Introduction

For my exam project this year I have decided to focus on the starting point “family life”. I wanted to start with this one as I feel I could go really in depth with it and look into the details of family life instead of just skimming the surface. As soon as I saw this starting point on the exam paper it captured my eye as family is also a very personal matter to me and I feel I could really make something of it. I will be looking into the secrets and the feelings of family members to start my project and maybe carry this on throughout. I want to discover the contrast between what they show to the public and what’s really behind closed doors. My aim is to really pull the starting point “family life” apart and see what I can do with it. By digging really deep into this project maybe I can find out some true emotions of family members, through documentary and natural photography.

First Shoots

To start with I am going to look into human presence and demonstrate the different areas of family life through my photography. I am aiming to photograph everyday things/objects that are included within the household but capture them just how they’re left naturally. I really like natural photography that isn’t staged and so I want to try and find things around the house that could be seen as ‘boring' and make them into an interesting image using the skills I have gained throughout the years of doing photography.For my first couple of shoots to get me started I am just going to walk around the house and see what I can find to create some interesting photographs.

ARTIST RESEARCH

-NICK TODD

Nick Todd is a photographer that has looked into Human Presence. His photographs are very obvious towards the topic; however I want mine to be a little more subtle. The reason I like this photographer is that he photographs human presence that he sees naturally, rather than making the images staged and putting the things together to create the images. It’s almost like he has walked along the road and witnessed these things left as they are. This is what I want to do within my first couple of shoots and photograph things as I see them. These shoots are going to be taken within the home as it will create and produce the first feelings of family life for my project. I have done a collage of images from quality artists within my book that I really like to inspire me towards my first shoot. This is the photograph of Nick Todd’s that I have been looking at towards this project:

This photograph really captured my eye as it’s a perfect example of finding things that demonstrate a person's presence. There is something within the photograph related to them personally and proves they have been there. This is going to be the concept of my first few shoots and even though I’m doing it within the house, the idea of finding things how they’re left still applies and that’s what I’m taking from Nick Todd and his photography. I also like the fact that his photography is very plain and simple; however gets the message across to the viewers. The only thing I don’t really like about his photography is that the colours are very dull; I want to try and make the most of the colour available to me so that I can produce more interesting photographs. It’s all about experimentation and so I will be playing around with the colours and see what I prefer. It all depends on what mood and angle I decide to look at into family life and what atmosphere I’d like to produce within my photography. Within my first couple of shoots I want to try and capture warm colours, approaching the idea of family life in a positive way and I’ve done some following research on a photographer called William Eggleston whose pictures captured my eye and inspired me through his use of colour.

These are a combination of edits from my first two shoots as they were both focused on the same thing and aiming for similar outcomes...
I gave a really subtle edit to these photographs to give them a bit more character and did this by lowering the saturation; resulting in them not being so bright and having a bit more meaning. Even though I was focvussing on the brighter side of family life within these two first shoots, I wanted to make it possible for the viewer to see both sides; the idea of the darker side of family life and the annoying, hidden things that are going on, along with the brighter side of just natural family living and how things are naturally left around the household which show happiness of a loving home.

 

 

 

While photographing these shoots and thinking about my project I thought about using textured paper towards the concept. This could look really good when printing my photographs as the bumps and lumps within textured paper could portray the hidden, undercover problems and annoyances around the home; things we don't tell anyone else about but happen on a day to day basis, big or small. This idea links to my project really well as I could use wallpaper which is part of the family home. Once I’ve experimented on this paper with a few photographs I've already done, I will take a picture of the printed paper and post it up on my blog.

 

Here are the prints I did on the textured paper:

 

The paper above didn’t turn out so well but that’s because the photograph wasn’t the best one to use. It was very dark and the detail didn’t show up through the texture so I know not to use this one in future.

 

I really love the look of these photographs printed onto the textured paper as it makes them look unique and different. The concept of the texture on the paper being the rough edges within family life gives it a really lovely meaning and idea behind it. I used different types of wallpaper to give different presentations and most of them worked really well. I only collected a few rough pieces so that I could experiment with them. Now that I know they worked well I may get some more to experiment with in the future.

