Colour

The aim of this project is to: "produce colour photography that will resonate with contemporary practice".

Photography today is so well-advanced and because technology that coincides with photographic practice is easily affordable and obtainable, pretty much anyone in the world can take a picture and make it their own. As society abandons traditional darkroom methods, progressing into the much-preferred digital world, we constantly find new and exciting ways to manipulate images. Even software like Photoshop and Lightroom allows the average snap-shot amateur to produce images of professional standard. The first DSLR camera (DCS 100) was invented in 1991 and was instantly popular, particularly for commercial use. Over the years, advanced features typically included video and audio, and nowadays we begin to move into this concept of Moving Imagery. In fact, film-based photography is almost extinct.

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My Proposal

For my project, I will endeavour to exploit the use of colour in our current day, photographically. Thorough research into this topic will provide me with a medium that interests me and inspiration that ultimately forms the basis of my final idea. Aesthetically, I have always considered colour to be used as a form of expression and that they often coincide with mainly emotions, but also physical things and even abstract nouns (things we can't see but are there).

I was then recently introduced to a project that the BBC is currently undertaking, called 'Britain in a Day' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00kqz5p). It encourages people to film a typical day in their life or part of their day in order to create a 'lasting video portrait of the UK'. Optionally, the video could be made more personal by incorporating thoughts, hopes and memories, which I think is a good idea as it defines that person; it's almost like them telling their own story. This made me think that I could do a photographic narrative of the things that happen in my own life.


I have skimmed through several photographer's work briefly such as Ann Gaskell, Richard Wentworth, Naoya Hatakeyama, Bill Jacobson, Gemma Booth, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia and of course Willam Eggleston, considered the father of colour photography. Renowned for the focus of small detail and subtly employing colour, every single one of is images was a one-off. I will need to make comparisons between historical and contemporary photographers as well as reflect on the work of some who aren't as well known effectively, explaining how they inspire me.


In addition, the Visual Recording unit of this project involves lots of diagrams, illustrations and recordings based on my observations and ideas. Planning is vital and I will need to consider a number of things in the process. I have already decided to shoot on location, therefore time of day, source of light, inside/outside conditions, position of people/objects and compositions are just a few determining factors. It also means my final images will hold realistic value; nothing will be staged, I'll simply be capturing things as they are.

Inspiration
I saw this video of a man, called Noah Kalina, who photographed himself every day for six years, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo. You can even visit his website and see every single shot he took, showing the transition, http://www.everyday.noahkalina.com/index.php. I then thought it woud be a good idea to photograph something, for example, every hour for a whole day to recognise the changes. Obviously, the intensity of light changes throughout the day and I will be able to record the effect this has on the elements in the frame.

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Photographers (Powerpoint)

#1 Philip-Lorca DiCorcia

A contemporary American photographer who is particularly noted for the use of flash in his images and unknowingly photographing people on the streets. Whilst this brought about certain ethical issues, he admits he never asked them but quite rightly argues that he is a dealing with a public domain so there is not much anyone can do about it. Despite this, one cannot deny the power and emotion exerted in his images. After years of photographing close companions in classically domestic scernarios, DiCorcia adopted a very new style; immersing the huge energetic city streets with figures that were typically characteristic of America at the time.
The images were always well-planned and staged. The play of light, often a clever combination of natural and artificial, is an essential attribute to bringing out the colours in the scene. DiCorcia further uses flash to distinguish the foreground from the background as a lot of his work involves something or someone encased by an array of darkness. Flash completely fills out the foreground to separate itself, and give itself importance; bringing it to life and occasionally personifying objects by treating them as if they were people with a say. Therefore I think that using flash presents a level of intimidation.
The above image portrays the iconic American theme of burgers and drinks, and the flash here creates high contrasts of reds and oranges amongst darkness of the indoor shop. I think it's interesting that the separation of the daylight outside and dimness indoors corresponds to the separation of the person and the burger, by a pane of glass.


