Self Reflection -Edited following Rework

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills

When I am taking photographs I am often pre-occupied on getting the basic technical elements in place and I neglect the artist side of the work. With this assignment, I have allowed myself to experiment with found images which at the being of the course and EYV I think I was fairly dismissive of as an art form. Why this should be the case when I have always admired the Campbell Soups and Marylin Monroe pictures by Andy Warhol which are essentially found images.

The reason for the found imagery is an am very uncomfortable in my own skin around my own appearance I hate being photographs, I look in the mirror and start to see my Grandma especially as I’m getting older. Combine this with lifelong low self-esteem, it didn’t bode well for a project of “putting myself in the picture”.

Of the photographers, I have studied for this module I was most moved and inspired Elina Brotherus Annunciation and Nigel Shaftons Washing Up.

When I look at Annunciation I can feel the sadness, isolation, loneliness desperation that she is feeling going through with the IVF treatment. It very brave to record that is such a public way I have known friends that went through it and for them it was a very private affair because once it did come attention of family and friends the stress level intensified. I am not comfortable in myself to be able to replicate Brotherus’ but I took inspiration on how to illustrate the isolation.

Shafton’s self-absented portraiture plays to me, being able to illustrate myself with having to deal with physical insecurities.

So reflecting on my normal pursuit of the technical, and inability to deal with my own image – need to found an outlet for combining them. After deciding that “found Imagery” of me and Anastasya was the way to go – because these are images I am happy with I am relaxed and had time to process them. I Initially I juggled with the idea of joiner similar to the joiner portraits of David Hockney. This did not work as they can’t be done successfully retrospectively – not about just cutting things up.

The next experiment “mosaic” imagery using photoshop to add a pattern over an image – this worked and my initial idea was a favourite sentiment image covered into this style but after butting to the side for few weeks for reflection I felt it did tell a story to the viewer/reader. Edit: One further reflection the mosaic was confusing for the viewer I was blinked by my idea I have removed this

I feel my final selection of images – self-portraits which almost all avoid showing me,  work to convey to isolation I feel from my partner while living with a long distance relationship. Edit: I have refined these self-portrait to 4, an additional one was added to illustrate solitary action and try and symbolise my missing fiancee.

 Quality of outcome

The images are not the pin sharp images I’m used to presenting however, they are not poorly executed, they are the product of time and experimentation with photoshop to get the right tome and feeling. I feel the images express what I am trying to say although perhaps there needs an element of time added to show that isolation is compounded by time.

Edit: I’m much happier with the presentation format now with 4 constructed self-portraits alternating with 4 “photo wall” of Facebook images. There is good contrast between downbeat and happy.

Demonstration of creativity

This is a leap outside of my comfort zone this for me I not sure how the assessors will feel, has been a change in direction. I have not been taking photographs. I have been making art using my camera. I’m not very good a reflecting on myself or my work but this has felt different, They are not great art I doubt I’ll be receiving an invite from the Tate  Modern, but I feel I have created something not just captured it.

Edit: I still feel I have created something with this set, I have tried to illustrate absence with symbols, soft toys, half empty wardrobe, empty pink coat hangers. There is a downbeat feeling to the self portraits which is intentional together with uplifting feeling invoked from the found facebook images.

C&N Assignment 3 -Rework

Isolated…

Assignment 3 called for us to write a diary, over a period of time and in writing coincided with my fiancee visit for holiday in August. This set of images come from the sense and feelings of alienation and isolation that I have been feeling over the last 10 months of living in Pattaya, Thailand, why my diary entries overwhelming dwelled on.

I moved here, from Hong Kong my home of 9 years, to set up home and re-start my career as a Scuba-Instructor. However, this move pushed my Fiancée, Anastasya and I, into a long-distance relationship. Although the cost of living in Thailand is much less than Hong Kong the move was a gamble and it wasn’t practical for us both to give up our jobs – and she had a stable employment as a live-in nanny.

The images are self-portraits of me doing thing around the house, doing mundane routine things, as this is the area that I find most isolating. Most of my work colleagues are settled here with their family, so, it is once I go home and engage in mundane things, that you would normally share with a partner, that I am reminded of that isolation. I am setting up a home ready for my fiancée to be able to move once here current contract finish in 2019 and while I am home, I am constantly of the gaps that that her absense in my life, the half-empty wardrobe for example.

I did not want to overtly convey loneliness and also, I’m not overly comfortable in taking my own picture and putting myself in the picture. Therefore, I was set a challenge to show my home life and what I am constantly reminded that I am isolated from. Looking back over what I had covered in the course I found that “found imagery” had a large part to play in this project. There are many images out there of me (on facebook) having fun with Anastasya, generally, these are taken by friends or by Anastasya herself – I have some of these images on the wall in my apartment. I have chosen to alternate them with images of me at home as a Facebook photo wall to illustrate how that contributes to the isolation.

