Reflection on Tutor Feedback

My tutor was very positive about my submission and recognised the progress I was making creatively and theoretically. I was pleased as I had put the most work in to this assignment than any of the previous ones. I had tried a number of variations on composition and overlays and I felt I produced something that conveyed my intention.

I sent prints to my tutor and he confirmed they were ok but didn’t need prints for any future assignments. He felt the captions were not necessary as the story can be found within the image. I will remove these from the blog and on the assessment submission prints. I also sent the prints in a mocked up medical folder which my tutor felt was appropriate and worked.

He suggested I adding photographic terminology such as the use of analogue and digital which adds to the nostalgia and use of archive colour slides.

As a result of the feedback I will update the submission text to add the analogue/digital aspect and also remove the captions.

Overall very pleased that I attempted a very personal subject and that it was well received.

Tutor Feedback

My tutor was pleased with my progress and my development process.

Assignment 2 Tutor Feedback

Can you see me now? – Contact Sheets and Edit

I had collected the projector equipment and slides from my parents and set about viewing them all. I was looking for images of myself. I mostly wanted ones of me on my own but some of the family group shots were possibilities. The slides I was going to pick from were from 1968 to 1971 when I was 3-6 years old. This meant that the timeframe would not overlap with the dates of the life events I wanted to document.

Whilst previewing the old family slide collection I started to trawl through my document archives looking for documents of the key life events eg. redundancy letter, divorce court letter, building society letter, police case form etc. Whilst looking I came across my driving test appointment card and some secondary school exercise books. These would form the first two images in the series to give it a gentle start before more serious events kicked in. Although the exams and the numerous driving tests I failed was quite stressful at the time. These documents ranged from 1979 to 2017 which would be the basis for the series order.

Back to the slides; there were numerous shots of me on the beach wearing the same yellow trunks but the standout was me wearing wet white Y-Fronts. This image was an ideal pick for my testicular cancer composition (X or Y? also a reference to chromosomes). I had a few choices for the negative equity image eg. slide, roundabout but I went for the boating lake as it gave that sinking feeling (M’aidez! French for help me!). It also offered a different colour palette. The police horse shot was the obvious pick for my burglary event (Break-in! referencing the burglary and the horse).

I tried cropping one of the slide photos but it became clear early on that I needed the complete original composition to be able to produce a consistent dark border. I was then left with a shortlist to match to an event.

It was at this point I decided to give titles to my compositions. This helped me pair an image to an event. So the blowing out birthday candles matched with being ejected from my first job (Ejection. from my job and of the candle flame). The photo of me being unimpressed with the arrival of my baby sister worked with divorce by giving the composition the ambiguous title of ‘Someone new’ (referencing a new relationship leading to divorce and also the arrival of a baby sister). The family on holiday at the dinner table was a nice image with myself and my brother smiling for the camera whilst my dad continued eating. Having given the ‘sick note’ event the title of ‘Help me to recover.‘ It felt right to include a group photo as I required support from others to get me through my health issues.

The two remaining selections were made from a photo of me on a tricycle outside my front door (See Me! school book overlay). I originally paired this with the driving test but I decided this image was stronger than the older me sitting on my Noddy bike. I wanted the set to start strongly which was provided by a nice composition and vibrant colour. It was also the image of the ‘youngest’ me which led nicely in to the second image of the older me on a bicycle. This was paired with the driving test (Pass/Fail?). It was the only decision that was made where the order was based on the image. All of the other pairings were fixed because of the date of the event.

The next part of the process was to take photos of the projected image which I took hand held with a high ISO which was ok for the feel I needed. My simple tripod would not have been practical as I needed to get my lens directly above the projector lens to get the image as straight on as I could. The effect I got and the subtle differences due to variations in angle added to the uniqueness of each image. The consistent aspect was the dark border I achieved from the darker edges of the projector screen.

The next stage was the creative and most time consuming part. I took photos of all of the documents and went through various crops in Lightroom. I then opened the childhood image in the photoshop editor and tried various options of document overlays.

My first set was of small cropped fragments of key words, dates and phrases. The date aspect was key to the whole assignment and felt that it needed to be prominent. Reflecting on this initial set I found it too direct which felt like I was telling the viewer what happened. I needed the series to communicate the build up of stress and anxiety and convey feelings.

