Resit task

The search for solitude, time to reflect on the past and learn from the lessons life has taught, to move forward and find solace.
In this series of work I aim to create work that takes the viewer on a journey through discomfort to solace by creating some eery unnerving images that give an urgency to leave to images that create an air of calmness.

Research

Jitka Hanslovå - Forest

With Hanslovå's work it is interesting to see the use of a singular tree as the focus with the rest dropping out of focus. For me this signifies the idea of self reflection, that Hanslovå is suggesting that she is around others like herself but there is distance and that maybe she feels alone within this environment. These two images from Hanslovå do show the calm and eery idea that I would like to create, the first image is light and mystical and you are able to see a lot that is in front of you whereas the second image has lots of black within it, the use of unnatural lighting such as flash creates a strange feeling.

Todd Hido

 With Hido's work, its the idea of the obscurity that I am most interested in, it breaks up the general landscape and becomes something different. Also the colours that are used within the images create a different kind of mood that you would normally see within landscape photography. The use of day and night is really interesting, he creates quite a dark series, as in these images are not the generic commercial landscapes that you will see on birthday cards etc. I think that is what is so magical about them, they aren't the norm, they show a journey due to the way that they have been photographed within the car, even though we don't actually see that we are sitting in a car. We are just shown the view obscured by the weather on the window.

To see an image with a sunrise or sunset when you can't see the sun in any of the others is quite promising and clever, it not only breaks up the series and causing the viewer to stop and take some more time to look at and question the rest but it also shows that the photographer didn't just shoot all of these at the same time and wanted a variation within the series so that the viewers wouldn't get bored.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37385617@N00/13347011605/in/photostream/lightbox/

Another series that uses obscurity within the imagery, this time rather than using a window to photograph through, the photographer has used multiple exposures to build up the images or overlaid them in photoshop and applied a slight blurring to one of them.

http://peaklandscapes.com/2012-dav-thomas-photos/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/harry_kaufmann/ 

So i'm kinda going for an urban series because I am thinking that this is the place I want to be the least therefore creating something that is unnerving will suggest the tension that I feel when I am in these types of places.

Plan of action

So I need to do another 3 series within this project and need to do something a bit different hence why I am not just looking at forest landscapes. 

Thinking, one urban series, one quarry type series and then one where the man made begins to disappear back into the wilderness. Essentially it will be about how the ability to disappear into solitude is becoming harder to do with the growth of the population and everything that comes with it. 

I also would like to experiment photographically too, using a slight zoom burst effect so that the focus is more drawn to a specific point in the image, this could also enhance the idea of solitude being harder to find.

Experimentation

From looking at the research from above I went out over a few days and tried a few different things to push my project further, some of the images are similar to the 3 that I handed it except I haven't photoshopped the lighting effects in yet. Then there are some that are not focused, they are obscured. The reason for this is from looking at Hido's work, it is like he has created an extra dimension just by photographing through a car window that has some water on it. By doing this it makes the images more interesting as it brings another aspect of narrative to the image. My work is about a journey essentially, about finding myself and finding a place to escape to but due to everything that is happening in my life I am finding it difficult to find that place to go to. And I think that this is what my work is about, they are technically self portraits in which I am personally reflected in the landscape. I believe that if I had had enough time or that I had started this project sooner I would have experimented through this already and would have had a full series that was broken down into 4 or 5 smaller series that lead you through the entire journey.

I am liking the idea of finding obscurities and created them within the camera, so I may use a slight zoom burst on some of the images just to give a bit more of a suggestion of a struggle to find that place of solitude, though this idea could in fact have the opposite effect for the audience as maybe it would be more likely seen as a suggestion to finding solitude and forgetting about all that is around.

I found a gate within the forest in surrey that I enjoy going to which acts as a natural barrier, so I could employ this idea more within the rest of the work.

On the way home from band practice last night I decided that it could be a good idea to get some shots of the road that was lit in front of me. It was dark so obviously I was shooting with quite slow shutter speeds, but I think that with a little bit of tweaking when in the car this could be used as one of my series. As it is about knowing that there is a road in front of you to take but you are unsure of where it will lead to and how far it goes on for. I will shoot some while stopped in the road to get a better clearer image to see if that works better.

Using the bounce light off of a garage, out of focus, but it gives the idea of a path that disappears into nothing, which carries on from the idea of the above images.

Some other potential location ideas to build up the different series, I went past a couple of places that had some gates in front of them which were on the road below, so I shall be going back along that road tomorrow so get those images.

Research continued...