#2 Naoya Hatakeyama

- Slow Glass Series
















#3 Bill Jacobson

This image of a street in New York inspired me because the out-of-focus effect, caused by a diffusing lens, elicits a certain degree of impressionism and as viewers, we become enticed by the relation of fading memories in our daily lives. Jacobson used a large format camera for accuracy and focus, which seems to contradict his images; he uses blur to symbolise the insignificance of the forgotten past.

"It's all about coming together and letting go". - Bill Jacobson, 1995

In his earlier black and white days, Jacobson often photographed objects that connote isolation; there was a sense of darkness and loneliness which could be quite haunting and I think this remains in his later body of colour work also. When I look at the above image, I immediately begin to detect obscurity, as if there is something he doesn't want us to know. As he photographs this journey down the street, he emphasises that everything is a blur - people's faces, shops passed by, cars, city lights - he doesn't want to remind us of the things we've forgotten because they no longer matter. I feel like there is deeper meaning because wanting to forget something suggests a personal defect in someone's life, so I think some people will be able to relate to this.


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Colour Theory  
Colours are different wavelengths of light. When white light is shone onto the surface of an object, some of it is absorbed and some is reflected; hence when you mix all the colours together, you get white.

Reds/Oranges/Yellows: have LONGER wave lengths

Violets/Indigos/Blues: have much SHORTER wave lengths

So everyone who thinks the sea is blue is wrong. If you pick the water up, you'll notice it is actually transparent. Just like the sky is blue because of the short wavelengths during the day, but have you ever wondered why it is sometimes red, pink and orange (for example, a sunset) ? Because of an alteration in the wavelength of light.

Black is NOT a colour; it's lack of light (shade)
White is ALL colours; it's all the light

Photography is concerned with the additive primary colours (being Red, Blue, Green: RGB) because it's associated with emitted light. Equal amounts of these colours will produce white light. When mixed together, we get the additive secondary colours: Magenta, Yellow and Cyan.


Complementary Colours
Are opposite each other on the colour wheel. When adjacent to each other, there is more contrast and it gets ride of colour casts.


        RED <--------> CYAN
  YELLOW <--------> BLUE
MAGENTA <--------> GREEN

Colour is something very genderized, and most commonly associated with emotions and general things. We relate colours to the natural world, completely going against modernity.

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#4 Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg is a German photographer who's images continue to imitate the exploration of public space. I read an interview she was involved in where she states, "I'm attracted to the heimlichkeit of a space in the public. A space that allows for a moment of repose". I think this is successfully put across in her series of images; it's obvious she is engaged for long periods of time with what she is photographing and the theme of 'absense' is definitely subtly highlighted.

The above image is probably one of her most famous, being the album colour of the The Street's first album 'Original Pirate Material', she has certainly managed to gain her recognition. An article in the guardian includes her own thoughts and idea process behind the image; some of the things she says about it

• High rise blocks provide visibility
• Use only ambient light
• Sculptural quality e.g. lights break up the grid
• Some people watching TV means it becomes a living scultor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/apr/23/rut-blees-luxemburg-best-shot-photgraphy


To me, the positioning explains a great deal. The block is centralised, very linear and directly facing the viewer as if square with you; in a way it is challenging the viewer by withstanding the dominance it seems to exert. However, the warm abundance of oranges, golds and browns coexists with it's surroundings, so while it is high and mighty, it is also almost camouflaged to an extent with the backdrop. We also get the impression we are on the same level because we can see the top of the building.

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#5 David Hockney

I was recommended to look at David Hockney, in particular at this photo montage because the mentality behind it is similar to mine for my own idea. He was foremost a painter, whose style was quite animated and predominantly reflected the personal struggle in coming to terms with his sexuality. Hockney turned to photo-collage during the 80's, using a standard polaroid to snap in his much-preferred style of "through a window frame". He would photograph things quickly, often with little thought going into it, and assemble the images to recreate the scene before him.

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Illusions

"A false appearance or deceptive impression of reality" - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/illusion

I was shown a powerpoint that focused on tricks of perception which I found very interesting because it's like light is playing with our minds, yet there is nothing we can physically do about it.

Initially, the word directly corresponded to the colour it was written in. Suddenly, they were mixed, completely disrupting what we are familiar with. When I was asked, "what did you see first; the colour or the word?" I couldn't even answer. The point of this was indentify that our brains register colour much quicker than words, so quick that we don't even realise it's happening - some outlandish figure like a 10-billionth of a second.

