Initial Ideas
My first unit is on Object and Body, and we are beginning with The Object, as a still life piece.
My first unit is on Object and Body, and we are beginning with The Object, as a still life piece.
A still life of course being a piece of art, that typically involves an inanimate subject matter, often common or household items. A still life will depict a given theme or message, the artists’ tell stories and invoke emotions through their choices in setting, objects, and how they are displayed, utilising the connotations they subconsciously hold within us.
Much of this project is left entirely up to us, and our own development of ideas, however it must touch on a current debate or issue that concerns, or invokes passion in us.
When I read the word 'current' the first spark to go off in my head is consumerism, our plastic society of material items that our lives revolve around. It is something I feel very passionately about, thought I am not entirely clear where I stand on the subject, which is why I think it is important for me to begin with this word 'consumerism'.
Consumerism of course being a societies’ economy that thrives on an increased progression on the constant consumption of material goods. This revolves around a societies desire, to constantly consume goods, and within this lies the issue. As our consumer society has evolved to the level of obsession, where people become devoted to particular large chain brands, and spend large and often unaffordable amounts in order to keep up with their set pace. The purchase of these products is also a status symbol, a way for someone to feel social value through the value of what they own.
My first step in research was a documentary film I spotted by chance in the UCA library called ‘Objectified’ (A Gary Hustwit film, 2009). This documentary is about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and the people who design them. It goes on as well to address personal expression, identity, consumerism and sustainability, and the final summary question of “What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?”
The film begins with the quote:
“Every object, intentional or not, speaks to you on who put it there.”
I loved this quote as where it may have been intended as a mere design statement, it quite effectively summarises our every day thought process on objects, and how they create symbols.
As the documentary goes on you hear far more on mass productions, and all the featured designers seem to agree, that the drive behind products is a man holding a fat cheque, saying make me a fatter cheque. Which makes the whole notion of consumerism seem quite dead to me, as when you put a lot of thought into it, the rate at which new products are produced, and the rate at which we all go out and buy them, is at a ridiculously unnecessary pace. We are hypnotised into purchasing new things almost, because if you really think about it, a lot of mostly house hold items, you can technically purchase once and most of the time you don’t really need another ever again, it is simply that with age, we are taught to grow tired of it.
The way this happens was quite accurately phrased in this documentary by a rich man approaching you and saying, “Make what was now look like then, so people want our now”.
Redesign, and resell, and make it seem like its superior, more often than not, it is simply different in some slight way.
I find it hard to fully ascertain my reaction to this, as many of us hold value to the products we own for many reasons. Some use this consumerism as a form of expression, through fashion, or through our choices in products. For example cars, every car has a different styling, personality, there are many subtleties in their design and functionality that we connect with over time, so we don’t simply purchase these because they are ‘the latest one’, we take careful consideration over why we buy it. A car is still often used as a status symbol however, there is the corporate car, sleek and modern, much like the corporate power suit, the small budget car that is overly modified, like the adidas joggers and hoodie with the nike trainers.
This puts me in constant confliction, as many use material goods as a form of expression of personality, but so many also use material goods to hide their true expression, a mask of what you want to be over what you are, many often do not even use conscious thought to do this, many hide behind the same goods for the same reasons as one another, almost as if we are afraid to be different.
For these reasons I want to portray this sense of the mask, of the hidden personality within the product.
Tim Hetherington
I began looking for a book on Edward Weston for some inspiration on what objects to choose when I spotted a book titled 'Tales from a Globalizing World', and decided to give it a look over considering I am dealing with consumerism.
Within this book I discovered a short series of photos by Tim Hetherington.
Tim Hetherington was an English photographer that travelled much of the world, documenting areas mostly of war and turmoil. He often worked for vanity fair and took up residence in New York, though as just stated he spent much time working abroad.
Unfortunately shortly after searching his name online I discovered he was recently killed, caught in cross fire in Libya whilst following the struggle of the rebels on the front lines.
He did a short series of photographs called 'Most of the Personal Belongings' that was featured in this book.
The objects where all in a police station in Bosnia - Herzegovina, they were in evidence bags and belonged to the deceased.
Hetherington took these photos attempting to visualise the owners, the people that once where, as these were the last items they held, and many had been used to help identify who the deceased was, and Hetherington found a fascination in attempted to reconstruct the person who held these.
