Assignment 4: Light - My Mother's Name is Eve

Images available here on a website dedicated to all TAOP assignments  - please use a desktop computer to view in fullscreen mode.

"We are not supposed to talk about being lonely.  Loneliness is shameful condition that should be cured, that we sort out by ourselves.... The act of photographing myself allowed me to become comfortable in the present"  Jennifer McClure, fine art photographer, quote from her Laws of Silence set of images.  Read the full quote here.

I have been a bit perplexed about this assignment especially since becoming aware of the fact that it is really a technical exercise which asks us to create eight images of one object showing “shape, form, texture and colour”.    I have chosen me again as in previous assignments: I am the object, but photographed in relation to other objects in my most personal space, my bedroom. This is a development from earlier assignments where I was not relating to other objects.

Perhaps I have once again taken liberties with language – I know the literal point was to photograph one object (I like to think that when I first read the assignment criteria I understood I would photograph me and that I alone would be the object; and that it grew from there).  

The work has been important as far as I am concerned regardless of any possible grading (if I decide to submit for assessment) as it is a definite development in terms of photography from A2 and A3.  It also represents personal development too which is expressed in the images.

All my assignments are really an expression relating to the discovery of a new sense of identity as well as recovery following a painful and difficult divorce.  A4 continues with that but here I also explore my relationship with objects that are reflective of the internalised 'objects' within me. Objects under this term relate to internalised 'interpersonal relations especially between the mother and child'(1). The objects, my relationship with them and how they relate to other objects in the room in my images could be said to be symbolic of infantile relationship structures, which inform the way we relate to people later as adults(2). 

Previously my work was very blurry – I loved that and will no doubt return to motion and more abstract images again.  Playing with movement and camera speeds felt absolutely the right thing to be doing at that moment.  I began to see photography as a kind of paintbrush with which I can create more than mere pictures, rather images or sets of images that aim to be very expressive. 

For this assignment I gradually reached the decision that I wanted these images to be in-focus, honest and with as little artifice as possible - perhaps in an attempt to 'face my own soul'.  I looked at lots of photographers but Jennifer McLure and OCA tutor, Sharon Boothroyd’s work struck me as powerful, honest, complex and extremely direct; and I wanted to aim for something along those lines.

The word 'light', with all its various meanings, has been fairly critical for me over the last two years.  I am constantly bearing in mind a well-known Jung quote ‘There is no coming to consciousness without pain.  People will do almost anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.  One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”(3)

As well as playing with light in the literal sense, I certainly explore loss and loneliness, therefore 'making the darkness conscious', and I very much hope I have achieved that in as non-self-pitying a way as possible; the reality of divorce is somehow not valued quite as it ought to be by our society, where marriages and long-term relationships end frequently, when in fact working through them might in many cases be a more positive option, although of course abusive situations can be difficult to address.(4).  I would like to think the images provoke thoughts about that aspect of our culture.

I also look at being unable to see clearly, unable to hold things and to feel things due to their intangibility. Objects are partly hidden, tantalising and hardly there, empty, lifeless or absent altogether.

I hope the ideas behind the images go further than looking solely at my own identity, but also feminine identity in wider terms as well as the realities of divorce/separation.  The use of the name Eve in the title refers to my own mother as well as Eve of Garden of Eden fame who according to The Book of Genesis in The Old Testament bit into the forbidden fruit shortly after God created light, thereby 'ruining' the whole paradise thing for all mankind ever after.   

Finally the clothes and the colours and the objects are all carefully considered and symbolic and I am heavily influenced by the plays of Frederico Garcia Lorca in that regard. 

From a technical point of view I have used available light in all the images.  I work most of the time whilst my youngest is at nursery, so many but not all of the images are taken between midday and 3pm.  It would have been nice to do a project showing images progressing through the day but that would take me a lot longer to plan and execute.  I have deliberately left all the dents and knocks in the walls rather than remove them in PS.  I used a cropped sensor and kind of wish I'd used a full frame camera although the cropped sensor is inside a Fuji X100s which provides good image quality.  

I have actually included 9 images as I cannot quite make up my mind about removing one of them;  I think they all play a part in the story and it would be incomplete without.

