Intent: Moving Forward
- Laura Marsh
- Jan 22, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 26, 2021
Intent looking ahead to Informing Contexts
My intent for my research project, currently named Look Down, is aimed at highlighting the unseen and unnoticed details within our urban and rural environments, elements such as decay, life, and death feature heavily within my work and the objects I discover. I want to encourage the audience of my work, to slow down and observe their surroundings, something which many of us may have started doing during the first national lockdown in the UK due to Covid-19 and the restrictions imposed. One of these restrictions is currently still to be able to go outside for daily exercise once a day, this is something I have been doing and during this time I have noticed my local area in a different way. Spotting the changes, the peace and quiet and seeing the urban landscape of an area I live in and know so well. This is where my idea has developed from and I will be continuing this going forward.
Within the previous module I researched the work of William Salit, albeit a less well-known photographer, but his project ‘Looking Down’ followed the same subject which intrigued me. Looking into his work I discovered that he set himself boundaries for this project that all images were taken within 10 blocks of his home, in a certain location and that no editing would be done.
“Beneath the line of sight the pavement is another stage, a parallel world whose denizens enact oddly familiar melodramas.” (Salit, willibird,2021). This is reminiscent to what I wanted to show within my work, those details at our feet in a world we rarely notice.
Clive Landen was another photographer that inspired and influenced my work, his book Familiar British Wildlife, reflected what I was doing with the deceased animals and his style of dark, bold images was something I was exploring within my own work. Highlighting the sadness and beauty of these animals and how they lay where they died, showing us the relationship between nature and humans.
Going forward into Informing Contexts, I wish to explore the objects and themes further, to understand why I shoot what I do and make those ‘Human Choices’ within my work. I want to explore how the context could change depending on the location and choices I make. As my work is observational there is an element of spontaneity and quick decisive moments, whether this be an object laying in a certain way, or a pattern and texture.
My photographs are all in colour, except for a few where I have experimented with black and white imagery to explore if the impact is different. I look for high contrasts within a subject location to allow colours and tones to stand out. I use either my DSLR Canon camera or my smartphone to shoot and this is purely down to circumstances, such as while walking to work or to the shops, as well as if I am in pain or discomfort, making these images quick snapshots, but with care for composing the images, lighting, and context, if this shot will portray what I want it to whereas my camera will be used purely on walks where I do the same thought process.
My work so far, created within the last module, Positions and Practice, started to develop dark tones within my images, the feedback from my peers included that the editing and composition choices I had made gave my subjects depth and a softness to the elements of decay, certain objects, and situations and this is something I plan to explore further, the idea or notion of creating something beautiful from something we may look upon as being dirty, ugly, or disgusting.
Fig 3-5: Laura Marsh, 2020, Look Down
Next steps:
Going forward into Informing Contexts, my project will develop to explore my own reasoning and relationship with my work and why I shoot what I do. In recent weeks, I have thought about how my work explores my feelings and mindset, including my need to be outside, not only for health and exercise but for my wellbeing. Going for a walk and being outside is just as important to us all now during lockdown and I have realised how photography has become therapy for me to help deal with work, stress, and physical pain due to Spina Bifida Occulta and curvatures within my spine. To expand my ideas and explore this avenue, I will start to investigate the work of Liz Orton and her work around the medical image, as well as looking into art and photography as therapy and how this links and inspires us.
My aim is to continue with my idea of looking at our surroundings and the details, but to develop it to include how we can use this method to help deal with health and mental health, including my own experiences, influenced by my current circumstances.
My work past and present has always had undertones of links with my own health and my circumstances at the time, as I discussed within my oral presentation. I do not plan to delve too deeply into my own health, but upon reflection over the Christmas break, along with stopping and taking time to feel how my body is coping with having to stay at home and work and study from home, I was beginning to see links to how my mood and feelings were directing if I went for a walk or not and the act of looking helped to ease any stress and pain.
I discovered an article by Tracey Hallett, in an old issue of Black and White Magazine from 2015 on Mindfulness Photography. In this article she explains the act of mindfulness and its relationship to photography, explaining how we can practice this when our minds are elsewhere, busy or stressed for example. My project is based on this, carefully looking at the smallest objects or things we would not normally look at. “When we live in the present we notice fleeting moments such as the play of light and shadow on leaves” (Hallett, Black and White Magazine, 2015:42).
