Things To Do

''Best of British''

1. Good quality 'still life' photos of iconic 'Britishness' e.g. cup of tea.
2. Look to show inspiration from the likes of Martin Parr
3. These could be developed into Hockney like 'joiners'.
4. Conside or capture examples of 'British' portraits 'Cindy Sherman'

Martin Parr

Martin Parr was born in Epson and studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970- 1973. He has been working on a number of projects since that time, in 1994 he became a full member of magnum photographic corporation.

He's significant to my possible project because a lot of his photographs comment on society and document the iconic Britain that we know and love. The majority of his photographs document the classic slightly cliche British holiday as it were; so his subjects usually include some type of sea side symbol whether its lobster like women sitting in deckchairs, or young children eating their first 99 flake. A lot of his more interesting images show the contrast and comparrisons between old and new. He usually uses some kind of visual signifier to portray this contrast for example aging and young people, people or even manerisms. These images encapture the spirit and love for Britain and Parr's more iconic and trademark images sum up the tradional British holiday that almost every person can relate too if they look back to their childhood.

Martin Parr's images have a sence of familiarity too them even if the viewer of the image hasnt seen them before because his images enclose so many cliches, although they seem familure they do have a sence of repeatability too because they can be apreciated from so many different angles.

Below are two examples of his work:

Possible themes/ titles

I have been thinking about what I could base my project on and i'm thinking that I could take something quite cliche like 'Best of British' and put my own spin and take on it to create something fresh. I could even have a theme of 'British Cliches' because there are so many different things i could do with that and play around with things that have been done before. I was looking through my AS work and remember doing this:





















This was a rather odd piece and I cant remember what was running through my mind when I did it but its given me an idea; what about 'British Produce'? In my A2 business lesson the other day we covered Morrisons supermarket and went off on a tangent about how large supermarkets can take advantage of the fact British farmers need to supply supermarkets to make money and so supermarkets can knock down british food prices decreasing profit margins for farmers and making farming such a competitive and harsh environment to be in. This has meant that British farming is dying especially the farming of livestock. I believe that a project on British farming and Independant Butchers and Groceries would be not only interesting but would also have historical interest to it in the future.

This brought me to the work of Sam Taylor Wood a former Student at Goldsmiths college and a very successful photographer and installation artist. Here are a few examples of her work when she was battling Cancer and the foot and mouth outbreak had just started.



















In an interview talking about this photograph she said "I remember looking at the cow and wondering which one of us was going to die first but the hole in the hedge symbolised a way out and hope".


This photograph ties in with the idea of the harsh environment of farming and the dwindling numbers of livestock in this country:


















Going back to the idea of 'British Produce' The photographing of Butchers and Groceries side of the project would further my skills in street photography and the farming and countryside, side to it would be something new and fresh for me to cover. This would mean my project would cover countryside and urban subjects.

Ideas and Exploration

Below are a few ideas and inspirations that can hopefully guide me to a clear starting point for A2. It was clear that I needed to look at all different works and mediums that I was passionate about.

A few days ago I was looking at an artist called Kristie Holiday who has just come out of Boston Universities undergraduate programme for fine art. On her blog she had a few artists who had inspired her and she was interested in. One of the works was by Egon Schiele so I looked into him and his works and was quite interested in the simplicity and awkwardness of his paintings. Here are a few examples:

I dont know what I like most about his work but I think its the way
he used a small amount of colour but still captured the emotion and expressions incredibly well.


I have also looked at some of the photographers I rese
arched last year and remember looking at two photographers in particular that really captured my imagination. One being Robert Capa (Endre Erno Friedman) and the other Henri Cartier Bresson. I admire these two photographers and their works because they both captured the decisive moment and made photography look easy. Here are some of Bresson's most interesting prints in my opinion:

These are two of my favourite photographs by Capa:



In the past year I have got more and more into 'Radiohead' and their work as a lot of their songs definitely have a case to be called works of art. Many of their songs contain comments on society, culture and human kind. As I have a strong interest in film this unofficial music video for the song 'Fitter happier' by 'Radiohead' (with animation by an artist producing and uploading videos under the name of 'pabloiranzo' on YouTube) really captured my imagination:





The lyrics almost have a poetic quality to them:


Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick,
that's driven into frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
like a pig in a cage on antibiotics.


I've also always been interested in Robert Haswell my half brother and sister's grandad who was Royal Photographer of the year twice befor
e the age of 26 and was also a very successful photo journalist for the daily express. He was a great character and was at the heart of a rather comical scandal when he was sacked by the daily express after photographing Princess Marga
ret waterskiing in the nude. Unfortunately he died of cancer in 2002 after battling with the disease for a number of years and so never set up a website. This has meant only a small number of his photos have been published on the internet and the majority of his negatives are still packed away in the attic of his widow's house. Here are just a couple of his images that I could find:


Subject: Anita Erkburg (Actress)

Subject: Sean Connery (Actor)

Subject: Yuri Gagarin (First man in space)

I would be very much interested in looking more into Robert Haswell or as i've always known him 'Grandad with Muscles' (Muscles being the name of one of his dogs who I remember destroying my brothers rubber band propelled plane. I would obviously like to explore photojournalism as a whole however its hard to be in the right place at the right time especially with such a limited amount of time on my hands so I will probably increase the number of weekends I go up to London armed with a camera standing outside Claridges or Harrods playing the waiting game in the hope of getting lucky.

