Brief
Name of school - Arts,Humanities and Social Sciences
Course Title - Photographic Media
Module Title- FDPM 05- People
Tutor- Andrew Farrington
Assignment Title - The Human Condition
Learning outcomes assessed in this assignment
1. Liase and communicate with individuals when shooting portrait and human based photography.
2. Identify and analyse a broad range of situations where 'people' are the primary photographic subject.
3.Understand the importance of suitable camera systems for a given purpose.
4. select suitable processes and techniques for given photographic opportunities and produce imagery for that purpose.
Deadline for submission - week commencing 23rd may
What is the The Human condition?
source-http://condition.org/humcon.htm
1 .What is meant by 'the human condition'?
'The human condition' is a phrase typically used with respect the generality of situations that humans face in 'getting along with each other and the world', situations that are difficult to encompass in some way because of hang-ups or predispositions of one kind or another or just simple ignorance -"What did I do to wrong her?", "Why can't we get along with each other?" and "The beauty of a flower, isn't that proof of God"? -illnesses of a sort, mental and real, our own or society's, mental or real, and how they weigh upon us and society about us. The human condition is, for example, the material of poetry in general and the lyrics of most music ('rap' included) and various other 'secular' or even religious situations -lovers in warring religions, for example, and the irony in the contemporaneity of both most abject and most excessive 'lifestyle and quality of life' as in some parts of Africa and anywhere in the US. Perhaps the most obvious examples come right off any daily newspaper -the 'irresolvability' of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, letters to Dear Abby and Ann Landers (and their answers) -or the dog next door, run over and killed because your neighbor had a fight with his wife and forgot to close the gate. And there are more general examples too -the individual saddling his friends and relatives with his aches and pains or complaints on government: "They (whoever) ought'a do (whatever)" and "You can't change human nature". Various expressions of frustration, 'unrequited love', 'the seven deadly sins' -'the human condition' is some one aspect or another of these items.
2 - Why does it always seems to have a sorrowful or 'negative' cast to it? -examples otherwise?
'Discomfiture', in general -mental or physical, is antithetical to our evolutionary nature which is, more correctly (and genetically), 'the pursuit of best well-being and viability', so when we come up against anything that is 'troublesome' to that pursuit in some way, we tend to linger on its 'resolution' -or at least wonder "Why can't we -" and "If only -". When there is no such problem, on the other hand, we automatically get on with the routine of life.
Examples otherwise? -the typically superficial and essentially momentary 'happiness in another's good fortune' and 'glee at your team winning!', for example -not generally bagged as 'human condition', but schadenfreud in particular and extreme: 'happiness in another's misfortune', which, by its very substance, reflects completely consistent 'negativity'.
| The irony in one's 'once being aware of the human condition' (most sophisticated sense implicit) is that he will probably also see how 'noise in the system due to those who don't understand it' impinges and intrudes upon 'the well-being and quality of life of those that do'. A further peculiarity of the 'neonate ignorance and pecking order' underlying the human condition then, is that knowledge of those two properties and their implications eventually drives the | life-form to 'optimising the nature and course of the life-form and its geological time-frame' -'the minimization of pejorative consequences of the present upon the well-being and viability of the continuing life-form'. Worse still then, those that do understand must, eventually, inevitably and 'justifiably', find themselves 'pecking upon those that do not understand' -more 'evolutionary aristocratization' therein. |
3 - What is the source or evolutionary nature of 'the human condition'?
We are evolved out of ignorance and continue to be born in ignorance, and that means that even as we discover and amass knowledge -the 'if this, then that-ness' of matter and existence, 'new situations' and 'new ignorances' will always present something of a problem to someone as long as we exist. Thematerial of a 'human condition', on the other hand, has to have come into existence the moment any first man communicated 'bother by something he couldn't get a handle on', were that a caveman communicating frustration at trying to flake a blade into existence or the absence of 'life' in a man fallen suddenly dead before him -nor does it end with that ignorance, for lying at the bottom and convoluting the whole is the inseparable combination of sex and pecking order -all of us, therefore, subject to consequences of our own and each other's 'ignorance'.
We are evolved out of ignorance and continue to be born in ignorance, and that means that even as we discover and amass knowledge -the 'if this, then that-ness' of matter and existence, 'new situations' and 'new ignorances' will always present something of a problem to someone as long as we exist. Thematerial of a 'human condition', on the other hand, has to have come into existence the moment any first man communicated 'bother by something he couldn't get a handle on', were that a caveman communicating frustration at trying to flake a blade into existence or the absence of 'life' in a man fallen suddenly dead before him -nor does it end with that ignorance, for lying at the bottom and convoluting the whole is the inseparable combination of sex and pecking order -all of us, therefore, subject to consequences of our own and each other's 'ignorance'.
4. What is the origin of the phrase? -and where is somebody likely to encounter it?
The idea or concept could not have existed before man had evolved enough intellectual capability to 'ideate his discomfiture' with some ability, however primitive, to 'express' that ideation to someone -suicide a high-order example. The phrase itself is a fundamentally philosophical concept, perhaps first 'formally' discussed by some budding Immanuel Kant or such. 'The human condition' is, more properly, a phrase which is, when used, meant to identify some one or other particular situation as 'another example of the class of such situations of the human condition'. It is, in this sense, not in general use except perhaps as a write-off of some one or other particular 'irresolvable or wonderment' -(eg) "That's the human condition"! 'Substance/material', on the other hand, is that of novelists, pundits, essayists, coffeehouse politicians and soft scientists in general 'who range more or less freely among those various problems and situations consequent of ignorance and ambiguous language.