The alternation of the images contributes to the reflex of state of mine on most days they fluctuate from downbeat to a happy and energised as i remember why we are in this situation and that there is a end in sight

Thank you for the feedback and your time last Friday for the Skype tutorial.

Firstly, yes, the idea did come from a diary – the diary was written in August September when Anastasya was here on holiday and the main focus of the thoughts were how much i was enjoying the mundane things at home like laundry, cleaning etc – really focus how much i was missing and feeling isolated from her.

As we discussed the the project has potential and the major flaw that it has at the minute is the use of the mosaic filter which, can over the power some of the pictures and also that it may not be immediately obvious that the filter is a mosaic of pictures collected from Facebook of me and Anastasya.

Point taken on esoteric symbolism, however, that I guess is accidental – I know Anastasya well and know the dishes/meal she cooks. Therefore it seems logical to be pulling that pack from the pile but I agree not everyone would the difference in the nationality of Anastasya or the dish.

Thank you for the reminder that there are few more obvious signs of Anastasya absence I’ll look at those e.g. half empty wardrobe. And as we discussed and as I mentioned above now we look at it in hindsight the mosaic filter is too overpowering and a rather too indistinct therefore I will look at changing the settings to a sequence alternated with a straight photo wall of the facebook pictures

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills

When I am taking photographs I am often pre-occupied on getting the basic technical elements in place and I neglect the artist side of the work. With this assignment, I have allowed myself to experiment with found images which at the being of the course and EYV I think I was fairly dismissive of as an art form. Why this should be the case when I have always admired the Campbell Soups and Marylin Monroe pictures by Andy Warhol which are essentially found images.

The reason for the found imagery is an am very uncomfortable in my own skin around my own appearance I hate being photographs, I look in the mirror and start to see my Grandma especially as I’m getting older. Combine this with lifelong low self-esteem, it didn’t bode well for a project of “putting myself in the picture”.

Of the photographers, I have studied for this module I was most moved and inspired Elina Brotherus Annunciation and Nigel Shaftons Washing Up.

When I look at Annunciation I can feel the sadness, isolation, loneliness desperation that she is feeling going through with the IVF treatment. It very brave to record that is such a public way I have known friends that went through it and for them it was a very private affair because once it did come attention of family and friends the stress level intensified. I am not comfortable in myself to be able to replicate Brotherus’ but I took inspiration on how to illustrate the isolation.

Shafton’s self-absented portraiture plays to me, being able to illustrate myself with having to deal with physical insecurities.

So reflecting on my normal pursuit of the technical, and inability to deal with my own image – need to found an outlet for combining them. After deciding that “found Imagery” of me and Anastasya was the way to go – because these are images I am happy with I am relaxed and had time to process them. I Initially I juggled with the idea of joiner similar to the joiner portraits of David Hockney. This did not work as they can’t be done successfully retrospectively – not about just cutting things up.

The next experiment “mosaic” imagery using photoshop to add a pattern over an image – this worked and my initial idea was a favourite sentiment image covered into this style but after butting to the side for few weeks for reflection I felt it did tell a story to the viewer/reader.

I feel my final selection of images – self-portraits which almost all avoid showing me completly work to convey to isolation I feel from my partner while living with a long distance relationship

 Quality of outcome

The images are not the pin sharp images I’m used to presenting however, they are not poorly executed, they are the product of time and experimentation with photoshop to get the right tome and feeling. I feel the images express what I am trying to say although perhaps there needs an element of time added to show that isolation is compounded by time

Demonstration of creativity

This is a leap outside of my comfort zone this for me I not sure how the assessors will feel, has been a change in direction. I have not been taking photographs. I have been making art using my camera. I’m not very good a reflecting on myself or my work but this has felt different, They are not great art I doubt I’ll be receiving an invite from the Tate  Modern, but I feel I have created something not just captured it.

Isolated…

This set of images comes from the sense of alienation and isolation that I have been feeling over the last 9 months living in Pattaya, Thailand.

I moved here to set up home and re-start my career as a Scuba-Instructor. However, this move pushed my Fiancée, Anastasya, into a long-distance relationship. Although cost of living in Thailand is much less than Hong Kong the move was a gamble and it wasn’t practical for us both to give up out jobs – and she had a stable employment as a live-in nanny.