This meaning behind such trivial items is a fascinating concept, that aspects of a persons identity, personality could be hidden within such trivial items.
These items where shot in an incredibly clinical fashion, on a plain metallic backdrop with a very neutral lighting choice. In each frame you see only a single item, displayed in the centre with enough empty space around it to use the metallic backdrop as a frame for each item. This clinical and simplistic fashion makes the items quite clear as pieces of evidence, especially as they are displayed as a collection of images, so we immediately recognise these as the items of the dead.
I am unsure as to whether or not I would like to replicate this style of photography as such, however the meaning has certainly hit home, and made me want to find my own way of telling secrets of a persons self through a mere item.
From this I have started to develop an idea of attempting to construct a character through the use of simply two items manipulating some contemporary symbolism.
Continuing with my idea of portraying consumerism, I would like to attempt at revealing the duality of people. Showing for example a businessman's tie in the foreground and a broken, half empty whiskey bottle in the background. As many of our everyday items are more than just items to us, they grow to hold memories, and significance, but then we have many other items that do the opposite, they mask these thoughts, personalities, and I would like to attempt at exposing both sides of a person within my final image.
David Bate, Bungled Memories
Bungled memories is a series of still life colour photographs. Each picture shows domestic objects broken by the artist in his home and photographed on his kitchen table. Here these ‘Freudian slips’ are taken as the basis for the production of new artworks that are rooted in the hidden psychology of everyday life. Also aesthetically ecological, the work produces something new from what is normally discarded.
The exhibition was proposed on an interpretation of experience based on Denis Diderot (1713-1784).
Thought the exhibition is not a homage to Diderot. Although Diderot influenced the visual arts of his day, the artists here intervene in the thinking of Diderot.
David Bate envokes questions about memory. Photographing domestic objects and accidentally broken by him, Bate elevates these things from the humble still life to extravagant dramas of lost memories and enjoyment of the emotions involved in a broken object.
Diderot being the famous French philosopher and art critic, who wrote several books challenging conventions regarding novels and their structure and content, while also examining philosophical ideas about free will. He also wrote the dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau’s Nephew) upon which many articles and sermons about convsumer desire have been based.
Looking at Bates’ photography I find it reminding me of Tim Hetherington’s “Most of the Personal Belongings”, the use of basic objects that contain within them memories and stories. David Bate has approached the angle of destruction creating this value however. As in Tim Hetherington’s work a simple object holds the key to discovering a whole person, where as in David Bates’ Bungled Memories, the objects are given the energy of these memories upon being destroyed, as they simplistic everyday objects that we do not really consider, until it breaks, and its memories are released, suddenly making us realise it’s value.
I am quite inspired by the way these photo’s where shot, as the metallic table makes a perfect mirror image of each object, and the light include a slight cut off point on each image, splitting a light and dark section. This use of binary opposites is an ingenious way to show the metamorphosis of the objects once they are smashed.
This technique is one I believe I shall attempt to recreate in my piece, showing a light and dark, a mirrored reflection, the duality of us all.
Paul Biddle
Paul Biddle describes his influences as ranging from Renaissance art, to Dadaism and Surrealism, from Picaso to the Flotsam and Jetsam, to merely the things he picks up on his walks by the sea.
He explains that his love for photography stems from its immediacy and the hazy line that it can create between reality and the feeling of not being quite sure what's happening.
He works around objects and their textures and colours mostly, creating his scenes by replicating, or complimenting these objects. The items of which range from things he finds in junk shops, or things that wash up on the beach.
In an instant you can recognise his fine art influences through his choice of colour and composition. I found his website by chance whilst looking through some examples of still photography on the internet, and I have decided to look further into his works for their hybridisation of Renaissance art and contemporary photography. His mise en scene is set similar to a renaissance still life, like 'Still life with hunting equipment and dead birds' by Willem van Aelst.
The reason I say this, is that he sets his scene with a series of carefully placed and ordered items, and all focus is drawn to what these items are, over where they are. In using this manner we start read the items as a story almost. For instance with the Willem van Aelst, we read the hunting gear and dead birds and start to imagine the character that killed these birds, and from the multiple birds we can assume roughly where this character may live.