A collection of rejected images including some that are here can be found on my Flickr page in an album titled Light.  

Please find brief lighting notes following each of the assignment images below - but remember, you can view them via the link at the top of this page in a slideshow.

This was one of the first images I took with this assignment in mind, although I didn't take it thinking I would include it.  The sun streams through the windows into my room and the blind pulled down half way makes this shape which travels round the wall of my room through the afternoon. I can change the shape of the light a little by moving the blind up or down. Taken at 2pm on 8th January ISO 200 f11 1/200

The overcast sky makes the best natural diffuser and I always pray for overcast weather when doing head shots outdoors.
The gentle light works well for modelling and creating form.  The sky is over-exposed really but this was an acceptable compromise for me as I wanted the body to be as well as lit as I could get it but still retaining shadows; I have used a reflector just directly below me and at an angle to bounce some light back.  I didn't quite achieve what I wanted here - I hoped to have some light lighting up my face in a bit of glow, just a touch, as I had that in another image but the mood in this one was right so I went with it here. Taken at 1.30pm on 22nd January ISO 320 f5.6 1/50

The weather was partly cloudy in this one; so quite strong light but still diffused.  It comes again from the windows in the roof.  I think I did use a reflector here to soften the shadows a little, but not too much because I wanted them to be fairly deep.  I nearly included an image with an apple in it with reference to the title of this work but I felt it was too crass in the end.  Taken at 1.20 on 27th January ISO 320 f4 1/200

Again window light through the roof with the shape made by the blind.  It was very strong light and nothing diffused about it at all.  I had to be careful not to blow the highlights especially on the shiny cotton applique.  I just about got away with it  towards the left of the image.  When I printed this to take to the South West study group I should have been aware that the darks needed lightening ever so slightly for paper as they were too dark but they are just as I want them here lit up by the computer screen.
Taken at 2pm on 8th January ISO 200 f11 1/200

Strong sun, no diffuser.  Shapes made by the shadow of the chest of draws and the light coming though the window in the roof.  I like the matching pattern made by relationships between various objects - drawers, window, wall.
Taken at 1.45pm 14th January ISO 640 f2 1/1000 (I should have reduced the ISO for this and used a slower shutter and can't quite remember why I didn't - not thinking properly)

The light coming though here was very strong and quite orange and I had to play around with WB quite a lot to remove the orange as I didn't really want it.  I liked the strong contrast - it highlights the texture of my hair and the folds in my clothes.  I did not use a reflector. The shirt in places could be dangerously close to being over-exposed but isn't.  The light is again shaped by the window. Taken at 2.40pm on 22nd January ISO 250 f5.6 1/250

The blind is fully open here so no shape.  I think this is where there was a thin film of frost on the window too adding yet more diffusion to the light which was already coming from quite an overcast but bright sky. Taken at 9.50 on 28th January ISO 320 f2.8 1/30

This is taken at dusk with the WB set to incandescent.  There is some banding.  I have changed the file to 32 bit in PS but it's still not entirely gone.  The shapes are made by a lamp on the floor.

Taken at 4.40pm on 12th February ISO 200 f2.8 1/100

This is a small crop because I was just setting up and working things out so sadly the reflector takes up rather too much of the original image but the light changed very suddenly as a storm passed over and created this lovely mood which was perfect for what I was trying to achieve.  If I had to print it might be quite degraded which is a shame.  In fact there is some weird blotchiness in the wall which I have tried to fix by changing the image to 32 bit in PS - not sure it's helped that much.  Perhaps I should have deleted this from the assignment submission altogether because the quality is not good enough or tried to reshoot it.  The red is well exposed as I had earlier attempts where the highlights were ever so slightly over-exposed - the cloth and the colour were tricky to get right and I had quite a few attempts from another day where the images seemed underexposed too. Taken at 12.10 on 28th January ISO 400 f2.8 1/40