The images are self-portraits of me doing thing around the house, cleaning, reading, cooking, leaving and returning from work. As this is the area that I find most isolating – most of my work colleagues are settled here with their family. So, it is once I go home and engage in mundane things, that you would normally share with a partner, that I am reminded of that isolation. I am setting up a home ready for my fiancée to be able to move once here current contract finish in 2019 and while I am home, I am constantly reminded of the happy times she brings. While I say I am isolated, I am not lonely or housebound, therefore with these images I wanted to show how Anastasya is part of my life end at a distance through memories.

I did not want to overtly convey loneliness and also, I’m not overly comfortable with my own image in images. Therefore, I was set a challenge to show my home life and what I am constantly reminded that I am isolated from. Looking back over what I had covered in the course I found that “found imagery” had a large part to play in this project. There are many images out there of me having fun with Anastasya, generally, these are taken by friends or by Anastasya herself – I have some of these images on the wall in my apartment. I have chosen to integrate them with images of me at home as a “mosaic” to illustrate how that contributes to the isolation.

The construct of the images gives a slightly hazy feeling to the images – this I admit was not by design, however, I feel that it captures part of the isolation that memories can become hazy at distance.

Assignment 3 and the connected project brings me to think of the modern curse of selfies. Are they photography are they art or are they just Narcissism. Facebook and Instagram are littered with pictures that people take of themselves and in my opinion, many of them are taken by people who have no interest in photography or art. I have always considered “true self-portraiture” to be a study by the artist of who they are or it may be a case that they simply didn’t have available models to progress their art. However, this needs further investigation.

The media would have us believe that the vast majority of people taking selfies are young females of the so-called millennial generation, a generation that doesn’t get the best press in the world often portrayed as self-entitled narcissistic kids who live with their parents and while this not always the case it is true that the millennial are growing up in a social media dominated world which does appear to reward narcissism.

However, as Mary McGill illustrates in the TEDtalk above selfie culture can be related more to gender identity how people grow into their genders. Hetro-normative perception of genders have been challenged for many years – that it just because you are born male do exhibit only male characteristics and vice-versa. Gender is how you grow how you are nurtured and was something that I covered in an essay in my earlier unit introduction to film culture. Traditionally in heteronormative society “females socialised from birth to turn their attention to themselves” (McGill 2016) e.g. praised for how they look not necessarily for there actions; their exposure to the beauty (make-up) industry

Mary McGill goes on to illustrate by quoting French philosopher Simone De Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” which discusses how women have used controlled narcissism throughout the ages to use how they look, empower themselves in a heteronormative world, where by looking good can be a woman only way to make strides forward, and De Beauvoir noted that there is “a solitary pleasure in this arrangement” and this is what appears to lead to the selfie phenomena of today because it through readily available technology young women are able to capture that moment of solitary pleasure forever whereas before a reflection was fleeting moment.

Society pushes women towards narcissism, however, women at using it to gain agency and power and pleasure, however as McGill points out while this is empowering is sad in that it illustrates how much further society has to move to a more gender indicated society.

Gender perception was one of my major takeaway points from my last course Introduction to Film culture – and its something I very much more away of in everyday life, however, I have not been able to work it to my photography as yet. Perhaps it this because while I understand the theory – I’m still a 48-year-old male, who has grown up in a heteronormative world, affected by the male privilege that that implies. I see around me that the world is set for the male gaze, I want to challenge this but I’m not sure how to

References

YouTube. (2016). Young Women, Narcissism and the Selfie Phenomenon | Mary McGill | TEDxGalway. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb2J5eDoFko [Accessed 2 Dec. 2018].

These are to illustrate that even though we are apart she is a constant part of my life and makeup of what I’m doing.

I like how these pictures have turned out I’m not sure as yet which i would like to use in the assignment or if I want to use the single image from my last trial as the assignment.

The pattern used for the mosaic is:

And here is a gallery of the edited original images:

Moving on from the retrospectively constructed joiner image, I was reminded of a favourite poster I used have in a flat I shared I with my best friend in the late 90’s a mosaic of Marilyn Monroe made of old Playboy covers.

The above is true mosaic made solely of the covers, however, I believe that the concept is an excellent way to present found images and the obvious way is to use Photoshop to make this possible.

The picture I have chosen is as the base picture has a particular meaning for me, I was taken over Christmas 2016. This was the first Christmas that myself and Anastasya had together, however, that Christmas my mum had been taken a very bad turn with her breast cancer and I was due to fly home the next day to see her (she subsequently passed away in early January 2017).
The image was a quick set up studio style shot, to send to mum in hospital showcasing the England rugby shirt she had bought Anastasya for Christmas. Anastasya is a huge rugby fan, especially of England and Wasps, strangely for an Indonesian girl living in Hong Kong. Rugby was one of the first things we talking about when we met to has a special place in our relationship. Plus this is the last image my mum saw of me and Anastasya as a couple.

