Final Major Project – Project Development – 5th November 2018

Professor Green was on BBC Breakfast this morning talking about his latest single Photographs. He has started a social media campaign #WishThatITookMorePhotographsOfUs

This was a really interesting interview to me and also researching the concept behind it afterwards. Talking of loss of a family member and how photographs are so important in terms of memory and our feelings towards this.

It made me think of the family members that I have lost both recently and the ones that Alzheimer’s stole from me.

Perhaps this could lead to a new shift in my work and made me think deeper into the concept behind my work.

Things to Explore:

•  Images and silhouettes of me and grandma – layered over my memories of the places that mean something to me.
• Working title suggestions
  • Gone but never forgotten – the cruel reality of dementia
  • Stolen Moments
  • The Memory Thief
  • Stolen moments the crimes of the memory thief
  • Stolen Memories
  • Dementia – The Memory Thief
  • Stolen Moments – The Memories Dementia Erased

Final Major Project – 1:2:1 Tutorial with Wendy McMurdo – 31st October 2018

Summary:

FMPP Feedback – 

• My FMPP was illustrated with a good range of appropriate references.
• I need to consider how DNA could be visualised/recorded/depicted. How I could harvest my own DNA.
• Am I incorporating my DNA with my own archival imagery
• The historical past mentioned in my FMPP is interesting.
• Perhaps think about working on Typologies.

What I need to do with my work – 

My work is fragmented – I must do more research.

What is my work about? Is it DNA, Identity, Uniqueness (Does this link to ethnicity or is this unlinked?

Social Context / Political Context.

Revealing something hidden

Memory ( this is a major area for my research)

Find my links 

• Family
• Memory
• Dementia Research – Alzheimer’s Society.

Research to follow up:

Look at the Centre for Life – DNA discoveries

Hew Locke – Monuments

Stephen Gill – Best Before End

Mark Quinn – Blood Cubes, DNA, Family Portrait – this could be very important to my current path.

Next Tutorial: 13th November 2018

Final Major Project: Group Critique with Paul Clements 30/10/2018

Similarities with Da Vinci and how he put fingerprints within his work whether intentional or not is a link to my own work. I really enjoyed working with the identity project – it encapsulated my love for abstraction with the love for my home county and my memories.

There was also conversation about the get together of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon at the Colony Club where thumb prints were put on images.

• 

  The Identity Project Collage

I also presented at this group critique the layering images that I have been working on. These images received a good reception – particularly the ones that featured my relatives – showing some form of existence and this makes the images easier for the viewer to relate to.

A point was that the images of my relatives didn’t necessarily need to be in the original location of where my family were.

St Nicholas’s Church and Cramlington Village Square.

There were suggestions to certainly email the city library as my location but to also contact the RPS North magazine, to have a feature if possible.

There was also an idea to look at DNA testing to get a profile – to print this out and maybe start inserting that into my imagery.

Research to do:

Graham Smith: North East photographer who had his work misappropriated (look at Granta Magazine, Editions 25,75)

Watch the Andrew Jackson lecture

I hope to develop these ideas to come up with a really great idea.

Final Major Project – Project Development – 10th October 2018

After my tutorial this week and having some time to look at the works of Corinne Vionnet and Idris Khan a couple of the references offered by Wendy. I wondered if a key to my work was collecting all of the images in one go (Like my favoured artists Jung and Lowy) or if it is actually about returning to the subject after a period of time showing actual time passing.

Another thought of mine in connection to the editing process was about having 35 layers – a layer for every year of my life compressed into one image with the base being the original archival image.

The list of sites I’ve been considering is

1. St Nicholas Church – Achieved
2. The Old Chapel (Capella’s) – Achieved
3. Northumberlandia
4. Angel of the North
5. Sage and Tyne
6. Tynemouth Priory
7. Warkworth Castle
8. Woodhorn
9. St Mary’s Lighthouse
10. Travellers Rest (John the Clerk) – Achieved
11. Theatre Royal
12. Castle Keep
13. Beach Huts
14. Collingwood’s Statue
15. Grey’s Monument
16. Spanish City
17. Cragside
18. Seaton Deleval Hall

My working title at the current time – This is me – I am North

Final Major Project – 1:2:1 Tutorial with Wendy McMurdo – 9th October 2018

Summary:

Plan Exhibition for March/April (need 1 clear month at the end for CROP and PDF)

Think of a working title as this will help in the description of my work. what does my project want to say.

I need to talk about my approach and also include descriptions of what I actually want to achieve.

I need to have a visual strategy

Personal Identity and memory is too broad a statement I need to be much more specific.

Show I am not interested in a traditional representation

Rewrite the start of my proposal – my new direction is not that far removed from my other projects – my fingerprint is still macro, I’m still looking at the passage of time – this is just another evolution.

