Evaluation- Photo Object

Object and Body, Objects In Time, Photo Object, Photography As Object, Still Life, Year 2

For this photo object unit I chose to specialise in photography as object. Over the past four weeks I have investigated Still Life, Object and Body, Photography as an object and objects in time. Out of these four mini units I decide to specialise in photography as an object. I felt this subject related the most to my previous work as I come from an art and design background. Over the pass few weeks I have created a body of work relating all of the topics, the weekly workshops for each of the units I found really useful. This unit has given me the opportunity to work within different photographic environments to create work in a professional environment.

I have found this unit a good opportunity to get back into to my course after the summer break. By having such a short unit with a close deadline helped me get back into the swing of working. This project I felt had its positives and negatives, the project’s positives were it gave me a chance to familiarise myself with working in studios again and using the university’s equipment and softwhere. The downside of this project was, I didn’t feel the work I produced was to the best of my ability. I could have had more attechion to detail in my the development and making of my final collages. This project was not my strong point as I work more as a documentary and portrait style of photographer, however I am open to new ways of creating work.

Overall I am happy with the work I have produced for this unit, even though I do not feel it is the best of my abilities, I have put a lot of time had effort into this project to create the work I did. I am really looking forward to the next unit which is moving image. I have never worked with video before so I am looking forward to working with a new media. Learning from this photo object unit I am going to produce more test shoots and trails before I start to create my final piece. The eight week unit length instead of four should give me the opportunity to research more in depth and produce a higher quality final outcome.

Still Life – Test Shoot

Photo Object, Photo object research, Photo object test shoots, Still Life, Year 2

Week one of the ‘Photo Object’ technical workshop I focused on still life. I completed a number of different studio set ups working with my objects for still life. The workshop included various different lighting set ups, experimenting with mirrors and different studio lights. The results I got from this task were not what I was expecting, if I could redo the first stage of the workshop I would have brought in different still life objects to photograph. The next stage of the workshop was looking at different surface areas, by elevating different still life objects gave me a different results to the first task in the workshop. Overall the first part of the still life workshop was not a strong point, however I felt needed this part of workshop to build my confidence in still life photography.

The second part of the workshop was my favourite, I worked with a long exposure to create a long lasting light effect. By making the studio pitch black and using a pocket wizard to set off one single flash, I was able to use multicoloured neon lights to create a vibrant background for my still life object. My still life object was a metal sculpture of a chicken from my house, I chose this object because its different and not a standard still life object. By waving different colour lights I created a rainbow effect. In the end I settled for a red light in the background, I chose this particular colour because it complimented my still life object well. The final task of the day was working with large format cameras.

I set up one single shot to shoot on the large format camera. After shooting the image of my choice I went to the film processing lab to put the large format negative in the developing machine. Overall the colour negative came out well, next week during our colour darkroom workshop I am going to develop the picture from the still life work shop.

David LaChapelle – Still Life

Photo Object, Photo object research, Still Life, Year 2

David LaChapell made his name in photography shooting various celebrity’s. LaChapell has worked a lot with commercial photography, his use of extravagant colour and costume design is the complete opposite of my prior research piece on Edward Weston. LaChapell is not know for being a still life photographer but his piece called ‘The Last Supper’ is the reason I chose to research him for my still life unit. The image features models posed in an iconic re-enactment of the last supper, an extremely well known religious event celebrated in many different religious groups.

Although LaChapelle’s image relates more to fashion photography still life, I chose this image because of its links to Vanitas . Vanitas is the art of re-creating still life paintings from to past. Before the invention of photography artist used to create still life’s paintings, symbolising many different things from death, possessions, life and wealth. I personally like the idea of taking a piece of imagery from the past and re-creating it using modern photography techniques. Still life is about referancing and re-working old paintings, describing the everyday and relating object against object. This piece by LaChapelle is a prime example of how effective relating object and object can be. The relation between the vibrant colours on the models clothes and the table cloth compared to the somewhat dull background, really help emphasise the rich colours in the original painting, illumining ‘Jesus’ as the main subject using cleaver lighting techniques and colour choices to make this particular model the centre of attention.

Looking at this photographed has improved my understanding of how colour can be used to emphasise a photographs quality. Every detail of a still life photograph is being judged even down to the smallest object. I’ve learn to consider even the smallest of details, relating the object to the model creating a dynamic between the model and the object. During my next studio session I m going to consider incorporating models into the images and not just working with objects alone. I am going some more time really thinking about what I’m trying to put across in my images whether I’m using objects or people.

Last-Supper

Edward Weston- Still Life

Photo Object, Still Life, Year 2

Edward Weston is known as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Weston covered numerous topics during his 40 year career as a photographer, from; nudes, still life, landscapes and portraits Weston was a true master of photography. Still life is not a topic I have ever been particularly interested in as a photographer, but after seeing Weston’s stunning photo series featuring different fruit and vegetables especially ‘Pepper’ in 1930 my opinion of still life has been changed. ‘Pepper No. 30’ has become one of my favourite photographs. This iconic image make the audience see a pepper as they have never seen one before. Still life is an investigation of object and this photograph is no exception. Weston-pepper30

Weston came from a nude photography background, the links between his nude work and his still life can be seen clearly in his pepper series. Weston’s genius use of lighting and object placement truly elevates this everyday object. This black and white image displays such a wide range of texture and curvature, the soft lighting on this object likens the pepper to a nude body. The dark background exuberates the intermit curves and shape of the pepper.

The Edward Weston pepper series has inspired the beginning of my photo object project, the set of Weston images has opened my eyes to how beautiful still life photographs can really be. This upcoming Monday I will completing my first still life studio shoot. We have been asked to bring in some objects to use in our still life photoshoots. In response to the Edward Weston pepper series I will be looking for unusual shaped fruit and vegetables. Sometimes in still life less is more as seen in Weston’s still life work, instead of over crowing my still life work I am going to try and focus on singular objects, I hope to use a macro lens to really get into the detail of the object I am photographing.