Presentation

Self Evaluation Report

Self Evaluation Report – Laura Parkinson

International Markets and Contexts

For this module, I had to work in a team to create a photographic festival that could take place anywhere in the world. We decided to collaborate our interests of portraiture and create the festival “Realms of the Unknown”, which took our love of photographing people surreal things together.

I used Maurice Heesen as my research, as I wanted to photograph something I had never photographed before. Heesen took blood and gore to create a series of images that looked on the lighter side of death; how we should die smiling. His images inspired me to take the theme of blood and death, and create some editorial inspired images that had a twist. Looking back over my research, I did a lot of extensive research into other photographers who had looked at blood and gore, although I wish I had looked at more fashion magazines such as Vogue to find examples within print.

I then took to the studio to create some high fashion portraits with fake cuts filled with blood. I think my images look really professional, and the editing that I did made them not look as fake. I have learn a lot technically from this shoot, as I had never shot on a white background before, so had to change the lighting to stop shadows forming behind the model and making the background pure white. Some of the background on my images did turn grey because of lack of light from the left hand side, however, I have learnt from my mistakes and next time will know I need three lights rather than two.

Our presentation went well and a lot of effort was put into the logo and layout of it. We spoke about how we planned to lay out our exhibition within Grizedale forest, as well as how we were influenced for our work and our own work, which we had produced. It was also inspiring to see other people’s plans and how they had conducted the module. It made us realise, to some extent, that we had not done enough in terms of contacting people about pricing and seeing the location. If I were to do this module again, I would plan a field trip with my group to Grizedale forest, where we could have made a precise plan of where our images would hang from and how we could incorporate our work with the sculptures that are already there. Overall, I think we were really creative with planning our exhibition in comparison to other groups. We planned to have actors and dancers to make the overall feel of the festival more exciting, and also thought about the smaller details when creating the invoice estimate, such as candles and wire to hang the images.

Presentation of Work Within Gallery Space

I decided to have an experiment and see what my work would look like within a gallery interior.

 I decided I wanted my images to be displayed within a cabin in the woods scenario, where people could fully immerse themselves in the experience of viewing the photographs together with a location that was creepy and unnatural. I planned for there to be 2 walls inside the cabin with work being exhibited by Maurice Heesen and me. Then, I would like to be a big ornate fire at the back of the room, that is lit by wood, like a traditional fire, which would be one of the sources of light. The other sources of light would come from small spotlights on the roof of the cabin, that were pointing directly at the images.

I did a mock up of the interior of the cabin. Obviously, all six images would be displayed on the walls.

Here are my images displayed in a traditional gallery setting. I thought I would experiment and see what they would look like in a "normal" festival location.

Studio Session #2

I decided to experiment in the studio with different coloured backgrounds and how this can affect the overall look and feel of an image. I decided to use the blood again, but with an anti-Christ/rebel theme in mind. The pink background represented the lighter side of this models personality, underneath all the make up and jewellery. It was a learning curve for me as I had never shot with paper backgrounds before, never mind a pink background! I used the University of Bolton's photography studio for this, so it was a different experience working in a different studio and having to use my initiative and current knowledge to work the equipment.

Experiments

Over the course of this weekend, I conducted some experiments with the images I had shot in the studio with my friend Kelly a few weeks ago, as well as taking some new images of my hand.

I took the skills that I had learnt from making fake cuts and bruises and made a large cut on my hand and used the fake blood again. I then transferred it into black and white. I wanted an elegant hand pose, like they have in the magazines. I was inspired by the image below, after reading an article on modelling of certain body parts in magazines. On reflection, I would have preferred to have shot this in the studio, and used long fake nails, and rings and bracelets to exaggerate the purpose of it being an editorial shot. I would also have used a model, as I had no idea how to position my hands!

I took one of my final images from the studio, and layered it with another final image. I took the eyes from the second image and layered them over the top of the arm. I thought this gave it a surreal feel, which fits in with our international festival topic. However, I won't be submitting this for the final 6 images, as it doesn't fit in with my practitioner.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2065971/Eyes-lips-feet-hands-Can-guess-finest-features-model.html

Studio Session

These are my final six images for submission!

I think my images worked well overall to fit the brief. I planned originally to shoot these and edit them in colour, however, the fake blood I bought came out of the container a different colour than I predicted (the container showed it to be a dark red colour and it actually came out bright red!), so I edited them in high contrast black and white to make them appear more realistic. I think these have worked well, I wanted to capture an editorial style set that had a spin of gore and blood. I think I achieve this pretty well!

Funding Bodies

We decided to look at funding bodies that could support our festival with subsidies and advertisement. We decided to look at three bodies that could help; the Arts Council, Lake District council and National Trust.

Asking for funding off a local council would be good, as they would be more willing to sponsor us and give us a bursary or financial help if we could secure that they would receive a greater number of footfall within the area, therefore, benefitting the local economy. People travelling from abroad would not just attend for one night and then fly home, there is more chance of them staying for a week and making a holiday out of it.

Arts Council England invest into artistic and creative ideas within England, helping them mature and develop into projects that benefit the country. The National Lottery are linked with the Arts Council, and on average 14p from every person in England contributes per week.

I thought about the National Trust because Grizedale forest is ran by the National Trust, because the festival will be taking place within their grounds, they may be willing to give us the location for a subsidised price, or even free if it benefitted their footfall.

Groups Practioners/Own Work

Kelly has decided to use Nick Knight as her practitioner. Nick Knight is a well-known fashion photographer who has famously photographed Lady Gaga for her album cover last year. Kelly has decided to shoot some dark, black and white high contrast surreal portraits to echo Knights work, within a studio location with a model with heavy creative make up on.

Jade has decided to use Courtney Brooke as her inspiration for her set. Brooke, also known as Light Witch, specialised in dark and mysterious photography, creating scenarios with her models, or creating an atmosphere with smoke or powder. Jade has decided to create a series of images looking at the plague, with the objects that were considered being able to cure the plague being photographed in the models hands. The model would be wearing a traditional doctors mask that was around in the times of the plague.

Bee has chosen the work of Kyle Thompson, who has been chosen as our main practitioner, specialised in self portraiture and surreal photography. Bee has decided to take a series of images that look into movement and using editing techniques to give them a surreal atmosphere!