I then decided to overlay a complete section of the document which in all cases allowed me to include the date and enough detail of the event. I continued to use the text fragment idea by enlarging it and making it the prominent point of the composition. For consistency I made the fragment full width with small variations in the opacity.

Due to the document overlay some of the final images were too washed out. I still wanted some of the vibrancy of the original shots to shine through. As a result I increased the vibrancy and contrast on some images in Lightroom and sent them back in to Photoshop ready for the document overlay. At this point I was quite happy with the results but still felt uncomfortable with the contrast and readability of the document text.

At this point I trialled the idea of projecting the childhood image directly on the document. This went ok but surprisingly the results were not as eye catching as I hoped and no better than photoshop layering.

 

I was concerned that the composite images were too flat I thought I would add texture by having a layer showing medication and prescription boxes. This meant that I had to lose the document layer. I liked this but felt it was not conveying my original intention of the assignement.

Having tried these additional ideas I went back to my whole document overlaid images as the trials highlighted that the document was an important component of the project. It was so important I upped the clarity to show off more text. I also used a hard light filter on some of the flatter text fragments which made the composition more striking.

At the same time I gave titles to my images I also wrote a shortlist of possible titles for the overall assignment. I settled for ‘Can you see me now?’, referencing a combination of: the objective of photographing the unseen; the partial visibility of childhood me in the frame; and lastly the unseen grown up me dealing with my mental health.

The following thumbnails show examples of all stages of my process.

Can you see me now? – Self Evaluation

Demonstration of technical and visual skills

I used a number of techniques in this assignment: projection; appropriation; layers; image manipulation; text captions. It was the first time I had used photoshop for an assignment. My only other experience of using it was in part one of this course. I’m still finding my way with it but I mainly used the layers function and adjusted the opacity of the top two layers. My compositions were carefully chosen to match the childhood photo with the event in my life. I also considered the placement of the document over the image, either to hide my facial features or to highlight other aspects such as my eyes or smile.

I was originally going to print on 1×1 square format paper but decided on printing them on the upper half of A4 paper still using a 1×1 frame. The A4 sheets would then be placed together in a sleeve folder to represent medical records. I made a comparison by printing a one set on semi-gloss and another on archival matte. I originally had the idea to print the ultrasound scan on semi-gloss and the remainder on matte so that there was a sensory aspect of picking up an x-ray. I decided not to progress this idea as the matte prints did not produce the level of detail I wanted. They were too dull and flat. Further editing specifically for matte paper may have improved this.

The layering and detail of the document text offers the viewer multiple levels to study. Their eye will be taken to the enlarged text fragment. They will then move to the childhood photo and hopefully start to read the text and ultimately pick up on the dates. I expect it will take a number of views to notice all of the details. The volume of text will also get the viewer more involved and possibly give a sense of being overwhelmed.

Quality of outcome

Having worked through the exercises in part 2 I found the poem exercise made me understand what this course is trying to teach. My issue now is trying to find friends and other students to show my work to get appropriate feedback. Looking at the student forums I think a large number of people are struggling with the emotional and feeling aspect of photography. Even during this assignment I started out too literal although I still think the final submission gives away too much.

It is possibly too personal for most viewers and too much of ‘me’. Although that it is what I wanted this assignment to be, I think the next challenge will be to make it accessible to a wider audience. The personal stuff could be replaced but keeping the idea of nostalgia and use visual metaphors to represent the events.

I have documented my idea development in several posts and hopefully have described my thought processes and the artists that inspired me and gave me ideas. I’m not saying I have cracked the code with this course or this assignment but I am beginning to understand how photography can be used to convey feelings.

My submission of 8 images has been printed on A4 semi gloss paper and placed in a mocked up medical file. I have handwritten the photo titles on the prints and am interested to know if this is acceptable artisticly for photography.

Demonstration of creativity

All my previous assignment on EYV and CAN have been variations of street and documentary photography. This assignment was staged and indoors. I had full control over composition and lighting. It was mostly enjoyable but at times I became frustrated at not being able to produce what I had visualised in my head. Especially when everything is under your own control. I find street photography and creating images from ‘found’ scenes more exciting. Possibly something about the thrill of the chase. I would like to do more ‘indoor’ photography to gain more experience of staging and lighting.