Poster

I have been look at the noir style briefly and wanted to explore this further so I created a film poster out of one of my images and named the film 'Defiant Shadows'.

I used a number of editting techniques on photoshop to create this effect. I changed the hue and saturation as well as turning up the contrast. I colourised the pavement area to a light blue/ green colour after watching Brick for the third time concentrating my thoughts on the cinematography and noticing a blue tint or light blue subject in almost every shot creating an interesting noir style and creating consistancy throughout the film.

The hardest aspect was using the clone stamp effectively without making the use look too amateur. I clone stamped out the people and just left the shadows inspiring the name for the film 'Defiant Shadows'.

Response to Noir 2

This is the editted version of my second photo, i colourized the sky and changed the contrast to create a more noir effect.

German Expressionism (Research)

German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture. This article deals with the cinematic part of that movement. For the German movement including German Expressionism see the article Expressionism. For Theatre see Expressionist theatre. For Architecture see Expressionist architecture. For music see Expressionism (music). For dance see Expressionist dance.

The first Expressionist films, The Student of Prague directed by Stellan Rye, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) directed by Robert Wiene, The Golem(1920) directed by Paul Wegener , Destiny (1921) directed by Fritz Lang, Nosferatu(1922) directed by F.W. Murnau, Phantom (1922) directed by F.W. Murnau, Schatten (1923) directed by Arthur Robison , and The Last Laugh (1924) directed by F.W. Murnau , and were highly symbolic and stylized.

German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of cinema in Hollywood. As well as the direct influence of film makers who moved from Germany to Hollywood developments in style and technique which were developed through Expressionism in Germany impressed contemporary film makers from elsewhere and were incorporated into their work and so into the body of international cinema from the 1930s onward.

Stylistic elements taken from German Expressionism are common today in films that do not need reference to real places such as science fiction films (especially Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner and the many films influenced by it).

Ambitious adaptations of the style are depicted throughout the contemporary filmography of director Tim Burton. His 1992 film Batman Returns is often cited as a modern attempt to capture the essence of German Expressionism. The angular building designs and severe-looking city squares of Gotham City evoke the loom and menace present in Lang's Metropolis.

Brick

The director Rian Johnson conveys the noir style in a contemporary setting in a number of different ways. Firstly he would have adviced the cinematographer to put a light blue/brown grainy filter. The director has used a number of very isolating long shots as well as a number of low, close up and dutch angled shots. He uses a number of querky props such as the rubix cube to give it a alternative noir edge to it as well as setting up a number of shots such as the headmaster/lead scene and positions the audience in a way that gives it a police interview feel to it. The actual story line has a noir theme to it as the protagonist is male and acting as if hes a private detective trying to save the damsel in distress which is very similar to some of the earlier noir films of the 1950s.

Response to FIlm Noir

I took this on the Southbank. I liked the way the stairs to the right were very dark and dreary contrasting against the light coming through under the bridge. The reflection of the puddle also added a mysterious angle to the photo and the people looked like silhouettes . The serated pavement under the puddle made the reflection of the people look as if they were behind bars and gave it that noir crime type feel to it.

I took this photo on the outskirts of Brixton. I used a canted angle and decided not to use a flash to give it a dark edge to it. The feel of the photo is already very dark and dreary so a filter wasnt needed. Both of the photos havent been editted because I didn't feel it was necessary as it wouldn't have added to the noir style.

Noir film

Noir films very often feature a secretive main character who often has a job as a private detective or something in crime, they are almost always the heros and the villain is often portrayed as being an old fashioned crook that has set out to make money fast not caring about who he hurts on the way. Most noir genre films feature an attractive female character that plays a damsel in distress type role where the hero has to save her.

A lot of noir genre films are set in urban environments, and a lot of shots feature narrow alleys, small offices and city nightlife.You would expect to see iconography like a lot of Dutch angle shots, low angle shots, wide angle shots, low key lighting, manipulated images through convex glass, characters smoking, silhouetted characters and steam coming out from buildings and sewers.

I have watched a few noir style films, especially more recent ones. Noir films usally have a crime/thriller story line. I
Eden Lake features a very sunny happy opening, which engages the audience, as it knows that the happy opening is too good to be true and that something will go wrong. It features many low angle shots in the middle of the film and a good use of close-ups showing facial expressions. Eden Lake also makes good use of lighting as the main chase sequence is in a forest location meaning it is quite dark and glooming which is very noticeable in contrast with the opening where the colour is quite bright. Eden Lake uses many P.O.V shots and canted angles.

Brick also uses the same devices with close-ups emphasising important aspects of the film and a good variety of long shots and low shots. A filter is also used to dull down the colours so the film doesn’t look too glossy and Hollywood like