During my tutorial with Ellen I was still struggling with my printed publication. She said to still do the book about text messages but not to have the train time lapse images in the book. I'm worried its not going to look interesting enough to grab peoples attention. She suggested I take my phone in to the studio and photograph the texts on my phone. I thought it was a bit odd at first still thinking it wont be good enough. I gave it ago it took a really long time, I actually used Facebook messages for when I first spoke to Danny but I also took photos of Whatsapp messages as they are images with text. I am also going to experiment with using Snapchat, this app also uses images and text but had a completely different meaning behind it.. Snapchat was designed to take a photo and put some text over the top or you can draw on the image as well, you then send the image to a friend for a certain amount of time. The timings go from 1 second to 10 seconds and then it disappears. The idea was to never see the image again but technology has made this not happen as now on iphones and some other phones you can print screen your images. Kind of defends the point but this has helped me to capture the images me and my friend Danny have sent to each other for this project, so I can't really say its a bad thing. Hopefully it will all work out in the end and become a successful photographic book.
I have some editing to do as the image is far to bright. It was really difficult to get the studio lighting correct. But here is my first image of when me and Danny first spoke after 8 years. This was via Facebook.
This is a different conversation using Whatsapp. Even though on Facebook you can send images for some reason I sent this image to him on Whatsapp. Whatsapp is free to send messages to and from like Facebook. I didn't send the image by text because it costs money.
It already sounds a little confusing but that's the point, its about how we communicate through technology and how in today's society millions of people hardly speak face to face. By texting we lose a lot of emotion and true meaning with words because by text you sometimes cannot tell if that person is angry at you or just having a laugh.
Since my last experiment I've been struggling on how to improve my digital piece and how to also go about making the printed publication. Just over a week ago I was experimenting in the software Audition which deals with sound. I spoke to a technician who suggested making the music sound like its coming from my phone instead of just playing whilst the journey goes on. We experimented with this idea.. unfortunately it didn't save properly so I'm going to have to do it again. He suggested I bring a couple of different other sounds within the video to improve it.. have more of a narrative. I'm not very confident with video and all that goes along with it I wanted to make it simple and not get in over my head with bigger ideas. But I am going to push myself and continue to experiment within different medias. My plan is to record different train noises such as, people talking, the movement of the train etc.. And to also record myself having a phone conversation with an old friend of mine and also record him as well. I was thinking about recording our thoughts after the conversation mine in an English language and his in Vietnamese.
I did this time lapse on my iPhone using iMotion. Its annoying because its got the black side bits which I don't know how to remove but also its wobbly because I'm holding my phone. I did like the positioning of phone but it proves I should really use my camera. I'm going to create another time lapse like this one so it fits with the rest of my videos. I was practicing using the audio settings in Premiere it was really fiddly when I started to create the music fade near the end of the video. Its not perfect but its a huge step in the right direction!
Just another little experiment with Adobe Premiere, I learn how to use the split screen technique just researching on YouTube it was pretty easy to do and now that I've learnt how I can continue experimenting for my final video piece!!
After my Brighton trip I had a lot to experiment with in Adobe Premiere in today's work shop. Still got a long way to go with learning all the ins and outs but it was such a successful work shop and I really got a lot out of it and actually learnt something. I've made a small experimental piece that I am really proud of and think it has a lot of potential to grow in to a really successful and interesting project that other people hopefully will be interested in.
Yesterday I decided to go on a random trip to Brighton with my friend Sammi. Shes also doing the narrative project and we are both doing journeys. I thought it would be good to just go out and capture what ever I felt like and tried not to think about the so called 'final' idea.. I tend to to that a lot and end up panicking. Obviously the train journey was going to be a main focus but I didn't want to try and get typical images. I wanted them to come across natural that the camera wasn't really there. I didn't take a tripod when I was doing my multiple time lapses because to be honest I didn't know what I was going to capture and it was also raining all day.. Didn't really want to carry around a tripod. I ended up getting a few random time lapses, on the train, in Mcdonalds, two in different parts of the shopping center. I hadn't been to Brighton in a while, if it wasn't raining I would of done a time lapse of the sea and maybe taken more images outside. Me and Sammi both did some video recordings of us walking up and down two escalators capturing each other going up and down. The timing was a bit off but it was a fun experiment and something I think I want to add in to my project properly. I'm thinking of maybe creating a camera advert advertising Nikon... I think I have to ask first.. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use the brand name? But what I want from my narrative is to show friendship and fun being captured by my Nikon with a variety of different time lapses. Fingers crossed!!!
