So I decided at the weekend to test the healthcare public/ private persona idea out using out of date stock, just to see if and how it would work. It didn't and I realized very quickly during the shoot reviewing in camera, the image was closed, direct and so fixed it gives the viewer no room to move or think. It is a "just" photograph and even if I did the public element alongside this test it wouldn't work in a million years. Even though I knew this didn't work I continued to shoot, portraits and self portraits on a 10 second timer, camera on a tripod and one single continuous light. Trying different things with no real idea of what or why, this time I didn't reviewed anything in camera I tried portraits and signs, I write something and the sitter (my wife) doesn't know what and just let her do whatever. It was better but out of the 200 images one hit the spot, a 10 second timer act of serendipity, yes I positioned my wive in the frame, yes I positioned my chair, yes I focused, pressed the shutter, 10 seconds to get to the chair, get in position, instruct my wive don't smile just stare straight ahead and hold still shutter 1/20 and bang something to work with.
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This is going to be personally difficult, creating a diary. It seems trivial but it is something I have never done, I have never had a desire to keep one. It seems quite alien and if I am honest a largely pointless exercise considering diaries are internal thoughts, feelings written and stored in an external manner kept in secret? Really what a strange notion.
I am naturally deeply introverted, my thoughts and feelings are internal, a large part of my life is spent within my head, my thoughts and feelings should remain there in the most part, I need solitude. Although the learning log is similar to a diary, it has a purpose. Photography is a way to communicate my internal world without directly speaking or being there physically. I think that maybe I should keep a visual diary combined with text and speech, a video diary, completely and utterly outside of my comfort zone, in a way that I that rarely openly share. I posted in the OCA Forum https://discuss.oca-student.com/t/can-childhood-memory-exercise/5930/4I I will try not to ramble just thought I would share it also feed backs to much of CAN. So I have being thinking about what I will do (construct) for Childhood memory….I know work first think later but I can’t help. So it will be a self portrait of me crying, I remember crying a lot in the beginning of the 80’s I hated! junior school. This trigger a memory of the tacky popular wall art of the late 70’s early 80’s - print of the “Crying Boy” painting. I remember seeing on the wall of what seemed everywhere, I remember the stories (urban legend) about the “curse of the crying boy” and how the prints would survive house fires unscathed, it was true houses burnt to the ground but the painting were treated in fire resistant coating and fell face down and remained untouched. So I will look to pay homage to the “Crying Boy” has it fits both internal and has a external childhood memory.
So I decided to research the painting, the artist of the work (a series of 60 ish paints) was Giovanni Bragolin an italian painter. His work was mass produced and was popular in the 70’s and 80’s but I couldn’t really find much on the net which mainly comprise of the urban legend. But I did a net search “Crying Boy in Visual Culture” in the hope that maybe this tacky mass reproduce was something else other than tacky. It came back with something I found very interest. A book called “Visual Culture In The Middle East: Rhetoric Of The Image” published in 2013. Talks of the very same “Crying Boy” print in a Chapter “The Muslim Crying Boy In Turkey” which was also popular in the 70’s and 80’s in Turkish culture, European image appropriated into Islamic context (suffering, pain, distress, political and religious) - simplified because I have not read the whole book in detail nor do I have detailed knowledge of Islamic culture. The book was written in 2013 one year after the beginning of the syrian civil war and three years for the iconic Aleppo child in the ambulance image. There has been questions over the authenticity of this image and consider that Aleppo is very close to the border of Turkey and that some rebels are turkish backed, that the photographer (Mahmoud Raslan) was described as a media activist. Is “The Crying Boy” so culturally important it has become another urban myth in child in the ambulance? Yes nobody can deny the horrific impact on people there nor deny the civil war but is the image based on a staged lie to drive home a truth. I think it is. Because it has been such a long time since I have experimented with simple make up I am in the process of practice. I always practice on myself first mainly because if anything goes wrong, it goes wrong on me rather than somebody.
Because persona idea for assignment one, healthcare workers public and private I need to stage healthcare situations. Wound care is one type of situation. So been think about doing some work and some planning and preparation this weekend?
I am still going to try out A1 with persona so going to do some test shots. Health related so need to make some blood for two of the images, blood taking and wound care. And I need to think about Project 5 - The manipulated image which I am looking at a buried in the garden idea 50% physical and 50% digital manipulated image not sure if it will work but that's the fun. The wound care and buried image will need blood and makeup in order to create the effects and I need to practice these aspects. The buried image will need a simple stage for the composite to hopefully work. I may try video to record of the processes used but we will see. On my first assignment I did for EVY (Square Mile) I spent far too long on. It led to wasted time and set up the course in terms of time management. So I am going to be extremely mindful of this for this for assignment.
My initial thought on this was keep it simple and quite conservative. How best to approach two sides of the same story? The most natural and first thing that sprung to my mind is a combination self portraits and personas. I work for the NHS and there is a very obvious public and private personas at play. But I was reminded about an ongoing local news article regarding Derby City shopping center Intu and the Eagle Center Market. The effects the big commercial giant has had on the market. I was trying to stay away for a go to cliche subject like rich and poor but I felt that this possibility had something to offer in that Intu and the eagle center market share the same retail grounds and are part of the same complex/ building. Not only that but Intu has in the last six months brought the market from the local council. It is now the same entity. It is a project that's something that I wouldn’t normally look to do so also services has a way trying something different that pushes me a little outside of my personal comfort zone while remaining quite conservative. |