Week 5

Work in Progress

I spent the first part of this week planning and preparing for my Oral Presentation assignment, I have nearly 20 years worth of photography experience, both personal and educational to sort through and I spent the weekend scanning my previous work and BA work, so I could use it to discuss my practice past and present. I enjoyed the process of looking back and thinking about my work and inspirations in a different way, but I have struggled slightly with the script. I have dyslexia, so speaking about my work, even though I have done this before, it can be difficult for me to articulate myself without getting words mixed up or mispronouncing words. I have spent time, practicing vocals and recording myself on my laptop to assess how fast I speak, which words I will struggle with and to help pace myself.

Mid-week, I took part in a Zoom meeting with some of my peers, we took it in turns to go through our presentations so far and discussing our thoughts and contexts behind our work, as well as offering feedback and suggestions regarding progress with our research projects and advice on the presentation itself. I was able to offer some study and planning advice, using my experience as HE Academic Support at the college I work at, which I feel helped some of my peers.

I decided to read my presentation live and click through the slides, as I had only recorded a small part at this point. My peers responded with positive feedback, with suggestions that I slow down on some areas so they can focus on the images. I also had suggestions for where my project could develop, such as collecting objects I find, an idea I have already been thinking about, taking the object out of place and context and re-shooting it at home in a still life setting. I also had a suggestion of creating a narrative for the objects and animals I find, once again an idea I have started to think about.

I have now recorded my 1st draft. This took some time, as I needed to think about how I spoke and make sure I did so slowly. I also struggled to pronounce some words and names, but taking my time and recording in sections has helped this. I have noticed some audio jumping on playback, I am not sure what is causing this at the moment, but I hope to try and fix it when I do my final draft, after my webinar.

Research

At the start of the week, I discovered a photographer, Liam Frankland, and his project Lost and Found. This is an ongoing project which he started in 2007, photographing lost objects in the streets, a fascination he has always had. His method is to walk around the object a complete 360 degrees, to observe every angle and position to get the shot he wants.

Composition is an important element of his work, which he states on his website;

"It is a way of presenting the object in a unique way"

(Frankland, n.d.)

I am drawn to his use of depth of field and colour, with each composition drawing you into the object, but highlighting the area it has been lost and found in. This gives a sense of loss and loneliness for the object and leads me to ask, as it does with objects and animals I find, where did it come from? who did it belong to? and what happened?

Liam Frankland, Cloud Shoe, from his series Lost and Found

I will be looking further at the Instagram pages of Berlin Animal Life and Tom Hunter. Berlin Animal Life documents the roadkill found around the streets of Berlin and Tom Hunter started documenting the dead animals he found during walks over lockdown, he has now started posting objects he sees while out.

Berlin Animal Life

https://www.instagram.com/berlinanimallife/

Tom Hunter:

https://www.instagram.com/tomhunterphotography/

My Work

I have started to look at objects differently this week, at first I continued with the theme of life cycles and life and death in nature, with a patch of mushrooms found at the base of a tree on a busy main road, foliage covering metal railings, a pile of empty snail shells on a cliff top and dying blackberries. I then decided to look at shapes and patterns on the ground, creating a sense of perspective as well as using the lines of the pavements to frame and compose the images.

In a separate walk this week, I focused on objects that were out of place, lost or drew my eye to them in some way, such as race number on a patch of grass, a towel in the middle of the pavement, a lost dummy on the beach and fake flower lying in a gutter. All lead to questions of who they belonged to, how long have they been there and how?

On another walk, I didn't go out looking specifically for objects, but instead just walked to see what I found. I was drawn to a petal balanced on the edge of the curb, scattered with waterdrops. I liked the relationship with the dark shadow underneath and the reds of the curb and petal against each other, almost hanging on in the wind and rain. I then came across a tiny baby snail crossing the wet pavement and I though how vulnerable it was to be doing so, having to take a chance avoiding birds and the feet of humans, the same with the resting bumble bee, if you didn't look down you would have missed the wonderful creatures or worse, stepped on them. It highlighted the importance to me of looking at where we are going, slowing down and observing our surroundings. These were taken using my smartphone, as I was able to get closer without hurting my back on this occasion.

I made two discoveries a couple of days later while walking to the supermarket, again taken using my phone, I walked past some old seagull wings, mixed within the decaying tree leaves. The correlation between the decaying leaves and bird remains I felt was relevant to part of my idea, as roadkill is now something that sadly is common, we tend to ignore remains such as this, but when they are on the pavement, it is hard to ignore. In this case, they could be easily mistaken for litter amongst the leaves at a glance.

My second discovery was just down the road from the bird wing. I noticed a small dead mouse, laying on the pavement next to the hedge row. It's position and location, made it vulnerable to passers by, even in death and I knew that at some point it would taken or covered up. It was sad to see and I had to capture it in this position, peacefully laying there. It had no obvious injuries, so I thought it is likely a cat must have caught it and played with it. I took a few shots, from above and from ground level and these two styles I prefer.

I feel from above is more respectful to the mouse, and shows the view you would see looking down and passing by, whereas the ground level could be too close and personal, showing the face and expression. I also experimented with the saturation, opting to try both a colour and black and white version, along with slight adjustments to the tone and contrast. I also added a vignette to some alongside the dark colours and black and white as a way of symbolising memento mori to the mouse. I even found myself saying thank you and goodbye to the mouse when I finished, again in some form of respect.

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”

(Sontag, 1979:5)

This week, I also started reading To See Clearly by Suzanne Fagence Cooper, about John Ruskin's way of looking and observing the world around him. I have already started looking more closely at the ground as I walk, trying to observe the details more in the objects I see. This is something I could explore further.

Bibliography:

Books:

FAGENCE COOPER, S., 2020. TO SEE CLEARLY. London: QUERCUS PUBLISHING.

Sontag, S., 1979. On Photography. London: Penguin Books.

Websites:

Frankland, L., 2020. Lost And Found Photography Project - Liam Frankland. [online] Liam Frankland. Available at: <http://liamfrankland.com/portfolio/lost-and-found-photography/#jp-carousel-6613> [Accessed 25 October 2020].

Frankland, L., n.d. Lost And Found Photography Project - Liam Frankland. [online] Liam Frankland. Available at: <http://liamfrankland.com/portfolio/lost-and-found-photography/> [Accessed 25 October 2020].

Hunter, T., 2020. Login • Instagram. [online] Instagram.com. Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/tomhunterphotography/> [Accessed 25 October 2020].

Instagram.com. 2020. Login • Instagram. [online] Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/berlinanimallife/> [Accessed 25 October 2020].