Autobiography images deconstructed

This shot is about my nightmares, worries & fears.

This shot is set on a beach because whenever I have nightmares they involve the sea and waves engulfing me. The shot involves a lot empty space, a feeling of vastness, to show my fear of loneliness.

The clock which pays homage to Dali in its deformed form, represents my fear that time is not on my side and I don't know when my number will be up.

The baby with the needles sticking out of it represents my childhood full of medical intervention and the tablet packets around it represent this ongoing issue.

The eggs, some whole, some broken represents my fears of infertility because of all the medical things I have been through. The grave - my fear of death and finally the mirror which represents this fear in a different way. The mirror has the names of friends I have lost to Cystic Fibrosis written on it- as well some family who have died. In the mirror you see my back is reflected and this all indicates my fear of going to this same place (death if you will) that all these people have. The reason you only see my back is because once you are gone there is no way back, you are lost infinitely to the world and this scars me more than anything.

This shot is about the different faces I project to world and the inner me.

First, whether we are male or female, it is possible to feel like we have some opposite gendered traits. I certainly feel I have an amount of masculine in me, it is not something that is obvious to people on the outside but i feel it. This is why I have depicted myself as a man yet if you look closely I'm wearing stilettos which I did to interrupt a strait reading of the image, so people might realise this is a metaphor rather than a solid idea. The image on the left is me as a school girl. I look very young for my age and I know when some people look at me the think I am very much younger so this represents that face I seem to project to the world unwittingly. The image to the right is the sexy side of me, the side that is naughty, the side my boyfriend sees. The final shot in the mirror represents the face that no one gets to see, only me and that's the way it will always be.

This shot is about love, desire and relationships.

This image pays homage to Freud's interpretation of dreams, with the mini set of draws with bananas in- male and female genitalia and the tiger representing wild animals and therefore the idea of repressed desires. I wear a blindfold to express that in love very little is visually assessed and far more is felt either with the heart or body. The female leaving the room reflected in the mirror represents this idea that when, as a woman, you come to a new relationship you know there has been another woman in the bed before you, in the place you are now. The way the woman is depicted walking away symbolises reaching a stage in your relationship when you are able to forget the past, when you have reached a new level of trust between you and your partner.

Mum has had an impact on so many parts of who I am, biologically and specifically in the things I have learned, like/dislike and think.

In the shot the washing line represents my mum's independent life before marriage and us. The photos of her are from when she was a model which influenced my love of fashion-shown in me wearing my favourite shoes and holding a lipstick. Under the washing line, to the right, we see her life as a mother and home maker which is also referenced in items on the line above her. The image of mum in the suit at the top of the image with briefcase represents my Mum deciding to get an education, which lead to a career. The sheet which she is holding that is wrapped round me and goes back to domestic mum represents that all these area of her life have fully influenced mine. The book I hold represents how education is key in my life this independence she found is shown in the way I look away from both mum's to my a life ahead. The reflection of me in the mirror at the far left of the image shoes how I have been influenced by my Mum as home maker also.

Experiments with October Light

Autumn is my absolute favourite time of year. It has always been that way for me. When I was a kid this was probably because my Birthday fell in October as well as Halloween which i have always adored. However as I have gotten older I have come to associate this time of year, particularly October, with this special light that can't be found any other time of year. Aside from that it is the colours in the trees, the fallen leaves and if you're really lucky a crisp blue sky as a backdrop for all these things. Here are some of my experiments with light.

Thoughts and stuff

Not done anything for ages because i'm a total loser.

Since we have been exploring autobiography for our first project at uni I have explored a concept I have been thinking about for a while now, inspired from my studies of Hogarth.

The Serpentine line: The Line of Beauty.

 

This S-shaped curved line (a serpentine line) that appears within an object( or as the boundary line of an object) and when found in such things often means they appeal to the human eye. This theory originated with William Hogarth (18th century English painter, satirist, and writer), and is an essential part of Hogarth's theory of Aesthetics as described in his Analysis of Beauty (1753). According to this theory, S-Shaped curved lines signify liveliness and activity and excite the attention of the viewer as contrasted with straight lines, parallel lines, or right-angled intersecting lines which signify stasis, death, or inanimate objects.

Of course I feature my own scared tummy as a statement of irony because when is a scar ever aesthetically pleasing? However it amuses me that my scar adheres to his line of beauty quite perfectly.

