17/10/22
Reflecting on today’s tutorial, I will stick to the one aspect of the the everyday and this will be the school of art. Making a more cohesive project overall instead of photos of the people from all aspects of town and the other campuses. I will also lean onto getting more photos without permission within the confides of privacy etc. so that there will be more variation on the shots. The photos I have taken from outside of the School of art will be used for a different project as they are off high quality overall.
Only setback I have now is that I need to focus on just photographing school of art aspects and student/tutors, so I have now lost around 6 good sets of photographs and they are not linked to the school of art.
18/10/22
Today was absolutely swamped by my other module for filmmaking. Literally around 8 hours. Tomorrow when I’m back in the school of art, I will be taking more photos around the building.
19/10/22
An overwhelming productive day from the get go, a literal 9-5 day at university at the school of art. I’ll start of by saying I was absolutely overwhelmed by the story of the shed and the guy with his grandfather, as soon as I heard the grandson had to have therapy for his hands due to strain of drawing all of his granddad’s items from his shed I tried not to ball my eyes out and it surprisingly effected me a lot. It reminded me a lot of my grandad and his strained hands from gardening and his successful life before he died 15 years ago. amazing stuff.
This time for the blind drawings I decided to draw whilst looking at the paper this time and had surprisingly different results:
Artist Research 2:
365 Day Project – Jonas Mekas
Jonas’s project stool out to me as it reminds me a lot of the project I’m trying to complete and convey in a unique way. With a length spanning roughly 38 hours, uploaded daily on his website in the year of 2007. These videos range from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Naming it the most challenging undertaking he had ever done. His images engage the viewer with a rawness and observational way of photography that makes each day feel different whilst being unique at the same time. The way he has used different lighting conditions, extreme close ups and images of the mundane make each video stand out in their own and also created a contrast between each person. It’s definitely created more inspiration towards my project and will keep his method in mind when approaching the photos I try to take but not mimic his style fully. Jonas’s amazing work can still be found on his website today.
Jonas Mekas
http://jonasmekasfilms.com/365/month.php?month=1
The Shed Project – Lee John Philips
The way the drawings look in the Shed Project hold an almost real feel to them, they each feel individual even if they are multiples of certain items such as a screw. It really shows the commitment and love he had for his grandfather and how he wants to preserve his grace and memory within these drawings. A true dedication of art from Lee.
This project as we spoke about it today in class literally brought me to tears, a rarity to be honest. It happened as another student spoke about how Lee had to had therapy on his hands due to strenuous work he carried out drawing the thousands of items of his grandfathers shed. This really moved me as it reminded me of my grandfather who passed away years back, it was actually hard not to be moved by the whole feeling as it kept coming back in waves. Amazing.
Lee still hasn’t finished this project to this day but I’m sure he will finish it at some point in time, he has come so far already in terms of how many drawings are within his book. I chose this artist even though a lot of people had due to the how much is struck me within my emotional core in the room at the time.
Lee John Philips
https://zealous.co/about/articles/featured/lee-john-phillips-the-shed-project/
After class I decided to go scout around the school looking for people to photograph, then I then went over to develop my film roll for another module and got some sick snapshots of people in the lab and making friend’s as I went.
Here are the results from today:
There were more photos than this but that would be spoiling the overall project for end of term.
Michael Nyman
from the Motion Picture ‘The Piano’
Do you ever have a song that you could never get sick of?
21/10/22
Tonight held a long session of creating the foundation of the book itself, formulating the pages and chapters with an introduction forward page. The pages are stacking up and the the book is starting to have depth to it, I can’t wait to get more photos next week.
22/10/22
Today I went up into the valley’s at Devil’s Bridge and started practising with my digital and film camera for my other module. Managed to capture an amazing shot whilst experimenting with a lower shutter speed and the waterfalls, also managed to capture some landscape shots that really surprised me. Edited the RAW photos of these with simple monochrome and dumped shadows:
A good post, honest, open, good to know you were so moved by Lee’s Shed project, it is an incredible feat of dedication, maybe you could look at other projects in which artists dedicate huge amounts of time and commitment if this is something that moves and inspires you, we will be looking at some in the Time lectures next semester but see who you can find..have a think about moving your body more when you photograph, getting down on the floor, on your stomach, on your back, under furniture, behind an don top of furniture, this way you might access new and surprising perspectives, think about how to be present and absent when talking photographs, how to spend time listening, watching, witnessing the scenario before, during and after taking the photographs – so I am prompting you to think more about your role as photographer, what is your presence and what is the ‘act’ of photographing for you? have a look at Susan Sontag’s On Photography to get more deeply into – what is photography?
Good point, I tried moving around within Louise’s office as seen from behind the books on her desk…it sometimes can be difficult to move around like you said depending on the situation whether it’s a class or has to be done in quick bursts or if I’m in a rush. Will look up the book, sounds good.
yes for sure each situation requires a different approach, but I think you can push the window of each one, test the boundaries, this is a perfect situation in which to do this..i forgot to say watch the spelling especially of important words such as the artists names e.g. Jonas Mekas