Assessment Criteria Reflection

Demonstration of technical and visual skills: I think I have shown that I have a reasonable grasp of how to compose a photograph and use my camera - where I have made odd choices with exposure settings such as with the light reflected on the wall photograph I am at least aware it was not the ideal choice. I have included one image that is quite a small crop because the content of the image works within the context of the set but I am aware it would have been better not to have to crop so tightly. I don't think I've done anything terribly fantastic in some of the exercises leading up to the assignment - and perhaps could have put more effort in to a few of those.
Quality of Outcome: I think this is a reasonably good assignment although I have completely gone off in my own direction so perhaps in terms of what was required it isn't.  In terms of where I'm at with photography I see it as a progression.  I am not sure about the new website I have where I have collated all the assignment work - perhaps I just have not found the right template but I do think it works well to have all the work there together.
Demonstration of Creativity: I suspect this is a creative way of demonstrating working with light - and although I have not stuck to the brief I have given an indication I know how to make use of natural light at least fairly adequately. I am aware I have not demonstrated much knowledge of working with lights here.  I chose to use natural light because I was alluding to time passing in my space.
Context: I have looked at quite a lot of other work and in fact have not got round to writing all of it up yet, although I have written quite a bit.  I have certainly been influenced by other work and I think it shows.  I have not read enough about lighting theory.  Instead I have been reading about photographers and also looking at literature which I know will may influence future work.  Finding time to fit it all in is not easy and I have tended to go to the places I feel will be most useful for me at the moment.  I have written quite a lot in my log - perhaps too much blather - but there is more critical stuff to write really and I need to get back on track with that.
Finally, I do not know if baring my soul in this way makes for good art, good photography or is indeed any good for my mental and emotional state.  Jennifer McClure talks about photographing her fears so she can feel comfortable with them and I suppose I have photographed my emotions as they are now and I can't really say I do feel all that comfortable with it.  Perhaps in time to come.

(1) Object relations theory - quote taken from Somoma University Psychology site
(2) Wiki site on Object relations theory
(3) Site about Carl Jung
(4) Cut Loose, Rutger University Press 2006, Kindle Edition

A4 thoughts

I am going to reshoot some images - the images I have so far are not the final ones I want to use as I still have time to find more, but there are some that I think I may want to include but nevertheless am unhappy with certain aspects. Reshooting and trying to recreate the same sort of thing is a pain and I'm not even sure I'll be able to capture what I've found but something new will come out of it anyway.

Things I'm not happy with - exposure, skin tone, lack of clarity - one or two images don't seem clean enough for this sort of work.  It's so tempting to over-process things in Lightroom and that is the opposite of what I'm after with these particular images.

I've been looking at work of other photographers and the thing I notice in some is how clear the images are.  I've been looking at mine and I've over-sharpened, over clarified, and over coloured. And having blurred it all up for the last two assignments I'm really after as much simplicity as possible with these.  I can see that using and utilising light is the key to this.

I don't mind lots of massively-processed stuff and in fact still really enjoy colouring in on my phone with apps and creating little bits of nonsense there - some of which work quite well, others not so well, but that's the wrong thing entirely for the work I'm doing here for this assignment.  I think I've really learnt something about how I approach some images - and at the moment it's all too hit and miss!

And I also think I should have used a full-frame camera but I've started with a cropped sensor so am going to stick with that - but it's something to think about for the next assignment.

White balance

Today I realised that problems I am having are to do with white balance - I think really need to start setting it myself probably in certain situations.  Not sure what to do now... reshoot or try to fix it in Lightroom, which of course I've done already and with most images it's not a problem but it is in a couple I think....

Grrrrr.... what to do????

Constructing Worlds at the Barbican 10 January 2015

I was so pleased to go to this exhibition especially after my reaction to the Drawn by Light exhibition.  There I found the work fascinating and was glad to have gone but left feeling a little bewildered by it all.  For me the Constructing Worlds exhibition was really well curated and I left with a sense of having been to something cohesive, informative and also profound. To look at how human beings express themselves through the way we organise and build our environments was fascinating and compelling.  What was so interesting too was the vast differences and range of habitats and cultures we humans exist within.

I was lucky that I had been reading about the prolific French photographer Eugene Atget a couple of days before the study visit - as one of the tutors pointed out in the talk afterwards his work might have been included at the Barbican since he is really one of the first major recorders of architecture and environment.  His work was not there but Berenice Abbott who had worked with him in Paris before heading back to New York was and he was a major influence on her.

