CURATORSHIP PRACTICAL RESPONSE
Practical Task 1 :
Lighting Workshop
NATURAL LIGHT RESPONSE
For this response I walked around a building looking for places that had some reflections of light shining through windows onto objects or walls and then placed my model infront of the spot with the lights shadows which would then shine onto her. Overall I feel like this response was successful as I found that the abstract reflections that the light would make looked interesting and more beautiful than just having no shapes within the image.
Gallery Visit :
THE PHOTOGRAPHERS GALLERY -
GREGORY CREWDSON EXHIBITION
Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer born in New York in 1962 who photographs tableaux of American neighbourhoods and homes. In 2011, Crewdson left New York and went to live in a solitary church in the Berkshires. During his time going through a difficult divorce, he found resumption in daily open water swims and cross country skiing on wooded paths of an Appalachian Trail which is where he then came across a trail named Cathedral of the Pines which was the inspiration behind his images from this series entitled Cathedral of the Pines.
In the exhibition at the Photographers Gallery there are 31 images from his series that consist of isolated looking forests, lifeless interiors that become staged, images that speak a thousand words through the composition of the photos and the people, the props, the costumes, the subjects etc and nameless townscapes that all explore the American psyche and the disconcerting dramas of American daily life.
"It was important to me that the pictures have a kind of quiet, still sensibility," "To me, they are less cinematic and more painterly, in terms of the approach, but it is definitely still psychological, with very little going on in terms of the literal narrative or storyline." -Crewdson |
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Crewdson's series of photos have a move like production which have been planned thoroughly for months with him having the final say in where each object or person goes from a blanket to an empty glass. Crewdson's photos were shot with large format cameras and the production behind it all required 40 crew members who needed to be familiar with motion picture film equipment and the techniques that go with it.
Personal Brief:
Make up of a City
MY BRIEF:
Explore the different subcategories that I feel make up and represent a city and compare the similarities and differences within each of the representations of the three places that I photograph. This practical response is a continuation from my previous project entitled The Curatorship Task where I created a hypothetical exhibition with a set theme along with different photographers each representing one of three different types of photography that all respond to a city. The first subcategory is Documentary Photography, the second is Architectural Photography and the third is Street Photography.
CONTEXT:
I have chosen to explore three cities, New York, Berlin and London. With New York being such a famous and hugely successful city, I decided to compare it to a city that is similar, London. London is the capital of England and is extremely popular all around the world. Seeing as I have two major cities I have chosen to photograph Berlin as a contrast. Despite Berlin still being very popular, it is the one with the lowest population number out of these three, as seen below. I feel like these places are each similar in many ways however very different in their own individual ways which I hope to show in my work. My intentions for my overall task are that I hope to have explored three different types of photography, the same in each city, presenting the individual characteristics and the similarities within the three places.
I hope to show the different aspects of three places through three types of photography, presenting the individual characteristics and similarities that each of these places have.
POPULATION OF
LONDON
In my personal brief entitled Make up of a City, I will focus on capturing both the constructive and social conditions of the urban life today. I will have three sub-categories each with a theme of architectural, social and documentary photography all drawing out the different things that make a city what it is.
My overall aim will be to explore the different ways there are to capture the contrasting attitudes of cities.
My overall aim will be to explore the different ways there are to capture the contrasting attitudes of cities.
First Development: New York City
For my first development, I will shoot in and around New York City with three subcategories in my mind that are Documentary, Architecture and Street photography. My reasoning behind these three subcategories is because I feel like they are the best three topics to represent a city due to the fact that they each include so many different aspects of a city for example the architectural photographs could show each cities history or financial state etc.
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NEW YORK CITY:
DOCUMENTARY
I chose to photograph New York City in a documentary style due to the fact that it can represent and portray places and people and whatever is in the image and I feel like documenting people and places in New York City would present the diversity within the city not only with its people but the places within the city and the many different areas for example China Town, Soho and Little Italy etc. For my first response, I photographed candid images of people in NYC using Bruce Davidson's work as inspiration. My overall aim for this response is to explore the physical elements of the city but digging deeper into exploring the emotion and story behind the subjects within the city rather than the architecture.