I've still been struggling over the last month to get to a point where I know what I am doing with my research and sticking to a theme that I can progress on to. It's been a little worrying because normally by now I would of had an idea and just needed to of figured out how I was going to create the idea. Its been the other way round in this project but I think I've finally come to a solid idea that I am happy with. I've chosen to not go so personal in the emotional sense but thought about what things I like that I can use in a simple and effective way. For my professional futures project I am looking in to advertising photography and have seen some incredible images, so I thought lets bring advertising a product I already own in to my Narrative. Before I thought about the advertising idea I was thinking about recording myself walking and just capturing my feet doing a journey that I normally do. I then thought about advertising my converse as I wear them all the time and there are a very popular type of shoe. The idea just came to me out of no where with no solid influence apart from looking at different advertising images. After looking in to iMotion on my iPhone I thought I would record myself using stop motion getting on and off the bus to my town, the video was really blurry and I couldn't see a lot of detail of my shoes or the surroundings. I realized it might be the same if I used my DSLR so I decided to video record my feet moving instead and breaking the video footage down either by taking screen grabs or using Adobe Premiere Pro. I haven't yet learnt myself how to use Premiere but I have been shown how to create the video footage in to more of a stop motion video. It looks really complicated but I'm sure I will learn. I also wanted to extend my video from me walking to two more people who own different coloured converse also walking. I want to create three different scenes matching to the coloured converse and perhaps the personality of the person who is wearing the converse. I wanted more of a sunny scene for my white converse on a path way, black converse for a skate park area and I haven't decided on my last coloured pair yet (need to find people who are willing to help me out). I want to push to 'advert' more from just displaying converse and having just one feature. I haven't given myself a lot of time as its taken me a while to decide what I want to do but... I do want to want to incorporate more time-lapse and stop motion video footage to my experimental advert. I want to keep in the theme of Journeys because I feel I can add a lot to my project with that theme. I'm going to take time-lapses of different types of journeys such as, car, train, tube, bus, crowds of people, sunsets, light trails and my friends. If I can combined the correct time-lapses together at the end of the video I want to either advertise my Nikon D5100 or iPhone 5s as they have created all the journeys and I will have to come up with an slogan to represent what it is I'm advertising.
This was actually shown in one of my critical approaches lectures by Anthony Luvera, Photography and Death - (Essay question 'Photography is an agent of death - discuss')
This is similar to Ellen Nolan's work where their parent isn't very well and they are using their cameras to cope or understand the process of what them their selves are going through to see their parents going through dramatic changes and obviously for their parents to cope with, helping their children to come to terms with life's changes. I found her work very moving and emotional, her dad wanted to help her, even though he was the one who was terminally ill. He was afraid of leaving them behind, to not be there to support and guide them anymore. Throughout the video you grasp a strong idea of what type of person her father is, he's a strong man, who wants to take care of his family. I like how she has a video of mixed media of still images, audio recordings and video. Its a really beautiful piece of work. For this project we have to develop a digital and printed formats of our chosen narratives. Researching her video gives me a good insight to how to combined all the medias in a particular way. Even though my work won't have an in depth meaning as Briony's or Ellen's it shows me how I can present my work in a professional manner.
The overview
Being a good daughter to my dying dad was tricky. I
struggled to find the balance between dedication to his needs and distraction
from my grief.
At first the idea of introducing a camera into this equation
seemed unwise, but eventually I think it became the solution.
This is the story of an ending without an ending.
And I hope it always will be.
This is my attempt to say goodbye to my Dad with the help of
my camera.
When
I was in a lecture with Ellen Nolan I found her work really fascinating. It was
very personal to her and whilst she was telling us about why and how she
created her body of work I was really drawn in to her story, the tone of her
voice had meaning and a purpose to it making me really respect her work and
sharing it with us. I am more of a personal person, it sounded like she was
tell us a story from a book. Each word she would have a deep attachment and
meaning to it. In other lectures it’s usually about other people’s work so
there's obviously not the same attachment and something that is personal that
you've achieved yourself.
‘Previous Personality’ explores my relationship to my mother
as she recedes into dementia. I started photographing my mother and myself when
she stopped recognizing me as her daughter. The documentation lasted for three
years, exploring a journey of reversal and erosion. The title ‘Previous
Personality’ is derived from a section in the form I had to fill out for my
mother, upon admission to her institution.
There is a strangeness of being inherent in this condition,
an altered state where the family member shifts into another being, whilst
retaining the physical appearance of their former selves.
Photographically, I tried to reflect this state by creating
images that are simultaneously uncomfortable and aesthetically pleasing. This
mirrored the interior and exterior conflict of the illness.
My clothes were used as a visual reminder that whilst I had
the freedom of personal expression, members of staff now chose my mother’s
wardrobe, brought from a generic clothing company that visited the home on a
monthly basis. I never got used to seeing my mother in these clothes, and
together with her growing sense of alienation within her ‘home’, they came to
visually represent her loss of self.