 
I was then looking at this image of an orange square against a black background placed next to one with a white background, and asked if there was a difference. At a glance, the one with the white background seems darker but both squares are actually the same shade of orange.


This illusion was quite clever. I had to concentrate on the green oval for about 30 seconds and try to shut off everything going on around it and myself. When my eyes moved to the empy oval on the right, it was filled with a deep majenta colour. This is because when we focus our eyes on one colour, our brain blocks out it's opposite; so when out vision returns to "reality", we are overpowered by the non-absorbed complementary.


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#6 Hector Melo

I stumbled across Hector on flickr who's work was a link on another webpage. The scene is highly illuminated by the city lights, and there are obvious signs of photoshop, in the sky for example, where it doesn't blend into the background and in some way suggests it is cut off from reality. Attention to detail should be credited, as in all of his images of similar genre, he makes a point of distinctly outlining such things as the silhouette of structure against the favourable rich, dramatic assortment of blues, greens and yellows of the sky. 


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#7 Tom Howell

Tony Howell is a British landscape photographer whose typical images of the South West provide us with an almost idyllic setting that we want to see and experience for ourselves, the irony is that it is just along the coast. While he has braced a spectrum of media attention, including magazines, BBC TV and countless catalogues, newspapers and billboards across the country, I feel like his work is acheivable for anyone who knows the in's & outs of their own camera - he definitely appeared to be in the right place at the right time. Howell is highly noted for his connection with nature, evident in abstract close-ups of plants, flowers and other foliage; and whilst he continus to encourage us to interect with these surroundings, I find his deep, contrasty cityscapes and all things related more alluring - it is a particular favourite genre of mine.


The above image is somewhat fantasy-like to me. He describes:

"This was a magical still evening by the banks of the River Dart. The lower ferry was the only boat in motion, while the lights of Dartmouth reflected in streaks across the gently rippled surface of the water."

This image inspired me because it's the sort of scene I'd pictured photographing for my project in the beginning. It also proves the theory that complementary colours certainly create more contrast, which is something for me to look out for and apply to my own work. The stretch of the river bank here makes this part of Dartmouth appear bigger than it most probably is.


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My idea

This image is the base of my inspiration. Photographer, Sam Javanrouh, created this time-lapse piece using 6 photos out of several taken over a 2 hour period. The scene is of a location in Toronto and he uses a 'Pclix', allowing him to trigger the shutter at significantly shorter intervals than he could physically manage himself. I began to look at his other work on Flickr, predominantly his cityscape work where a trend became apparent. I particularly like how dramatic his images come across and I think this is due to the sky - it really does impact the way you perceive something, especially the ones that are deep, contrasty oranges, blues and greys. There is also that linear element in his images; the juxtapositions of buildings and collection of straight lines highlights the necessary contemporary, modern theme.

I want to replicate this idea, but in my own chosen location. I think that the divisions will strongly reinforce the intensities of the colours throughout the day if successful; I will just need to decide if I want to do 3 separate locations, or 1 location at different times of day.


Visual Recordings




These sketches are my intentions for the project, and important for me to refer back to should any alterations are needed to be made during the process. I'm a visual learner, so I do this a lot for general things too. I think it's essential because it acts as a guideline and should include every aspect associated with shooting for this project. As I am shooting on location, I had to consider outside aspects that had potential to impact the outcome, whether it's an enhancement or a disadvantage. Having looked at Javanrouh's image, I feel like I have assessed the timings well, although I will experiment with this - if anything goes wrong, it's a working process and I expect to undertake a couple of practice shoot to perfect the outcome/s.It's not included in the sketches, but I think it's important to mention that I'll be using great depth of field to keep everything in the image in focus, which is important because there is so much detail in the scene. I also had to choose a location where there was a still element in the frame, so the images are constant and the only changes are those occuring around this inanimate piece.