Thinking along the lines of the nighttime images I thought it would be a good idea to find some images with similar visual language to the old images, I found a finnish photographer Mikko Lagerstedt who has created some great images using artificial and natural light. I really think that these could be a good source to take inspiration from. Now I have to find some decent locations that help support this idea.

http://weandthecolor.com/finnish-landscape-photography-by-mikko-lagerstedt/18215 

This second image has the most to do with my idea as you are able to see a road going off into the distance.

http://www.sffworld.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1170&size=big&password=0&sort=1&cat=all

Gregory Crewdson

Looking at this work from a technical point of view, the way they have been lit and the time of day that they have been shot in too. I don't want my work to have people in but I enjoy the atmosphere and feeling that has been created from them. It is this uneasy feeling that I would like to try and create with one of the series as a way to show the need to escape to somewhere much simpler and get a chance to breathe and not worry about everything that is going on, to feel 6 years old again and not have any worries.
I think it is key to use the artificial lighting that can be found in the streets and with a little bit of editing I will be able to create that strange unnerving feeling that will make the viewers want to get out of.

In suburban settings or on elaborately detailed sets of American homes, interiors, and neighborhoods, Gregory Crewdson stages haunting, cinematic photos of alienation and eerie quietude. “I’ve always been interested in wanting to construct the world in photographs,” he has said. Crewdson’s work combines the documentary style of William Eggleston and Walker Evans with a dreamlike quality reminiscent of such filmmakers as Stephen Spielberg and David Lynch. Yet unlike those directors, Crewdson is compelled by how the still image freezes time and sets limitations, “like a story that is forever frozen in between moments, before and after, and always left as a kind of unresolved question,” he describes. His quietly disturbing American settings, with their immaculately staged lighting and somber, solitary figures, are often seen as functioning in conversation with the works of Edward Hopper. https://artsy.net/artist/gregory-crewdson

Edward Hopper

NightHawks

Thought that I would take a quick look at one of Hopper's pieces due to Crewdson taking inspiration from his work. 

http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/collection/queensland_heritage/conrad_martens2

http://writerinspired.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/horror-at-hawkins-forest-via-story-writing-express/

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/OA1.1964/

my imagery continued

Photoshop - As I am shooting on a 5D I will need to use photoshop to create the light within the images.

So first off we have our stock image, this one is just a demonstration image, I do not think that it will work in the series.

I then have to duplicate the layer and change the blending mode to linear dodge (add) which gives us an overexposed image over the top of the original.

Then putting a mask over this overexposed layer and masking out all the parts that I want to be darker, using various brush sizes and opacities to create the correct look that I want to make.

Then finally a curves adjustment just to make the image pop a little bit more.

 More research

Sophy Rickett

It is interesting to see Rickett's work here as there is a lot of negative space in the images, its more about the blacks than what is lit.
Rickett's work explores the competing forces of light and darkness in defining and articulating space, often using photography as a way of exploring the distinction between seeing and looking.^[3] She is interested in the tension between the abstract possibilities and narrative tendencies of photography and film/video. Made mainly at night, and often in peripheral or mundane environments, her work ponders the potential of photography to conceal as much as reveal. In both colour and black and white, her photographs cohere around strong formal properties, and are often minimal in character, playing on the latent narrative possibilities of place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophy_Rickett

Susan Derges

With this research by Susan Derges it is the silhouettes that are of interest, like Rickett's work above it is not what is shown that is to be thought about but instead the parts that are not shown, so the blacks are important because in this work the images have been captured by placing photographic paper in a river and exposing what is above it. In the last 3 images we are not just looking at an image of trees but also the environmental change due to the ice covering the water. It is this idea that gives this work a deeper meaning and a greater point of interest. Therefore I would like to put something like this within my body of work, having a silhouette series to make the work not so literal with its metaphor and to create another way to show an escape.

Much of the work of Susan Derges (born 1955, London) revolves around the creation of visual metaphors exploring the relationship between the self and nature. She endeavors to capture both visible and invisible scientific and natural processes - the physical appearance of sound, the evolution of frogspawn or the reflection of the moon and stars on water. She is best known for her pioneering technique of capturing the movement of water by immersing photographic paper directly into rivers or shorelines.  Recently she has begun working in the studio combining analog and digital techniques to create new forms and perspectives hitherto impossible to capture.  Her practice reflects the work of the earliest pioneers of photography but is also contemporary in its experimentation and awareness of both conceptual and environmental issues.  http://www.danzigergallery.com/artists/susan-derges

William Eggleston
Keeping along the same lines as Crewdson, we find William Eggleston, who is quite an influence on Crewdson. What we should note from his work, is the use of light, composition, colour and subject matter. All of these things equally important in every photograph but here in Eggleston's work the use of all of these things give the suggestion of something quite surreal and eery.
William Eggleston captures ordinary everyday urban American life (portraits, indoor and outdoor scenes, still lifes and details) from unexpected perspectives. His control of form, and the way in which he frames his subjects, invests his photography with a certain narrative potential and theatricality. http://www.xavierhufkens.com/artists/william-eggleston