In some of my early results the childhood image was too prominent and as it wasn’t my image I felt like a fraud submitting it for my assignment. This led me to research the use of appropriation which really added impetus to the project. It taught me that it is an artistic skill when making the selection of the ‘found’ image.

The selection of the photo, the selection of the document and the image title are all artistic choices. It’s not random. The placement of the document fragments and text is also an artistic choice.  It is not enough to overlay some documents on to some old photos and expect it to convey the ‘unseen’ notion of  mental health. There has to be another level. I hope I made some good choices to achieve this.

Context

I was intrigued and troubled by Peter Mansell’s quote regarding his personal project Check up , “The effect of creating such images was cathartic. I had not realised just how much emotional pressure I had repressed for so many years“. For me the experience has been an emotional challenge but it was a positive step towards understanding my mental health.

I initially looked for photographers whose subject was mental health. I found an interesting project with Jennifer Pattison’s series Edward. She used objects to convey what it was like growing up with someone with mental health problems. My objects were family slide photos and my personal documents.

I then researched photographers that used documents in their work. Mari Mahr’s A Few Days In Geneva used layers and document fragments to create dreamlike childhood memories. The fragments and memories were something I wanted to use in this assignment.

Whilst researching appropriation I found Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) used found images and added text in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique and Helvetica Ultra Condensed fonts. From this I thought that using the fragments as a banner across the full width offered a consistent feel to all the images.

Can you see me now? – Submission

My assignment is an investigation of the ‘unseen’ notion of being so overwhelmed by life events that you are no longer able to cope with everyday life.  It is an exploration of the negative events in my life that have accumulated to the point where I was signed off sick and struggled with day to day life and work.

From my initial list of ideas [1] I developed the idea [2] of how life has led me to this point and how my mental health has been impacted by some of my life experiences. Everybody reacts differently to events in their life and the timing of those events have an impact on how we cope.

I have encapsulated these moments of my life in a series of 8 composite images. All of the images are a photograph within a photograph. It brings together 3 moments in time. 1) The time of the family photograph. 2) The time of the event in my life. 3) The time of producing the composite image.

The passing of time and the nostalgia aspect of the submission can be seen by the use of archive colour slides representing the analogue age and combining that with the use of a DSLR and digital editing tools. This gives the set a feel of delving in to the past, collecting all the negative events together and organising them in to 8 visual frames to support the question… ‘Can you see me now?’.

I photographed a projected slide photo, of myself, which I selected from my parents collection.  I then overlaid this with a photograph of a document recording an event in my life. I have placed a final overlay of an enlarged text fragment across the full width of the frame.

I am between the age of 3 and 6  in these images and it shows my life in simpler and untroubled times (c.1968 – 1971). These aren’t presented in any particular age order as the primary decision was to match them with an aspect of the event.

The second layer is the ‘event’. It is a document that places the event to a specific date in the past. The events are in date order and provide the movement of time and convey the build-up of negativity in my life. I have adjusted the opacity to allow just enough of the text to be legible but also to show the materiality of the document.

The third layer is an enlarged fragment of the document that catches the eye and draws the viewer in to the text and the background scene. I have edited the fragment to highlight the texture of the document so the final image is not too flat.

As part of the presentation for submission I have printed on A4 semi gloss paper and produced a sleeve to represent a medical file. My contact sheets [8] show the development and shots taken throughout the project and my decision making process for the compositions and titles.

During development of the idea I researched photographers [3] who used mental health as their subject. I also looked for practitioners using document fragments. The following artists provided me with inspiration and an understanding of appropriation [4]. My final product contains a combination of their features and techniques that results in something personal to me.

• Jennifer Pattisons series Edward [5] used objects to convey what it was like growing up with someone with mental health problems.
• Mari Mahr’s (b. 1941) A Few Days In Geneva [6] uses layers and document fragments to create dreamlike childhood memories.
• Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) [7] used found images and added text in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique and Helvetica Ultra Condensed fonts.

