Nadav Kander: Half Life
Kander looked at the devastating event that happened in 26 April 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine. reactor NO.4 nuclear power station exploded forcing 40, 000 people to leave their city. Kander revisited Chernobyl in 2000 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the incident. When looking at the Nadav Kander video of him explaining his flower dust project, I found out that he tends to work with putting the focal point in the centre. He wants to make the viewer feel uncomfortable by making it empty, distorted, unusual and surreal. When asked what Kander focus on he said " It’s always about the palm print of man, how we interact with our surroundings; it’s where man touches nature that I’m interested in."
In the image above Kander has photographer what appears to be an open wardrobe. There are two metal tubes where the clothes used to be hanged placed right in the centre. He also chooses to show both the ceiling and the floor. The significant of the floor is that there are still peoples belongings there. Kander makes the viewer feel pathos towards the people who had to leave there in a hurry. The colourful clothes that are on the floor contrast with the blue wallpaper. He has used low, natural lighting. kanders feels that "a sense of the past and the decay reminds us of our own mortality." He also documented a city that was ket secret during the cold war. He focus on the finding a place that attracts him to photographer and give an honest truth of how the place looks.
key words: abandoned, belongings, colours. |
Here Kander has taken the theme of nature talking over the place. Kander position his camera facing a slit diagonal towards the box like room. He choose the small tree to be the main focal point. Kander positioned his camera near the left wall, this allows the viewer to see the texture that the wall has. The texture adds to the surreal mood of the picture. This is because the image not only has a tree growing inside the room but the room slowly ceasing to exist. The image itself is Kander commenting on the way man and nature exist together.I like the fact that the viewer can not see past the window but only white. To me this incorporates the fact that there is nothing left outside. The white light also contrast with the tree and helps it be in main attention in the image. when Kander focuses on getting the image prefect just when
key words: nature, destroyed, over time, take over, dark. |
The Formal Elements
The Derelict Pool
For this lesson we visited the derelict swimming pool that my school has. The pool has been shut down for over 18 years. These set of images, I documented how time has changed and has distorted the swimming pool . As I was responding to the work of Nadav Kander I kept in mind some of the themes he presents in his sets of images. For example the first image of the plant growing out of the ground I was responding to the idea of nature taking over man and giving it the name abandoned. For my edits I used both images that focuses on details to images that look at the whole swimming pool. When editing the photos I turned up the contrast and vibrance to give life to the colours of the image. I also focused on what was in the frame. in one frame i wanted the viewer to be able to see the house close to the swimming pool. this i felt exposed the fact that anything can become abandoned just by the lack on care for the area.
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Film
In the next lesson we went back to the swimming pool to take images on a film camera. Sadly the camera I got jammed and I only got a few photos before it got jammed. Again I thought immensely about the how "the palm print of man, how we interact with our surroundings". when choosing which pictures to blow up I decided to choose the ones that represents this theme most. In the image on the left I focused on the plant growing. I like the fact that it looks out of place, as when the swimming pool was in use the maintenance would never allow plants to be growing. This image also gives a sense of time and how untouched this place has been. I really like the contrast between the plant and the background of the image. I believe that it adds a sense that life can still grow even though around it is destroyed/ neglected.
The image on the right is a whole view of the swimming pool. I really like the fact that the houses in the background contrasts with the derelict pool in the bottom half of the image. I felt that this image was successful in showing the theme. when developing this image I put the middle of the image in the developer longer to create an effect of the image getting darker towards the middle. I like how it turned out as to me it represent the count down to when the derelict swimming pool will be complete taken over by nature.
The image on the right is a whole view of the swimming pool. I really like the fact that the houses in the background contrasts with the derelict pool in the bottom half of the image. I felt that this image was successful in showing the theme. when developing this image I put the middle of the image in the developer longer to create an effect of the image getting darker towards the middle. I like how it turned out as to me it represent the count down to when the derelict swimming pool will be complete taken over by nature.
