Introduction

A main point of research for this particular assignment was the work of Francesca Woodman. I was immediately struck by her images and personal voice, it seemed to resonate with me and really strike an emotional response quite emphatically. I was particularly taken by the way she not only used nudity in her images, but she often used so much movement she herself became indiscernible in the photographs. Furthermore, Sally Mann has regularly been a source of inspiration along my journey within photography and again she did not disappoint when I began to digest her body of work not only of her self portraits, but also of portraiture work following the sad demise in health of her husband. She titled the work “Proud Flesh” and uses her husband Larry Mann in a visual study of form, using candid nude images of the mature male body. The body of work was taken over six years and serves to diarise her husbands struggles with muscular dystrophy. I found both sets of work visually stimulating, yet so different aesthetically. Woodman herself also posed nude for many of her self portraits, often hiding behind a mirror or picture frame, she always seemed to visually coy in her appearance, as if she was hiding in front of the camera.

Sally Manns work really showed me how the photograph can suggest fragments of the human form in a way we would not necessarily expect or necessarily attempt artistically. I found them equally challenging but most importantly I saw artists that were challenging themselves. If I do little else along the journey with the OCA in particular, at the end I want to be able to say I challenged myself, I took myself to places I didn’t want to go. The learning journey is just as much about of finding out about yourself as well as finding out about a particular subject. Cliche maybe, but I need to feel a connection with my images. I want to portray honesty, feeling, emotion, passion, intrigue. Dialogue or text accompanying the photographs in this instance I didn’t feel was necessary. The set of images themselves are largely down to interpretation. I began with thoughts of reflecting myself into a mirror and the mirror image filling the frame. Devoid in some part but still a loose portrayal of humanity. In the end I felt I didn’t need the mirror, this wasn’t about being a reflection, this final outcome was about reality, movement, fluidity, consciousness, desperation, isolation and fragmentation.

Research

For assessment purposes I have created a separate pdf which contextualises my work on this project, clearly titled: Assignment 3 – “Research and Planning”.

Execution

The execution of the images was relatively simple. I mounted my Nikon D800 onto my tripod in portrait fashion. I knew I wanted a continuous light source, and I had recently bought a small LED torch to experiment with. I perched the light source on a record case and directed it into the corner of the “studio”. I played with different focal lengths, from 85 mm to a 105 mm macro, but finally settled on the 24 – 70 mm as this gave me the negative space I felt necessary in the top and bottom of the frame. I used a self timer mode giving me 20 seconds before the exposure to decide where I wanted to be in the image. I experimented with the light source but it general I found that the harsh spotlight effect it gave was ideal for the majority of the set. I blocked out natural daylight almost completely but by leaving the door only slightly ajar, some outside light if only small, does infiltrate the images. This also led to needing a slightly higher iso than envisioned at around 350, but in retrospect this could have been lower due to me dropping exposure but almost a full stop in process. I found that an exposure of around 2 seconds worked best with such a small light source, but I did experiment what up to 10 seconds. I found that most movement was lost in the longer exposures, so a shutter speed of 2 seconds became the benchmark for the work. I also added some grain in process, which I had envisioned, so I was not concerned with a small amount of digital noise in the images. The images were taken in one shoot, as as can be seen from the contact sheets the process became quite organic and fluid.

Contact Sheets

Contact sheets for this assignment can be found if desired in a separate pdf titled: Assignment 3 – Contact sheets.

Final Images

Isolated / Vulnerable / Lost

Reflection

I am largely happy with the desired outcome of my set of images and I feel they have a clear beginning, middle and end, a real sense of narrative, if certainly an ambiguous one. The way I shaped the images and what inspired me was not my daily activities but how my interest in self portraiture was evoked thought the research process. I sometimes feel that my work is most heavily influenced by what strikes me the most. In this case it was the frantic nature of Francesca Woodman’s work in an isolated, desolate setting. It was Bill Brandt describing his nude work (not self portrait) as being amongst his best work. The blatant and seemingly deliberate nudity (in some cases) of Elina Brotherus add real captivation to her work, immediately holding the eye and thought of the viewer. I have been heavily interested by the work of Sally Mann, for sometime now, and took great inspiration from body of work “Proud Flesh”, alongside her own fragmented self portraiture. There is something macabre in her work that seems to suggest another life but also the fragility of the human being and the finality of death. I have always had a bit of a fascination with the strange myself, and would hope that these influences are indirectly portrayed within my images. A way of contextualising my thoughts on this project would be that from the research I carried out, it clearly led me to create this set of images. I had a clear frame of mind, and I knew before I took the images how I wanted them to turn out. The idea evolved quite organically, but the end product is almost exactly how I saw it. I can only add that this series was drawn from me emotionally, fuelled in response to Woodman, Mann and Brandt.

I can only really add that this series has taken me way out of my comfort zone. Although the aesthetics of the set could be likened to the my second assignment, this perhaps being my only reservation. I had an idea that I was compelled to carry out. I would never have thought I would photograph myself in this manner and in some ways I am amazed I have actually done so, a definitive first in my artistic voyage. In my diary entries I noted that I am not the most confident of people, yet I don’t see the set of images as wrong or “embarrassing”. But I can say with great confidence that I have challenged myself artistically and for that I am most proud. I knew I wanted to push myself to do something different and I believe I have done that. The message I wanted to portray in some ways is perhaps having a lack of confidence, or could at least be interpreted that way. There is an obvious struggle in the images, a feeling of isolation, of trying to escape, look at me I am here, yet nobody seems to listen and going back to where one started.

The ghost like imagery and movement in the pictures are squeezed in between two more “still” pictures at the start and end. This is not a depiction of my day or things I do, certainly not self portraiture in generic fashion. It is much more deep with a sense of surrealism perhaps. I felt that the images only needed a name which I have decided as “Isolated / Vulnerable / Lost “. The title really sums up the main connotations that as a photographer I am attempting to articulate, those sometimes repressed feelings we have at certain times in our lives.

My final thoughts would be that I have tested myself creatively, artistically and technically and that was perhaps my most desired outcome. Whilst I see a level of evolution within my work, I don’t want to become pigeon holed as such, and I could have gone in a very different direction. Ultimately though, I do doubt in some ways if I could have produced an equally challenging, evocative series of images in another circumstance.