Brief 2 – Process

Concept

The idea i had for this brief was using the items people  had brought with them to university as home comforts to have as something homely during a time of change for most students. For some moving away from home can be a dark time as for many it is the first time they have to live away from family and friends who have surrounded them all their life and these little mementos sometimes help them through this time .

My idea was to take some of the items people had brought and photograph them as a helping force in darkness by surrounding the items with work like question papers or note taking and scrunched up ideas.

Finding the objects to take the photos was relatively simple. I asked my flatmates if they had brought anything with them that matched the idea i was going to represent. To my luck one of them had brought a few figures from Japanese anime’s which they enjoy a lot and brought them as their home comfort as it was a small sample of a larger collection they keep at home.

Another flatmate had also brought a teddy bear which they have had since they were young and so meant a lot to them which was the ideal object for my idea.

To setup the shots for this brief i pinned up a towel in my room to create a makeshift studio setup to try and create the endless horizon to make a smooth curved background. The towel i had was grey coloured which fits with my theme of the helping force in darkness. The lighting setup i used was using artificial light from a torch whilst every other light in the room was turned off to put the room in darkness. the blue tint of the torch helped illuminate the objects i had and the directness of the light helped create a spotlight effect. The way i wanted to portray the images in the triptych to create a sequence was to have the shadow from the object go from left to center to right to create a fluent sequence as you look from left to right.

Research

A Still Life is a work of art, a drawing or painting (usually) of a group of objects. Objects do not move, hence the word ‘still’. In the past these objects tended to be flowers, fruit, and other kinds of food or dead animals – hence ‘life’. The French for still life is ‘nature morte’, meaning ‘dead nature’. You get the idea. Nowadays, though, still life can mean any objects small enough to be put in front of you, usually on a table.

http://www.timetrips.co.uk/still_life_history.htm

Still life is the art of capturing objects in a set time and location to capture the image in great detail in the setting it is in. It started as a style of painting with it being prevalent throughout history from way back in the Greco-Roman times through the centuries all the way up till modern times where the style has transferred over into photography.

Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 -1989) is known for his controversial photos of black and white nude photos but also has a portfolio of still life photos of flowers. His usual style of high contrast black and white photos transfers over into his still life photos. His Photo Calla Lily takes ideas he has used previously in his other photos which convey homoerotic themes takes the lily which has connotations of femininity and changes the meaning to and object to be that of the male reproductive organ. It’s his use of lighting and the way the object is framed within this image is how the meaning and connotation of it is changed. The spotlight effect and the totally dark background give the lily a delicate feel to it as though the the way it is being shown makes it more delicate then what it already is.

Veniamin Skorodumov

Veniamin has created a series of 5 images of still life that uses simple geometry in still life. His use of black and white objects and placing them in a sort of ying yang surrounding to give a sense of symmetry. The framing of specifically the picture below pleases the eye on first look with how the objects line up with the corresponding colours of the setting. The black and white effect  gives the ball to the right of the shot creates another ying yang effect in itself as the shadow created exactly half way on the ball and the angle it is at has the shadow in contact with the black surface an the lighter side not touching.

In reflection i am pleased with my images in the end and the framing of the shots that include the main objects and the other objects placed with them to generate the meaning i wanted to convey across.

Again being the first time i have done this kind of photography i am pleased at my first attempt at doing it but know i could have done better with the setup of the shots. For starters i could have used a better backdrop to create that endless horizon effect as the texture of the towel i used although is the intended colour i want does not suit still life. My third image in my triptych i did not notice was framed differently and had a slightly different lighting effect to my other two which are very similar. If i could i would retake that last photo to perfectly match the other two to create a perfect triptych but i am happy with how the photos turned out although the triptych does not flow smoothly with the last photo.