Eugene Richards: The Blue Room
The Blue Room from foto8 on Vimeo. |
He began shooting his first project on film. In a few of Richards’s photos he experiments with double exposure. Richard felt that there were so many projects on abandonment house that his pictures weren’t very original. To make the project a bit different he decided to not know a lot of the history of the house he went to photograph. When he had chosen the final pictures from the book he had wrote a lot about each photo. However as he was putting it together he felt that the book should be a more visual experience and the more he wrote the more it took away from the project. eugene states that "The Blue Room is a study in colour of the abandoned, forgotten, but eerily beautiful houses of rural America."
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This house was the only one he knew the past of. Richard thought he was going to an abandoned town. However there were a few people still living there. The house he had photographed was the only one he actually knew the history of. The locals had said that the house belonged to a family of three. The son had gone to war but sadly never returned. The husband had shortly died after leaving the wife alone. Richards plays around with the idea of isolation and how timed had stopped and this is an inside look on how people used to live. this photo shows the belongings of the family that he found it in the attic of the house, in the pile there are a bunch of nice shoes and paperwork of some sort. I really like the fact that the belonging seem to be surrounded by the empty darkness. Richards also places the camera close enough to allow the viewer to see the texture of the floor and how much dust there is on the floor.
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Eugene Richard was a social worker in Arkansas and an activist. He went back to Arkansas to see if share crops house were still left. However most had been torn down and turned into corporate farms. He was able to find this house (image above). The dog that is lying down on the grass is not dead but just extremely sick. Richards places the house in the top centre of the image. I felt that this is effective because of the nature that surrounds the houses looks like it shields the house from time passing. The green surrounding the house seem like the only living thing that has survived time not passing in the place. The grass contrast the lifeless colour that is painted on the house. Richards uses natural light to photograph this image to make sure he takes the picture of what it actually looks like and not distort the colours in the image.
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The Forgotten space
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Alexandra Palace was first opened in 1875. Sadly there have been two fires in the palace. The first was 16 days after the palace was opened to the public and the other was in 1980. The palace was rebuilt in 1988. It was named the People Palace as it was never a intended as a place where the royal family would stay but where activities like ice skating would be held for the people to go and be entertained. The theatre was designed by John Johnson and has been derelict for 35 years. Throughout the time the theatre was open it had been used for a centre of refugees, cinema, prison cells underneath and even a BBC prop store. The photos on the left here show my interpretations of what the tour guide said about the building. I aimed to capture the life that is present in the space and also the story that the place holds. I focused more on the architecture and how time was preserved throughout the building. In the theatre I was mostly interested in how abandonment and lack of care affects the space. I felt that my images were successful in capturing the life that once was obtained in this space.
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The Allotments
we as a class were taken to the allotments near our school to document how the environment in the allotments were. when taking the photos I kept thinking that I wanted to focus on small things that make people have to make their slot individual. I took these images on my SLR camera. Since it was a dark cloudy day I had to put my ISO high and a slow shutter speed.
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Inspired Artist: Paul Tucker
Paul Tucker photographer an allotment. he looks "from it's dormant state in March to rapid and full growth in August." This links too this project by the fact that his work has a theme of how man and nature can coexist together. In the image above he takes a wide shot of the allotment capturing the path that is in the middle of the photo and the tidy wilderness that surrounds the edges of the image.The main focal point is the white chair. However this is contrasted by the darkness and heaviness of the sky. He also uses depth of field as the white shed behind is out of focus.
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In this image Tucker photographers an white door with people possession hanging on the door. The colours of the coat and the hat contrast with the white.
