Project 3: THINGS - shoot 4 contact sheets

Contact sheets for shoot 4 - Photographs taken in the basement studio

Project 3: THINGS - shoot 4

Object 1:
Looking back at Levi Brown's photograph of the chewing gum as well as Neil Pardington's style, I tried to take this style and replicate it with party mix lollies documenting each different piece from the bag. I arrange them according to colour so that it is easy to read as well as gives the viewer a fair idea of the range of lollies in the bag. I think this is a successful shot as it is very clean, clear and works well in an archival representation. The second transformation of this object has yet to be determined...

Object 2:
The idea of the cityscape came from Sian Bonnell's Scenic Cookery. The photograph of the transformation of the licorice into buildings was taken from a low angle with lights shining downward. I sliced up the licorice pieces to create buildings of different height and thus forming a cityscape and the green in the background is representative of hills/mountains.

Object 3:
An abstraction and a cityscape were produced from the third object of licorice all sorts. These lollies are equally the same shape with varying colours allowing the repetition of the object to derive its own artwork. Manipulation of these is very easy because they act somewhat like toy building blocks.

Project 3: THINGS - confectionery

Jaffas and marbles


Hearts and toy hearts


Lindor and plastic sweet

The idea behind this third shoot is to camouflage and/or blend the edible and non-edible objects. I like how the highly manufactured confectionery mimic meaningless objects in an act to appeal to children. I have tried to capture these objects, not only to convey that they are very similar to each other but to try and make them interesting to look at and appeal to the viewer.

I realise the composition and white balance are off and this is because I didn't have the freedom to move around and select particular lighting as this was done at home.

There is a question as to whether photographing 3 different types of lollies is valid for the 3 different objects and arguably I think because they are the same type of object it makes the project read better as a whole and while they are the same type, they still exhibit varying shapes and qualities.

For my next shoot I have decided to photograph 3 different types of lollies, and they are; traditional party mix, licorice and licorice all sorts. I intend to abstract, transform and document these lollies.

Project 3: THINGS - new direction

So, photographing the violin today wasn't a great success because there was not much I could do with it. Although I got a few good photos, they are pretty much meaningless so I have decided to redirect my train of thought.

Second shoot of various different objects also didn't go so well. Contact sheets are below.

I am very interested in the play on scale and have discovered tilt-shift photography.

The videos below I found very amusing and I really liked the distortion.

http://vimeo.com/12513670 - Lego (Building anything)
http://vimeo.com/9679622 - A day in the life of New York City, in miniature.

This is somewhat closely related to some of Sian Bonnell's work, especially the Scenic Cookery and the House Beautiful series. An image I liked from the House Beautiful series was the bread tiles in the bathroom.

Along with this transformation and changing the meaning of the object, I am also quite interested in the new commercial aesthetic that Levi Brown communicates. I love the bright colours and want to photograph something that is mass produced.

For my next shoot, I'd like to merge a bit of both from each of these artist models.

Studio - 16/09/2010 contact sheets

Studio - 16/09/2010

These are the few photos I thought were the most successful from the exercise we carried out on Thursday. The objective was to photograph the object with a set genre. With the above photos I chose to photograph the telephone in a romantic yet horrific manner.
First photo: The brighter red lighting suggests a romantic mood and the way the object is placed with the phone off its hook evokes a tale of mystery and/or conversation gone wrong.
Second photo: The under exposed, dimmer red tone of the photo portrays more of a horror genre and a sense of mystery because of the darkness and its association with the fear of the unknown.
Third photo: Close up of the telephone with an attempt at making it look like something else however this was not successful. It does look somewhat like an old table clock or the bottom half of some scales...

Project 3: THINGS - what objects?

After doing some research and looking at imagery, I came up with the idea of photographing the violin, or musical instruments as my three objects. Looking at the violin as my first object, I had the idea of viewing this object from a Victorian point of view as well as from a cubist point of view (synthetic cubism - Picasso, Braque etc.). A test shoot will determine which idea works best. I believe dim lighting is associated with both these concepts however the direction and intensity will differ. I think it is still more about experimentation with lighting and composition at the moment.




Potential objects associated with the violin.

*Violin
*Recorder
*Piano
*Harmonica