week 4 – matthew hulse

– emotional resonance –

After last week’s experimentation with long exposure photography I felt a rush to try again, having learned what works and what doesn’t. The following pictures have been tweaked in order to bring out the ghosts more. I’ve been experimenting with more colour now in order to stand out more.

Having more people in the frame is tricky as the figures can get muddled, but it adds complexity and interest to the pictures. I would be interested in seeing if I can create a ghost army, but given these attempts at photographing more than one person it might be very challenging. Open spaces can be effectively shot if it is not busy with details, and if the lighting in not excessively bright. Thankfully pictures 4 and 5 turned out decently due to the contrast created by the shadow casted by the sun.

Despite my qualms about photographing multiple people, pictures 6, 7, and 8 seem to have turned out pretty well. Some of them need a bit more editing to bring them up to the standard I want them, but it goes to show that it’s possible with a little planning. I asked my friends to walk in a circle with me, and the to move in a certain way to create the ghostly remnants.

These shots are some of my absolute favourites. The coloured variant looks more like a psychedelic rendition of a walk, but the I feel that it exudes a different ambience in black and white. I believe that black and white edits elicit a better reaction, in terms of being more ghost-like than dreamlike.

The playground by the castle ruins was an interesting place to take some pictures. The area should be charged with positive energy from all the fun times children have had.

– futurism meets emotional resonance through expressionism –

Futurism was an avant-garde art movement that emerged in Italy in the early 20th century. It was founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who published a manifesto that declared war on traditional art and culture.

Futurist artists celebrated modernity, technology, speed, and dynamism, and sought to break with the past and create a new art that reflected the energy and optimism of the new century. They were fascinated by the urban environment, the machine age, and the possibilities of new technologies like airplanes, cars, and telephones.

Futurist artworks were characterised by bold colours, dynamic compositions, and abstract forms. The movement produced paintings, sculptures, literature, music, theatre, and graphic design. It had a major impact on the development of modern art and influenced many later movements, including Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism.

Futurism also had a political dimension, with many of its members advocating for radical social and political change. They believed that the new technologies of the modern age would lead to a utopian future, free from the constraints of the past.

However, Futurism was also criticized for its glorification of war and violence, and its association with Italian fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite these controversies, the movement remains an important and influential chapter in the history of modern art.

The historical and political themes of futurism are a moment in art history. A fragment of the past that remains in the present and will continue to exist in the future; a quote from Janet Cardiff’s Her Long Black Hair – Central Park comes to mind: “Walking is very calming. One step after another. One foot moving into the future and one in the past. Do you ever think about that? It’s like our bodies are caught in the middle. The hard part is in the present.”

I feel like my ghosts are also stuck in the middle of a temporal walk; past and future, colliding in the present. The expressionism aspect comes in with the fluid shapes and figures present in my photography. The absence of colour in my pictures is my own interpretation of the ’emotional resonance’ that reverberates in spaces where people expel their energy. I think I haven’t exactly captured that sort of moment in most of my pictures, but the simple fact that they are visually stunning is what I’m interested in at the moment.

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That’s all for now— here’s a relaxing sign-off…