One thing that I like with the image is the texture that are presented in the image. there is the wooden texture of the door and then the texture of the clothes which is like a rough fluffy feel. One thing I don't not like about the image is the two intense lights on both sides of the image. |
My work compared to the artist
Both the artist and I have the shed as the main focal point. i tried to recreated his idea of using his rule of three whilst also maintaining the shed in centre ground. although i admin his using of bright colour i wanted to make a twist on his nature theming by using dark colour. my image is more full on by the fact of the wild bush in front and behind the shed. again i appreciate his use of bland colours towards the top of his photos and as much as i would like to have recreated the colour it was not practical as the weather was cloudy and i was assigned a time limit on the project.
Film
how to develop the film
first i lay out all of the equipment i need to develop it. i need a film reel, developing tank and lid. i then go into a room where it is completely dark and pull out the canister, as i pull it out i put it on the film reel. after that is down i place the film in the developing tank and close the lid.
i have three different chemicals that i need to put in the developing tank. The first chemical is developer, i have dilute the chemical with water so its 3/4 water and leave it in the developing tank for 3 minutes finishing by pouring it down the drain. The second, is the stop this one i leave for just 1 minute and 30 seconds. finally the last chemical,fix again i have to dilute it with water and leave for 6 minutes.
first i lay out all of the equipment i need to develop it. i need a film reel, developing tank and lid. i then go into a room where it is completely dark and pull out the canister, as i pull it out i put it on the film reel. after that is down i place the film in the developing tank and close the lid.
i have three different chemicals that i need to put in the developing tank. The first chemical is developer, i have dilute the chemical with water so its 3/4 water and leave it in the developing tank for 3 minutes finishing by pouring it down the drain. The second, is the stop this one i leave for just 1 minute and 30 seconds. finally the last chemical,fix again i have to dilute it with water and leave for 6 minutes.
Inspired Artist: Daisuke Yokota
Yokota was born in 1989 Saitama, Japan. Yokota is inspired by " perforative print- making style" displayed by Mono-ha arts movement in 1970s. He begins by taking a photo on film and then developing it in the the darkroom. After being developed he takes a picture of it and again develops it even further. each time he develops he distorts the image. Some of his prints get re- photographed 10 times making it more distorted each time. He states that the prints that he makes "portrays memory"he removes an details for the image such as words, signs he want the location in the photo to be unrecognisable. all he remembers from the place is who he was there with. Yokota prints are very hard to predict the outcome.
My Work
in this project is class lead. it responses to the work of Daisuke Yokota. one the left is the image i started off with. i would then start to develop it by adding layers that i somehow distorted the image. the image on the right is an acetate version of one of the development that i have done. the acetate allows me to up it on top of others in the dark room, therefore adding distortion.
Development
Developments on Photoshop
Disorientation
Strand 1
For my first strand I experimented with long shutter speed. My aim for this strand was to have the car lights leave a trace on the image. As I was walking along the street i found that the bus stop window was full of water droplets from when it was raining. I saw that it gave an interesting look onto the streets and how the image became distorted and a bit fuzzy. an advantage that comes with this method is that the light diffuse across the water droplets. however the problem with this method is that i would have to wait until it rains and there are not many glass on the streets apart from bus stops. if i were to carry on with this strand next time i would like to response with the work of Keisuke Shirota. One thing that could have been better was if i used a tripod some of my image came out blurry.
Strand 2
For my second strand I experimented with zoom blur. To make this effect i used my digital SLR camera that has a zoom lens. I used a long shutter speed, while the camera was being exposed I changed the zoom focal length. This is effective in representing disorientation as although you can make out a bit of whats in the image it gives the viewer a sense of distortion. The vibrant colours strand out and catch the eye of the viewer. The zoom also draws attention to the image as it asks the viewer to focus on one spot of the image, however I shook the camera as I took the photo therefore the lights add to the effect of movement. Like the other strand I would need to use a tripod if I were to develop this as i want the light line to be straight.
Strand 3
My third stand I took advantage of the foggy night. I liked the way the fog interacted with the lights on the street. i played around with how the light exposes the fog. I also experimented with focus against lights. however on the ones that you can still see parts of the image it came out very yellow. In photoshop I tried turning down the yellow colour balance but that made the rest of the image dark.