5 - What does 'the human condition' mean to 'the man on the street'?
In that it is an essentially philosophical phrase, it's the specifics of situations that people commonly relate to and and are important to them, not that 'generality'. The human condition in this especially negative sense is a measure of our ignorance with respect to what we know about ourselves as 'a life-form in its configuration space' -biology, anthropology, the resource/environment, government/economy and 'the nature and course of human evolution and progression', as the idea of that whole and its parts varies thruout the world. Thus, for example, 'the human condition' of an isolated Amazonian aborigine turns upon the primitively simple elements of such life, but that of an environmentalist or 'human rights specialist' may entail the entirety of complex consequences attaching 'logging of the aborigine's forests for civilized, free-enterprise-capitalism furniture' -the deaths of orangatangs and 'western improvement of aboriginal life' among them. 'The human condition', clearly, is a function of what one knows about 'the nature and course of the life-form on the planet' and what he can do about 'the particular situation of interest'.
In that it is an essentially philosophical phrase, it's the specifics of situations that people commonly relate to and and are important to them, not that 'generality'. The human condition in this especially negative sense is a measure of our ignorance with respect to what we know about ourselves as 'a life-form in its configuration space' -biology, anthropology, the resource/environment, government/economy and 'the nature and course of human evolution and progression', as the idea of that whole and its parts varies thruout the world. Thus, for example, 'the human condition' of an isolated Amazonian aborigine turns upon the primitively simple elements of such life, but that of an environmentalist or 'human rights specialist' may entail the entirety of complex consequences attaching 'logging of the aborigine's forests for civilized, free-enterprise-capitalism furniture' -the deaths of orangatangs and 'western improvement of aboriginal life' among them. 'The human condition', clearly, is a function of what one knows about 'the nature and course of the life-form on the planet' and what he can do about 'the particular situation of interest'.
6 - What does 'the human condition' have to do with form of government or economics?
'Form of government and economics' (any) is inherently based upon 'belief' principles of some kind, but it is a fact of thus-far human evolution that there are no such 'principles' that are not intrinsically warped by their very 'pecking-order-based' origins and the ambiguities of language -due, in other words, to the ignorances and dispositions of their originators, formulators and executors. The further situation then is that not only is there something of 'a human condition' endemic (the individuals) of peoples and nations, but one compounded by typically profound differences between their 'autonomous' governments and economics due tonatural resources, geography, climate et cetera, -'diasporatively cheap natural resources and labor' a still-continuing problem. In the long run, and inherently, mankind will learn to 'do what is necessary to optimize his life-form existence by successively minimizingthe energy-wasting and noisome chaff of the human condition'.
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7- What relationship is there between science and 'the human condition'?
'Form of government and economics' (any) is inherently based upon 'belief' principles of some kind, but it is a fact of thus-far human evolution that there are no such 'principles' that are not intrinsically warped by their very 'pecking-order-based' origins and the ambiguities of language -due, in other words, to the ignorances and dispositions of their originators, formulators and executors. The further situation then is that not only is there something of 'a human condition' endemic (the individuals) of peoples and nations, but one compounded by typically profound differences between their 'autonomous' governments and economics due tonatural resources, geography, climate et cetera, -'diasporatively cheap natural resources and labor' a still-continuing problem. In the long run, and inherently, mankind will learn to 'do what is necessary to optimize his life-form existence by successively minimizingthe energy-wasting and noisome chaff of the human condition'.
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The more we understand 'the nature of ourselves in our configuration space', the less opinionated we become and the less likely we are to be 'contributing elements to a human condition'. The problem is that we are literally 'born in ignorance' and raised in a world of people likewise born and raised -which means then, that there is a very nearly overwhelming amount of misinformation, opinion, predisposition et cetera regarding what we 'know' about ourselves and how we 'should' deal with each other -or there wouldn't be the mass of troubles there is in the world today. However circumstantially, that includes scientists as principals too, because, in general, virtually all institutionalization today has origins NOT in 'a life-form-and-configuration-space laboratory of working scientists', but in 'the neonate ignorance and pecking order of our primitive ancestors'. The scientist today, in other words, is a scientist only in his laboratory (-the mathematician, at his blackboard), and otherwise 'only human' outside the lab where 'pecking-order-based lifestyle and quality of life' (money -example) drives him and everyone else. The scientist however -like it or not, is 'stuck' with being the only person in position to understand the consequences and implications of his genetic imperative anddeliberative capability, the only one in position of eventually and inevitably being driven and having to learn that 'the life-form has no choice but to optimize the nature and course of its evolution and progression by the heuristic manipulation of government'.
8 - What prognosis is there for 'the human condition'?
