other ideas such as sound-waves, key framing and other things that I might still do outside of Uni.

I'm currently working on still-life photography based on how we actively try to remember things, I'm taking inspiration for this from studying techniques I learned whilst doing my A Levels including repetition, relearning and colour coding. I'm also looking a the scientific knowledge we have on memory, I've been watching a Youtube channel called CrashCourse and their Physc series on memory, these two videos in particular have proven really useful in getting my head around how memory works.

I've got some diagrams of how I want the stills to look and we have booked the studio out for tomorrow for me to get a good set of practice shots so I can make my final decision on what I want in frame.

Digital Memory

Frames from all 9 Harry Potter Films in Chronological Order

As I've been thinking about the Photography project I've been leaning more and more Digital Memory, after my experimental 'fail' something I did find interesting was the use of the internet in how I got the images for the Merlin Filmography slideshow (Thank you ColinMorfan and LadyOfTheLake on Tumblr!). Whilst I don't intend to make the project interactive, I did start thinking of art that is made in Tumblr/Internet fan-bases, something that caused a lot of comments on Tumblr (something I saw years ago and is still popular today) was the use the key-frames in an image. A fan had condensed the key frames/key colours from the Harry Potter series into one long image, I find this fascinating as just looking at the colours, they way they get darker as each film ends, the colours get cooler as the series goes on and finally the white line near the right of the image symbolizing “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.” - or at least that's how Potter fans look at it.

So my initial idea for the project is very similar, but instead of using films I'm going to use Digital home movies, therefore creating a tangible object (the photograph) out of something that in a few years time might not be readable (MP4 files). Whilst I dabbled with this technique a few years back I haven't really looked at it since, I'll post here when I have a first draft!

Regeneration

When I first looked at this title I was reminded of a photography style that went around Tumblr Fandoms a while back in which fans who were touring the set of the Film/TV shows would print out stills from the feature and match the image up with the tour they were on. It's something I loved looking at especially if the series is over, it brings a person back to that episode or feeling - regenerating it.

However I decided to look for a different approach and with a quick search I found Regeneration, The Photographers' Gallery, I really loved the concept of taking existing photos and making them into something different, so after looking at some other links to their work (Here) I decided to have a flick through my own photos (all taken between now and September 2014) and see what I could make of them now.

Virginia Echeverria, Untitled, (2013)

What I find intriguing about Unititled is how seamless the edits are, they are very simple and add to the portrait rather than take away. I feel it is very easy to get carried away in these types of edit but the subtly of the colours and their placement give this image in particular a graceful presence.

For my take on this project I decided to go a bit outside of the box because I just wanted to try something new. I don't have a graphics tablet so I was just drawing little sketches in my sketchbook, photographing them and editing them in photoshop. Now this isn't something I do often as I try to stay away from unnatural photoshopping so this was out of my comfort zone but at the same time pretty fun. Also drawing is not my strong point so, it's the thought that counts.