Family

'Family' means different things to different people. As part of this course we are required to take photographs of our family in the style of a documentary to show what they are really like. Richard Billingham is a famous photographer who did exactly this. Here are some of his images...

This is an image of Richard's mother and father together. The way that his father is slumped in his chair looking own suggests that he has been drinking yet again. His mother looks like she is yelling at him and after watching Richard's documentary 'Fish tank', we learn that this happened very often.

This image shows us his father falling over as he is too drunk to stand up. As his father was an alcoholic it is fair to assume that this is what he was like the majority of the time.

This is another image to depict his father being drunk. He has fallen asleep on the floor next to the toilet. From these images we can imagine that life in his house was based around his father being drunk all the time and the rest of the family having to deal with his addiction to alcohol.

These images really portray what life was like in his home and this is what i want to achieve.

Another artist who did this sort of photography is Martin Parr, although, unlike Billingham, he took pictures from outside of the family (other people's families). Where Richard Billingham was just responding to family situations with his images, Martin Parr was also trying to show the British working class for what they really where. Here are some of his images...

In this image there is a person lying on a towel sunbathing whilst a small child plays. There is an element of danger in this image as they are next to a crane, which is unusual as they are at the beach. There are many leading lines in this image which all point to the sea, yet we focus on the situation at the foreground of the image.

In this image the woman is serving ice-cream to the children at the counter. The children all look impatient and the shopkeeper looks rather surly.

In this image you can see a family sitting near a full bin. Instead of the bin being emptied there is rubbish all over the floor around it. The family don't look like they are having a very good time as the mother and father look slightly annoyed and there is one child who looks like they are having a tantrum.

Art critique David Lee criticized Parr for his patronizing and exploitative view of the British working class:

"Parr has habitually discovered visitors at their worst, greedily eating and drinking junk food and discarding containers and wrappers with an abandon likely to send a liberal conscience into paroxysms of sanctimony. Our historic working class, normally dealt with generously by documentary photographers, becomes a sitting duck for a more sophisticated audience. They appear fat, simple, styleless, tediously conformist and unable to assert any individual identity. They wear cheap flashy clothes and in true conservative fashion are resigned to their meager lot. Only babies and children survive ridicule and it is their inclusion in many pictures which gives Parr's acerbic  vision of hopelessness its poetic touch."

Robert Morris wrote in the British journal of photography: "This is a clammy, claustrophobic nightmare world where people lie knee-deep in chip papers, swim in polluted black pools, and stare at a bleak horizon of urban dereliction.” 

In response to all this criticism, Parr quoted: “I was rather surprised there was a controversy. It didn’t seem to me to be a controversial subject. It was a rundown seaside resort in Britain. What’s the surprise in that?”

I agree with Parr. Britain, being a very class conscious country, over reacted to these images. I don't think that Martin Parr was criticizing the British working class purposefully.

My Family

These are the images that i took of my family...

This is my younger brother Ellis. He really enjoys doing his own drawings in his free time, but for some reason he always does them on the stairs. In this image he is putting his name on his drawing and i think that this is an appropriate image because he spends the majority of his time doing art.

This is an image of my Mother on the phone. At first glance it doesn't look like it shows what she is like whatsoever, but it does. My Father works 12 hour shifts as a security guard so the only contact they have most of the time is through the phone. This is why there are no images of my Father included in this project.

This is my older brother Jack. He likes to steal tobacco off my mum.

This is my fish. His name is finger and i won him at sherdley. My little brother absolutely loves him.

In this image my brothers are messing around. I took a photo of this because they are usually arguing with each other so them two having fun together is a rare occurrence.

The next two images are linked. In this image my Mum has just opened a letter...

...and in this image she is stressed out. I don't know what the letter was but my mum does tend to worry about everything.

My little brother is smiling almost all of the time when he is at home so i thought i would capture it from above as he is younger than me.

In this image he got confused as to what face to pull so he just looks natural which never usually happens.

This shows my little brother for what he is really like at home. Always pulling funny faces, trying to make other people laugh and constantly full of energy.

Before my Grandad died he bought my older brother this guitar. When he did jack spent a whole summer teaching himself how to play it. This is an image of him at his band practice doing what he does best. There wasn't many opportunities for my to take pictures of him as he spends all of his spare time at the gym.

Self portraits

As part of our course, we had to get on the other side of the lens with self portraits. Here are some of mine...

 I added a warm tint and a vignette to this photo  to focus the viewers eyes on me and what i am looking at.

 This was took in the studio. I have edited the colours of my hair, skin and eyes. I tried to add a pink tint to my lips but it went wrong and i couldn't undo it so now they look fake.