Unedited Photos:
Edited Selects:
NEW YORK CITY:
ARCHITECTURE
Architectural photography is a form of art that creates authentic portrayals and exquisite visuals of their subjects. Throughout the long history of photography, buildings across the word have been worshipped subjects through the lenses of many photographers’ cameras which depicts society’s acknowledgment for architecture, along with its cultural importance and influence. In 1860, architectural photography began its time as an established visual art.
When buildings compositions transformed and were discontinued with conventional forms, architectural photography evolved. In the early 20th Century, this form of photography grew to be even more creative than it was before as photographers adopted many different techniques to experiment with within their work such as using dark shadows and angled lines in their structure.
When buildings compositions transformed and were discontinued with conventional forms, architectural photography evolved. In the early 20th Century, this form of photography grew to be even more creative than it was before as photographers adopted many different techniques to experiment with within their work such as using dark shadows and angled lines in their structure.
NEW YORK CITY:
STREET
Street Photography is a form of art that captures humans behaviour and moods at unexpected moments. The beauty in street photography comes from the fact that the accidental encounters that photographers have with people on the streets come out looking so beautiful yet they have happened by complete chance and haven’t been planned at all. For this development I went around New York city and captured interesting things that I saw that fit into this particular style of photography.
Second Development : Berlin
I used going to Berlin as an opportunity to take photographs in a response to street, documentary and architecture. This meant that I could compare my New York photos to the Berlin ones and seeing the different people, buildings and areas meant that in my final piece, I could compare the two cities overall and see the similarities and differences between both.
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BERLIN :
DOCUMENTARY
BERLIN :
ARCHITECTURE
ARCHITECTURE AT THE REICHSTAG
ARCHITECTURE AT THE FERNSEHTURM
ARCHITECTURE AT THE 'OLYMPIASTADION BERLIN'
BERLIN :
STREET
Comparison of New York and Berlin
Third Development : London
1) Documentary
2) Architecture
Bank Station area
Canary Wharf
Kings Cross
INTERIOR / EXTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
-Symmetry
-Perspective
Canary Wharf
Kings Cross
INTERIOR / EXTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
-Symmetry
-Perspective
ARCHITECTURE:
CANARY WHARF, LONDON.
CONTACT SHEET:
SELECTS
INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE:
UNDERGROUND TUBE STATIONS
3) Street
CHINATOWN, LONDON
CONTACT SHEET:
EDIT PROCESS
OTHER EDITED SELECTS
BOROUGH MARKET, LONDON
MY MOVIE ON LONDON
After photographing my three cities, I decided on making a short film on London in the style of a poetic documentary. When planning my film, I knew that I wanted to show London in a style that showed the life and beauty within the city. With my intentions of creating a short film with cinematic aspects and no speaking, the ‘Poetic’ documentary mode was the style most suited to my work as my productions elements follow the aspects of that particular sub-genre. With my film having a cinematic style, there were three key elements for it; mood, tone and effect on the viewer. To have an interesting and stylised film, I knew that I had to have a wide variety of shots, different scene transitions and a flowing sequence of shots for my montage.
FINAL PIECE DEVELOPMENT :
For my final piece, I have decided to produce a book which will consist of selects from my photographs from New York, Berlin and London. Making this book means that I can layout my photos in a way that creates a clear representation of each cities demonstrating the similarities and differences within each place. I will lay my book out with 'People of the City' being the first chapter with my New York photos from this category showing first, then my London photos and then my Berlin photos. My second chapter will be 'Architecture in the City' with photos from each of the cities and then 'Documentary photography in the city' being my third chapter.
Selects :
NEW YORK
STREET
ARCHITECTURE
DOCUMENTARY
LONDON
STREET
ARCHITECTURE
DOCUMENTARY
BERLIN
STREET
ARCHITECTURE
DOCUMENTARY