Reflective Blog

    My main focus was the subject of liminal (transitional stages, a boundary or threshold).  Looking at 'fantasy and reality' and the matter that we are unsure and unaware of anything that is in-between.  I wanted to create images that at first glance are quite hard to work out what it is and use a slow shutter speed with people in the show the effect of movement rather than a still portrait.  I have looked at the film 'Donnie Darko' and the liminal moments and crossovers in it between fantasy and reality.  Also the programme 'The Mighty Boosh' and how they portray purgatory as a cab office and I like how they cross over the boundaries in a funny way.


  At first I began making variations of Zoetropes and Thaumatropes.
Zoetrope - "A cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across."
Thaumatrope - "A disk with a picture on each side attached to two pieces of string.  When the strings are twirled the pictures appear to blend into one."

For my zoetrope I took a slighty different route.  I still kept the spinning but instead of drawn pictures/images I decided that because I'm focusing on the subject of liminal I thought I would test out using small mirrors in order for the audience to get lost in the mirrors when its spinning as there is not a definitive image.


3in1


At first I began messing around with the different settings on the camera (I used a 60D canon), focusing on shutter speeds and exposures making sure these were raw images.  The aperture for my images was set to f8 allowing more light to be exposed through the lens, although it was tricky at first knowing and testing which aperture would best suit the situation. These pictures are taken in my house, I changed the shutter speed  as well as the exposure to create a layered effect without layering different photos on photoshop. The high exposure created a yellow image from all the light sources merging together.

After playing around with with low apertures and exposures on the camera I was very pleased with how they turned out.  I liked how because the shots were taken at night, the lights in the pictures all seemed to merge together.  Then I decided that from looking at photographers and artists such as Pascal Baes, Sally Mann and Idris Khan, that shooting in black and white (monochrome) would be a perfect fit in order to make the images appear more of a liminal state.

I decided that the beach and sea would create a nice background for the pictures I had in mind.  I prefer the effect of the black and white images as it denaturalises the person and background.  I tested the background being the only thing in focus to it also being blurred and came to the decision that the sea worked well because the slow shutter speed also captures the movement of the waves.

In post production I then decided to see what they'd look like if I layered them, so at first I just put two together and changed the opacity of the one that was on top, which gave the effect of a see-through image as well as the captured movement.



Feedback from crit:

"Interesting, I like the use of black and white as well as the captured movement, it defamiliarises the subject from the audience."

"What could the lines in the background be, they look like wires but would they be over the sea."  - Because the image was blurred it therefore was unsure of what certain things were, which is what my intention was.

Things to look at:

Pictorialism - in post production - Rayner

A Glitch in 9

Looking at 'the street' and 'the portrait' I am really interested in the urban side of the street photography focusing more on the building and landscapes rather than the people in the streets themselves.  I will go out to certain places I know to have graffiti and certain attractions such as Brighton and Camden.  I attempt to capture these images just by using my camera phone suggested in the lynda course I watched.  This way I'm not getting in anyones way and the pictures will feel more authentic.

I enjoyed shooting in Camden because for the majority of the time you do not know what to expect, so by using my phone I was able to quickly get it out and take a picture when I saw something interesting, much like the artist drawing on the pavement or the man with the parrot.  I chose not to change any of the settings on my phone camera as I wanted to see the quality of the images on its own, I think the fact that it was a bright day helped the quality of the images.  At times the speed of the shutter on my phone camera got in the way, because it is quite slow and shooting the moving public was sometimes challenging.  As my phone camera was not always useful I did go out again and instead I took my camera with me, a little less discreet but better quality images.


As for the portrait, i chose to base it on the self portrait and now because the majority of people have smartphones 'selfies' have become increasingly popular across social networking sites.  I will explore how different a picture can be of someone when they take it for themselves and when they get someone else to take it for them.  Looking at full body pictures as well as close up portraits.

In my opinion the full body shots were not too successful, I like how dim the lighting is as i didnt use a backlight or a fill light, so just focused on using the key light.  I then thought that I could take it one step further and "destroy" them to a certain extent but in a way of portraying a message of how that person truly feels in front of the camera.  In these two shots for example the character looks slightly uncomfortable in front of the camera so in the top image I burnt away at the side slowly approaching her, and the bottom one I have sewn thread onto where her skin is visible; face and arms.  Just by printing the images out on paper I think the aesthetic is lost so I will try these again but with Polaroids maybe.