References:
1.   Early ideas post
2.   Idea development post
3.   Artist Research post
3a. Paper Drop Prinzessinnenstrasse (2014), Wolfgang Tillmans
3b. Campany. D, Art and Photography,  Phaidon 2007
3c. Depression (1975), John Hilliard (b. 1945)
3d. A Few Days In Geneva (1988), Mari Mahr (b. 1941)
3e. Who Is That Then?  (2015), Jennifer Pattison (b. unknown)
4.   Finalising and use of appropriation post
4a. Untitled (1989), Barbara Kruger (b. 1945)
4b. Fountain (1917), Marcel Duchamp (b1887 d.1968)
5.   Jennifer Pattison – Edward post
5a. BJP Article Exploring masculinity and mental health through the image [accessed 07/11/2017]
5b. WARNING Contains nudity: Jennifer Pattison website [accessed 07/11/2017]
6.   Mari Mahr A Few Days In Geneva post
6a. Mahr. M, A Few Days In Geneva, Travelling Light 1988
6b. Mari Mahr – Daughter of an Architect – You Tube [accessed 09/11/2017]
6c. The Separateness of Things – Victor-Burgin [ accessed 09/11/17]
6d. A Few Days in Geneva – Mari Mahr’s website [accessed 09/11/2017]
7.   Barbara Kruger – Independent Article [accessed 17/11/17]
8.   Contact Sheets and Edit post

Finalising and use of appropriation

 “The act of borrowing or reusing existing elements within a new work”

One of the objectives of Assignment 2 asks ‘What is in-photographable?’. Well, needing to capture my childhood self is in-photographable without the use of a time machine. To achieve this aspect in my assignment I have chosen to use images of my younger self taken by my parents. This then led me to question the validity of using photographs taken by others to create a new piece of work. Note that I do have permission from my parents.

Untitled (1989) by Barbara Kruger

At this point I researched ‘appropriation’ and its use by artists and photographers. Barbara Kruger (b.1945) questioned the whole concept of originality. This was an interesting viewpoint. In street photography everything you take belongs or is owned by somebody else. Some objects used in staged images can belong to someone else. Ideas and styles used in art photography can be tracked back to an original author making subsequent works ‘appropriations’ of sorts.

Portraits have been taken many times, it’s just the subject that changes from author to author. The artistic message is predominantly the same in this category of photography.

Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp

This highlights that artistic merit can found in what you select, how you present it and where you present it. This was the view of the French-American artist, sculpture, chess player and writer Marcel Duchamp (b.1887 d.1968). He famously quoted “I don’t believe in art, I believe in artists“. He ‘found’ objects, signed them and presented them in a gallery which were known as ‘readymades’. It questions what is the artist trying to say and at the same time highlighting and celebrating art and artists.

Assignment 2 has made me realise the artistic skill in making the selection of the ‘found’ image. In my case I had several hundred family slide photos to choose from. I required 8 images to pair with my chosen document. The selection of the photo, the selection of the document and the image title were all artistic choices. It wasn’t random. The placement of the document fragments and text was an artistic choice. The final image is a photograph that contains a photograph. It conveys the passing of time. It brings together 3 moments in time. 1) The time of the family photograph. 2) The time of the event in my life. 3) The time of construction and taking of the final image.

The ‘event’ aspect provides the movement of time and conveys the build-up of negativity in my life. The childhood images are from around the same time. They aren’t in any particular age order as that is not relevant. The nostalgia and young me is. The presentation and look & feel will be key to ensuring that it conveys mental health. This is an important artistic choice and the success of this assignment will be judged on how well I deliver that.

It is not enough to overlay some documents on to some old photos and expect it to convey the ‘unseen’ notion of being overwhelmed by events to the point of not being able to cope with everyday life. There has to be another level. I am excited by my idea and keen to see how the assignment develops and where it takes me.

The titles of the images and overall assignment title are a key choice to hold the piece together. I need to ensure I don’t add too much. Don’t overdo puns and don’t make them simplistic. They need to be thoughtful, educated with a hint of optimism.