The Paul Biddle takes this style of item arrangement however and combines it with multiple more modern styles, for instance the harsh low key lighting casting shadows, is more Dadaism, and the odditiy of the items and how they are arranged shows the influence of surrealism.
What I would like to take from Paul Biddle is his way of combining styles into his still life photography to tell his stories to a contemporary audience.
His work has given me a fresh approach to how I would like to compose my still life now, as his work has shown me that there are many channels between many styles of photography, and helped given me more freedom into how I create my final piece.
Trial and Error
Having researched various artists and seen their work I am now focusing on trial and error concepts.
My inspirations so far have altered my starting idea of consumerism slightly, as I began considering merely the consumer society, and product design, I have then delved more towards our relationships with this consumerism and the products it generates.
This clouded my ideas for some time, as I could not settle on a precise concept in my mind, I was wavering from one idea to the other. I have settled however, on our sense of identity with these products, which ones define us? and which do we simply hide behind?
In terms of representing the consumer society we hide behind, I still have several too many concepts in mind, however when I hear consumption, I also hear waste, and therefore I want to start by looking at old technology, that which we so frequently discard and replace. When thinking of which items to use for this, I realised that nothing seems to be replaced as frequently as the mobile phone.
The mobile phone has soared as the Icon of our new digital age, beginning in the early 70's as car phones only owned by the wealthy only, by the mid to late 90's everyone including teenagers had one, and with the ability to text one another, and 10 years on from that in the 2000's almost every primary school child upwards has one, and they have evolved from mere portable phones, to advanced portable computer devices, with 100's or even 1000's of new models coming out each year.
It is a prime example and definitely my choice as the symbol of consumerism and the modern age, constantly being upgraded, and constantly being discarded.
So having figured out my ideal symbol for consumerism, I realised that I needed the binary opposite of this product, in order to represent the person, or personality, that exists in this consumer society.
I was stuck on this question at first, what will I choose as an object to define the personality behind the mask of consumption?
I knew it had to be completely different to any micro chip based product, it needed personality in itself. It could not be a modern product easily either, as I needed a clear symbol of something permanent, something that is not discarded and upgraded, but what?
After trailing through a high street of shops and charity shops, looking at products old and new, I suddenly realised what item had stood the test of time, what item can hold so much character, be used in so many ways, and had retained its sense of self throughout the ages, a book.
A book has remained and the world has changed around it. It comes in many shapes, it's cover in many forms, and it's content hold anything, and despite my cringing at such a cliche, but 'you cannot judge a book by it's cover'. It is the perfect symbol for my personality behind the product, as book can be anything, yet it forever remains the same, much like people.
Test Shot 1
Paul Biddle
Paul Biddle describes his influences as ranging from Renaissance art, to Dadaism and Surrealism, from Picaso to the Flotsam and Jetsam, to merely the things he picks up on his walks by the sea.
He explains that his love for photography stems from its immediacy and the hazy line that it can create between reality and the feeling of not being quite sure what's happening.
He works around objects and their textures and colours mostly, creating his scenes by replicating, or complimenting these objects. The items of which range from things he finds in junk shops, or things that wash up on the beach.
In an instant you can recognise his fine art influences through his choice of colour and composition. I found his website by chance whilst looking through some examples of still photography on the internet, and I have decided to look further into his works for their hybridisation of Renaissance art and contemporary photography. His mise en scene is set similar to a renaissance still life, like 'Still life with hunting equipment and dead birds' by Willem van Aelst.
The reason I say this, is that he sets his scene with a series of carefully placed and ordered items, and all focus is drawn to what these items are, over where they are. In using this manner we start read the items as a story almost. For instance with the Willem van Aelst, we read the hunting gear and dead birds and start to imagine the character that killed these birds, and from the multiple birds we can assume roughly where this character may live.
The Paul Biddle takes this style of item arrangement however and combines it with multiple more modern styles, for instance the harsh low key lighting casting shadows, is more Dadaism, and the odditiy of the items and how they are arranged shows the influence of surrealism.
What I would like to take from Paul Biddle is his way of combining styles into his still life photography to tell his stories to a contemporary audience.
His work has given me a fresh approach to how I would like to compose my still life now, as his work has shown me that there are many channels between many styles of photography, and helped given me more freedom into how I create my final piece.