This is the same image as the one above but in monochrome. I have added colour only to my eyes and i think that it is very effective in capturing the viewers attention.

See no evil...

Hear no evil...

Speak no evil.

Self portraits of famous people

This is the self portrait of Jeanloup Seiff in 1978.

This is a very captivating image. Jeanloup's use of shallow depth of field makes it almost impossible to look away from his face. When taking the picture, he has kept his other eye open so that we can see it, it feels like he is looking directly at me which is very intriguing.

This is the self portrait of Sally Mann in 1974

The strong vignette around this image makes the viewer's eye focus on Sally and her camera. I like the brown-ish tinge in this image, it makes it more interesting to look at rather than just black and white. Sally is also looking straight ahead at the viewer and holding her shirt together, giving the image a personal feel.

Visual elements in photography

Line

Line is a series of connected and continuous points. Lines can go in a number of different directions: horizontal, vertical, diagonal and curvilinear. 

Horizontal lines usually evoke a feeling of being restful e.g. a photograph with a horizon in it.

Vertical lines are usually associated with the feeling of strength, solidarity, dominance and power when looking at something like a tall building of towering trees.

Diagonal and curvilinear lines create movement and tension in a photograph. Curvilinear lines are often referred to as organic lines.

Implied line is were the viewer makes the line themselves. There is no actual line in the photograph, but the viewer's eye will conceive that there is one.

Shape

Shapes occupy the area in compositions. Two dimensional shapes can be measured in height and width. 

Organic shapes are often thought of as being naturally occurring and are usually asymmetrical.

Geometric shapes are usually constructed or man-made with their straight edges and sharp corners.

Here are some of my images based on shape...

Form

Form refers to the three-dimensional quality of an object. You can turn shapes into forms just by adding another side e.g. turning a square into a cube, or adding shading e.g. turning a circle into a sphere.

Here are some of my images to illustrate form...      

Colour

Colour is the visual sensation resulting from the reflection of wave lengths of light from differing surfaces. 

 

Colour has three properties:

Hue-the colour name

Value-the lightness or darkness of the colour. Yellow is the lightest and violet is the darkest.

Intensity-the saturation of the colour.

There are three primary colours: red, blue and yellow. These are the primary colours for two reasons, they cannot be mixed, and they can be used to make any colour on the colour wheel.

Secondary colours are made by mixing two primary colours together, such as orange, violet and green.

Tertiary colours are made by mixing a primary colour with a secondary colour, such as red-orange or blue-green.

A tint is made by adding white to a colour and a shade is made by adding black. When you use just on colour, including it's tints and shades, that is called a monochrome colour scheme.

An analogous colour scheme is when you use 3-7 colours either side of a primary colour.

A triadic colour scheme is when you use three colours spaced equally apart on the colour wheel.

Complimentary colours are colours that are directly opposite one another on the colour wheel.

A split complimentary colour scheme is where you choose a colour, and use the two colours either side of it's compliment.

Warm colours are colours with red or yellow in them, whereas cool colours are colours with blue in them.

Warm colours seem to come forward or advance whereas cool colours tend to go back or retreat. A warm coloured paint will make a room feel smaller, but a cool coloured paint will make it feel bigger and more spacious.

Colours can also display feelings or emotions...

Blue is calming

Red is exciting

Yellow is energizing.

When properly understood, this can help artists create great work that connects with the viewers.

Value

Value is the lightness and darkness of areas in a composition. When two colours are side by side, they interact with each other and change the way that we see that colour. this is simultaneous contrast. 

Modeling makes forms look more realistic because it looks like natural lighting. Successful drawings will include a full value range. A full value range includes very light areas, middle tones, and very dark areas. Full range value will give an image contrast and volume.

There are different ways in which you can add value to a drawing. 

Cross-hatching is the use of diagonal lines that cross over each other. The closer together the lines are, the darker the value will be.

Stippling is the use of dots to create shade. Closer together creates darkness and further apart creates lightness.

Chiaroscuro is a type of modeling that has a soft graduation of value over the form.

Tenebrism is a type of modeling that has a sharp contrast of value that gives a spotlight effect on the subject.

Texture

There are three different types of texture:

Visual texture-this is the illusion of texture within a photograph.

Actual texture-this is the surface of an object.

Simulated texture-this is the surface of man-made objects such as sculptures.
Capturing images with the illusion of texture depends highly on the level of light that you have to work with. The more light there is, the better the image will be as the shadows will enhance the look of texture.
Here are some of my images on texture...

Alphabet

We had to  go out and take pictures of natural and man-made things that looked like the letters of our names. I then edited my images and put them in order on photoshop. These are my letters...