Possible titles for the assignment:
Take a look at me now.
Can you see me now?
Fix Me!
Get Better.
I am more than this.
Broken people can get better.
Recovery

Image titles and pairings:
See Me!                     Me on a trike outside home         School Book
Pass/Fail?                 Me on my bike                                Driving Test Card
Ejection.                    My 6th Birthday party                  Redundancy Letter
M’aidez!                    Me in a boat on a lake                   Negative equity letter
Someone new.         Me and baby sister                        Divorce court letter
X or Y?                       Me on the beach in my pants      Tumour Ultrasound scan
Break-in!                  Me on a police horse                      Burglary case number
Help me to recover.   Me at the family dinner table   Sick Note

  

This is my first attempt at a composite image using photoshop. I’ll probably reshoot the paper fragments as the white balance does not match. I will also move the fragments around the frame to see what may work. I also need to lighten both the projector image and the document fragments. I like 1:1 frame and the black border that has been created out of camera although I would like a little detail in the black. I also like the raggedness at the edges of the slide. I am considering putting the image title in the lower border but need to research fonts and formatting as I don’t want to ruin the final image. Overall I’m very pleased with where this assignment is heading.

I tried one more thing before finalising my selects for submission. Here I overlaid an image of medication. The idea was to overlay similar images of prescriptions and medication on all 8 compositions. This meant I had to drop the document layer. I liked the result as it provided a cleaner more clinical image and would be accepted by the viewer as a ‘proper’ image. However, I chose to reject the idea as it overemphasised a dependence on medication which is not the point I want to focus on in this assignment. It also lost the personal feel and background story of the events that the document overlays provide. My final submission selects have a number of levels the viewer has to ‘read’. It is the  build up of the events and the effect it had on my mental health that I want to convey. The image below, as the first in the set would give up too much too soon and devalue the point of a series of 8 images.

The idea and artist reasearch

My next stage of development led me to the documents that captured key moments in my life that built and accumulate to a level of anxiety that impacts to getting on with day to day life.

School book – 1979 – work hard, pressure to do well
Driving test appointment card – 1987 – nervousness, trepidation
Redundancy notice letter- 1995 – anger, uncertainty
Negative equity letter – 1998 – must keep earning, stay in a job
Divorce court letter- 1999 – regret, acceptance
Tumour ultrasound x-ray – 2008 – shock, pain
Burglary police case note- 2015 – disbelief, sadness
Sick note – 2017 – Help!

How many times can you get back up from the trials and tribulations of life?

One idea is to create composites of a childhood photo slide overlaid on to the letters/documents.

Decisions:
Balance of scale between the two images?
Choice of photo scene and matching document (outside house for burglary)?
Feelings evoked by each event?
How to make a photo of a letter artistic?
Not want it morbid as it may appear to be about loss of a child.

I initially looked for photographers that used paper/documents in their work and looked at Wolfgang Tilmans’ [4] ‘paper drop’ images which was a study of the materiality of photography.

Paper Drop Prinzessinnenstrasse 2014- Wolfgang Tillmans

 

 

 

 

 

A Google search led me to a BJP article[1] on an exhibition, ‘Alpha’ from November 2015 about ‘masculinity and mental health’. Jennifer Pattison’s [2] project Edward [3] was featured in the article which was a collaborative project with her father who suffered from severe depression while she was growing up. The objects she captures are items that he made or collected during occupational therapy sessions. It is a very personal project covering a difficult and upsetting subject.

Who Is That Then?  2015 – Jennifer Pattison

I wanted to find a photographer who used mental health and or documents in their work. A resource I went to was Art and Photography [5] where I found a triptych by John Hilliard (b. 1945) called Depression/Jealousy/Agression. The images had titles and captions on the two bottom corners. The three images were of the same scene but the point of focus varied for each one. I noted that the point of focus was on the man in the foreground and the background subjects were soft focus. The next image, jealousy, showed a couple hugging which was in focus. The man in the foreground was now out of focus. The use of focus to convey feelings and emotions would be something I could use in my assignment.

Depression (1975) by John Hilliard

Continuing to leaf through the book [5] I came across an image by Mari Mahr (b. 1941) from a series called A Few Days In Geneva. It was a scene where a torn piece of music was overlaid on to an image of a building with open windows. It was the use of the two images overlaid that intrigued me. I delved deeper in to her work and found that she uses the technique in all of her projects, which were mainly about the past and memories. I have written a post [2] to describe her work in more detail.