Strand 4
This is my fourth strand, for this one I started reflecting skyscrapers so they became symmetrical. when i was thinking of strand to represent disorientation i thought of looking up at tall buildings. However I experiment with reflecting them and they become a weird shape but still recognisable. the top image i really like as the it looks like a the building are just floating in the air.
Inspired artist: Keisuke Shirota
Shirota is a Japenese artist. her work "A sense of distance" was shown in 2012 at the Pulse, Los Angeles, a contemporary art fair. I was particularly interested by her work as I completely got the concept that she represented in her project. the idea behind her image is fleeting memory. when we remember a place we only focus on some of the details and lose the rest. the parts that is in colour is normal and can see things clearly. Whereas the other parts are empty and lack colour as well as details. " the collection consisted of out-of-focus and poorly metered photos that commemorated nothing in particular. they seemed like images that functioned as a record and a memory of nothing -- but in that, i sensed a bizzare kind of reality."
in this image the main focal point is in the middle which is in colour. however the structure of the picture has lines that also leads the eyes to that spot. Shirota makes the picture in high contrast in the black and white bit. This also makes a greater contrast with the colour part. the artist chooses images that she took ages ago and does not remember when she took it. i like how powerful yet still clear the images stick and represent the concept. when discussing this photo with a peer we both had different ideas of what the place be. this made me realise that the artist wants the viewer to draw on place they have been, so they can fit their memory with the photo.
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To me this image is some sort of retail shopping centre. again i like the contrast that features in her work. the lack of objects and people show the fact that the memory of this place lack details. " It is what we see in our everyday lives and don't remember - the things that we were looking right at but did not truly see." One of the things that draws me towards this image is the perspective that the image holds. it draws right to the blue part of the image.
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First Development
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For my first development i carried on with strand 1. This time i responded with the work of the of Keisuke Shirota. what draw me towards her work was how simplistic her images look at first glance. then when i looking at the image probably i saw that there was a bit of the image that still remained in colour. i like how only one part the viewer can recognise every day things but the whole image together has something that everyone look at but doe not really see the details of. For my second development i would like to do more images that focus on long shutter speed traffic.
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Second Development
the streets that i choose to photograph is the path i always walk to school. even though i was looking at the street i looked at place that when i was walking would draw my eye to but i would never really remember it the next time i walked there. A difference to Shirota work is that i made the colour part really stick out whereas she made it less obvious where the boards are.
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On my second development i decide to carry on with documenting traffic with a long shutter speed. The second development again was inspired by the work of Keisuke Shirota. I created these images by first putting them into photoshop and duplicating the background layer. the layer on top I changed it to black and white and then turned down all the colours so it would become extremely dark and the aim for it was to become unrecognisable. Then using the rectangular tool i selected the part of the image that i wanted to keep in colour. after the area i want is selected i just press the back space and it is done. depending on the image i added a contrast layer to increase the contrast between the dark and lights parts of the image. additionally i also adjusted the level to make the image less yellow and dark. the aim for these photos were that i wanted the viewer to focus on how the colour layer interacts with the dark layer.
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Third Development
For my third development i went out and took photos at the same locations. this is because i like the aspect of making the same location as unrecognisable as possible. again i responded to the work of Keisuke Shirota but this time i made the parts of the image that are dark into moving gif and kept the part is in colour in normal. This creates the feeling of disorientation as the background does not always match the part that is still.
The Process |
Fourth Development
For this development I went from long exposed images that created light trails from moving traffic to bokeh images. the reason why i choose to do this was because i wanted to do the same development but try it out in blur light in the image. This changed the images focus point instead of the viewer looking at just the moving lights, the blur light made the viewer look at the image as a whole and created a contrast between the parts of the images that were lit with light compared to the parts that weren't.
like the development before I took photos of the same path way. Unlike the previous development I wanted the place to be recognisable. For this photo I wanted them to have more warmth, this was achieved by the colours. specially in the two images below. On the bottom right image I added an orange filter. As I went just as it was getting dark I had limited amount of light. I added it so it would be a bit more like the Uta Barth my inspired artist. I like it when it darker as it is easier to focus more on the lights and how they control the outcome of the photo as it is the lights that give structure to the image.If i were to do these again i would do it a bit earlier as i would like to have more of variety so i would want experiment with how day light effects the lights around. whether the day light swallow the lights For my next development i would like to carry on with bokeh pictures but turn them into gif.