Trial and Error
Having researched various artists and seen their work I am now focusing on trial and error concepts.
My inspirations so far have altered my starting idea of consumerism slightly, as I began considering merely the consumer society, and product design, I have then delved more towards our relationships with this consumerism and the products it generates.
This clouded my ideas for some time, as I could not settle on a precise concept in my mind, I was wavering from one idea to the other. I have settled however, on our sense of identity with these products, which ones define us? and which do we simply hide behind?
In terms of representing the consumer society we hide behind, I still have several too many concepts in mind, however when I hear consumption, I also hear waste, and therefore I want to start by looking at old technology, that which we so frequently discard and replace. When thinking of which items to use for this, I realised that nothing seems to be replaced as frequently as the mobile phone.
The mobile phone has soared as the Icon of our new digital age, beginning in the early 70's as car phones only owned by the wealthy only, by the mid to late 90's everyone including teenagers had one, and with the ability to text one another, and 10 years on from that in the 2000's almost every primary school child upwards has one, and they have evolved from mere portable phones, to advanced portable computer devices, with 100's or even 1000's of new models coming out each year.
It is a prime example and definitely my choice as the symbol of consumerism and the modern age, constantly being upgraded, and constantly being discarded.
So having figured out my ideal symbol for consumerism, I realised that I needed the binary opposite of this product, in order to represent the person, or personality, that exists in this consumer society.
I was stuck on this question at first, what will I choose as an object to define the personality behind the mask of consumption?
I knew it had to be completely different to any micro chip based product, it needed personality in itself. It could not be a modern product easily either, as I needed a clear symbol of something permanent, something that is not discarded and upgraded, but what?
After trailing through a high street of shops and charity shops, looking at products old and new, I suddenly realised what item had stood the test of time, what item can hold so much character, be used in so many ways, and had retained its sense of self throughout the ages, a book.
A book has remained and the world has changed around it. It comes in many shapes, it's cover in many forms, and it's content hold anything, and despite my cringing at such a cliche, but 'you cannot judge a book by it's cover'. It is the perfect symbol for my personality behind the product, as book can be anything, yet it forever remains the same, much like people.
Test Shot 1
This shot was taken on my DSLR Pentax K-x, with it's standard 52mm lens.
It was shot in low lighting condition, at F32, with a 30 second Exposure time, during this exposure I moved a standard torch light over and around the book, to 'paint in the lighting' as I did not have access to any studio lighting.
I took this as merely a test shot, to see a first draft of my idea. The book is obviously the main focus of the picture as the lighting brings it into much clearer focus than the other objects. The book as mentioned previously is my symbol for the personality behind the product, 'the true self'. As a spur of the moment decision I chained and padlocked the book, I did this as I wanted a clearer metaphor to show this personality bound and constrained, lost within the consumer world, I also found that from a lighting perspective the metallic chain really brought out the book by catching the light.
The book has vignette around it, within this you can make out that it is surrounded by consumer products, a haze of items outdated and replaced, I used essentially what I could quickly gather in my home, a handful of out dated mobile phones, which I want to keep in the final image, and potentially increase the amount of phones, as they are the ultimate symbol for the consumer society. The other items were essentially 'modern junk' you would expect to see in any room.
They way I piled the items, and the black backdrop that completely absorbs the surrounding light, give the feeling of a bin, it looks as though you are peaking on a pile of trash, and this chained book rested lost within the sea of microchips.
I am not entirely convinced by this first attempt, as I find it does not bring out the meanings behind it effectively enough. I would like to re think my composition, to show my phones and my book as far more opposing to one another, as a pose to a mess of them together.
I am unsure as well about my choice of book, it is an old Agatha Christie novel I own, and I want to keep that old, simplistic and traditional book cover, as I said a book is always a book, but it can contain anything, so I wanted that plain and ambiguous cover. However, in this shot, the title and author are far too clear for my liking, as the title and author are not significant as such in the books meaning, however as they are so clear it can cloud the viewer into thinking they might be.
For my next attempt, I will try to focus more on my composition, to show the binary opposites of the mobile phones and the book. I will also ensure that it is done in a studio environment, so that I can control the lighting and have a greater space to work with the composition.
