So far..

Ive been very slack in my own images, rather ive been focusing on collecting inspiration for my ideas. Ive been over thinking things alot, and as a person i find it very difficult to sit there and jsut take bad images for the sake of it, without any direction or idea where im taking my work. Now that ive reserched alot and have ideas on where and how to take my images further im gonna need to settle down and crack on with taking **alot** of images to get my images to the standard and with the effects that i want from my images. I dont have alot of confidence in my own work, and think this has put me like in a block with taking my images. I need to overcome this and i feel the only way i can do this is to jump back into the deepend and take images, even if they are not perfect, but just to get back into the swing of things. I fear i am to much of a perfectionist. 
things i want to focus on:
digital vs film
colour vs black and white
interier and exterier shots
different weather and the effects on the images

Asa Andersson

Asa Andersson works across image-making, writing and art teaching. She has an interest in site-responsive art practices and multi-disciplinary creative approaches in relation to text, photography, film and print.  She classes her work as Poetic-photography.

I discovered her work in the book 'Shifting Horizons' which looks into female landscape photography. I decided that she was approapriate to my work as she doesnt as such photograph landscapes but has a mix of text and imagery in an unusal way, her images that ive seen in this collection are all macros or close ups, playing with depth of feild and it creates an usual image, almost abstract in a sence. While the photos are of nothing overly pretty they are very asteticly pleasing. and i think the depth of feild and the textures and way the images are shot add to this. sadly i cant find much else about this photographer except that she lives in stockholm but also is an associative lecturer here in the UK. It does make my reserch alot more difficult when the photographers dont have websites ect or there isnt alot of text based around them. 

Maybe looking more closely into the locations will help me to achieve an astetic without being obvious in my images?

Edgar Martin- Deminishing Present.

While looking for photographers for my other project i came across Edgar Martins 'Deminishing Present' project, taking images of locations with very tense and even menacing to a point, atmosphere. The images often play with lighting and shadows. Often Martin uses the weather, namely fog and mist to create a spooky or much darker tension, the same images shot in bright sunshine wouldnt have the same effect. Many of these images are taken at night with use of flashes of coloured gel covered flashes. I do really like the images useing fog and mist, it creates a far more atmospheric image then those without.  I also prefer those without gels over the flash, the colour splashs in this collection i find distraction and doesnt really fit with the rest of the collection.
i think its something i want to experiment with different weather and its effect on my images, and this is the feeling ive got from looking at a few artists now.

Anne Kathrin Greiner- Disaplined spaces.

While many of the places i am photographing are ruins to come extent, I love the creation of images the Anne Kathrin Greiner has on the interer of german schools in disaplined spaces. Her interior shots are clean cut, obvious in some retrospects, however its her use of lighting and framing that is what make her images stand out. I love her use of line in the images. And while her images are colour, they have a very select palette of colours. This would be rather interesting if transfered into my work, maybe experimenting with both a select colour palatte or the use of a select stand out colour?

  The images , whileof places or objects you would think nothing about walking past in everyday life is completely transformed by Greiner's images. The use of a square cut frame adds enfasis to the lines in the images and the importance of them. Her use of shadows and lighting also adds huge tension to her work. The subject matter is very clean cut and yet theres such a feeling of more to the images.

Using interiors of locations is something that ive not thought to experiment with really. and could make for some interesting photographs. Although most of the locations ive been looking at are ruins, however it maybe worth looking into new locations or different techniques i wouldnt maybe think of before.

Martin Parr- Bad weather

Martin Parr is best known for his work on traditional seaside towns. Documenting in garish overly statuated images and showing people n places as somewhat grotesque. However his earlier work is alot different to the stuff he is best known for. His project entitled bad weather is black and white documentry, and very atmospheric. He photographed different locations in bad weather and the implications of the weather on the atmosphere is stunning. One image caught my eye while looking through portpholio magazine:

The fog in this image just adds all the tension. Unable to see the location and surroundings. Even more tension is caused by the fact that the person in the background is totally sihoutted against the fog and unable to see any detailing. even the vignetting to the bottom of the image creates more tension to the image.

Even here when the subject is far more sharpe and in focus. The image is highly contrasted. The fact that even though they are totally in focus the fact that all of there faces are covered by some form obstructution adds to the atmosphere. a fill in flash has been used at the  water from the rain appears white and frozen in time. 



 These images through the composition and the addition of the weather conditions make interesting photographs full of tension. 

Maybe i need to think more about experimenting at different times of day and/or weather conditions to improve the tension in my images?

Stephen Hughes

Stephen Hughes is an up and coming photographer whos achieveing widespread acclaim for his first major project looking at peripheral, marginal zones and strange disconnected gaps of our social landscape. Produced over the last five years across Europe. 

The images are strangly haunting, and are somehow uneasy. 'In Hughes' photographs, as in David Lynch's films, the banal constantly hovers on the dream's uncertain boundary, or perhaps conversely, the unconscious has its own bright presence in the real world.' (David Chandler, catalogue essay)

His images, while not obviously creepy give of such a feel as to stur that emotion in the audience. Buildings as apparitions, gleaming white apartment blocks stranded by the shore, lone figures drifting and daydreaming across the barren edges of newly built cities. With wit and precision, Hughes photographs geographic and social hinterlands. Often its difficult to tell what is going on in these images. They almost appear like a limbo between worlds

The empty buildings  are shot at early morning when the light is just so and i think this adds to the air in the images. Often with simple structure to the images they somehow manage to give the impression of more, via less. a simple empty building surrounded by trees or an apartment block on the shore bearly distinguishable from the sky. 

I really like these images but im finding it hard to distinguish what it is about the images to what i like.  the images are very clean cut, very formal in a sence with a mixture of differentiation and similaritys. The skys are almost always blown out with this mass of whiteness and there is never any human interaction with the buildings. its always very suggestive of an appocolypic world where there are only buildings.Think i am legend without the crazy mutant people.

 

struggling at the moment.

I fear of late with this project that ive not done alot and ive been very indecisive. Instead ive been milling around the fact that i dont feel confident enough in what i am doing. 

I need to snap myself out of this i really do.

Instead of my previous post experiementing with the idea at looking at crimes i am gonna take a step back and look back into the idea of photographing haunted locations.

Its my original idea and i think ive just got in so deep worrying about the locations and the significance of the locations that that actual work is not happening. From now on i want to get at least 2rolls of film done a week. 

The idea of a haunted location ties in well with my original idea of fear.

Its also something that i myself have an interest in.

I also have rather alot of knowlage about the subject and locations both here in leicester and in kent which i can photograph.

From now on i am going to focus more on two things

working on my film/pinhole technique and trying different things with them

work on my confidence and finding my own voice as a photographer.

Im also going to make time to revisit stuart to makesure next time i scan negs they turn out fine. i would like to have the optimal settings for working on this.