Review (3)

I have now completed my fourth photo shoot and I now feel confident and happy with my project as I feel that I am progressing with it. I have now decided to be more adventurous when taking my photos and experiment with different angles/perspectives, I have been taking images from a dramatically slanted view as well as the normal portrait/landscape and I think this works well with what I am photographing as it allows you to see more of the buildings and different parts of it that normally in a photo you wanted be able to capture together when just taking them portrait or landscape. I am also experimenting with the different types of camera as I completed an iPhone photo shoot, what I like about the images from that shoot is that they do not look particularly clear which I think adds to the effect of the picture look old and neglected. Furthermore, I have also been experimenting with cropping and focusing on just one part of the building as well as the building as a whole. This is something I am definitely going to do when taking my final photo shoot as it allows you to focus on the detail of the decaying building. I began experimenting with this when taking photographs at the Klinger Factory as I liked the patterns you could see in the smashed windows and how each of them were different. At this photo shoot I also began looking at the barriers and railings that surrounded the site and how they were peeling away to reveal different layers and textures.

The Klinger Factory

History

The Richard Klinger Factory in Sidcup was built in 1937 to manufacture engineering parts. Klinger is an Austrian manufacturer for valves and borosilicate gauge glasses.

Figure 1

 

 

Figure 2

 

 

 

The photographs that you see above are all from the Klinger Factory location. at this photo shoot I looked at the building as a whole as well as zooming/cropping in on certain aspects of it. I also looked at the surrounding area such as railings. I decided to put my images in black and white again as I like this style and also so you are not distracted by the colours.

The day I took these photos was cloudy and raining which therefore makes the images of the building look darker and contrast against the sky. I tried to experiment with different angles and perspectives as well as thinking about the rule of thirds, particularly with Figure 1. However, I feel I could improve by furthering my composition.

Figure 2 is my favourite photograph from this shoot as I like how clear it is and how you can see the details of the smashed windows and the different shapes that occur. I also like the contrast you get from the use of monochrome colours.

 

 

iPhone Photo Shoot

As part of my development when taking my photographs I am experimenting with using different sources to capture the images, the pictures that can be seen below are ones that I have taken using the camera on an iPhone. I then edited my photos into black and white as this is the colour theme I want to use throughout all my images. With this photo shoot, I also experimented with taking my photographs from various angles so that the building was slanted.

 

 

 

 

I liked the outcome of taking pictures in a slanted way so it is something I will think to continue when doing other photo shoots. Furthermore, I like the effect that taking my pictures on my iPhone has as they do not look perfectly clear and I think this adds to the rugged and decaying view of the derelict building. Within some of these pictures I have used a shallow depth of field, particularly on the images where parts of a plant hang in front of the building. As well as the use of a shallow depth of field, I also used a wide depth of field. Within these photos and those continued from this shoot, I think there is something quite creepy about them as they look dark and cloudy , there is also quite dark contrasts within the pictures.
I think I could improve these photos by trying to get more images close up and focus on one area/aspect of the building. I could also experiment more with cropping and lighting/brightness.







Review (2)

After visiting the exhibition at the Tate Britain I am beginning to feel more confident about my topic, I also feel that this exhibition has helped me to generate new and different ideas and also the different types of presenting dereliction and decaying matter. I am continuing to plan and take photos and I would like to experiment with the use of different cameras for example; digital, disposable and also the camera on my phone as I am interested to see the different effects (if any) that this would have on my photos.
I have been looking up many different locations that I can visit to take photos in and around London, as finding these derelict locations was one of the problems I was to face as London and its peripheral areas are being regenerated and new buildings are being built all the time, therefore there is not many places that suffer from urban decay as there once was. I would also like to look at the interiors of the buildings I visit as well as the exterior to compare and contrast the two if I am able to do so.
Furthermore, I have found this week and those previous to be successful as I have been researching a lot into urban decay and its process and finding photographers and artists that I can relate to, I have also decided to look into radioactive decay and the Chernobyl disaster as part of my contextual research.

Exhibiton at Tate Britain

Phyllida Barlow-'Dock'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I visited the Tate Britain for one of the exhibitions called 'Ruins Lust', whilst there I also decided to look at these sculptures from the Tate Britain's Commission for 2014 by Phyllida Barlow. They are from a series called 'Dock' and she is known for making large scale installations using everyday household or DIY materials. I think the sculptures relate well to the topic of decay as she uses objects and materials that make the pieces look as though they are old and decaying/rotting. What I liked about Barlow's work was also the scale of the sculptures as they can be quite powerful.

 

Ruins Lust

I then went on to visit the 'Ruins Lust' exhibition which I found really interesting as it enabled me to think about other mediums and ways of presenting a derelict/decaying structure. Figure 1 is one of the pages of my sketch book based on this exhibition:

 

Figure 1

One of my favourite pieces from this exhibition was a laser chrome print mounted on to aluminium with diasec, by Jane and Louise Wilson who photograph the Nazis defensive wall, this particular photo was called 'Azeville' and figure 2 shows an image of it from google as you were not allowed to take photographs in the exhibition.

 

Figure 2

What I liked most about this photograph was how they had thought about the scale of the image when presenting it and also how they presented, as it was mounted on aluminium which made the photo really stand out and highlighted its clarity. I also like the use of black and white as it allows you to see the detail of the subject without being distracted by the use of colours.

 

 

 

Ideas

This image shows a brainstorm of a few ideas that I have begun to generate.

Creative Making Week

As part of this week project we had to work in groups and team up with students from Graphic Design. Within my group we started talking about what objects we could use from our 'kit of parts' in order to create something to show on the final day. We came up with a number of different ideas, for example, making animals out of water bottles or paper clips, creating something that floats in order to make the object float from one side to another, making a solar system and creating a stop motion animation.
After this we decided to create a stop motion piece on one of the objects, the three objects we took into consideration were a paperclip, a sponge and a sock. Our final idea consisted of 'a day in the life of a sponge', as part of this we began brainstorming different storylines we could create and concluded that we would make it to be a love story as well as a sponge's nightmare as we wanted it to be scared of water/drowning.
The next stage of our preparation was making the sponge character using actual sponges and putting faces on them in order to animate them, we then began writing a storyline.

Figure 1 shows the two sponge characters and figure 2 is a picture from the stop motion.

Figure 1

Figure 2

In order to create our final outcome we set up a camera on a tripod and photographed every single move, we took several photos for each movement to try and create a flowing piece, however I feel that we could have taken more in order for it to be smoother and less jumpy. We then put it all together and added sounds and a voice over. The final outcome can be seen by following the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm5iG8WXoLQ