Tuesday, 10 March 2015
FRANK GRISDALE
Frank Grisdale is a contemporary photographer based in Alberta, Canada. Having started to develop his work in his mid forties, he has achieved a very personal landscape style that is often compared to impressionist paintings. Instead of looking for details as many landscape photographers do, Frank creates images in which details have been dissolved into an altered vision of reality. Using long exposure times with a hand held camera and post-production methods, his photographs turn out nearly abstract, although the general elements of the landscape can still be guessed in it.
The image I chose - Grassi Lake #19 (#1 of 5)- shows a rippled water reflecting what seems to be the landscape around it. The colours are vibrant and one can almost feel the freshness of the water by looking at it. It makes me think of summer days and I think I can see flowers reflected in the water, but I am not sure, which brings me that sensation of uncertain memory I am looking for in this project. I am also interested in exploring the distorting power of the water as a reflective surface, which is another reason why I chose this image.
DAYANITA SINGH
Dayanita Singh (born in 1961) is a photographer born and based in New Delhi, who has published several books with her work. She is considered to be the most important figure in in contemporary Indian photography. A big part of her work revolves around people and their life in India, a big part of this work being in black and white. The photography I chose belongs to the book ‘’Dream Villa’’, published in 2008, which centres in the mystery of everyday spaces when they are transformed by the darkness of the night. She uses colour photography and juxtaposes artificial and natural lights to create an enigmatic atmosphere, in which part of the image appear, shown by different gradients of light, and part of the image is hidden in the darkness.
The image I chose shows a tree being lighten by a diagonal light that goes down from the top left of the image and a grass part of which is also lighten seemingly by another source of light. Parts of the image gradually vanish in the darkness making an apparently simple and uninteresting view seem mysterious and even a bit unsettling. This image talks more about what’s hidden in the darkness than about what we can see. I chose this image because I feel it relates to my theme, giving the sense of something that cannot fully be seen or understood, like it often happens in dreams or something that we can’t totally grasp, like an old memory.
The image I chose shows a tree being lighten by a diagonal light that goes down from the top left of the image and a grass part of which is also lighten seemingly by another source of light. Parts of the image gradually vanish in the darkness making an apparently simple and uninteresting view seem mysterious and even a bit unsettling. This image talks more about what’s hidden in the darkness than about what we can see. I chose this image because I feel it relates to my theme, giving the sense of something that cannot fully be seen or understood, like it often happens in dreams or something that we can’t totally grasp, like an old memory.
PREFACE
‘’ I grew up in a small coastal town 15mn by train from Lisbon, Portugal. My dad used to fish as a hobby, so winter or summer he could often be found with his fishing pole standing on the rocks waiting for the fishes to bite. Once, he found a penguin that had been dragged by the waves. It was alive, and my dad, being an enthusiastic museologist brought him home. I was very little, around 5 years old, but I remember playing with it in the balcony. It passed away shortly after, even before my dad had time to take him to the local zoo. Years later, when those memories came back into my mind, I thought I had dreamt it. It was just a hazy small fragment of memory, my dad arriving home with a penguin, me playing with it in the balcony. So distant and so unlikely, that in my teenager mind, it couldn’t have happened. Until I asked my family and they confirmed that those indistinct images I had in my mind were, in fact, memories of something that had actually happened, rather than memories of a dream.’’
Mara Cabral
Mara Cabral
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
For this project I chose the theme ‘’Indistinct’’. Having worked with blurred movement and light painting on my previous project I felt I would like to develop a little further this side of photography that allows photographers to allude to whatever they want to show without showing in an obvious way. In other words I would like to explore photography that allows for different interpretations and that, at the same time, leaves something unsaid.
Within this frame of mind ‘’indistinct’’ is the theme that appeals to me the most as the word itself means something that is not completely clear. Indistinct makes me think of how memories that are nor very clear work. Memories of early childhood, memories of dreams and memories of events that for some reason we can’t fully reconstruct tend to come in fragments which logic we are not fully able to grasp. Sometimes these fragments of memory are triggered by something, a smell, a melody, a sight, sometimes they just seem to come to our minds for no special reason. In both cases they tend to leave us with that nagging feeling that there’s something more that we should be able to remember but we can’t, something that feels very close and yet too far away to reconstruct in our minds. It’s that feeling and the way it could be expressed through images, that I would like to work on in this project.