I have been exploring decay and death within my work and intend to continue this now to include the notion of fragility within life, relating to physical structures in nature to mirror how life and circumstances are fragile.
I do feel a weakness within my work is that it may lack clarity, as I have a few undertones of topics running through my work; mindfulness, nature, death, and decay. Going forward, I will be looking to align these ideas which all relate to each other and my idea, and by developing my contextual skills within this module, I hope I can clarify my idea and allow it to develop.
I will be exploring and developing my editing techniques. I tend to keep edits simple using contrasts, exposures, and tones and some of my work shows a variety of these, with the darker images portraying my idea more effectively. I am also planning to experiment with still life photography, using objects I find and have them out of place and context, following safety and PPE as planned within my risk assessment. This will determine what I chose to shoot, and I am considering this idea and how I will implement my own experiences in this.
I am also planning to experiment with film such as 35mm, 120 and Polaroid film, using vintage cameras to explore the effect of shooting with those medium and if the choices I make will be determined by my equipment and film and I will be researching other practitioners who work with film in a similar field. Over the break, I started a short mini project, shooting expired polaroid film and explored the development patterns that emerge, this started me considering the fragility of the film, the chemicals and the decay that takes place within them, hence my plan to experiment with film to see how my idea could develop.
Starting this module, I will be continuing to follow my project proposal, but including the development of my own relationship with mindfulness photography and my connection to nature.
Bibliography:
Hallett, Tracy. “Mindful Photography.” Black + White Photography, Sept. 2015, pp. 39–43.
Landen, Clive. Familiar British Wildlife by Clive Landen. Www.Lensculture.com, 2021, www.lensculture.com/books/7053-familiar-british-wildlife. Accessed 21 Jan. 2021.
McCabe, Martin. “Source Photographic Review - Back Issue Archive - Issue 9 Autumn 1996 - Review Page - Clive Landen - Familiar British Wildlife - Review by Martin McCabe.” Www.Source.Ie, 1996, www.source.ie/archive/issue9/is9review_Martin_McCabe_17_38_19_02-09-18.php. Accessed 21 Jan. 2021.
Monarchi, Christiane. “Liz Orton: Humanising the Medical Gaze.” Photomonitor, 2021, photomonitor.co.uk/essay/liz-orton-humanising-the-medical-gaze-2/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2021.
willibird. “Looking down (Photo Series).” William Salit / Fine Art, 2021, williamsalit.com/project/looking-down-photo-series/.
Images:
Kisiel, Emma. “Clive Landen « Muybridge’s Horse.” Muybridge’s Horse, muybridgeshorse.com/2011/03/03/clive-landen/. Accessed 22 Jan. 2021.
willibird. “Looking down (Photo Series).” William Salit / Fine Art, 2021, williamsalit.com/project/looking-down-photo-series/.
Future References:
Books:
Alexander, J., 2015. Perspectives on Place. London: Fairchild Books, Bloomsbury.
Berger, J., 2008. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Group.
Alain De Botton, and John Armstrong. Art as Therapy. London, Phaidon Press Limited, 2016.
Carson, R., 2000. Silent Spring. London: Penguin Group.
Cartier-Bresson, H., 2004. The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers. Illustrated Edition ed. s.l.:Aperture.
Clement Cheroux, J. J., 2017. Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998. Reprint Edition ed. s.l.:Aperture.
Company, D., 2020. On Photographs. London: Thamas & Hudson.
Coverley, M., 2018. Psychogeography. 2nd ed. s.l.:Oldcastle Books.
Flusser, V., 2018. Towards A Philiosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books Ltd.
Haskell, D. G., 2013. The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature. Reprint Edition ed. s.l.:Penguin Randon House USA.
Monarchi, Christiane. “Liz Orton: Humanising the Medical Gaze.” Photomonitor, 2021, photomonitor.co.uk/essay/liz-orton-humanising-the-medical-gaze-2/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2021.
Newall, C., 2014. John Ruskin: Artist and Observer. s.l.:Paul Holberton Publishing.
Paul Farley, M. S. R., 2012. Edgelands. London: Vintage.
Wells, L., 2019. The Photography Reader. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Figures:
Figure 1: William Salit, date Unknown, Looking Down
Figure 2: Clive Landen, 1993, Familiar British Wildlife
Figures 3-5: Laura Marsh, 2020, Look Down
Figure 6: Laura Marsh, 2020, Look Down
Figure 7: Laura Marsh, 2021, Expired
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