Given the fact of 'neonate ignorance', there cannot but always be something of 'a human condition'. But given, further, thearistocratization intrinsic of 'deliberative capability' and the fact of an inevitably enclosing and limiting geological time-frame, mankind is both 'stuck' and driven to 'optimize the nature and course of his viability as a life-form on the planet'. 'Barringcataclysmic strike by some asteroid' then, the more the organism learns about itself and its configuration space, the more it learnswhat 'pejorative' it has done to genetic imperative end:
Given the fact of 'neonate ignorance', there cannot but always be something of 'a human condition'. But given, further, thearistocratization intrinsic of 'deliberative capability' and the fact of an inevitably enclosing and limiting geological time-frame, mankind is both 'stuck' and driven to 'optimize the nature and course of his viability as a life-form on the planet'. 'Barringcataclysmic strike by some asteroid' then, the more the organism learns about itself and its configuration space, the more it learnswhat 'pejorative' it has done to genetic imperative end:
- "How much better life might be now had we known better then" the more it is driven to further knowledge regarding the interrelationship of the momently nature of its viability and its geological time-frame toward that end -'a machine that goes heuristically by itself'. Thus the purely physical dynamics of this phenomenon is manifest in/by 'successively minimising existential entropification' by successively extracting as much information possible while 'wasting' as little system-energy/information possible -as long as that configuration space supports that 'evolving humanity and optimization' -in black and white terms: the more we learn about the nature of ourselves in our configuration space (a 'black box'), the less populated and existential our lives become -conserving configuration-space information- and the more efficient andpurely intellectual our lives have no choice but to become' (example).
Or to put it still another way
The more we defer (a) 'the upset of (human-absent) natural order by pecking-order-based human existence' to (b) 'inevitably optimizing the nature and course of the human organism', the more we shorten the physically evolutionary distance between (c) 'looking back and seeing what pejorative done to our existence at that time' and (d) 'immediacy of appreciation and correction now' and (further) the more immediately (e) 'we improve our life-form well-being and quality of life and geological time-frame'. -Or to put it still another way, the idea of wealth and ownership beyond 'base-domain human requirements' is fundamentally antithetical to best well-being and viability in the nature and course of the life-form'. Nor does this begin to touch upon the subspeciation consequent of rate-limitation.]
source- http://condition.org/humcon.htm
Self Portrait
The initial task that was set for the people brief was to photograph a model that would definitely turn up - yourself. This was a challenging task for me as well as other people as I hate having my photo taking , never mind me taking it myself. I wanted to use fine art as my starting point , my aim was to show myself as glamourous and stylish but show my part of my body.I wanted to image to say that everyone focuses on the glamour side of things rather than the 'real' things. I used the glamourous makeup and pose to take away the focus from myself and my body.
This was the chosen photograph out of the two, as I feel it says what I wanted the image to say more than the other image as my face isnt showing.
Self Portrait
The initial task that was set for the people brief was to photograph a model that would definitely turn up - yourself. This was a challenging task for me as well as other people as I hate having my photo taking , never mind me taking it myself. I wanted to use fine art as my starting point , my aim was to show myself as glamourous and stylish but show my part of my body.I wanted to image to say that everyone focuses on the glamour side of things rather than the 'real' things. I used the glamourous makeup and pose to take away the focus from myself and my body.
This was the chosen photograph out of the two, as I feel it says what I wanted the image to say more than the other image as my face isnt showing.
Tuesday 22nd February
Today I went out to find inspiration for ideas through magazines and I have decided to make a scrapbook/sketchbook of all the images i find in magazines and the internet for inspiration as I have figured they will come in handy for the peoples brief and for future photo-shoots. I will research fashion portraits and fine art and themed as I am interested in photographing fine art portraits for this brief.
Individual Practice within the studio
Here are the images where I used different lighting to create different effects
Low Lighting - Softbox and Honeycomb used.
Orignal Image
Enhanced image
I turned the background over the the black and used the honeycomb modifier and a softbox , The honeycomb modifier was placed to the side and used as a side light to create the shadows just above the subjects shoulder. This lighting has created a dark harsh mood which fits the subjects personality and style perfectly.
45 degree lighting ( high key lighting)
Original Image
Enhanced Image
The lighting makes the image look quite flat and quite 'mood-less'. The image blends into the background more and creates no contrast between the background and the image, this is the reason why I have enhanced the colours in the image later on in aperture to make them stand out more rather than blend in.
Side Lighting with Colour Gels
For this image I tried experimenting with colour gels and side lighting as I havnt used that sort of lighting before.I decided to use a red colour gel so that it would contrast with the blue jacket that the subject was wearing. I also used a softbox as the main light source on the subject so that the light was more balanced. I don't really like the overall effect that the ligthing has made but I have learnt how to experiment with colour gels and how it can change the image. If I was to use this colour gel again I would light the subjects face as much and I would place the light on the opposite side of the subject.
Orignal Image
with this image I did the same again but used a different colour gel, and tried to place the light so that it was more directly to the side of his face so that I would get the effect of half and half lighting, with half blue lighting and the other half without the blue.
Enhanced image
The image turned out how I wanted it to but was slightly overexposed and I wanted to brighten up the colours and define the tattoos more. I decided to crop the image in order to get rid of the crease in the background and I felt that the image would be a lot stronger as a portrait image rather than landscape. I opened the image into aperture and used the sharpen tool on the tattoos and change the contrast and brightness to enhance the colours in the image.
Experimenting with different lenses and focal length
I have experimented with different focal lengths with the same image to see which focal length looked the best , The above image was taken with a Nikon d5000 55-200m zoom lens and the focal length was 82mm.
This images focal length was 112m , I decided to choose the first image with the focal length of 82m and edit it in aperture, simply because it kept all the detail that I wanted in the image such as the guitar and all of the tattoos.
Enhanced chosen image
Focal Lengths
I struggled when trying to choose an image with these three , but it eventually came down to getting the detail in the photograph and not cutting anything out, so I didnt want the image to be too zoomed in or zoomed out. The above image was taken with a 55-200 zoom lens and the focal length was 98mm, I notice that part of the left arm was cut off and it would have to cropped to make the image look right. The image with the 82 focal length was the final one that I choose to edit as I felt it was the right focal length and had all the correct detail I wanted within the image.