I am favouring a very low aperture so far, mainly from observing Edward Weston's style and admiring the clarity of his still life's and the textures he brings forth. For example, his cabbage leaf:
I will also start to create my test shots on film, not only for more film practice, but as my final shot must be film, I will get a better feel for my results by working throughout the project with film. I am beginning with a roll of Fuji color Superia, ISO 100. I am favouring a lower ISO to work in conjunction with a low aperture and long exposure time, to get my textures as crisp as possible.
Development of Ideas
Last week my group had a tutorial, where we compared ideas, after explaining what I wished to attempt to create, I was told that my idea had split into two ideas, I had the ideas of consumption and waste of products in one hand, and in the other, consumerism's effects on ourselves, products engulfing us in vanity, and we lose our self identity.
I found this to be a very true statement, and have decided to go more towards the direction of self identity within consumerism, as it is a less explored area, and there is more depth I can explore within this.
As previously stated in my research, my view of our relationship with consumerism is that we use it as a mask and lose our sense of identity within the consumer world. People hiding behind their brands as avatars for so long that they lose something of their self in the process, forgetting who they are as they plunge deeper and deeper into the goods they use for the judgement of others, and others do the same for the judgement of them.
My task at had is now to portray an empty vessel, a soul less entity, surrounded by the goods that destroyed it. With this in mind I have decided to look at the mannequin.
A mannequin is a plastic shell, made to aid in the manufacture, and the advertising of clothes.
I find it is appropriate, as it is a shell, a life size doll. It is also appropriate as it was made to promote fashion, which is what people hide behind, consume, and become lost within.
For these reasons I shall dress a mannequin in current clothing, ensuring that it is clear, it is a mannequin, with it's face covered, to show a lack of a personality or human presence.
In order to reinforce this idea however of no personality or soulless, I would like to have it looking into an empty mirror frame.
The idea of the mirror frame came about when I was thinking of the loss of a soul, after a while of thinking on this, it made me think of the Vampire, as typically they are said to have no reflection, as when you look into a mirror, the reflection is a glimpse at your soul.
So I have decided to have my mannequin staring into the empty mirror frame, to reinforce that no soul is present within this shell.
Studio Time - 18/10/11
This was my first day in the studio on my Still Life project.
I borrowed a mannequin from the Fashion department, most mannequins where only torso's but fortunately there were a few full body female mannequins, with very basic facial features painted on. I would have preferred a faceless mannequin, to reinforce the idea of soulless, however fortunately it had been given a distant facial expression which made it fit in with my motif better.
As it was a female mannequin I to borrow some clothing, but I tried to keep the clothing choice as fairly current and fashionable, I did not have any major label clothing at hand, but also reflecting on the idea of using major labels, I believe that using them would have made this piece more of an attack at major labels and corporations, where I wish to simply make a piece that is more questioning than aggressive, and about more our personal identity with these products, and not necessarily the products themselves.
I tried several digital shots before I moved onto using the Horseman 5X4 camera.
At first I tried using black cloth to black out the mannequin's face, so that the clothes seemed to simply hang around an absent entity, I tried this so that there were only material products present, and so much as any hint of human presence was entirely absent. This was an idea adapted from the visual style of Danny Treacy's 'Them'.
This was a series where Danny Treacy took the clothing of strangers from where ever he found them, mostly clothes that had been discarded, or belonged to homeless or the deceased, he then dismantled the clothing, and reassembled it to create these strange outfits he fully immersed himself within.
The series 'Them' has similar ideas linked to my project, about our possessions and our identity with them, however as I have a very different message in mind, I was simply drawing from his visual style, of the blackout background, with the clothing completely covering the person wearing them, to create a humanoid, but not entirely human presence.
Unfortunately this was a rather last minute idea I wished to explore and so the black cloth I used to attempt this did not quite work, and I would have had to change much about my lighting choices to make it work and so I decided to abandon this idea and revert back to my original compositional idea.
I slightly repositioned my frame and mannequin, and uncovered the face, attempting to position them so that the mannequin was gazing into the frame to see no reflection, this proved slightly more difficult than I would have realised, as the frame was hanging by black boot laces, it was hard to move, reposition then settle, and the mannequin was sculpted gazing downwards and to the right, which opposed the position of the frame, so it was difficult to clearly frame the mannequin with it's face visible and so that it appeared to be staring into the frame.