What remains when almost everything is stripped away? A
silent negotiation took place through emotional and physical intimacy. Few
words were exchanged, except repeated uttering’s of love and the remembering
who I am and who she was.
Photography as a medium seemed to serve the situation well.
It was a record to capture my dying mother, a means to examine our state, and
perhaps to create an alternative family album.
Photography also seemed to fit the muteness of illness and
ageing.
I felt that by joining the frame, I would challenge my
position and safety as a photographer to explore my role as a daughter and my
relationship with my mother at this time.
When I first started thinking about the narrative project, which was before I actually received my brief, I was in my mums car at Christmas time and started playing made up scenes in my head of random videos and matching them with songs I liked as well. Even the love to some people is an ordinary topic, love can be an incredibly over powering for some people, obviously there are different types of love that might not make people feel like that. There is an unconditional between yourself and your family, a mothers love will go on forever, the strongest bond I feel is between a mother and her child. You love your friends, you may love food, clothes, shoes, pets, movies, books etc... the list can go on forever of what people say they 'love'. I personally love love! I don't know where I would be without it. What I do love the most is seeing people in love, over the years I've heard the word 'love' being flung around at times like it is nothing. I love a good old romantic love story, whether its with the typical chocolates, candles wine and dine stuff (which is not really my thing) or whether its something really simple like your partner leaving you a sticky note on your pillow saying he loves you.
Basically whilst I was creating random made up love scenes in my head I was really racking my brains to find the perfect song to go along side it, I remember seeing on Britain's Got Talent a few years ago this incredible piece by aHungarianshadow theatre group from called Attraction. I remember bursting in to tears at how powerful and emotional the performance was and it truly took my breath away. Their chosen narratives for one particular performance covered the basic's of life, love, romance, marriage and death. The song accompanied by the performance was Emeli Sande's 'Read all about it' the two combined is so overwhelming, bringing in their audience, creating all these different emotions of happiness and sadness. Its something every human being can relate to, we've all loved and lost throughout our lives, narratives are displayed through different types of media as we've all seen.
When you hear a certain song or look at a particular photo, it takes you back to a memory, it reminds you of people who may or may not be in your life anymore, it makes you reflect on the past and perhaps think about your future. I remember when I chose not to listen to a certain song for a few years because of all the emotion and memory that went along side it, I was sitting in a car with the radio on and the song started playing, I felt scared in a silly way, because I knew admittedly how I used to feel whilst listening to that song, I didn't turn the radio off I just kept on listening and instead of crying because I was sad, I just smiled to myself at how far I'd come since that certain time in my life.
Narrative's are everywhere, hidden within music, photographs, videos and objects. You may forget most of your memories and think about them less then others, with memory attached to different types of media those memories are recreated for you to re-live all over again like a photographic slideshow playing only just for you to watch.
I was just playing around with my iPhone 5s on an app called iMovie, I started messing around with it and saw how much fun and also how easy it was to create a short movie or a pretend movie trailer. After experimenting with this app I started to think whether there was a time lapse or stop motion app on iTunes. I soon discovered iMotion and iMotion remote, the short description on the apple store website says: Take pictures, edit your movie and export HD 1080p & 720p videos to your device or directly to Youtube. iMotion HD is an intuitive and powerful time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS. Since starting university I've wondered what type of photography it is that I am actually interested in, what do I want to learn about, what makes me tick. When I discovered time lapse and stop motion photography I was really taken in by and the whole process of how 100's or even 1000's of images can been turned in to a video. I had never studied photography before I started uni, I just would point a shoot and be happy with what the result was, I've soon come to realise there is a lot to learn within the technical side of photography, it can be very over whelming as most of the time people want to perfect their work quickly and effectively.
For the narrative project I'm now deciding whether I should use my DLSR Nikon D5100 camera or should I use my iPhone 5s, I'm thinking maybe I should practice with both and comment on the negatives and positives of both media practices.
What does this mean for photography though? If you can do most things quickly on a high end phone? Is my phone better then using the long process of a camera, bigger tripod, computer editing etc...
I created a quick video driving to uni this morning in my boyfriends car, its a bit wobbly but I just wanted to test a quick experiment of how my iPhone creates a time lapse. As I have created small time lapse pieces in other projects I'm wondering what will be better for my narrative project. I'm thinking about buying a mini iPhone tripod so I can create quick time lapse or stop motion videos when I'm on the go on public transport. With a smaller device for capturing images I feel I might be able to capture smaller details as people might not notice I'm recording them, when you have a huge camera out people play up to the camera and don't act so natural. Will be an interesting experiment.
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