In order to make the photograph look more intimate I decided to crop the image so that the subjects arms would be in line with the edge of the image, just like the above. I also used to sharpen tool on the tattoos in aperture and brightened the image colours with the brightness tool. To give the image a more dark and mysterious effect I added more black point to give the photograph more shadows.
Photographing Younger Generations- A bond between a mother and child
I have recently done two shoots with these two subjects, the first time i photographed them both was when Ruby (the baby) was just 2weeks old so obviously I was very wary and nervous as i had never photographed a child that young. They were happy with the photographs and the photoshoot and came back 3 months later, when ruby was a little older and her personality and character was able to come through more on the photographs.
I used a soft-box and an umbrella to get the lighting soft and not too harsh in order to suit the babies skin ands angelic appearance.
I have experimenting with different focal lengths again, i did use others lenses within the photo-shoot such as the standard lens, 18-55m and
but I felt that the zoom lens 55-200m fit the mood I wanted to create, for example if I was to use the 18-55m lens on any of these shots they wouldn't be as intimate and close as these images.
I decided to change the colour of the image to black and white in order to make the image look more softer and delicate. After looking closely as the image I realized that the subject had few blemishes and false tan marks which you could see alot more clearer on the coloured photograph than the black and white one.
Here is the image after the skin smoothing tool. I think it adds to the angelic effect that I wanted to create as the skin is a lot smoother on both subjects.
This is the most recent photograph three months after the above, Emily's facial expressions are completely different in this one to the above, her face is glowing with pride and in the above her face looks more like she is worrying about not dropping Ruby. Emily stance is upright in this image which shows how her confidence has grown as a mother to the above where she is slightly hunched over.
Emily has decided to come back with Ruby every three months to get her photographed with me to show how she has changed within the months, this was a great opportunity for me and I feel as though I have a small bond with Ruby myself as everytime I see her she has changed even more. I am looking forward to the next photo-shoot with Ruby and her mother and it will be documented on another blog later in the year.
Individual Practice within the studio
Before starting any photo-shoots for the brief I decided to use my work outside of the brief to help me with experimenting with lighting and other resources.The first photoshoot I did was with my uncle , I wanted him as a model for my portfolio as he has interesting features
which I was intrigued to photograph.He has a certain style towards his appearance so I wanted to create the same style within the lighting and the colours in the image.
which I was intrigued to photograph.He has a certain style towards his appearance so I wanted to create the same style within the lighting and the colours in the image.
Here are the images where I used different lighting to create different effects
Low Lighting - Softbox and Honeycomb used.
Orignal Image
45 degree lighting ( high key lighting)
Original Image
Enhanced Image
Side Lighting with Colour Gels
Orignal Image
Enhanced image
Experimenting with different lenses and focal length
Enhanced chosen image
Focal Lengths
Photographing Younger Generations- A bond between a mother and child
I have recently done two shoots with these two subjects, the first time i photographed them both was when Ruby (the baby) was just 2weeks old so obviously I was very wary and nervous as i had never photographed a child that young. They were happy with the photographs and the photoshoot and came back 3 months later, when ruby was a little older and her personality and character was able to come through more on the photographs.
These are just a few of the photographs I took on the day, I have tried to recreate some of the photographs from the fist photo shoot to show how much Ruby has changed. I also wanted to show how the bond has grown between the mother and daughter. The first photo-shoot I found was the hardest as it was quite awkward and uncomfortable to watch the mother and daughter together at times as the mother herself was only 16 when she had Ruby and it looked as though she struggled to bond at first and to get the baby to settle, luckily her mother was at hand to help her. Here are the photographs I choose to edit.
I choose these two shots from about 10 others which where similar but I thought that these two showed Ruby's personality and character coming through a lot more.
Here are some of the chosen photographs of the mother and child. As mentioned earlier i wanted to create a certain mood for the images , I wanted them to be as relaxed as possible so I decided to lie them both down on the floor as babies are most used to that position and to add to the angelic effect I added white faux petals onto the black background.
but I felt that the zoom lens 55-200m fit the mood I wanted to create, for example if I was to use the 18-55m lens on any of these shots they wouldn't be as intimate and close as these images.
Here are the images that I choose to edit:
Orignal Image
I decided to change the colour of the image to black and white in order to make the image look more softer and delicate. After looking closely as the image I realized that the subject had few blemishes and false tan marks which you could see alot more clearer on the coloured photograph than the black and white one.
I used the skin smoothing tool on aperture but made sure that I didn't over-do it as it can look too much when it is overdone.
Here is the image after the skin smoothing tool. I think it adds to the angelic effect that I wanted to create as the skin is a lot smoother on both subjects.
I did the same with this image. Here is the after effect.
I have recreated images from the first photo-shoot when ruby was just 2weeks old to show how much she has changed and how the bond has improved between the mother and child.
In this first photograph you can see by the way Emily is holding her baby that she has little confidence in herself as a mother at this early stage into motherhood. She looks as though she is scared of hurting her child and that came across clearly when I was photographing her as she kept looking over to her own mother for reassurance in what to do with her child.
Emily has decided to come back with Ruby every three months to get her photographed with me to show how she has changed within the months, this was a great opportunity for me and I feel as though I have a small bond with Ruby myself as everytime I see her she has changed even more. I am looking forward to the next photo-shoot with Ruby and her mother and it will be documented on another blog later in the year.