I chose a portrait shot, to make it seem like a more human setting or position, of someone looking into their bedroom mirror.
I began with a brighter lighting choice and a black backdrop background. I decided not to fully black out the backing in the first shot, as I hoped to create a mimic scene if you will. Make it obvious that this should be a bedroom, a person and a mirror with a reflection, but instead it is replaced with man made proxies.
After some reflection however I decided that I wanted to have a complete blackout background, to emphasise all focus on my objects, and to convey a negativity through the void of blackness.
I did this by slightly repositioning the mannequin, and then using a fine honey comb attachment to the studio flash I was using.
After reflecting on this for my film shoots, I will attempt to keep the blackout background, but I would like more light falling onto the frame and mannequin, to really bring them out and into sharp focus.
I took my final shots on a large format Horseman 4X5 inch camera. As I wanted the blackout effect I used the large black backdrop camera with a black poly board to help absorb any stray light. In order to light my frame and mannequin I used a broncolor studio flash light, and I tried 2 shots with a medium grade honeycomb attachment and then 1 final shot with a beauty dish attachment.
My final shot was taken with my flash box set to 8/10 power, synced to my Horseman camera which was set at F22.4 at 4/1 second exposure time.
I was in two minds about my aperture setting, as I was torn between having a really really shallow depth of field, to create this real unclear and hazy sort of dream world effect to show this image of uncertainty as this mannequin stairs into the mirror, and to create this idea of wondering. I also however wanted to do the opposite with the aperture, and use a longer exposure time with the smallest aperture possible. The idea behind this, is to make everything completely crisp and clear, we can see that it is a mannequin, and to take away any hint of personality behind it that a shallow depth of field may lend it, so that my message of soul less and dead personality was all the clearer.
Comparing my negatives, I settled on my final shot with the beauty dish attachment over the honey comb, as the beauty dish really brought out the texture of the mannequin and the wood of the frame, which was so much clearer in the negatives over the honeycomb, because as much as I loved it's blackout spotlight effect, it was too much and there was almost no light falling on the frame completely taking it out of focus and context.
My first exposure was done at neutral colour filter settings, at Cyan:0 Magenta:60 Yellow:80 which turned out as a very magenta tinted picture, so I decided to add another 10 Magenta to counter balance this.
I was very happy with the colour balance on the picture, particularly with the colour balance on the mannequin's face, however I wanted to have a quick attempt at switching the colour to bring out the wood frame a bit more. So I subtracted 5 Yellow from the filters and made another test strip, unfortunately this made the mannequin's face very yellow, so I tried adding 3 Yellow back to the filter, but again the yellow tint was very noticeable on the mannequin's face, so I reverted back to my original.
I also took a test strip of just my wooden frame, as it was hung with black boot laces, and also I could tell it was rather dark in the centre of the frame, so I decided on a test strip to get a clear idea of what dodging and burning would be needed.
This was my first full print, there are some smears and smoke looking flaws, which was some smudging on the scanner, so most of my full prints appear to have some flaws that are not actually present on the prints.
I was pleased overall with the print, however there was some dodging and burning needed around the frame and the lace hanging it up, I mostly wanted to try and either blackout the lace or at least darken the top a little so it's presence was less prominent, and also I didn't like the brightness of the right edge of the mirror as it was over exposed in comparison with the rest of the shot, this was where my beauty dish was angled slightly too far to the right and just clipped the very edge of the frame.
I did some burning around the edges using a box shield the majority of the image, but to burn the edge of the mirror and the top of the photo around the lace, however the burn turned out to harsh and a clear diagonal line was present where the burning was not smooth enough.
So I repeated the process, but for a few seconds longer and using my hands to burn, I also did some dodging during the main exposure time around the centre of the frame just to highlight it a little more as I found it too dark.
This was my final print, I fine tuned the border a little, and did a mixture of dodging through the centre of the frame to highlight it a little more, and then some burning around the edges to darken the right edge of the frame and the top near the lace.
The dodging of the frame gave the blackout background a central glow effect, that was not unintentional as such but it was more of a by-product of the dodging done to the frame, and reflecting upon it I prefer this glow effect in the centre of the blackout background as instantly your eyes know where to look, and then you can begin to decode what is present in the image.