I've jumped ahead though as the exhibition starts with Walker Evans and it was brilliant to see his work having read so much about him and seen his name so often this last year as I make my way through various books and documentaries. There is a famous portrait of the farmer's wife which was so wonderful to see:  in it you see the whole of her life in that face from the infant within her to the old lady she will one day become, presumably quite quickly due to the hardships of her existence. There are also details from inside the houses and one photograph in particular struck me which was of the farming couple's bed - long, long before Tracy Emin created her unmade bed. Evan's photographed this seemingly mundane piece of furniture and although there is very little else in the image it seems to suggest so much about who the people are.  The way it is set at an angle, the simplicity, the weapon up on the wall behind, the tiny glimpse of another bed nearby (as was the norm prior to our affluent lifestyles nowadays whole families shared sleeping quarters throughout most of our history and still do in many parts of the world - separate bedrooms for each and every member of the family is a very modern expression/habit).

Then back to Berenice Abbott who photographed NYC at a time when it was still really being built - there are so many contrasts, the poverty and claustrophobia of the tenements as well as the hope in newly built tenements, set against the hubris, ambition and excitement of the skyscrapers and bridges that surround them.  Aside from being a wonderful record of that time the photographs convey so much about the people who were existed there - there is such a strong flavour and sense of NYC, you can almost smell it and hear the people living there.  I just loved the Court of first model tenement house in New York, 72nd Street and First Avenue, Manhattan, March 1936.  The way she has composed that photograph is really something - I could look at it for ages.

Out of Thomas Struth's room I was so interested in the image of Clinton Rd, London 1977.  (Not that I am Londoncentric or anything.) I thought about Elkin's book and how he discusses that photography can show us life being uninteresting and I thought about how interesting this uninteresting aspect of us is.  The photograph shows a simple London Rd with cars and a train line at the end.  Nothing is happening, there are no people, there is no decisive moment and yet you get such a strong sense of place - I read that photographs might be thought of as memory traces and in this particular photograph I get such a strong sense of Struth's memory trace of that place and that time.  Again, you can really feel the environment come alive as you look at that photograph.  It's very powerful.  That's what is so interesting for me - feeling the buzz of absolutely nothing going on at the surface of life when looking at a flat black and white representation.  About his photograph of Shinju-ku, Tokyo, 1986 I have merely written 'WOW!' in my notes and looking at the accompanying book I bought I can see why - it's an incredible statement, both the architecture itself and the photograph.  And his Buskoe Dong, Pyongyang, 2007 photograph immediately bought to mind E.O Wilson, a sociobioligist who is the world's leading expert on ants and who has likened their societies to our own.  Looking at these huge structures in Struth's  images reminds of ants, termites, 'organistic' creatures who operate as a whole in much the way it has been suggested we do, despite out current (desperate) individualistic self-perceptions.  (I'd love to read more about Wilson's theories but the book I ordered is in some sort of inaccessible storage; from the tiny little bit I've read about him he suggests that ideas can 'travel' from one area of society to another without any direct contact as we exist as a super-brain organism in much the same way ants do - sure I've oversimplified things here - must get hold of that book!)

The idea of a photograph being a 'memory trace' was also really evident when looking at Stephen Shore's work.  His Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21st, 1975 says so much about the American psyche - the huge Chevron sign which dominates the frame and points down to the ground looks like some sort of talisman or, if thinking about ancient societies such as Egypt where huge structures were erected to signify gods, the godlike presence of oil and the car in that culture.

The car and its salience in US culture also dominates Ed Ruscha's fascinating flat arial images of structures surrounded by vast car parks.  He manages to photograph these places while they are empty and seen from the viewpoint of above he demonstrates now man has such a tremendous impact on the landscape.  Parking Lots: Dodgers Stadium, 1000 Elysium Park Ave, 1967/99 is an extraordinary photograph;  the patterns made by the empty car park and stadium are really quite beautiful and magnificent and I feel that Ruscha is celebrating as well as questioning man's ingenuity and conscious expression.