Artist Research
corporate portrait
I have decided to research both well known corporate portrait designs and the less conventional portraits which are more creative.I am going to use sources such as flick, bjp, magnum photos and just general photographers websites. Here is the research for more conventional corporate portraits.
Corporate Studio photographs
http://www.chrisrenton.co.uk
corporate portrait
I have decided to research both well known corporate portrait designs and the less conventional portraits which are more creative.I am going to use sources such as flick, bjp, magnum photos and just general photographers websites. Here is the research for more conventional corporate portraits.
Corporate Studio photographs
http://www.chrisrenton.co.uk
 Peter Marlow Initially Peter Marlow took the path of photojournalism and in his first few years he became the most enterprising and successful britains young news photographer. His portfolio from his Sygma years allowed him access to the magnum co-operative in the 1980s. For Marlow the whole point of joining magnum was to be free and to use the opportunity of freedom to exercise an independent vision of his own. These corporate images are from his online portfolio and show different ways of presenting and photograph corporate images. Two different Viewpoints and focal lengths     |
photographs from flickr
Looking at the photographs from Flickr , there is quite a clear difference between them and the above from photographers websites, I prefer the photographs which are not posed although the posed photographs look between in a studio environment.
Own photographs
In todays studio session we were given a task to photograph a corporate portrait for the research department, they requested black and white corporate images to use for their profiles. We decided to organise a lighting setup before they came so we was ready to photograph them as soon as possible. Here are some of the photographs from the lighting setup.
Studio setup
Backlight
Test shots of elliot ( too overexposed)
Here is a contact sheet with the images I took, If I was to do the photographs again I would have tried to be less nervous and act more confident around the subject, I struggled to get the backlight in the right position as the nerves got the better of me and I eventually just let a fellow student take the rest of the photographs and I managed to get two photographs that were successful.
After reviewing the photographs and the photo-shoot I decided to approach the corporate portraits in a different manner so I decided to photograph the chef at the public house that I work at , I thought the photographs would look better less posed and more natural so I photographed him in the kitchen whilst he prepared and cooked food.
Here is a contact sheet of all the photographs I took. At first I struggled to get the right light as it wasn't well lit.
After Reviewing these images I feel that from my research I have noticed that most corporate photographs are colour and that my images look more corporate in colour rather than black and white, I would like to do another shoot with my cousin who works at a pharmacy , I would rather photograph these if I can in my studio and try to make them more my own corporate style rather than going off my research.
Presentation Designs
I have decided to experiment with different trip-tick designs for my presentations as I feel it would fit the photographs more. I am also going to include a mock up logo to make the image look more professional.
I have decided to design several logos through use of fonts on photoshop in order to make it stylish and simple. Here are the logo designs that I have designed.
After experimenting with each font on photoshop I decided upon the first logo as it is stylish and simple and also says the initials but the name of the pub as well. The font is modern yet classical and will never go out of 'fashion' . Here are some examples of one of my best images with three different colours of the logo.
White and black logo
I decided to use the Black font at first and then realised that it was too dark and couldn't be read easily,I then experimented with black and white so that the initials could still be recognised. I finally decided upon the white font for the chosen logo as its easy to read and fits in with the colours in the image. The logo could be changed to different colours in different events within the year.
TripTick Presentation one
Fine Art
Viktoria Sorochinski's Mother and daughter
I Adore these photographs and love how it has been done. The way that they have been photographed really shows their bond between them and shows how different their relationship is to other mothers and daughters. I would find it really interesting to do something similar to this but candid,to show how different mothers react to their children.
Lottie Davies
Lottie Davies was born in Guildford, UK, in 1971. She grew up in Surrey with her parents and two brothers, and was educated in Alton and Godalming. After a degree in philosophy at St Andrews University in Scotland, she moved back to England to learn the photographic trade as an assistant in London, where she has been based for the past sixteen years. Lottie has been working as a professional photographer since 2000.
Lottie's unique style has been employed in a variety of contexts, including newspapers, glossy magazines, books and advertising. She has won recognition in numerous awards, including the Association of Photographers' Awards, the International Color Awards, and the Schweppes Photographic Portrait Awards. Her work garnered international acclaim with her image Quints, which won First Prize at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Awards 2008 at the National Portrait Gallery in London, since which time she has exhibited in Italy and France with her 'Memories and Nightmares' series.
Her travel work ranges over six continents, and has taken her to such diverse destinations as the Namib Desert, the Julian Alps, the Gulf Islands of British Colombia and the frozen archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle. In the course of her adventures she has had tea with a Guatemalan presidential candidate, made stir-fry for Bushmen in the Kalahari, been bitten by a monkey in Nepal, got lost in Slovenia, tasted every whisky on the beautiful Isle of Islay, eaten raw whale skin in Greenland and been awed by cherry blossom in Japan.
As a photojournalist, she focuses on lesser-known communities and on ethno-political issues, putting forward a critical view of contemporary Western society and with a desire to illuminate the lives of those often overlooked. Her portraiture and editorial work is equally wide-ranging, from highly-produced set-pieces to 'found' imagery, and this breadth of experience in varying approaches informs the fine art work for which Lottie is rapidly becoming known.
Her fine art work is concerned with stories and personal histories, the tales and myths we use to structure our lives: memories, life-stories, beliefs. She takes inspiration from classical and modern painting, cinema and theatre as well as the imaginary worlds of literature. She employs a deliberate reworking of our visual vocabulary, playing on our notions of nostalgia, visual conventions and subconscious 'looking habits', with the intention of evoking a sense of narrative and movement. Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, has described Lottie's work as "brilliantly imaginative".