MIXED MEDIA

-SALLY MANKUS

 

Sally Mankus is an American photographer mostly known for her mixed media techniques. I’m researching into Mankus as I want to give mixed media a really good go within this project as I didn’t with the last and she has a really lovely link with using household objects which could fit in really well with my project. As I’m doing “Family Life”, using objects such as handkerchiefs and teabags are all part of everyday life within the family household. I thought this would be a good concept behind my mixed media and once I get my shoots going I could use my best prints within these to edit. I experimented with the teabag technique last year and I really enjoyed it as it's simple but effective. The reason it links in so well with my project is because I'm looking into hidden secrets and problems within the family life and a nice cup of tea is well known for sorting problems. This could be anywhere but tea is mostly consumed within the household. For the teabag technique I'm going to be using photographs from my human presence shoots and see how they turn out. I'm also going to try experimenting with other objects within the house such as teatowels and pillow cases for example. I'm not exactly sure what but I want to experiment with different areas of mixed media and try different things. Cyanotype is one option that I could use to print onto materials.

The first technique I wanted to try again was the teabag technique, as mentioned above. I used the photographs I already had from my first two shoots and they worked really well. I ripped around the edges of the photographs to produce the concept that family life isn't easy going and every family has rough times and edges around the good times. This is what I'm focusing on at the moment and so it links in really well. As already mentioned, the reason I wanted to use teabags and this technique is because it's a big part of the family household in most of the United Kingdom and is a stereotype for making things better.

These are the teabags I produced:
 

 

As I have now photographed human presence within the home, I wanted to take this outside. I was thinking of places where people go and they leave movement behind so I could capture this in my photography. There are many places I thought of but my favourite place was the park. This is a universal place where families get together and take their children too. It's also a place where friends may meet up and bring family members such as little ones. It is a widely known place for happiness and good times with the family and so thought this would be perfect to photograph as part of my project. A main attraction within a park is the swing. With this in mind I thought it may be nice if I capture the movement of the swings as if the children have just left there; portraying human presence. I really like this idea as you can't actually see the people/children, but you can tell what has just happened because of the movement. I will be playing around with my shutter speed within this shoot to see how well I can capture the movement depending on the light.

This shoot didn't go as well as I expected because the natural lighting was quite bright, limiting me to how long I could have the shutter open for as it would have over-exposed the images. This resulted in me not being able to capture as much movement as I would have liked. However I am still really happy with a few of the edits I've done and you can see them below:

I edited these into black and white as I felt they looked better and captured your eye a lot more than coloured. It gives them a dramatic feel and I really like that. The composition on all three of them are good as you can straight away tell the swing is the main subject matter, being right in the middle of the photograph or just to the left following the rule of thirds. I like the angle I captured them at as it is straight forward and simple, giving across the message I wanted to portray. Sometime in the future of my project I may re-take this shoot as it wasn't exactly what I wanted but I will see.

As part of my project I wanted to produce something meaningful and so was having a think of what I could do. After I started looking into wallpapers and textured paper for the idea of family life, I thought I could attempt to make the actual paper instead of getting some more textured paper from a shop. I haven't tried this before so I'm not sure how this is going to work out, however it's worth the experiment and I'm excited to give it a go. I'm going to be producing my homemade paper out of photographs of the family which creates the concept of the family being brought together to make one; the paper. I really like this idea as even though I wont be able to see the actual photographs, I know that the paper is produced from family photographs which gives it an undercover meaning and links to my project really well.

I have researched into how I will make the paper and this is the process I'm going to use:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I have got together a tray for the water to go in and a frame which I have stapled mesh onto myself. I have made sure it's really tight to the frame so that the paper is nice and flat and hopefully works out well.
 

My attempt at paper making turned out really well and I’m impressed with how it looks. I really enjoyed doing this as it’s something new that I’ve never done before and I was so excited that the two I’ve done so far have turned out great. I used the process that I published above and it was really simple and fun to do. One tip that I included within my paper making was to add vinegar into the pulp mixture to make the paper turn white. I have made two pieces of paper so far and included vinegar into one of them, leaving the other with just the photographs so that I could see the difference and if using vinegar does work. I realised how big a difference it makes and was really impressed with how they looked.

 

 

(Paper on the left created with vinegar, paper on the right created without vinegar)

 

I am going to carry on making paper as it turned out really well and I think I will stick to using the vinegar as I want my paper to be white.

