BA (Hons) Photography (Contemporary Practice)

UCA Rochester Summer Project

Artist Research: • She is known for followings strangers to investigate their private lives.

•Her work shows vulnerability, identity and intimacy.

• Calle transforms her daily life with a series of performances, which is usually in a combination of texts and photographs.

• She takes elements from her own life into public places, creating a personal narrative where she is the author and character.

Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle: The Shadow consisted of Calle being followed by a private detective. Calle wanted to provide photographic evidence of herself to show her own existence. Calle proceeded to lead the detective around parts of Paris that were particularly important for her, thereby reversing the expected position of the observed subject. Aware of her follower, she also wrote about in frequent journal entries throughout the day.

The shadow (1981)

Sophie Calle:The Hotel (1983)

• For a short time Calle had a job in a hotel where she made a piece of work about how she imagined the hotel guests to be like.

• She showed how these people could be like through taking photographs of their personal belongings.

Sophie Calle: The Hotel (1983)

•She discovered that observing the behaviour and actions of these strangers provided information with which to construct their identities.

•These sought to construct identities by offering documentary ‘proof' in the form of photographs.

•Her work was seen to have roots in the tradition of conceptual art because the emphasis was on the artistic idea rather than the finished object.

Artist research:

•Cindy sherman was a self portrait photographer and film director.

• She was first interested in painting , however then began to study photography at university.

•Most of her work shows her in the photograph, however they are not seen as a self portrait.

•Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role and representation of woman in society.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills 1977)

• After her graduation in 1976, Sherman moved to New York and began taking photographs of herself known as ‘Untitled film stills’.

• In these photographs she played the role of B film actresses.

• It shows her playing the role of somebody else where she dressed up in different clothes , hats and wigs.

• She plays a character, not an actual person.

Cindy Sherman: Rear screen projections (1980)

• Sherman completed her project ‘Untitled film stills’ in 1980.

• She then began working on a new series ‘Rear screen projections’.

• This work was quite similar to her film stills as again she dressed up and set up a projected slide background.

Cindy Sherman: Disasters and Fairy Tale Series (1985-89)

• In this series of works Sherman tries a new style where she does not appear in all of the pictures.

• She would dress so that she would look scary and used lighting to create a strange scene.

• She would use dolls and prosthetics and use their body parts and scenes which involve things such as mould and vomit.

• Her intentions for this series of work to for the images to look scary and deformed.

Cindy Sherman:Sex Pictures (1992)

• This series was the only series of works that Sherman had done without her being in the photograph.

• As in the series of works ‘Disasters and fairy tales’ she uses dolls and prosthetics where she posed the dolls in sex positions.

• She used both male and female models which were taken close up to show the body parts and create a shock factor.

Artist Research: Francesca Woodman

•Woodman started taking photographs as a young teenager before committing suicide at the age of 22.

•A career of around five years much of her photographs were taken as a student.

•She works in black and white and took self portraits or depicted other women often without clothes.

•Woodman experimented with slow shutter speeds on the camera, which captured movement in her photographs, creating a blurred effect..

Francesca Woodman

•Woodman explores the human body, helping her to gain her own knowledge about the female body.

•I found this piece of work particularly interesting because of he angle it was taken at from above, the lighting is also highlights the body from the background.

Francesca Woodman

•Her body appeared and disappeared behind objects in this case a bath.

•You can see that in this image her hair is the only thing to suggest that it is her in the bath.

•Her hair appears to be blurred, showing only a small amount of herself suggests that she attempts to escape from the frame of work.

Francesca Woodman • She photographed herself in a variety of different spaces and used backgrounds which showed a sense of time such as peeling walls or layered surfaces.

• She camouflaged herself against these walls or added movement to her photographs creating a blurred effect.

•She liked to work in old buildings where it showed a sense of time. She also dressed in much older clothes making the photographs seem older.

My personal belongings which have a sentimental value

Jewellery

Letters

Cards

Old toys

Baby clothes

Ornaments

Photos

Clothes

Ideas for Photographs

Experiment with black and white photography

Experiment with different focusing on the camera

Use a torch and place it in different places to light the objects differently

A shoe box or pieces of furniture in my bedroom to place the objects

Close up photographs which may focus on just one object

•This was my first attempt of taking a photograph which representsMyself

•I created tags using the computer where I wrote words which describe myself , life experiences that have made me the person I am today

• I felt that the lighting was quite dull in this image and I needed some objects to bring out my personality more in the photograph.

Trial 1 Shutter speed: 1/30Aperture: F 4.0 Iso:100

•In my second attempt to show a self portrait was this image, where I added some objects in the photograph in an attempt to bring out more of my personality in the photograph.

• I used just one tag this time, where I used several words to describe myself.

•However I felt that this was an unsuccessful image as you cannot see clearly what the smaller words say and I also felt that more objects needed to be added in the background so there are not areas in the photograph which are bare.

Trial 2 Shutter speed: 1/10 Aperture: F 4.0 Iso:100

•This is my final image, after experimenting in different ways with tags and objects I added more objects to the image and also tags which are clear and easy to read.

• I originally took this image in black and white but after taking some photographs in colour I felt that the colour photograph was stronger as each detail is easier to see and

• it shows clearly all of the elements in the photograph.

Final Photograph Shutter speed: ¼Aperture: F 4.0 Iso: 100

Critical Appraisal

Things to consider if I were to redo this project:

•Research

•Experimenting with taking more colour photographs

•Showing a background in my photographs such as my bedroom