FIRST TEST SHOOT

After my research I decided to try out some photos and see what I could produce. Tying in nicely with this post I also got a new camera a canon 700D with a standard kit lens, so this makes it more flexible for me to take photos, as my collection is a look into my connection with my partner I need to be able to take photos as and when a situation occurs, so it's good I have a camera now. I went to go and visit my partner this weekend and told him about my project, after my research I had some feedback from Anne asking to challenge me and construct my seemingly 'candid' photos and I tried to rise to the challenge.

Over the course of the weekend I took quite a few photos some I staged and others I did not. I felt the staged photos felt quite robust and you can see through the photo that they had been constructed. Which wasn't the look I was going for. So I tired a new approach, I would just interact with my partner and when I felt like a photo could come out of what we were doing I would ask him to stay where he was and I would reach for my camera. I had a few that came out quite well. Here they are:

Coffee

Quiet

At first I was a little disappointed with not having a lot of photos I was happy with, but I remembered I still have a lot of time, and collections of this subject can take years I just need to be patient with my work. I want to give each photo in the collection a title just to give some context to what was happening as I feel some of my photos may come out a little bit abstract. I am going to do some more research and come back to the project with a fresh mind and try out some more photos. With the photo 'Coffee' I am not all that pleased with it because of the back drop, but i need to remember this isn't a studio shoot and that sometimes background of the home environment can add to the photo. Sadly I am a perfectionist when it comes to my work, but I need to learn to take a step back and come back to my work with a clean mind, or ask a peer to have a look and review some of my work. Sometimes getting someone else to look at my work makes me see things I hadn't seen before. But being a perfectionist can be a beneficial thing as it pushes me to do my best and work hard. 

As for the photo 'Quiet' I adore this photo visually and the story was behind it. It was a rainy Sunday morning and it was nearly time for me to go home, so often we just lie together and hold each other before I go. This week it was peaceful with the rain and feeling his skin always makes me feel more calm and at home. It was nice to enjoy the silence together and listen to the sounds outside. I saw this photo in my head and reached for the camera, I played about with the exposure and shutter speed to create a slightly darker image but I think it's simply gorgeous. I adore the lighting for one, as my partner has a large window in his room. I love the shadows and highlights against his skin create a very beautiful landscape. I also enjoy the intimacy of the photo, him lying across my legs resting feels so calm and peaceful. I hope to produce more work like this. 

More research and pictures to come. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you. 

PORTRAIT SERIES RESEARCH

As a new term starts, so does a new portrait project and I cannot wait. This term we are expected to produce a series of portraits instead of just a singular photo. The theme is still identity and I am excited to explore a series and see what I can create. For my portrait research in the first term I found a book in the library titled Auto Focus and I loved it so much I asked for it for Christmas. I have had a particular interest in a series by Patrick Tsai and Madi Ju. Both well established photographers themselves, they met online and fell in love. Together they created a series called My Little Dead Dick which received a lot of interest from world wide photographers, galleries, public and artists. I particully adore this series as the photos are capturing their relationship in such a beautiful light. You feel the honesty through their relationship, as you see them so in love at the beginning and it begin to become more distant before they decide to go their separate ways. All the images are shot on film cameras instead of digital, but if I were to do a similar series I would like to use digital and try and achieve the same look. I adore the idea of capturing moments with your significant other, I like the idea of showing the happiness in someones face or life because of another person. I love seeing things couples get up to and how they click. It would be nice to produce a series on things that a couple do behind closed doors when they are alone together. Such as simple everyday things made fun because that person you love is with you. For example, food shopping or brushing your teeth together I find so intimate but so precious and can be a happy moment with your partner.

Here are some photos that inspired me from their collection:

After looking at these photos I have taken some inspiration and thought maybe I could do my series on a day in the life of my partner and I. We often get up to something when we see each other, or have a meal, or go on an adventure somewhere so why not document it? I could turn out with some good photos or I may not be happy with them. Either way I can learn from them. I would like to keep the photos candid, I don't like the idea of staging this series if I am going to pursue this idea.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM WORKSHOP

So today was the first day back after the Christmas holidays, so that means new projects. Anne delivered a presentation on experimental film, surrealism, dadaism and gave examples including students own work. I thoroughly enjoyed today as it has already given me inspiration. Our topic for our experimental films is Transgression. With it being abstract it allows for a lot of room to be creative, push boundaries and explore.

One film we watched today that was really interesting and also really inspired me was Un Chein Andalou a 1929 film by Dali and Bunel. The whole film was about dreams they had had, out together into moving image. Without knowing the context that the film was about dreams then I would have been very confused and maybe not have enjoyed it as much. But I am thankful I was given context. I enjoyed this a lot because of its freedom and lucidity. I like films that you feel the fun, freedom and experimentation in and I felt it in this one. For the time it was made it was well executed, with lots of interesting and bizarre visuals. But dreams and the unconscious are endlessly fascinating to me so it was nice to see some work done previously that supported this fascination of mine.

Un Chein Andalou

We were asked then to research about Bill Viola's films, why he makes them and the themes he likes to use in his films.