 

 

 

 

For this next shoot I wanted to think a little outside of the box. With the idea of human presence in my mind, I thought photographing shadows would be a good idea as they demonstrate the presence of a thing or a person. I wanted to get some interesting photographs from some good angles. When I think of shadows, I think about the presence of someone who is now leaving, creating a dark and gloomy atmosphere, which is what my project is about at the moment.
I was quite happy with this shoot as I captured the photographs at some interesting angles that capture your eye which is what I was aiming to do. The depth of field I was able to photograph looks really good and attracts the viewers attention. Shown within my edits below I was able to capture parts of the carpet in the foreground which is a really nice effect and is where the viewer's eyes get attracted to first. As the lighting was poor I had to adjust the ISO to the highest it would go on my camera, 1600. This then makes the images look grainy which I was hoping for as this is another idea supporting the hidden grains and bumps within family life which makes families who they are today. This is another hidden concept which links in well and works effectively towards my project.

Here are the edits I produced:

 

 

 

For the next step in my project I thought it would be a good idea to collect some of the irritations that my family members actually feel.
I got 4 family members to write down two irritations that somebody else in the household does and felt this was a good guiding point for my next few shoots. I gathered some really good and common irritations that I can start working with, however I also got some unusual personal ones which could be really interesting. For example, as my granddad can’t walk, whenever we go to pick him up or move him he tickles us, and this is one of the irritations my grandma wrote down. This is a really nice one and I have some ideas of what I could do with this. I have placed this piece of paper with the irritations on into my scrapbook that includes my contact sheets.

As said above, I liked the idea of producing a shoot based on “tickles” as this was the one that caught my eye and so was the perfect one to start with. This shoot turned out quite well and I captured some really brilliant movement within the tickling, however the lighting wasn’t so great. After I edited them, as you can see below, they looked a lot better and I’m pleased with how they've turned out.

On photoshop when editing these photographs, I used the spotlight setting which got the lighting to  focus purely on the tickling movement. I really like this effect as it makes the lighting a lot more eye-capturing. I'm pleased with these edits and like the soft lighting produced as it makes them look really natural.

I think I am going to do one more shoot based on the irritations I collected from family members and then leave it there. The next one I've chosen is the toothpaste one, I thought this could be an opportunity for me to turn something quite dull and boring into a few exciting photographs. I am going to mess around with the angles and the focus to see what I can come up with.

As mentioned above, I wanted to make these photographs into something a little different than just ordinary pictures of toothpaste and I really feel I've done this. 

The concept behind the shallow depth of field I have used is because this is one of the 'hidden irritations' I asked family members for. The reason I played around with the focus on these photographs is because it portrays the feelings of family members when they have irritations. Things annoy them, but they brush it aside and let it blur into the background because they're family. This relates really well and I'm happy with how they turned out.

This far into my project I started to feel like I wanted to do something different. My teacher and I had a look through some school files which had been previously made by photography staff and put into perspective the sort of photography I was interested in. The PowerPoint’s were made up of numerous different artists and I kept choosing the ones which shot their photographs in film. I really love the grain that the film camera produces and that's what I always try and do with my digital camera. I decided that I wanted to give film a go as in the three full years of doing Photography I'd never tried it before. I was really excited to try out something new and I've chosen to focus on just general family life for the minute and see how the film turns out.

I have produced two films so far and experimented with printing them out for the first time. I really enjoyed doing this as it’s something new and I’ve done quite a lot of new things within this project which have turned out really well. Below I have uploaded pictures of the film strips cut into 6 each time so that they fit nicely into the light in the darkroom.

 (1st shoot)

 

(2nd shoot)

 As you can see there's a variety of different exposures between the two shoots as I was trying to get the lighting right for the film camera. This was due to estimated settings on the film camera which I had to use my photography knowledge to do. 

With the second half of my first shoot, I was prepared to not let a lot of light into the camera as it was natural lighting outside. This resulted in them turning out quite well and I'm really happy with them (I have stuck them into my book). However, as the natural lighting constantly changes outside, within my future shoots I will have to do the same as I've done here and try a couple of different settings to see which come out best, this is the safest way to do it so that you at least have some successful photographs in each shoot. 

