Home
The final brief I was given was quite broad and, therefore, gave me a lot of room to be free to create something unique. Home can mean lots of different things to different people so I wanted to make something that was both indicative of what it means to me whilst also considering the wider theme of home. At the minute, I’m currently living in Lincoln but also travelling home to Yorkshire every weekend so I consider myself to have two homes. With this in mind, I decided to look into documentation photography as I wanted to follow my journey from one home to another.
Ed Ruscha
Ruscha created an art book documenting the mile and a half section of street called the ‘Sunset Strip’. The work takes the viewer on a scene-by-scene tour of the strip, with one side of the street on the top of the page and the other on the bottom. Although minimal, the photographs tell a story through an informational style, which is something that I might want to consider when creating my own work. I am aiming to take a collection of images that are significantly important to me as they are a part of my weekly journey but that could also be seen as any road anywhere so that the viewer might also feel as though they have travelled there.
Corey Arnold
Another photographer I looked at was Corey Arnold, who’s work interested me. In his collection Fish-Work: The Bering Sea he had to deal with a large stretch of water, which could have could’ve caused hi difficulty when trying to create interesting compositions. This is a challenge that I might face when documenting my journey as I will be on a large stretch of road and will have little to no control over the surroundings. After looking at his work, I admired how Arnold used the scenery to aid him in his compositions rather than try to compensate for them.
For example, in the photo above, he uses the interesting shapes of the boat along with the juxtaposition of the water with machinery to create an interesting and dynamic piece. The photo follows the rule of the thirds, which means that the eye is drawn to the bright colours worn by the man while not taking away from the picture as a whole. He also uses the curve and unevenness of the boat to capture the movement and wildness of the water.
[http://www.coreyfishes.com/albums/fish-work-bering-sea/]
Mike Brodie
Brodie is an American travel photographer, who’s work ‘A Period of Juvenile Prosperity’ stood out to me when researching documentation photography. His candid and gritty style invokes a sense of danger but the movement and energy in the compositions remind me of adventures and fun. This contrasting dynamic turns an image of the view from a car window from something that could be quite mundane into something that is visually interesting and makes us think about the story behind it.
My Work
As stated above, I chose to document the journey from one home to another. Having done the trip so often, I already had a few ideas of what I wanted to photograph but along the way other places and things caught my eye. As I was in a car, I knew that some of the photos could come out blurry or have the relation of the camera in the car window in them so I took them in bursts of three images per item 0r composition, which meant that I would have more options when editing. However, I didn’t really mind there being motion blur or reflections too much as I wanted it to be obvious that I was on a car journey. I decided to use the window to help me frame the photos in a way that would be consistent among all six and shot them in portrait to create the effect of looking out of the window. I also wanted there to be a mix of nature and man-made in the photographs as this is a dominant theme throughout the journey.
After looking through the hundreds of photographs I had taken I chose the ones that I felt were the most representative of the journey. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the compositions I had managed to capture as I couldn’t tell how the photos were going to turn out when taking them. I then put these photos into Lightroom and began to experiment with different ways to improve the consistency between them. I decided to go for a high contrast, black and white style as I felt that this highlighted the details in the composition while also sticking to the idea that it could be anyone’s journey.
Reflection
Overall, I am happy with the the final six photographs for this brief as I think they offer an interesting look at a journey that could otherwise be taken forgranted. However, I think that if I was to develop thisfurth I would expriement with incorpotating the window further and making it the focal point of the compositions. I think that this would perhaps make the message behind the collection clearer and also create a more interesting visual. I liked the the black and white style that the photographs had as they caprture the gritty aesthetics associated with urban locations whilst also complimenting the detail of the more natural elements within the compositions. With this in mind, I think that if I had planned for the photographs to be in black and white form the beginning I could have been more experimental and focused on more interesting shapes.
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