Abstract brief- finally uploaded

This was our second project, set early on in our first year. We had to demonstrate our ability to light objects to show off their qualities as well testing our ability to use a large format camera. It was a brand knew learning experience for me as it was the first time i'd done any real technical learnng and experimenting with lighting still lifes. Here you are:

This didn't come out as stretched as it had looked on the large format camera's back but i'm pleased with the lighting effects.

This one is my fave- i lit it to emphasise the textures in the leaves and the coconut and kept the focus to the detail on the leaves to the left so the eye is drawn (as it would naturally read) from left to right.

This i love, it is a close-up of a back but that isn't always obvious at first look and I like that instant reaction where the mind knows it is a part of the human body but has't yet deciphered it which part.

Narrative stuff from last term

I thought it was about time I put this on here. I really enjoyed making it but i'm not too happy with some of the final photoshop'd images for a number of reasons.

But it's good to have on here and hopefully next term I will look back and see how far I've come.

So here it is, script and photos from the Japanese children's urban legend :

Toire No Hanko San

A group of Japanese school girls have crept back into their school at night to do a Wiji board in hope of talking with the ghost of Hanako-San. Hanako-San is the spirit of a girl who committed suicide in the 4^th stall of the loo after years of torment at the hands of bullies.

The girls find a caretakers cupboard which they all crowd into and light some candles.

The Wiji board is pushed into the middle of the circle and a glass put onto it. All the girls join hands. After a few moments the glass begins to move and begins to spell out a name. As the glass moves from letter to letter one of the girls makes a note of the letters. The name Hanako-San is revealed all the girls look frightened. Next they ask the Wiji board to whom she wants. The glass begins to spell out a second name: Mai.

All the girls turn and look at the girl the board has signalled and they give her the piece of paper. Mai slowly gets up, shaking, and makes her way out of the cupboard down the long, dark school corridor

down a dark set of stairs, to the toilet and tentatively opens the door.

The loo is dark and so, so quiet. Mai knows what she has to do and worried that her friends may be listening at the door she feels she has no choice but to go through with it. In fear Mai is gripped by a sudden urge to use the loo but puts it out of her mind and approaches the 4^th stall in the row and stands in front of it.

The stall bares the sign out of order. After plucking up the courage to speak Mai knocks 4 times and then chants aloud, “Hanako-San”, she waits a moment and then repeats, “Hanako-San”, after a short pause she again, with a dry mouth, repeats, “Hanako-San”. Finally in almost a whisper Mai chants, “Hanako-San”. And jumps back from the door.

Nothing has changed. Mai waits a little longer but nothing. In a sigh of relief she smiles to herself thinking how silly she is. With Mai’s relief also returns her urge to use the loo and she moves into the 3^rd stall and closes the door.

As she feels for the toilet paper, suddenly, all the lights go out....

In a split second Mai is filled with fear and regret....

The dark slowly changes to dimness and Mai feels like she is not alone, in the corner of her eye she sees something behind her, a ghostly figure and as she looks up she is choked with terror as the unearthly form of the being known as Hanako - San crawls down the wall, coming to get her....

Mai screams and nearly falls over herself, scrambling to open the door, she runs from the stall and heads towards the bathroom doors but she can’t get them open

She can hear a noise, a gut wrenching, other worldly noise and she knows she must run. She wrestles with the door but it won’t open and noise is getting closer. From the corner of her eye she sees the terrible white figure of Hanako-San approaching but still she cannot get the door open.

Then all at once is blackness again. Mai stops, it is too late. Icy cold fingers grab her head and pull her back into eternal darkness.

END

Pics of the Pup

I'm currently designing my new website and needed to take some new pics of my mutt Mia to use in the pet photography section of it. She loves having her pic taken so it didn't take too much persuasion to get these shots out of her.

I have just come back from shooting the cutest little Chihuahua called Frankie and I will put these up sometime in the next week too.

Abandoned Building adventures

Me and my man, after finding a site on line about interesting abandoned structures decided to visit one. The building here which will remain nameless for now due to the fact we did have to do a little breaking and entering, is in south Lincolnshire. It was last used as a hospital in WWII and was burned to the ground for a second time in its history in the 1980s.

The history of the building actually dates back to the 1500 but was rebuilt twice due to a couple of fires. It has however remained abandoned and untouched since the last fire a couple of decades ago. I hope you like the pics :)