When I first started to get into photography I went to see an exhibition at the Tate which included Bernd and Hilla Becher's work and I was a bit confused by it I must admit.  But looking at it now I understand their desire to show how human beings create artwork even when building functional, ubiquitous structures.  Ruscha seems to be doing something similar - finding the art where no art was consciously intended; something that is perhaps so unique to human beings.  What is it about us? Why do we have this innate need to create, even when we're building things that are seemingly mundane such as a water tower?      

And sometimes we aim to build something beautiful, it goes wrong but ends up being rendered useful anyway, and then beautiful by a photographer who comes along and sees and then records the miraculous such as Iwan Baan who has taken such amazing images of the doomed Torre David complex in Caracas which was built but never finished but has been utilised anyway in the most ingenious way by people who needed somewhere to live.  This miracle of a community have taken that unfinished and abandoned building, used left over bits of building material to make it as habitable as possible in new and interesting ways and have created a whole city where you can find shops, a gym, homes, and common areas which are looked after by the people who live there.  It's a such an amazing story and a fabulous set of images that celebrates humanities good points as well as highlighting our follies.

I also loved looking at Simon Norfolk, Guy Tillim and Nadav Kander and really, really loved the formalism of Lucien Herve's work.  In fact there is so much work to look at in this exhibition that I must admit I feel I ought to visit again.  I could not concentrate for the amount of time that is needed to see and absorb all this work.

I think the exhibition is excellent.  It gives you a very clear and robust sense of how humanity shapes and exists in the world.  All of the work is powerful in different ways and all of it not only records architecture but also asks questions about our place here, about how we shape the landscape and why, and about what these structures and how we use them say about us.  I loved this exhibition.

Jennifer McClure

An image popped on my Twitter feed that I just loved.  As I mentioned in an earlier post it was one of two images that I found really interesting in relation the the light project I am currently working on so I have spent some time looking at the photographer who took it.  Jennifer McClure is based in New York, has won several prestigious awards and is probably working on quite similar themes to me.
On her website she says, "We are not supposed to talk about being lonely. Loneliness is a shameful condition that should be cured, that we should sort out by ourselves."  I think this is what I am so attracted to in McClure's work - this refusal to avoid looking at something awkward, painful and difficult but which is endemic in our culture due to the way we have structured ourselves.
She also says, "The act of photographing my fears allows me to become comfortable in the present", and I think there is something really important here for me.
What I also find attractive in McClure's work is that although she looks at themes that are usually ignored by mainstream culture she isn't self-pitying in the least, anything but. She also manages to incorporate humour although it may be dark such as in this image where she is moving and the spinning top is still, which I thought was great - wish I'd thought of it!
McClure has two sets of photographs on her website in which she is in the photographs and another two sets where the camera is faced outwards. She apparently started taking photographs of herself due to an illness that prevented her from going out and photographing others.  I have to say I think the ones of herself are stronger.  She really shares her vulnerability with the viewer in a way that feels incredibly brave which is what I think makes her work so powerful.
In You Who Never Arrived you get a real sense of those moments in life where things should be good but they aren't because you're unable to enjoy the moment for one reason or another - loneliness being one of them without or without someone else, or indeed others, beside you.  I think lighting plays a huge part in this sense - the way we are affected by light is critical and McClure really uses it in her images:  this one is a really clear example and I like how she is slightly out of focus here too.
Looking through her site tonight I think I have clearly been quite influenced by it when I think about my own recent work and what I've done so far for A4, even though I only took a quick look at McClure's site last week!
I am really glad to have come across this work and I'm sure what I have learnt from it will play a big part in my own developing style.

Website

Shiny surfaces

4 -10 photographs

I found this difficult to be honest - perhaps my Blue Peter Skills are minimal but I really found it very hard to use the tracing paper - No matter what I did it was reflected in the object.  I used angles and a little tent in the end.  Perhaps I will come back to this exercise when I have completed the others.

Without any tracing paper or alternative ways of reducing unwanted refections

Without tracing paper or alternative ways of reducing unwanted reflections

In a small light 'tent' but angled so the mirror doesn't reflect anything (which considering how small it is was pretty easy)

In a light tent reflecting the cloth it was on only 

In a light tent reflecting the cloth it was only