I chose a glass jar of seashells as my object as it represents the memories that I treasure in my life. I have many jars filled with seashells that I’ve picked up whenever I visit beaches over the years. This particular jar holds memories with my classmates in polytechnic. Transitioning into university, I miss my classmates a lot. There were plenty of ups, and many downs, but I miss all of it. Reminiscing about the past is what I catch myself doing very often. I think that we are all made out of memories and whatever experience that I’ve undergone has contributed to who I am today. I felt that seashells best represent that concept. There are many shells in the ocean, but there’s only a handful that I pick to keep. Likewise, there are many moments in life but we cherish only a handful of them.
Shells symbolise emotions, memories and friendship, which are important in my life. In this photo series of representation of self, I decided to keep the photos clean looking with minimal props. I wanted to let the jar of shells stand out, and a cluttered background with poor execution could have potentially taken the viewer’s attention away from the main subject. I worked with a 4:5 aspect ratio for a tighter crop.
Keeping mise en scene in mind, I opted to go for a very clean look to match the look of the jar. Browns, beiges and earthy tones. I chose to wear a white dress because it symbolises purity and innocence – characteristics that can often be associated with reminiscing nice memories. I wore my watch, because it symbolises the passing of time. The burgundy red colour gave a nice pop of colour in the photos.
Task 2: My World
Botanic Gardens is a place that I have a personal connection with. Whenever I feel stressed or sad, I will make time to visit Botanic Gardens for a walk. When the season is right, the flowers will be in full bloom. It is a rather beautiful sight. I will walk around the garden aimlessly then, until I feel better. Sometimes, I will find a quiet spot to sit just to think. I’ve always been a nature person. I find that the visits always refresh me, especially after sitting in a cubicle in school doing work for weeks. I am a flower person too, so I am in my element whenever I visit the garden. Welcome to my world.
I tried to capture its beauty, peacefulness and grandness in the photos. For serene shots, I stuck to eye level, wide shots. The horizon line parallel to the edge of the photo conveys the garden’s peacefulness. In contrast, to show the grandness of the tall trees, I crouched down and tried to take low angle shots. I played around with selective focusing on the photo of the man surrounded by flowers, to give the image more depth and to draw attention to my subject. It was also a happy accident that the man was glued to his phone. It kind of has a sub message that sometimes we are so busy focusing on little things that we fail to notice the natural beauty that is around us. What makes a place special is not just its environment, but the people who visit the place, which is why I made sure to include people in my photographs too. They act as a point of interest because nature photography tends to get lost without a focal point. I kept the overall series saturated because it can be a lively place.
I looked up some of the reference artists given in the assignment brief to get some inspiration. I think analysing their photos would be a good place to start my research.
I felt that this portrait photo by Wolfgang Tillmans tells me a lot about the lady. As a viewer, I am able to interpret what sort of person she is through the visuals. The “object” that she is interacting with are strawberries. The choice of fruit tells me that perhaps she is a sweet, nice, cheerful lady. Her clothes – a sheer flower embroidered tank with a white bra-let – tells me that she is a feminine person. Her hair up in a bun paired with the clothes gives me the impression that she may be a dancer or ballerina. The lighting of the scene also plays a part in portraying her character and personality as well. The photographer chose to shoot using natural lighting, which brings out the liveliness of the subject. The medium shot of the lady still clearly shows her expression and enough information for the viewer to interpret.
I may not be accurate in my interpretation, but it shows that what you place within your frame is important (mise en scène) and it helps with the narrative. I will try to think carefully about what object to use, and how I set up my photos for project 1.
This photo by Nan Goldin caught my attention because of the way the photograph was staged. There are a few questions that arise when I look at this photo. Why is the girl putting on or removing the mask? Where is this place? Who is she with?
The red mask that the girl is holding is rather peculiar. The colour red also brings attention to the image. Though it is a full body shot, the way that the photo is cropped does not give much information about the environment that the girl is in. All we see is a door and the gravelled ground. The girl seems to be either putting on the mask or removing it. The lighting of the image is rather harsh, so one may assume that it is night time and there is one strong light source lighting the scene.
I think what intrigues me the most about this photo is the action of the girl, so in my photos for the project I hope that I can think of an interesting action that isn’t static and conveys emotion at the same time.
For my object, I intend to use the aesthetic of those photos found in kinfolk magazine. The colours are earthy and muted with simple backgrounds.
A photographer’s work that I am going to use as reference for my environment photos is Risaku Suzuki. She is a nature photographer, and I intend to take nature related photos so I can use her works as reference when I edit my photos. What catches my attention about her photos is the colours that she uses. The colours in her photos are very calming and easy to view. Greenery is often very difficult to make them look appealing in my opinion, but she is successful in capturing the serenity and class of the colour. Her photos often capture repetitive textures very well, and she is able to compose her shot in such a way that the focal point isn’t very obvious, and the viewer studies the photo on their own to discover the magic within the photo. What is interesting about the photo below is definitely the reflect of the water that is cleverly camouflaged by the surrounding vegetation.
Process
Task 1: Object and representation of self
For this task, I knew I wanted to try to tell a story through the photographs. The object I chose was a jar of sea shells that I picked from visits to the beach over the past few years. This particular jar holds memories that I have with my class from polytechnic. Beach outings were always with them. Transitioning into university away from the people that I get along very well with is hard. I guess I am someone who revisits the past very often (I catch myself rereading journal entries, looking at old photographs etc). Shells symbolise emotions, memories and friendship, which are important in my life.
I thought a lot about mise en scene. I opted to go for a very clean look to match the look of the jar. Browns, beiges and earthy tones. I chose to wear a white dress because it symbolises purity and innocence – characteristics that can often be associated with reminiscing nice memories.
I purposely wore my watch, because it symbolises the passing of time. My only prop was my main prop with was the jar of shells because it is very tiny, and it could get lost in a cluttered, colourful background. In addition to that, colours didn’t really go with what I had in mind, because the memories to me are bittersweet and almost faded?
Started off with close up images of the object in a neutral background. I just used white paper since it is in line with what I had in mind for the other shots. I experimented on non-white backgrounds too. I think they all work, depending on which photos I want to choose for my final submission, and in which order I want the photos to be.
I chose to work with a aspect ratio of 4:5 for a tighter crop. I didn’t need so much negative space in my photos. All photos are taken by me using the help of a tripod.
Full figure shots I find didn’t work for me at all, so I sort of gave up shooting that early on in the project. My jar was simply too small for a full figure shot. Furthermore given its material of glass which refracts light and the shells being white, you couldn’t tell what was in the jar at all. I felt that that wasn’t effective. I did improvise, and tried to shoot myself sitting down, full figure, but crouching to fit myself in the frame so that the jar can appear bigger in the frame.
Mid range shots and close-up shots ended up being more effective in presenting my narrative. Though I’m not a good model and emotions don’t seem to be clear, these shots are more personal overall, and I think the viewer will feel more connected to them as opposed to wide shots. I generally have high angle shots to convey vulnerability, or else they are pretty flat to keep the simplicity.
Task 2: My World
Walking around Botanic Gardens, I tried to take photos of the place in general, though it was tempting to to take close up shots of flowers there. Below are photos that I won’t be including for my final submission. I’ve included the reasons why I didn’t like each photo / why they don’t work in the captions. The reasoning behind the chosen photos for submission and my connection with the place further elaborated in the write up of the final submission post.