Development of Ideas
Last week my group had a tutorial, where we compared ideas, after explaining what I wished to attempt to create, I was told that my idea had split into two ideas, I had the ideas of consumption and waste of products in one hand, and in the other, consumerism's effects on ourselves, products engulfing us in vanity, and we lose our self identity.
I found this to be a very true statement, and have decided to go more towards the direction of self identity within consumerism, as it is a less explored area, and there is more depth I can explore within this.
As previously stated in my research, my view of our relationship with consumerism is that we use it as a mask and lose our sense of identity within the consumer world. People hiding behind their brands as avatars for so long that they lose something of their self in the process, forgetting who they are as they plunge deeper and deeper into the goods they use for the judgement of others, and others do the same for the judgement of them.
My task at had is now to portray an empty vessel, a soul less entity, surrounded by the goods that destroyed it. With this in mind I have decided to look at the mannequin.
A mannequin is a plastic shell, made to aid in the manufacture, and the advertising of clothes.
I find it is appropriate, as it is a shell, a life size doll. It is also appropriate as it was made to promote fashion, which is what people hide behind, consume, and become lost within.
For these reasons I shall dress a mannequin in current clothing, ensuring that it is clear, it is a mannequin, with it's face covered, to show a lack of a personality or human presence.
In order to reinforce this idea however of no personality or soulless, I would like to have it looking into an empty mirror frame.
The idea of the mirror frame came about when I was thinking of the loss of a soul, after a while of thinking on this, it made me think of the Vampire, as typically they are said to have no reflection, as when you look into a mirror, the reflection is a glimpse at your soul.
So I have decided to have my mannequin staring into the empty mirror frame, to reinforce that no soul is present within this shell.
Studio Time - 18/10/11
This was my first day in the studio on my Still Life project.
I borrowed a mannequin from the Fashion department, most mannequins where only torso's but fortunately there were a few full body female mannequins, with very basic facial features painted on. I would have preferred a faceless mannequin, to reinforce the idea of soulless, however fortunately it had been given a distant facial expression which made it fit in with my motif better.
As it was a female mannequin I to borrow some clothing, but I tried to keep the clothing choice as fairly current and fashionable, I did not have any major label clothing at hand, but also reflecting on the idea of using major labels, I believe that using them would have made this piece more of an attack at major labels and corporations, where I wish to simply make a piece that is more questioning than aggressive, and about more our personal identity with these products, and not necessarily the products themselves.
I tried several digital shots before I moved onto using the Horseman 5X4 camera.
At first I tried using black cloth to black out the mannequin's face, so that the clothes seemed to simply hang around an absent entity, I tried this so that there were only material products present, and so much as any hint of human presence was entirely absent. This was an idea adapted from the visual style of Danny Treacy's 'Them'.
This was a series where Danny Treacy took the clothing of strangers from where ever he found them, mostly clothes that had been discarded, or belonged to homeless or the deceased, he then dismantled the clothing, and reassembled it to create these strange outfits he fully immersed himself within.
The series 'Them' has similar ideas linked to my project, about our possessions and our identity with them, however as I have a very different message in mind, I was simply drawing from his visual style, of the blackout background, with the clothing completely covering the person wearing them, to create a humanoid, but not entirely human presence.
Unfortunately this was a rather last minute idea I wished to explore and so the black cloth I used to attempt this did not quite work, and I would have had to change much about my lighting choices to make it work and so I decided to abandon this idea and revert back to my original compositional idea.
I slightly repositioned my frame and mannequin, and uncovered the face, attempting to position them so that the mannequin was gazing into the frame to see no reflection, this proved slightly more difficult than I would have realised, as the frame was hanging by black boot laces, it was hard to move, reposition then settle, and the mannequin was sculpted gazing downwards and to the right, which opposed the position of the frame, so it was difficult to clearly frame the mannequin with it's face visible and so that it appeared to be staring into the frame.
I chose a portrait shot, to make it seem like a more human setting or position, of someone looking into their bedroom mirror.
I began with a brighter lighting choice and a black backdrop background. I decided not to fully black out the backing in the first shot, as I hoped to create a mimic scene if you will. Make it obvious that this should be a bedroom, a person and a mirror with a reflection, but instead it is replaced with man made proxies.