'memories and nightmares'.I love the
Eugenio Recuenco
Eugenio Recuenco is a photographer from Madrid, Spain, who works mostly in the publishing and advertising fields. Compared to others, his personal style has been referred to as "cinematographic" and "pictorial". His work has been featured in magazines such as Vogue,Madame Figaro and Twill.
Here are some of his images that have inspired me for my own ideas.
This is the image that gave me my idea for fine art the most , the image to me portrays the human condition quite well as it shows how we all have a conscience on our side , as well as many other personalities.
'
The seven deadly sins'
After researching several fine art photographers I came up with the idea of everyone having their own personalities and sometimes they can be split into several didn't moods. This reminded me the most of the term 'the seven deadly sins'. Here is some in-depth research on the seven deadly sins and its history to help me organise and plan each photoshoot.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
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The seven deadly sins'
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
SEVEN
Storyline
A film about two homicide detectives' desperate hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins. The movie takes us from the tortured remains of one victim to the next as the sociopathic "John Doe" sermonizes to Detectives Somerset and Mills -- one sin at a time. The sin of Gluttony comes first and the murderer's terrible capacity is graphically demonstrated in the dark and subdued tones characteristic of film noir. The seasoned and cultured Sommerset researches the Seven Deadly Sins in an effort to understand the killer's modus operandi while green Detective Mills scoffs at his efforts to get inside the mind of a killer...
The characters of Sloth is played by someone that doesn't like work and spends most of his time in his bedroom, so in the story line the killer has decided to tie him to the bed and starve him with no food or anything in order to show him how he was wasting his life and eventually he died due to his sloth- like behaviour.
The character of Lust was played by a prositute who worked in a brothel , this
The character of Lust was played by a prositute who worked in a brothel , this
For my Fine art photographs I wanted to create a certain style for my photographs so that they would all fit together as a series of images rather than separate photographs. My intention is to use the same model to get the message across that each person has a sin without even knowing about it.
Pride
For my first sin 'Pride' I wanted to photograph a ballet dancer as I feel that to be a ballet dancer and go through the pain that you go through you have to be a proud person, I also think that people who are proud often wear a mask that they hide under, people such as pageant queens , So my idea was to morph these two characters together to make one image. Here is the outcome in contact sheets.
For my first sin 'Pride' I wanted to photograph a ballet dancer as I feel that to be a ballet dancer and go through the pain that you go through you have to be a proud person, I also think that people who are proud often wear a mask that they hide under, people such as pageant queens , So my idea was to morph these two characters together to make one image. Here is the outcome in contact sheets.
The overall presentation of the images was to put them altogether as a series
but for experimentations I have decided to choose three images like i like the most and edit them and present them together , here are my three chosen pride images and the overall presentation.
Experimenting with filters on photoshop
Experimenting with layers on photoshop
Triptick Presentation
Experimenting with Filters
Accented Filter
Texturizer Filter
Film Grain Filter
Sumi-e Filter
Looking at these filters I feel that the one that fits the effect I wanted to create , which was dark and lustful was the sumi-e filter although I don't really think now after looking at the images with and without a filter that they really need one to give the effect that I want.
Experimenting with Layers
Chosen images
Experimenting with Filters
Ocean Ripple
Dark Strokes Filter
Sloth
This was the first image from the photoshoot and initially I used to white background and tried out some shots with a black duvet cover,after a few shots I realised the lighting wasn't what I wanted as it was high key lighting and didn't give the photos a dark and dingy artistic effect but more of an advertising commercial look. I swapped the backgrounds and used the black and continued the shoot. After more shots I soon realised that the images still wernt what I wanted so I decided to change the lights from using a soft-box and umbrella to a softbox and a honeycomb modifier to soften the light more and darken the images slightly.
Experimenting with Filters
Experimenting with Filters
Greed
Experimenting with Filters
Envy
Chosen Photographs
Experimenting with filters
Other experiments
Here is an image with I have made using layers and the overlapping of them to create this effect.
Final Image
seeing as we need to submit 8 images I have decided to use another image to summerize the whole photoshoot Here is the image edited with the words on.
Presentation Ideas
Trip-Tick Design 1
For this presentation I have chosen 3 of my favourite images from each sin and presented on the same sheet like the below images.After reviewing these presentations I realised that I would have too many images if I was to use this design so instead I have decided to use all images on a sheet of 8 and also experiment with other Presentations.
Trip-tick 2
I have also decided to present my images in a tarot card design with a quote from a famous person. Here are my tarot card designs.
I have then thought about putting something else with my images , something that would help the audience/viewer of the image feel more involved in the images and feel as though they can relate to them, I though about how these sins if over done can be seen as an illness for example if people are too gluttonous they are classed as overweight or morbely obese I have then thought about how these illnesses can be helped or slowed down and I though if someone cuts their knee they need a plaster. I thought that an idea would be to present some objects that each relate to each sin , something that will help them, for instance if you are a proud person you could have a mirror to help you. I have chosen to take this presentation on.