A Few Days In Geneva (1988) by Mari Mahr

References:

1. BJP Article Exploring masculinity and mental health through the image [accessed 07/11/2017]
2. WARNING Contains nudity: Jennifer Pattison website [accessed 07/11/2017]
3. Jennifer Pattison, Edward post
4. Wolfgang Tilmans Tate Modern post
5. Campany. D, Art and Photography,  Phaidon 2007

Idea development

I have reflected on the initial ideas and now ready to hone in on a final idea. To start I will reject the less personal ideas: Air pollution/germs; Food additives; Software; Wood for the trees. I liked all of these ideas especially as they would need another level of creativity to turn them into an ‘Art’ project.

I have also decided not to progress Hearing loss. Even though it is personal I am not able to envisage at this stage how I want to present it using photography.

That leaves me with the following 3 ideas:
Mental health – this would be based on my own personal issues with anxiety and stress which have begun to impact significantly on my day to day life and work.
Alternative futures/what if’s – reflection on life decisions and how they affect your current life and the future.
Nostalgia/Memories – Jodie Taylor’s Memories of Childhood [2] project gave me an idea of using old family ‘slide’ photographs and projector.

Re-reading my initial ideas on each of these subjects I could see a link between how life has led me to this point and how ‘minds’ work based on our life experiences. Everybody reacts differently to events in their life. Timing of those events can also have an impact on how we cope.

I see this project as an investigation in to my own ‘mind’ and another step towards understanding my mental health. It is not meant to be a depressing project but an exploration in to what has made me who I am. An explanation to, not only myself, but friends and family.

I was intrigued and troubled by Peter Mansell’s quote regarding his personal project Check up [1], “The effect of creating such images was cathartic. I had not realised just how much emotional pressure I had repressed for so many years.”

The key questions and ideas:
How to link the images? a prop, look and feel
Will I be in the images?
If I am in the images in what form? a shadow, a photograph of younger me, physically (all or part of me)
Using slides photos of myself growing up?
Shining a light through a slide projecting the effect on a photo of me now
What’s the story? stages of my life, key events
Presenting anxiety and stress in times of everyday normality.
Project childhood photo on to prescription/empty medication packet
Staged scenes –  projections on  placed items

 

 

References:

1. Peter Mansell’s Check Up
2. Jodie Taylor Memories of Childhood. [accessed 29/10/2017]

Early ideas

The brief offered two options: Photographing the unseen; Using props.

Initially I had decided to photograph the unseen as the white shirt and handkerchief did not resonate with me. So I set about producing a list of 7 subjects that I felt were un-photographable.

Mental health – this would be based on my own personal issues with anxiety and stress which have begun to impact significantly on my day to day life and work.
Wood for the trees – based on the saying ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’.I like the idea of the meaning behind this saying…getting so much involved in the details of something such that you can not see the whole picture.
Air pollution/germs – I had an idea to use a bright light (eg. projector) to shine on dust particles in various locations in a domestic environment. e.g. living room, bedroom/under bed, bathroom, kitchen, shed, wardrobe/cupboards. Need at least seven but could be too similar.
Hearing loss – Deteriorating hearing is a condition that I have been living with over the past few years. My idea would be based on producing images conveying imbalance and cloudiness.
Software – based around my job of computer application development. The intention would be based on the technology behind the screen. Ideas include using shining light on or through computer components.
Food additives – investigating the source of some of the additives and ingredients in common foods. Bread sitting in a pool of fish oil. Food stuffs covered in paint and/or plastics.
Alternative futures/what if’s – reflection on life decisions and how they affect your current life and the future.
Nostalgia/Memories – Jodie Taylor’s Memories of Childhood project gave me an idea of using old family ‘slide’ photographs and projector.

I would like this assignment to be a narrative using a personal experience. These types of project get a reaction from the viewer in terms of sympathy, understanding or uncomfortableness.  These responses can be from experience of similar situations or seeing something that they do not understand or even shy away from.

I would like to use a prop to make a visually consistent set. Gregory Crewdson uses draped clothing and fabric to tie together indoor and outdoor scenes in is Cathedral of the Pines series. Dewald Botha used the ‘ring road’ as his prop to convey the feeling of being an outsider.