Level 1 Photography

Project Inspiration

December 3, 2015December 4, 2015 Jacob Bagley

Project Inspiration came far and few for me. From little hints to whole projects based around work from other artists. I believe no work is truly original, someone somewhere will have likely done something similar to you before. Without predecessors however Inspiration can never really emerge.

Australian artist Michael Pederson makes street art in public areas of Sydney.

In an article posted on thisiscolossal.com Christopher Jobson writes about Pedersons work. In this he says “Pederson makes use of pre-existing elements like park benches or abandoned furniture to share messages meant to snap a viewer out of their daily routine and see the world from a more contemplative or even childlike perspective”

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/10/sydney-street-signs/

This artist gave me massive inspiration for the first project. Pedersons work includes quirky art in the form of signs put in places that would turn the heads of any passerby’s.

Tumblr -http://miguelmarquezoutside.com/

This photo in particular influenced my third image of the Appropriation project, using the “mind the school children sign” in a way that almost personifies it’s meaning

In an post on boredpanda.com 3 brothers tried to recreate photos from their childhood as a surprise gift for their mother. Whilst not artists in their own right they single handedly gave me the idea my portraiture project.

Three Brothers Recreate Their Weirdest Childhood Photos As A Gift For Their Mom

http://www.demilked.com/brothers-childhood-photo-recreation-christmas-calendar-gift/ (same story, different site)

Other examples of people doing the same things can be shown below:

Two Brothers Recreated Their Childhood Photos For Parents’ Wedding Anniversary

Two Brothers Hilariously Re-Create Their Childhood Photos As A Gift For Their Mother

We Recreated Childhood Photos As Christmas Gift For Our Ailing Mother

Richard Avedon was an absolute master of portraiture photography. Working at Vogue for over 20 years he sculpted his career as both a fashion and a portraiture photographer. Photographing high profile and famous people his portfolio is huge taking photos of people such as Andy Warhol, Harper Lee and the Beatles. In his obituary (seen in the new york times) it says “his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century”. Nothing says that more than his “Western Project” where instead of photographing people that others know worldwide he photographed ordinary people living their lives in small rural communities.

Avedon’s work is inspiring to all portraiture photographers as he really brings out the spirit and human emotion in his subjects. Especially with my Portraiture project where I had to photograph strangers on the street. There is no need to direct, add makeup, change the location or change the subjects clothing. You photograph them for who they really are, let them express themselves in their own way.

http://www.avedonfoundation.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Avedon

47 Whitehouse Avenue

December 3, 2015December 4, 2015 Jacob Bagley

With the final project “Home” I made the opportunity to get back to my home in loughborough. Home is a special place for anyone and comes in all different forms. For me Loughborough will always be my hometown and the house I currently live in will always be my little slice of it. So my final project I decided that I should make a collection of still life images to captivate the spirit of my home.

The Kitchen is by far the most interesting room in my house, with cabinets full of wonders, shelves full of books and racks full of spices. It’s more than a place where we come to cook it’s a place where we can socialise with guests and dine as a family. It’s especially nostalgic seeing as the old worktop we bought from Ikea over 10 years ago is still around.

The garden has evolved over the years. Once it was used extensively by me, my sister and a wide variety of family and friends as it was spacious, had great areas to play in and was a great place to house outdoor gatherings. Today it looks almost desolate. Trees have been chopped down, algae grows on the slide and the swings creak as if the timber frame could collapse at any moment.

The living room is the most used room in the house, like many households. It’s where me and my family relax and socialise together, although the television is a main attraction. “I’m a celebrity get me out of here” is a television show that we as a family always watch whenever it is on TV, not all but shows like Master Chef, The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Menu, Gogglebox and chat shows like The Graham Norton Show and The Johnathon Ross Show are favourites for the family. Little characteristics like the patches in the blinds tell interesting stories of how the dog tried out of the house when we first received him (the dog in the bottom corner) although in this photo he looks a little too relaxed.

My parents bedroom is a new edition to the house as we recently had an extension. Although not too many memories have been made of this room it still feels like a part of home like all the other rooms in the house. The photo clearly sets a scene that is common during the day, the dog loves to sleep on the bed and watch the outside from the glass doors leading to the balcony.

This image is what I consider the pinnacle of “Home”. Our house is located alongside the tracks of the Great Central Railway, one of the last surviving steam train lines in the country. This image captures the train going past our house from the perspective of my parents bedroom. In front lies one of the trees from our garden, and in front of that is our dog Snoopy. As he would on any other day he sits on the bed relaxing.

People of the Street

December 3, 2015December 3, 2015 Jacob Bagley

For the second half of our project we had to go out and photograph strangers. I already had a good idea on the kind of people I wanted to photograph and so I took photographs of Street performers and Stall owners. I found this Project a lot more interesting as it highlights the essence of what Portraiture is really about. Portraiture is meant to tell a sort of story of the subject being photographed. Little details such as the way the subject is dressed, the way they pose, their expression and their willingness to have their photo taken can correlate to things such as where they’re from and the life they live. In the sense of photographing strangers both the photographer and the individual looking at the photo have no idea who the subject is or what their background history is.