With my second shoot I thought the camera would need more exposing time as we were indoors and I was using artificial lighting; this resulted in them turning out a little over-exposed. Hopefully if I do anymore inside in the future I'll be able to fix this with the experience I have gained from this shoot.  

I will always aim for a perfectly exposed photograph but sometimes this doesn’t work; especially when using film cameras and not being able to see the photographs straight away. After going through the process of developing the film, I then went into the darkroom and printed different photographs that I felt were the best. I will place these into my book along with the film strips for you to see.

I have really enjoyed using the film camera; as said above because it is something new and it widens my photography knowledge by having to know what settings to put on the camera. I am going to carry on using the film camera and my digital as well so that I have a mixture of the two.

Even though I felt my first shoot on the child’s swings went well, I didn't think they went as well as they could and that was mentioned above. I didn't capture as much movement as I wanted so I would like to go back and give it another try. This time I might try out a different kind of child's apparatus and see if I can capture movement in any of them a lot easier than the swings.

I felt this shoot went a lot better than my last as I was able to capture a lot more movement. My lighting was also good and am very pleased with this development shoot.

Here are the edits from the shoot:

Once again I felt the black and white effects looked a lot better with these as it gives the right atmosphere and feeling of the people's presence but now they've gone. I captured some really great movement here and worked the shutter speed well. The lighting was still tricky to work with but easier than last time, resulting in being able to capture some good photographs. I shot these photographs so that the subject matter was right in the middle and that there was nothing around it to guide the viewers’ attention away. This way their eyes are guided right to the centre and it makes the photos very eye-capturing. The contrasts of the black and white in these edits really stand out and make the photos interesting to look at. Overall I’m really happy I followed through with this development shoot as I learnt from the mistakes I made in the last shoot on the swings and improved within this one, resulting in better photography.

Final Piece Idea

For my final piece I would really like to create a book full of my own handmade paper with printed photographs onto it. I wanted to fill this book with a regular person’s day to day life. By this I mean regular photographs of people leading their day to day lives, and then inserted inbetween these photographs, other photos of the times where families are enjoying themselves and spending time together. Whether this is a celebration or just a day out together, these are all the times which mothers and fathers work hard for and look forward too. Within my work I want to represent the idea of people having to lead their day to day lives and work for a living to then be able to spend these quality times with their families and be able to pay for these celebrations to take place. It’s also something to look forward too. For the day to day photographs I'm going to be taking, I will be either using film or taking them on my digital camera and then editing them into black and white as a lot of people may see this as the dull and negative parts of their life. Whereas the celebrations and the days with the family are going to be in colour. I thought this gave a little bit extra into my final piece, introducing the use of colour and using it to represent feelings. Along with the handmade book, I will also have another book with the original photographs in so that you can see the quality of the images a lot better than it would be on the handmade paper. As already mentioned further up my blog, my handmade paper is created out of family photographs, so the whole book will be based around Family Life and will conclude my project as a whole. I really like this idea for a final piece as it will be a mixture of staged and documentary photography, and the book for a final piece includes paper and photography which is focussed purely on Family Life. I’ve really enjoyed the creativity put towards the thought process of this final piece and I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like.

I am not always going to be photographing people, either...I want to put some really deep thinking into this project and capture photographs which represent the story instead of just photographing family life in general. I really like it when the audience can make their own mind up about my work and I've focussed on producing photographs like this all the time I've been doing photography. I don't like it when the audience can tell straight away what the images are about, I like it when they add in a little extra thought for themselves into my photography. That's what makes it special and what makes my photography a little out of the ordinary. (which is what I aim for, anyway)

 

 

I am really happy with this shoot as I was thinking about photography I could do which would represent the feelings and hard work of the parents to give their children exactly what they want. I wanted to do something a little different and thought this was a really nice idea. I used a couple of backgrounds within the photos so I could choose between them and thought it would be nice to use the Severn Bridge as it represents the good things which the hard work pays for. The story behind this shoot is that people in some countries today and hunter gatherers always work and live with no shoes on. So with this idea in mind I took photographs of feet to represent the hard work and graft a family have to do to keep them together and to protect them; resulting in them also being able to enjoy themselves and life in general. I think this was a really subtle idea as it makes the audience think around the photograph and a lot deeper into the subject instead of just ‘family life’ in general. When an object or body part represents something else it can automatically make the photograph more interesting. I also wanted to have a look into using landscapes to represent feelings and hard work. Itwas quite a dull day when I did this shoot which helped a lot as the lighting contributed to the subject of the photographs. As you can see from the photographs below, I used quite a boring and empty space to create the feelings of hard work and the day to day side of life.