I have decided to include objects such as:
Wrath- Kalms tablets
Sloth-Pocket clock
Lust-Condoms
Greed-Gold
Gluttony-Chocolate
Pride-Compact mirror
Envy-Mini voodoo doll
Eat me when Gluttonous
Stab me when envious
Take me when angry
Stab me when envious
Take me when angry
Gaze at me when proud
Watch me when sloth
Spend me when Greedy
use me when lustful
Here are my images of the final presentation
I have also decided to display my tarot card images in a card envelope reading:
pick a card any card to signify that whichever card you choose will pick your sin destiny.
Tom Wood
Tom Wood (born west of Ireland, 14 January 1951) is a notable contemporary street photographer working in the north of England, particularly Merseyside (1978–2001). He has had numerous solo shows and his work has been collected in five books. Together with Martin Parr and Paul Graham, Wood represents the first generation of British fine art colour photography and is often named as an influence in published interviews with young British photographers. He has worked with colour negative film continuously since 1976, while often using both black and white and colour in different locations.
Tom Wood (born west of Ireland, 14 January 1951) is a notable contemporary street photographer working in the north of England, particularly Merseyside (1978–2001). He has had numerous solo shows and his work has been collected in five books. Together with Martin Parr and Paul Graham, Wood represents the first generation of British fine art colour photography and is often named as an influence in published interviews with young British photographers. He has worked with colour negative film continuously since 1976, while often using both black and white and colour in different locations.
Influences and style
Although Wood photographed working class Liverpool exclusively for many years, his primary interest is not documentary. Trained as a painter at the conceptually orientated Leicester Polytechnic from 1973–76, his first exploration of lens-based media was through extensive viewing of experimental films. His photography has explored a "multiplicity of formally divergent themes and quotations"[1] his approach "much more fluid than the current conventions of post-Conceptual photography or photojournalism dictate.
Annie Levobitz
Nick Danziger
Four girls and a baby
Lise Sarfati
.I love most of annie levobitz work but the work that inspired me the most was the image of Jerry Hall and Gabriel Jager.
Born in 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut, Annie Leibovitz enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute intent on studying painting. It was not until she traveled to Japan with her mother the summer after her sophomore year that she discovered her interest in taking photographs. When she returned to San Francisco that fall, she began taking night classes in photography. Time spent on a kibbutz in Israel allowed her to hone her skills further.
In 1970 Leibovitz approached Jann Wenner, founding editor of Rolling Stone, which he’d recently launched and was operating out of San Francisco. Impressed with her portfolio, Wenner gave Leibovitz her first assignment: shoot John Lennon. Leibovitz’s black-and-white portrait of the shaggy-looking Beatle graced the cover of the January 21, 1971 issue. Two years later she was named Rolling Stone chief photographer.
When the magazine began printing in color in 1974, Leibovitz followed suit. “In school, I wasn’t taught anything about lighting, and I was only taught black-and-white,” she told ARTnews in 1992. “So I had to learn color myself.” Among her subjects from that period are Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, and Patti Smith. Leibovitz also served as the official photographer for the Rolling Stones’ 1975 world tour. While on the road with the band she produced her iconic black-and-white portraits of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, shirtless and gritty.
Nick Danziger
Four girls and a baby
Nick Danziger was born in London but grew up in Monaco and Switzerland. He developed a taste for adventure and travel from a young age and, inspired by the comic-strip Belgian reporter Tintin, took off on his first solo trip to Paris aged 13. Without a passport or air ticket he managed to enter the country and travel around, selling sketches to make money. Nick’s initial ambition was to be an artist, and he later attended The Chelsea School of Art, where he gained an MA in Fine Art and was soon represented by the Robert Fraser Gallery.
But his desire for travel remained. In 1982, he applied for and was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship, and used it to follow ancient trade routes, travelling on foot or by traditional local transport from Turkey to China, documenting his adventures in diaries. The diaries and photographs formed his first book, the best selling Danziger’s Travels in 1987, and a second book,Danziger’s Adventures, followed in 1993. His third book, published in 1996, Danziger’s Britain, was a social and political commentary on the state of Britain, and was said by the UK’s Independent newspaper to be, "so important that every one of us should read it and weep".
Lise Sarfati
I came across lise's work whilst researching for a shoot I was doing for portraiture in college I wanted my photographs to give a message without saying anything in particular on the photograph, I became interested in drag queens and then went further into researching transgenders and transexuals as I was curious as to what went through there head, so I decided to do research on transgender photographs and Sarfati came up. The series which I looked at was where Lise followed two male-female transgenders and photographed their journey from male to female , pre op to op I became so interested in her work that she has been a favourite of mine every since and I used her work as inspiration towards my own photo-shoot of a transgender.
Born 1958. Lives and works in Paris.
Lise Sarfati took up photography when she was a teenager living in Nice. She saw Nice as a big baroque theater inhabited by flocks of old people in a state of decay and by those on the fringes of society.
At the age of fifteen, Lise Sarfati went to Russia for the first time, where she spent her holidays in Sochi, on the coast of the Black Sea. She subsequently wrote her thesis on 1920s Russian photography and obtained a master’s degree in Russian studies from the Sorbonne.
After working and showing at the Galerie La Fontaine Obscure in Aix-en-Provence, she was hired in 1986 as official photographer of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
She returned to Russia in 1989 and went on to devote nearly a decade of study to this country in full transition. During this period, she received grants from the Ministry of Culture and the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs. In Russia, she met many intellectuals and filmmakers, as well as outcasts of society. She spent three years visually exploring the personal relationships she had with these people before turning her focus to architecture and objects.