The mosaic effect is made up of a series of images to collected from Anastasya, my Dad and other friends and me of me and Anastasya.

I really like this image as I feel it showcases me and Anastasya and fit into the theme I was picking up from my diary that we are a whole and both work better as a package.

The above represents an afternoon work in creating joiner photos from images that I collected from my Dad and Anastasya. The 3 images were chosen at they show me and Anastaya in relaxed states you could say at our happiest, on is from her birthday trip to Belfast and another from a holiday in Bangkok.

Hockney’s original idea of a joiner photograph was to push past the fact that a photograph is a single brief moment in time that the viewer gives more time to than the photographer invested in making the image and more trying to represent the changing moments the in the works of a image by the old grandmasters such gas Rembrandt – who took months our years to complete an image.

Here whilst I’m emulating the style of Hockney I am using a found image and it not about representing the passage if time whilst making an image it is to show the closeness and how as a couple myself and Anastasya are the sums of many parts.

I am in two minds about found photography i find fascinating probably from the voyeuristic point of view I commented earlier in n the course that I would pour over Joachim Schmidt’s books for hours and part of me could see me being an obsessive collector of such images my self – in fact in my teens I was a obsessive collector of art style postcards from shop like Athena and cuttings from magazines that I could not bear to throw away. I wish i still had them how there are lost in the mists of house moves and clear outs.

Found photography in a self-portraiture sense is giving time to reflect on how I /we look to others – our expression is natural at the especial with the selfies I can’t pose so I generally end just being myself and look generally in the wrong direction…

Of the experiments above pictures above I like the middle image the best as there is still defined faces, the first image comes in second but feel that the faces are too small within the image are easily lost. The last I have pushed the jumble too far.

How do I express how Anastasya is part of me, through a self-portrait my initial thought was through a college, however, Anastasya is sat in Hong Kong and I am in Pattaya. Where am I going to get an image of Anastasya from? Well, she is not due here again until the 22^nd December so that out and yes I can hear the reader cry out as I did why didn’t I think of this project when she was her or before… such is life I guess.

Thinking back to our work in EYV we touched on the genre of “found photography”, that is art based on the recovery (and possible exhibition) of lost, unclaimed, or discarded photographs. In EYV we look at the work of Thomas Ruff particular his series jepg where he pixelated existing images – most famously “jpeg ny02, 2004” see below of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

The work of Vivian Maier is also found photography because we forget that she was long dead when her work as hobbyist photographer discovered and exhibited.

We also touched on the work of Joachim Schmidt at the beginning of Context and Narrative.

So I was going to need images of Anastasya which obviously I have, but I was going to need images of us of a couple which I don’t (or not in any quantity) for I’m not one of taking selfies I prefer to remain behind the camera but Anastasya has lots. I asked Anastasya, my dad and some friends to forward any images they had.

How to present found imagery is a unique way I suspect will be challenging – there is the simple exhibition paying the voyeuristic nature of people as in Maier’s work, and there is the further manipulation to accentuate the theme as in Ruffs over pixeled images of 9/11 which draws attention the fact that 9/11 was one of the first major global events of the internet age.

I was drawn to the idea of a college which pulls me to “joiners” by David Hockney.

Hockney explains that in his eyes photographs are the opposite to painting as that painting take time and the time can be felt in a painting whereas it cannot in a photograph as a photograph is just a fraction of second. Therefore he experimented with taking multiple photos of a scene or person.

I was fascinated with Hockney’s idea, understand somewhat how (unusual for me) I add that extra dimension, that of time, to an image and I am wondering if this is something I can add to my found imagery.

I have found a Youtube photoshop tutorial that could be come useful.

References

Artknowledgenews.com. (n.d.). Aperture Foundation announces Publication of JPEGS ~ Photographs by Thomas Ruff | Art Knowledge News. [online] Available at: http://artknowledgenews.com/200903317328/Thomas_Ruff.html [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

YouTube. (2016). What David Hockney’s Brilliant Collages Reveal About Photos. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5vWgKy2Sc [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

Walker, P. (2015). Thomas Ruff – jpegs – Pete’s OCA Learning Log. [online] Petewalker-ocalearninglog.com. Available at: http://petewalker-ocalearninglog.com/thomas-ruff-jpegs/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

Walker, P. (2018). Joachim Schmid – Pete’s OCA Learning Log. [online] Petewalker-ocalearninglog.com. Available at: http://petewalker-ocalearninglog.com/1977/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].