As I've got a trip to London booked, I see this as a great opportunity to capture some great photography for my project. There will be a lot of families around London on a weekend enjoying themselves and having a great time, giving me a brilliant chance to capture some of these enjoyments. London is also a massive place of work for many people as it’s the capital city and so I will try and capture the work side of London also. As mentioned above, I want to start photographing things which represent the hard work of the parents and the work life, and so hopefully I will come up with some good ideas and capture some beautiful photography towards this. As London is a very busy place, I want to indulge this into my photography and really show my audience this.

 To do this I will be playing around with my shutter speed so that I capture my exposing time just right. Hopefully this will capture the volume of people within the city and how busy it can get. I am also thinking about looking into the transport of London, this representing the people who use it for business, and also pleasure. This just makes me think outside the box a little bit, just like my last shoot.

While I'm in London I want to take photographs of the underground as it's a brilliant chance to capture some movement photography. The photograph below which I got from http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=underground+photography&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dpdXU5qMPOeN0AWEsIDgCA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=902#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=jgR7xMJOf4JJDM%253A%3BRgN3GTkV6JbhmM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcolorlava.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F09%252FLondon-Underground-520x346.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcolorlava.com%252Finspiration%252Fremarkable-underground-photography%252F%3B520%3B346is exactly the sort of photographs I want to be taking and it's really inspired me by just researching through the internet:



Obviously the main reason I love this photograph is down to the movement of the tube, however I also fell in love with the lighting. The edititing skills has made the photograph really sharp and the lighting stand out to brighten up the image as a whole. I'm going to aim to get the lighting in my photographs really good so that it reflects off of the tube just like in this one, however I want my photographs to be a little darker as I am going to be representing the dull side of Family Life and working. I want the lighting to stand out in my photographs but also so that the viewer knows it's a dark and gloomy atmosphere. I also really like the angle represented within this photograph and it has given me a couple of ideas about which angles to shoot from. I am going to attempt to capture some families within the shoots I do, however this might be tricky with including the train at the same time. The composition has really inspired me within this photograph as the picture was taken from a good and wide angle which includes the roof, the tube and the people. I really like this as the people to the side of the photograph have been captured still while the tube is moving. I want to try and do this along with capturing the people getting on and off the train playing around with shutter speed. This will be quite hard as you can't ask the people to stay still, however it's worth a go. I also like that the photograph starts with the big tube in the foreground and then decreases down into the background with the whole from where it's come from. This draws the attention of the viewer through the photograph, starting from the foreground and leading into the background from where the train has come from. This photograph follows the rule of thirds which captures the viewers’ attention.

I wanted to photograph the underground as London is a big city and the underground is a large type of transport there, and is used for business purposes a lot. People getting to and from work use the underground every day as it is fast and efficient, and also quite cheap compared to driving. It is the easiest type of transport within and around the city and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to capture photographs of the largest type of transport for people who are working for their families. As mentioned above, I was aiming to capture the individuals getting on and off of the train and this worked really well with the movement. I chose this angle to take the photographs in, inspired by the photograph above as it still leads down into the tunnel where the tube has come from, however I wanted to take it in an angle where you can see the moving people and family life a lot better and clearer. (Almost down at their level whereas the photograph I was inspired by is a bit higher up than them. As I used a tripod to put my camera on, the tube was in exactly the same place within a couple of photographs and so I edited them together to produce a few of the edits below. I’m happy with how they turned out and really enjoyed taking the photographs.

I was really lucky to have been able to capture the young baby within this photograph as this links to my project really well and achieves the family side which I was hoping to do. The reason I was photographing the tube is because it's transport for the parents to get to and from work; which then helps support for the children. I love this photo as I captured the baby really still with the moving tube in the background and it works well. The tube also represents how the world is just a daze to the infants and they have no idea what's going on as they're too young and everything happens too fast around them. I was also able to capture the lights on the roof which I'm really happy about which reflect onto the tube, along with the lights inside the tube on the last one.