After some reflection however I decided that I wanted to have a complete blackout background, to emphasise all focus on my objects, and to convey a negativity through the void of blackness.
I did this by slightly repositioning the mannequin, and then using a fine honey comb attachment to the studio flash I was using.
After reflecting on this for my film shoots, I will attempt to keep the blackout background, but I would like more light falling onto the frame and mannequin, to really bring them out and into sharp focus.
I took my final shots on a large format Horseman 4X5 inch camera. As I wanted the blackout effect I used the large black backdrop camera with a black poly board to help absorb any stray light. In order to light my frame and mannequin I used a broncolor studio flash light, and I tried 2 shots with a medium grade honeycomb attachment and then 1 final shot with a beauty dish attachment.
My final shot was taken with my flash box set to 8/10 power, synced to my Horseman camera which was set at F22.4 at 4/1 second exposure time.
I was in two minds about my aperture setting, as I was torn between having a really really shallow depth of field, to create this real unclear and hazy sort of dream world effect to show this image of uncertainty as this mannequin stairs into the mirror, and to create this idea of wondering. I also however wanted to do the opposite with the aperture, and use a longer exposure time with the smallest aperture possible. The idea behind this, is to make everything completely crisp and clear, we can see that it is a mannequin, and to take away any hint of personality behind it that a shallow depth of field may lend it, so that my message of soul less and dead personality was all the clearer.
Comparing my negatives, I settled on my final shot with the beauty dish attachment over the honey comb, as the beauty dish really brought out the texture of the mannequin and the wood of the frame, which was so much clearer in the negatives over the honeycomb, because as much as I loved it's blackout spotlight effect, it was too much and there was almost no light falling on the frame completely taking it out of focus and context.
I began with my enlarger set to an aperture of f22 and made my first test strip with standard 5 second gaps for each exposure, however I found that this exposed my paper far too quickly, and so I switched my lens to f32 for a better exposure range and made my second test strip, where I settled on an exposure time of 17.5 seconds, as I was undecided between my 15 second and 20 second exposures I cut it in the middle, and moved onto my first full test strip.
My first exposure was done at neutral colour filter settings, at Cyan:0 Magenta:60 Yellow:80 which turned out as a very magenta tinted picture, so I decided to add another 10 Magenta to counter balance this.
I was very happy with the colour balance on the picture, particularly with the colour balance on the mannequin's face, however I wanted to have a quick attempt at switching the colour to bring out the wood frame a bit more. So I subtracted 5 Yellow from the filters and made another test strip, unfortunately this made the mannequin's face very yellow, so I tried adding 3 Yellow back to the filter, but again the yellow tint was very noticeable on the mannequin's face, so I reverted back to my original.
I also took a test strip of just my wooden frame, as it was hung with black boot laces, and also I could tell it was rather dark in the centre of the frame, so I decided on a test strip to get a clear idea of what dodging and burning would be needed.
This was my first full print, there are some smears and smoke looking flaws, which was some smudging on the scanner, so most of my full prints appear to have some flaws that are not actually present on the prints.
I was pleased overall with the print, however there was some dodging and burning needed around the frame and the lace hanging it up, I mostly wanted to try and either blackout the lace or at least darken the top a little so it's presence was less prominent, and also I didn't like the brightness of the right edge of the mirror as it was over exposed in comparison with the rest of the shot, this was where my beauty dish was angled slightly too far to the right and just clipped the very edge of the frame.
I did some burning around the edges using a box shield the majority of the image, but to burn the edge of the mirror and the top of the photo around the lace, however the burn turned out to harsh and a clear diagonal line was present where the burning was not smooth enough.
So I repeated the process, but for a few seconds longer and using my hands to burn, I also did some dodging during the main exposure time around the centre of the frame just to highlight it a little more as I found it too dark.
This was my final print, I fine tuned the border a little, and did a mixture of dodging through the centre of the frame to highlight it a little more, and then some burning around the edges to darken the right edge of the frame and the top near the lace.
The dodging of the frame gave the blackout background a central glow effect, that was not unintentional as such but it was more of a by-product of the dodging done to the frame, and reflecting upon it I prefer this glow effect in the centre of the blackout background as instantly your eyes know where to look, and then you can begin to decode what is present in the image.