The photographs she took in Russia were brought together in the year 2000 in her first book Acta Est. The title refers to the Latin phrase Acta Est Fabula, meaning “the play is over,” which, in ancient times, was announced to invite the audience to retire. The implicit theatricality of her images comes out in the choice of scenes from everyday life, marked by a brutal starkness and emptiness. Paired with the use of bold colors, her photographs are aesthetically and emotionally intense.
After the death of Marguerite Duras in 1996, Lise Sarfati photographed the writer’s apartment and her house in Neauphle-le-Château, naming the series Post factum. These pictures constitute a sort of inventory of intimacy taken from the places where the writer lived and worked.
Together with several intellectuals and photographers, in 1998, Lise Sarfati worked on the book France, les révolutions invisibles, in which each contributor offered his or her personal view of the underlying transformations of French society today.
Born 1958. Lives and works in Paris.
Lise Sarfati took up photography when she was a teenager living in Nice. She saw Nice as a big baroque theater inhabited by flocks of old people in a state of decay and by those on the fringes of society.
At the age of fifteen, Lise Sarfati went to Russia for the first time, where she spent her holidays in Sochi, on the coast of the Black Sea. She subsequently wrote her thesis on 1920s Russian photography and obtained a master’s degree in Russian studies from the Sorbonne.
After working and showing at the Galerie La Fontaine Obscure in Aix-en-Provence, she was hired in 1986 as official photographer of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
She returned to Russia in 1989 and went on to devote nearly a decade of study to this country in full transition. During this period, she received grants from the Ministry of Culture and the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs. In Russia, she met many intellectuals and filmmakers, as well as outcasts of society. She spent three years visually exploring the personal relationships she had with these people before turning her focus to architecture and objects.
The photographs she took in Russia were brought together in the year 2000 in her first book Acta Est. The title refers to the Latin phrase Acta Est Fabula, meaning “the play is over,” which, in ancient times, was announced to invite the audience to retire. The implicit theatricality of her images comes out in the choice of scenes from everyday life, marked by a brutal starkness and emptiness. Paired with the use of bold colors, her photographs are aesthetically and emotionally intense.
After the death of Marguerite Duras in 1996, Lise Sarfati photographed the writer’s apartment and her house in Neauphle-le-Château, naming the series Post factum. These pictures constitute a sort of inventory of intimacy taken from the places where the writer lived and worked.
Together with several intellectuals and photographers, in 1998, Lise Sarfati worked on the book France, les révolutions invisibles, in which each contributor offered his or her personal view of the underlying transformations of French society today.
Environmental Portrait
The whole idea of this photoshoot was to capture two different people living in two very different locations, a council estate and a wealthy housing estate. In these particular set of images I wanted them to show how some people try to cover up there backgrounds by dressing themselves up and playing 'pretend im something im not' for a day. Ive seen it myself and when you know its actually quite upsetting to think that they have to cover up what they really are.These photographs where taken in Preston near the highrised flats near where the subject used to live.
After carefully reviewing these images I have chosen four images to edit in aperture and photoshop. Here are them photographs.
Locals n the pub
I wanted to take alot more photographs than I did for this idea but unfortunatley the people i wante dto photograph didnt come in when I was working. The photographs I did I feel show strong characteristics with each individual.Here are the four images that I manage to take ,I have edited them in aperture.
Martin Parr
Bio
Martin Parr is a chronicler of our age. In the face of the constantly growing flood of images released by the media, his photographs offer us the opportunity to see the world from his unique perspective.
At first glance, his photographs seem exaggerated or even grotesque. The motifs he chooses are strange, the colours are garish and the perspectives are unusual. Parr's term for the overwhelming power of published images is "propaganda". He counters this propaganda with his own chosen weapons: criticism, seduction and humour. As a result, his photographs are original and entertaining, accessible and understandable. But at the same time they show us in a penetrating way that we live, how we present ourselves to others, and what we value.
Between 1937 and 1938 Humphrey Spender took over 900 pictures of Bolton at the request of Tom Harrisson, one of the founders of theMass-Observation project.
Humphrey Spender's "Worktown" photographs offer a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people living and working in a British pre-War industrial town.
Humphrey Spender's "Worktown" photographs offer a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people living and working in a British pre-War industrial town.
This was an unplanned photoshoot which turned out to be a difficult one at that due to the weather conditions and amount of hand luggage I had at the time.
Chosen and edited photos
Kim Anderson
Kim Anderson is a European artist who specializes in photographing children. His art, prints an dposters are described as “black and white film touched with subtle bursts of color that heighten the sense of childhoods gone by.”
He now works exclusively for a Dutch publishing company, creating posters, postcards, and calendars of his art, prints and posters. He is the father of two, and he considers his 7-year-old daughter his inspiration and she’s often his top model. European photographer has gathered legions of fans with his timeless photographs of children in oversized clothing.
As a world famous photographer, Kim Anderson captures children on film as no one else can. Identifying a special moment and freezing it in time is what he does best. His body of art, prints and posters are best known for the hand colored photographs of young children in unexpected situations or quiet moments. These photos evoke romance and emotion with a universal appeal around the world.
All grown up
Chosen Photographs to edit
father and Son Bond
As my orignal environmental portraits idea was to photograph mother and child bonds I have decided to try and stay with that theme and photograph a father and son bon which was right under my nose, as candid photography, my dad and my brother are two alike and I have decided to photograph them in a natural environment we are all familar with , which I have also photographed for my places breif. The photographs show how close they both are and yet how far away they are at times with their age gaps and also with my dad working away most weeks.