My first subject was a young street artist named Florian. Sculpting a Sand Sculpture of a Labrador on the streets of Lincoln at the time (photo above) I tipped him and asked him if i could take his photo. At first he was a little shy but through a little reassurement I was able to take his photo, using a low aperture i got the subject in focus whilst losing the background a little bit. His pose is casual and relaxed which is what i wanted, he looks confident but not too cocky.

My second subject was an older gentleman who owned a children’s funhouse, the photo was taken at a fair in the town square in Loughborough. My first thoughts was his pose the expression on his face were different from my first subject. It reminded me of when you got your photo taken back in school, standing straight and with a smile on your face. This gentleman has stronger sense of mannerisms than my first subject probably due to age difference.

Then and Now

December 3, 2015December 4, 2015 Jacob Bagley

For my Portraiture project i had many ideas floating around in my head. For a while I had a leading idea where I was going to photograph my family with one of their childhood toys, the catch was they had to actually dress up like the toy they had in the photograph. Due to time and resources I decided to scrap this idea.

^^ The Toys that would have been used for the project. In order: Carrie Doll, Gonk, Miss Bunny

Instead I decided to stick with the theme of “Nostalgia” and try to recreate photos of members of my family from when they were children.

Maisie [Sister] – 2003 (aprox)

Taken when my sister was very young this image captures the innocence children have in their youth. Sat at our family table one lunchtime she feeds banana to a stuffed white monkey, common and relatable a lot of people would have done this when they were young.

Fast forward 10+ years and there are subtle differences. There are subtle differences like the walls which have been painted over, the subject has grown and changed their hair colour. But a few things remain such as the same white stuffed monkey and the same bowls. I couldn’t quite match the lighting seeing as the original photo was shot midday probably during the Spring or Summer time, I was shooting during the evening in the Winter so strong natural light is hard to come by. Instead artificial light was created using a s strong lamp.

Jemma [Mother] – 1974

This Photograph of my Mother was taken in Shillington, Bedford which is where she originally lived. My Grandfather (who was a teacher of design at the time) took this photo in their Bungalow. The Dress she is wearing was made by my Grandmother and really captures the style they had in the 70’s, even down the style of hair my mother had and the shoes she’s wearing.

Since I didn’t have access to my grandparents home i had to improvise dramatically. Luckily in our house we have a chair similar to that of the original photo. Again the lighting proved difficult as the original photo had strong natural light so two strong lamps were used either side.

Mat [Father] – 1985 (aprox)

Taken at Hind-leys High School in Shepshead my Father would have been around 12 in this school photo, wearing the standard uniform the highschool had at the time.

Using Lightroom I was able to almost replicate the original image fully with the same coloured shirt. Seeing as the original photo was taken at a professional shooting the lighting is entirely artificial which meant I had an easier time trying to match the backdrop and lighting my subject.

Cultural Industry

December 3, 2015December 4, 2015 Jacob Bagley

The Idea for this project was to obtain items from somewhere and create 3 images which somehow link with each other. Knowing that i had plenty of unique and interesting items at home i took the opportunity to take a train back home to loughborough and take still life photos there. Since there were three photos i wanted each one to represent a certain part of the day, one for Dawn, one for Noon and finally one for Night. By following this theme i was able to produce images that didn’t 100% fit together but still follow the brief as each image is somehow linked.

Image 1 was the still life picture for Dawn. using an upturned fish bowl full of bottlecaps i carefully inserted a lightbulb through the bottom so it just emerges from the inside. The lightbulb itself is meant to represent the rising sun whilst the bottlecaps loosely represent trash from a city. Over the fish bowl i added an old duvet cover for the light from the bulb to bounce off of and add some warmth to this otherwise cold image. As it’s dawn the duvet cover is only half covering the fish bowl as if everyone is just getting up, like the sun. The Backdrop is mostly white with a black stain on the far left as if the dark is slowly fading away as the sun rises. Looking closely there are specks of dust on the inside of the fish bowl which look almost like stars, although the sun makes them disappear during Dawn they’re never completely gone.

Image 2 was the still life picture for Noon. Taken in portraiture orientation it’s meant to represent the sun being at it’s highest point in the day. Noon is a busy time of the day, it’s when most individuals are out working, maintaining our towns and cities and producing inspirational pieces of work for the world to see. And for that reason there is a strong theme of Culture and Industry in this image with giant cast iron gears sitting in harmony with an elegant stone figurehead. In the middle is a crocheted flower, a product of both industrial and artistic efforts with the farming industry providing the wool and an artist to use the skill and turn it into something beautiful. Placed in the foreground are two branches off a tree to show that whilst humanity has come far everything we have created originated with mother nature.

Image 3 was the still life picture for Night. My idea was to create a fantasy setting almost like a dream. To create this I obtained multiple vintage bottles dotted around our garage, thick with dusk and grime they created an old and mysterious feel to them. I then placed fairy lights inside of them as if actual fairies were trapped inside of them. Bright like the stars they appear during the night, the sun sits watchfully as they take over the image as the stars would in the night sky. In the bottom corner there is a tiny doll like fairy sitting on a rock as if it were drawn there by magic. Among all the vintage bottles is a lantern (above the fairy) and a spirit burner (right left corner) which would be used to see in the dark in the nighttime. Following the fairy tale theme a tiny mirror like picture frame sits in the bottom left corner as if it had just come out of snow white.