After doing a bit of research I discovered that the key themes he likes to focus on are birth,love, spirituality, death and aspects of the consciousness. Focusing on the fundamental human experiences. After reading an article and interview in the guardian, I came to the conclusion that Viola made films to display raw human experiences, he took home videos of his parents after they died and cut them together to make films. I feel it is almost like therapy to him, creating something and setting it free and learning how to grieve for the loss of his parents by creating art for them. Also in the article Viola talks a lot about spirituality and he explores Christianity and Buddhism in his work, as he is inspired by the different spiritual societies and religions. Although I am unsure of the true meaning as to why he creates the work he does, I am only assuming, I will continue to research into his work.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

BENEATH THE SKIN FINISHED PIECE

With all of our hard work and dedication, the film is now finished. I couldn't be more pleased with it. here is the link below:

On Tuesday the 13th we had to show our film on the big screen in the cinema room, and present a presentation to our peers, Anne and Rosie. Throughout the process of this documentary we have had many issues, concerning the group and the film itself, editing wasn't as smooth as I would have liked it, but it was a big learning curve. We got peer feedback which was very rewarding to hear, and feedback from Anne and Rosie, it was so nice to hear they enjoyed it, and gave us some tips to improve in the future which will be useful for my next project. 

Here are some screenshots from our presentation:

For secondary research we found documentaries that we took inspiration from, some had nothing to do with tattoos, we just enjoyed their interview style, and the others were to do with tattoos. We chose them because of how they set their shots up, the lighting, framing and depth of field. 

To get real knowledge on the tattoo community and the people involved in it, we decided to research facts and figures surrounding tattoos. As our film only included an age bracket between 18-27 we wanted to research the bigger picture, the population, age and gender. 

To support the questions we asked our interviewees, we researched why people got tattoos, weather they regretted it, the percentage of people who get them lasered off. We got some interesting results and statistics which related to our questions when we watched through them again. 

When starting this film we knew communication would be key to the success of this film running smoothly. The producer Nina posted a status to ask and welcome people to share their stories about their tattoos and to be filmed. We got an incredible response of over 30 people, however on the day lots dropped out so we interviewed 16 people. Nina then produced a schedule for the Monday we were filming, of peoples times and their names. As a group we also had a group chat we could communicate with each other in, though not always effective in excellent communication all the time I feel we still all pulled together to create a great film. 

Like with every film you have to change things as you go along if they don't work out. This goes for the structure of our documentary. We initially created an intro, then stuck together all the clips we thought we interesting and important. After this we had a tutorial with Anne, in which we discussed the narrative and story arc of the film, she gave us some tips and advice. We took these on board and got rid of lots of irrelevant things, created a narrative in which it had different sections that people talked about certain things in. After cutting this all together and then watching, we all agreed it looked a lot better. 

For this film we produced a production pack which included transcripts from all interviews, shot lists, schedules,risk assessments, call sheets and story boards. This was key to our film and it's success so we could have things to reference too if we were unsure of what to film or edit, we could look at the shot lists and transcripts. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you. 

BENEATH THE SKIN POST PRODUCTION

We are now in the post production stages of our documentary, and there has been a lot of progress. We have sorted and agreed on the intro and outro. We have selected some music we want as the underscore, so I am able to edit to the beat effectively. As a group, we had a meeting with Anne yesterday so she could see the progress we had made, she enjoyed it and gave us some feedback to make it better, run more smooth and more enjoyable for the audience. So I created a new sequence and started to edit together a structure of what Anne wanted. I feel even in a day we have made a lot of progress.There has been a few editing difficulties but we are getting through it ready for the deadline Monday, and screening on Tuesday in the cinema.Here is a picture of the editing process so far.

Post Production Progress

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

BENEATH THE SKIN

We have now shot the tattoo parlour and our interviewers and it was a really good day. In preparation for this shoot, we created a list of questions we wanted the contributors to answer. The array of answers was overwhelming, we came away from the shoot with a lot more excellent content than I had imaged for this day. Some stories behind the tattoos were, funny, moving or just beautiful. It was a real eye opener because, so often you see a tattoo and think it just look nice or is interesting, but sometimes the meaning is so different to what you had expected or the placement, and colour. I feel it was educational for my group to broaden our minds. I look forward to editing together a very interesting documentary. Here are some photos from the shoot.

Clara

Paige

Jordan

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

DOCUMENTARY TATTOO COMMUNITY

Within my group we have decided to go with the idea of tattoos as a community, we did also have another avenue of community we could explore which was nude models, but decided we wanted it to be a visually diverse film so chose tattoos.

We had a meeting with Anne to discuss our progress, and I have inserted a picture of notes Nina took whilst in the meeting. In the meeting we talked with Anne what we wanted to achieve visually, finding the stories behind the tattoos and making it personal to engage the audience. We also wanted to include a running theme of community, highlighting the important and interesting things people had to say on being a part of the community.

After the meeting had finished, we decided to get in to contact people we knew with tattoos, and we also wrote on the UCA Fresher's page to ask if anyone would be so kind as to help be a contributor in our documentary. Within the next few days we had had so many replies of interest. Nina was the producer for our group, so she kindly put together a schedule of people we would see the following Monday to record their stories.

However, my partner was having a tattoo done near by on the Saturday, so we decided we would film it for visual cut aways and allow the audience to explore and observe the process. We had no time to waste so managed to book the equipment out on the Friday with a completed risk assessment and call sheets and we were ready to go, with my partner and tattoo artist soon to fill out release forms.
Here are some images from the shoot

White Balance

Let's Shoot

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.