Research to follow-up:

Corinne Vionnet – Photo Opportunities 2005-2017 http://www.corinnevionnet.com/-photo-opportunities.html 

Idris Khan – every… page of the Holy Qur’an 2004 https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/14-idris-khan/, St Pauls, London 2012, Homage to Bernd Becher 2007

Helen Sear – Beyond the View 2008 http://www.helensear.com/portfolio/beyond-the-view/

Helen Chadwick – Viral Landscapes 1988-1989 https://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/9498/viral-landscapes

Heather Dewey-Hagborg – Spirit Molecule 2018 https://deweyhagborg.com/

Next Tutorial: 30th October

Final Major Project – Project Development & 2nd Development Shoot – 4th October 2018

I found some original photographs, or postcards that could be used as the base for my transformations.

This was such a fruitful experience it shows me just how much things have changed in just my lifetime.

I’ve also been rereading about the methods of Jung and Lowy and it has really re-inspired my work and whilst I think that my imagery may be much darker than their work it is certainly something that I want to try out further.

I had 3 locations in mind when leaving to go and do my second development shoot. I was able to achieve these 3 locations  – Initial editing did not quite go to plan but subsequent attempts have been more successful. I have started to wonder whether it is appropriate to bring back the fingerprint.

These are places that all mean something to me and have played a part in the development of my identity. I want to put my stamp on them and the way I find to do this is to wrap the memories in the whorls of my fingerprint entwining the love of my community and embracing it in a single image.

• 

  Capellas – Cramlington – November 2018

• 

  The Travellers Rest Cramlington – November 2018

• 

  St Nicholas’s Church – Cramlington – November 2018

Final Major Project – Project Development – 29th September 2018 – 1st Development Shoot

I researched the shooting techniques of both Stephanie Jung and Ben Lowy and tried to make a similar technique. I then carried out a test shoot and what I plan to do. It worked quite well and it has left me quite excited to the point of planning the time in to go and do some actual shots.

The movement of the pots and items around the garden I think is almost like a time-lapse I have lived in this house since I was brought home from hospital. My Dad has lived in this house from when he was 2 with his family so the archival image shows my family from around 1981/2 but the surroundings of today. I also think it is more effective in the blank and white.

I have layered around 28 images together.

 

Final Major Project – Project Development – 28th September 2018

I’ve spent some time looking over imagery of my local area this has been fascinating. It is wondrous to think how far my family history goes on in this town.

I have been looking at the work of Stephanie Jung  who in her work uses multiple exposures to portray chaos in city life, the colours she achieves are spectacular and it really draws you in to the images. I’m not sure yet if I wish to use colour on the new work I want to produce or if I want to use black and white or sepia to bring in feelings of nostalgia.

I have also been using the work of Ben Lowy who uses an iPhone to take images repeatedly over a specific period of time while he takes a short walk of his neighbourhood. this creates in his work almost a tunnel affect and I wondered if I could use a similar technique in my own work but I wish to use it as a representation of a passage of time.

I wondered how it would work if I took an original/archive image and the layered and layered new exposures of the place that it is now.

On a DSLR this could probably be achieved with burst mode definitely something to develop.

References:

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/benjamin-lowy-walkscapes/

https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/chaos-snapshots-bright-city-life-interview-photographer-stephanie-jung-3406

Final Major Project – 1:2:1 Tutorial with Wendy McMurdo – 25th September

Comments:

My work is maintaining science in the fingerprint – Like forensics.

Look at Tim Head – photographs of rubbish – detritus

Using a family archive. Local archive. Like Stephen Gill who always works in Hackney.

Project development – Rephotography (for this I’ll need a good copy stand)

Mining, Materials, Community

Actions:

Research Tim Head and Stephen Gill.

Paste a link of my Pecha Kucha presentation into the forum.

Sign up for a new 1:2:1 tutorial on Tuesday 9th October.

Start my FMP

Listen to the Susan Bright and Vicky Forrest Lectures.

Pecha Kucha Presentation:

Final Major Project – Project Development – 24th September

I feel creatively lost again – doing the Pecha Kucha presentation I thought would make things become clear, but in some ways I think I just ended up getting more and more confused and less and less convincing!

My View – Kirsty Logan, 2018

I found this quotation from Ansel Adams – I think this sums up what I want to achieve with the final major project.

“YOU DON’T MAKE A PHOTOGRAPH JUST WITH A CAMERA. YOU BRING TO THE ACT OF PHOTOGRAPHY ALL THE PICTURES YOU HAVE SEEN, THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ, THE MUSIC YOU HAVE HEARD, THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE LOVED.”
– ANSEL ADAMS

 

References:

http://kristianbogner.com/you-dont-make-a-photograph-just-with-a-camera-you-bring-to-the-act-of-photography-all-the-pictures-you-have-seen-the-books-you-have-read-the-music-you-have-heard-the-people-you-have-lov/