Assignment 4 - Making a scene

 

3AM Laundry Machine, digital photo file

Aperture: Nan Goldin - The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

 

Nan Goldin, Trixie on the cot, New York City, 1979

“I grew up in a period in which the glue of suburbia was denial. It maintained the culture, the mentality, the outer face. I didn’t accept the myths that families tell themselves and present to the world. I saw very early that my experience could be negated. That I never said that, I never did that, that never happened. I needed to get away. 

I took the pictures in this book so that nostalgia could never color my past. I wanted to make a record of my life that nobody could revise: not a safe, clean version, but instead, an account of what things really looked like and felt like and smelled like. I don’t think I could, at this age and in this body now, live the life that I lived then. It took a certain level of fearlessness, a wildness, quick changes—of clothes, of friends, of lovers, of cities.

When I wonder what people are talking about when they say that the Ballad helped them, I guess that it showed young people there was another way to live, that they didn’t have to swallow the version of the norm that hurt them, that they didn’t feel part of, that was destroying them. The book gave a mirror to kids who had no reflection of themselves in the world around them. They knew that they weren’t alone.”

-Nan Goldin

Coloured Film!

 

Coloured film I have shot recently. The bottom middle preserve sheet isn’t pictures I took myself but from a roll I found inside a thrifted camera that I got developed! I found this ‘mystery’ film roll really exciting. 

   The left most preserve sheets are lomography purple pétillant film, and the top two that appear orange are fujifilm 400.

Assignment 5 - AtoZ

 

Above/Below/Closeup/Depthoffield/Exposure/Forcedperspective/Gradient/Hyperfocal/ISO1600/Jumping/Keepingstill/Longexposure/Macro/Noise/Overexposed/‘P’mode/Questionable/Refraction/Shaky/TopsyTurvy/Underexposed/Vignette/Whiteout/Xtheimage/Yawn/Zoom

8.5 x 11 print, digital collage and digital camera

To familiarize myself with digital cameras and photography terminology, I chose to relate each letter of the alphabet to a particular camera setting, movement, or editing. Some of the letters are a bit sillier than others as it was hard to find terminology for some of them. As each letter is completed I colour it in.

Assignment 4 - Planning and Mood Board

Screenshots taken from pinterest with unknown photographers + movie screenshots:

Screenshot from Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001)

Photos by Augustin Doublet from his series They Are Gone Now

My Initial Sketch:

Photo will be taken in a basement laundry room. Key elements are the person doing laundry (thinks everything is perfect as in nothing is wrong), the bloodied mattress (bed), the light source indicating an open door, and the masks - one being worn by a figure sitting in the corner and the other alluding to the presence of a third figure (coupled with the blood stain). The gnome statue is the object out of place, but this will likely change or be removed all together, depending what I feel is necessary for the scene, 

    

Assignment 3.2 - 4x5 photo and enlargement

A 4x5 film enlargement on 11x14 paper in the style of Richard Avedon of Kort Woycheshin. I was inspired by the framing of Avedon (both film borders and subject in relation to negative space of the background) and the Western look of many of his portraits. I asked Kort to wear clothes that he felt comfortable in/wanted to be photographed in for the portrait. 
 

Photo II - Enlargements and contact sheets (as of semester midpoint)

 contact sheets made for assignments and for myself, and enlargement made outside of project work. 

Contact Sheets:

Enlargements:

Assignment 3.1 - Choosing a photographer: Richard Avedon

 After going through the list of photographers I was stuck between choosing to work conceptually with the photographs of Richard Avedon, Sally Mann, or Robert Mapplethorpe, but ultimately decided to go with Avedon because I appreciate the fearless/truthful nature of a lot of his photographs (could be called grungy in their subject on occasion even) contrasted with their high quality. Achieving crisper photos is something I need to work on personally, so I felt that Avedon was the best choice for me.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) was (primarily) a fashion and portrait photographer based in New York City. Both of Avedon’s parents worked in the fashion industry, which undoubtedly influenced his career. He began his career through fashion photography, and at the age of 22 branched off into freelance work. A lot of his photographers were taken for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. Avedon was extremely interested in photography’s capacity for evoking the life of his subjects. He worked with Rolleiflex twin lens camera.

“He was fascinated by photography’s capacity for suggesting the personality and evoking the life of his subjects. He registered poses, attitudes, hairstyles, clothing and accessories as vital, revelatory elements of an image.”

-Richard Avedon Foundation

“My photographs don’t go below the surface. I have great faith in surfaces.  A good one is full of clues.”

-Richard Avedon

Dorothy Parker, writer, New York, June 17, 1958

Catacombs #02, Palermo, Sicily, 1959

Evelyn Avedon, wife of Richard Avedon, Petit St. Vincent, French West Indies, December 20, 1969

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981

New York Life #17, Fifth Avenue, New York, October 26, 1949

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981

Gloria Vanderbilt, December 17, 1953

Jean Shrimpton, Evening Dress, August 1965