When making my mind map I was gathering ideas of how I could tackle this theme technically, and four possibilities stood out to me: unfocused image (maybe including bokeh technique); photographing reflections on water, because of the way water distorts shapes and renders them less clear; focusing on details or textures; and using light painting to illuminate only parts of a night scene. These are the ideas I have so far for this project. I might not use all the possibilities mentioned above, I may try to mix them up. I am not yet fully sure which techniques I would like to explore more deeply in this project, but I know I would like do it with more precision than in the previous one, giving more attention to the way I am using each technique and trying to learn from it.
For this project I chose the theme ‘’Indistinct’’. Having worked with blurred movement and light painting on my previous project I felt I would like to develop a little further this side of photography that allows photographers to allude to whatever they want to show without showing in an obvious way. In other words I would like to explore photography that allows for different interpretations and that, at the same time, leaves something unsaid.
Within this frame of mind ‘’indistinct’’ is the theme that appeals to me the most as the word itself means something that is not completely clear. Indistinct makes me think of how memories that are nor very clear work. Memories of early childhood, memories of dreams and memories of events that for some reason we can’t fully reconstruct tend to come in fragments which logic we are not fully able to grasp. Sometimes these fragments of memory are triggered by something, a smell, a melody, a sight, sometimes they just seem to come to our minds for no special reason. In both cases they tend to leave us with that nagging feeling that there’s something more that we should be able to remember but we can’t, something that feels very close and yet too far away to reconstruct in our minds. It’s that feeling and the way it could be expressed through images, that I would like to work on in this project.
When making my mind map I was gathering ideas of how I could tackle this theme technically, and four possibilities stood out to me: unfocused image (maybe including bokeh technique); photographing reflections on water, because of the way water distorts shapes and renders them less clear; focusing on details or textures; and using light painting to illuminate only parts of a night scene. These are the ideas I have so far for this project. I might not use all the possibilities mentioned above, I may try to mix them up. I am not yet fully sure which techniques I would like to explore more deeply in this project, but I know I would like do it with more precision than in the previous one, giving more attention to the way I am using each technique and trying to learn from it.
RESEARCH SHOOT 1
RESEARCH SHOOT 1
SHOOT PLAN:
Material: canon 60d camera
Where: Wetlands Centre on a day where there is some sun
When: middle of the afternoon
Aims: to make a more general shoot investigating the idea of both indistinct and indistinct memories and the way this could be conveyed through photography. I wanted to work this theme on an outdoor location as I like the effects given by natural textures and forms when shooting details and I also wanted to explore the potential of the water as a reflective surface. In this shoot I was looking to work on reflections, details and textures, mainly.
RESULTS:
This shoot worked well as a first approach to the subject. I think the images are more connected to the general idea of indistinct, connected in this case with natural forms, than with the more specific approach of indistinct linked to unclear or fragmented memories. There are some interesting compositions that are visually pleasant but I feel I must work deeper on the notion of how these can link with memory, as I feel these images need a stronger concept to hold them together. I felt the reflections on water and ice have a lot of potential so I think that’s the idea I’ll take forward to the next shoot.
Chosen images: I chose the 5 images I thought worked better in terms of composition and that all together would form a whole that was related with this idea of showing only a part of something. Looking at them together, they seem to be connected by the idea of nature and outdoor. Because of the closeness I feel they are also very tactile images, that bring you the sensation of being in straight contact with nature. They could work as fragments of memory, but I think this idea must be more explored to make this feeling more dominant.
SHOOT PLAN:
Material: canon 60d camera
Where: Wetlands Centre on a day where there is some sun
When: middle of the afternoon
Aims: to make a more general shoot investigating the idea of both indistinct and indistinct memories and the way this could be conveyed through photography. I wanted to work this theme on an outdoor location as I like the effects given by natural textures and forms when shooting details and I also wanted to explore the potential of the water as a reflective surface. In this shoot I was looking to work on reflections, details and textures, mainly.
RESULTS:
This shoot worked well as a first approach to the subject. I think the images are more connected to the general idea of indistinct, connected in this case with natural forms, than with the more specific approach of indistinct linked to unclear or fragmented memories. There are some interesting compositions that are visually pleasant but I feel I must work deeper on the notion of how these can link with memory, as I feel these images need a stronger concept to hold them together. I felt the reflections on water and ice have a lot of potential so I think that’s the idea I’ll take forward to the next shoot.
Chosen images: I chose the 5 images I thought worked better in terms of composition and that all together would form a whole that was related with this idea of showing only a part of something. Looking at them together, they seem to be connected by the idea of nature and outdoor. Because of the closeness I feel they are also very tactile images, that bring you the sensation of being in straight contact with nature. They could work as fragments of memory, but I think this idea must be more explored to make this feeling more dominant.
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