Inspired Artist: Uta Barth
Uta was born in Germany but now works in Los Angeles. her project consists of out-of-focus images, abstract images. However the images that I am mostly interested in is the way she takes picture of out of focus images which features lights. the light are described as "The way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light", this method of photography is called Bokeh. She began taking this images in the early 1990s and started her series of field in 1995 and still has been carry on with it till today.
Her Process
she asks a person to stand in front of the camera, at which she focuses the camera on that subjects. after she asks the subject to step out of the frame so she left with a blank out of focus background.
Here are some of her examples of her work:
Her Process
she asks a person to stand in front of the camera, at which she focuses the camera on that subjects. after she asks the subject to step out of the frame so she left with a blank out of focus background.
Here are some of her examples of her work:
This image seems as if the artist has put some sort of filter on top to create a tissue paper like texture. The camera was positioned on a street conner looking out onto traffic lights. The image was taken on a clear day when it was just about to get dark. the image provokes a feeling that the light is slowly slighting away. The bright red light draws the viewer in as it gives a clue of what the place could be. At the Museum of Contemporary Art the image above was installed on the windows this created an disorientation effect as from close up people would describe it as an "abstract" collection of "coloured dots". However from a distance people can make it out to be a street conner but it appeared as "distorted as if seen through et or partially opaque glass".
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The out of focus leaves the viewer curious as they cannot clearly make out where the location is but can guess what is in the image. In this image again the camera is positioned so it looks out to incoming traffic. This is know as there are two white lights in coming towards the camera. There is also light coming from the traffic light. This picture has more of a mysterious feel to it as the lack of warm colours. the grey tones add to the mysterious feel by making the street fell cold and misty.
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Fifth Development
For this development I went and did the same route as before to see what I get, in terms of how different would it be compared to my pervious developments. For this I stuck with the out of focus shots inspired by Uta Barth in the night but this time making them into gif. I shot in the night as I liked how the lights are the only thing that lights up the space and how the lights are the ones that set the tone of the image. As I was representing disorientation I shook the camera a bit as i took the gif to make the viewer more disoriented as they cannot focus on one part of the photo. i prefer the still images than the gif as you can appreciate the lights more. also because it's out of focus the
Sadly when you click on 'save for web & device' on photoshop to save a gif it only offer 256 colours so the image becomes pixelate. |
Sixth Development
For this development I was inspired by a photo I took in my fourth development. The photo had a persons figure right next to two lights. I liked how the lights interacts and was effected by the person figure. In this development I experimented with two different types of images. In the first I wanted to see how light and people interact with out of focus images and the other was how a big group of people look when the photos are out of focus. The image on the top left is my favourite as I like the fact that the subjects bright red coat contrasted with the darkness of the image around the edges. however the other images I edited people did not have coloured clothes that stood out, making the image all the same colour and not a giving a lot of contrast within the image. I did not like this development, I prefer the how the environment interacts with the lights. Therefore for my next development I will go back to the environment photos.
Seventh Development
For this development I went to London's most famous areas. Here I took images of the London eye, the big ben and the areas surrounding the landmarks. One of the advantages of going to this area was that it was very well lit with a lot of different colours. What I really like about this development is the colours.
selects
edits
Eighth Development
For this whole development I went to the winter wonderland. this is a fun fair that happens in London every year. winder wonderland rides all had colourful lights. here i was able to create interesting gif and images. again i wanted to get images that features the boken method of blur lights.