Practice Shoot 1

For my first shoot, I took a picture every 20mins for about 4 hours (16:30 - 20:30). At first, I thought it was unfortunate that I'd undertaken the practice whilst the weather was very misty outside, but the effect and mood is very interesting. Fog is a natural soft box; it diffuses light, and comes with its advantages. It tends to reduce contrast and saturation, which is noticeable the further into the distance you look. Not only that, the foreground silhouette of the houses are now strongly emphasised due to the scattered light. It looks photoshopped because the colours are so dramatically different and having spoken to a few peers and tutor, I've been advised to print these out (4 separate images) as a sub-project.


Practice Shoot 2

This shoot was a lot more successful. I'd taken a picture every 2 minutes to begin with, but then changed halfway through to every 10 minutes because it was taking me way too long. Obviously it defies consistency, but this was only a practice shoot. I like the dramatic change in the colour of the sky; it reflects Javanrouh's image well and goes to show a lot can happen in 10 minutes, which is the theory behind my idea. For my final shoot, I'm going to shoot every 5 minutes so that I can distinguish a more subtle change and have more options to choose from.


My Final

This is the contact sheet of my final shoot. I chose to do the same location at 3 different times of day, all equally apart and for an equal period of time to compare the changes with each other, and also the changes within each period. I photographed the same scene every 5 minutes for 1 and a half hours. (need to finish........)






FINAL IMAGE 1 

Time: 6:00am - 7:30am

For this shoot, I woke up at 6:00am in the morning, when it was still dark outside. I thought it was odd that the lights in the buildings remain on all through the night until morning, but the effect is quite striking. These are the 7 finals I chose to edit for my 'morning time-lapse' image, paying particular attention to the shades of blues to help me decide. They are very distinct against each other and unusual because I'd usually associate mornings with dull greys and overcast, so the result was definitely more than pleasing. I also tried to choose images that had the least blur, which I discovered can still sometimes happen with long exposures even when it's on the tripod.

The Outcome: I think the outcome is more than successful and shows the morning transition in a way that's almost unrealistic, because the blues are so dynamic. I think the spectrum of blue shades are fairly evenly separated, so when put together, it looks like the time differences between them are even - even though they're not. Unlike my practice shoot, I made sure the strips and elements in the frame were lined up accordingly and in relation to each other so we get constant lines running through the entire image.

FINAL IMAGE 2

Time: 11:00am - 12:30pm
These 7 images for my 'afternoon time-lapse' proved more than difficult to show variation over midday because they are more or less the same - apart from halfway through the shoot when it started raining. We can see which ones these are because the image is more dull and saturated. I think it's good to keep this as a final though because I did state in my plan that weather could impact the result, so I want to use this as evidence of this. As they were very similar, it was hard to choose the better quality ones and as it got closer to midday there was more light, so some detail was lost. Only in the first image, for example, do we see any tonal range in the sky.

The Outcome: is ok, quite dramatically different from the other 2 finals because light is consistent during the peak of day. There are a few faults with this, most noticeably in the third strip, where the sea seems to have risen. However it lines up where the buildings are concerned so my only explanation for this is the amount of light. The overall sense of the image is quite dark and depressed, in fact it contradicts our common conception of daytime being the brightest time of day - not taking into account of course that it is winter time, thus gloomier days are expected. A fellow peer commented on how white the sky was, but I couldn't do anything about this because you can't make white darker, you can only make shades lighter. I think it is because the aperture may have been set on F4 for some of them, one of the widest apertures which may explain the exceedingly high level of light. Despite this, there are good aspects like the vast shadows created and a certain cubic style can be taken from it.




FINAL IMAGE 3



Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm
During the winter, this is the time where the day tends to start dying down, but as soon as it gets to night time the town livens up, and I think this has been captured well. In contrast to the morning images, I've opted for these 7 for the much more subtle changes in colour, with the two extremes being at either end. Again, I tried to pick ones with the least amount of blur, which was unavoidable, for instance, in the middle one with the wheel because it was moving.

The Outcome: came out really well and illustrates the mirror image of the morning time-lapse, thus introducing us to the daily cycle. I feel like it's more gradual in the beginning and it looks like the fourth and fifth strip and meant to be the way around so as the colours match up, but this is an actual depiction of the sky changing colours unexpectedly. (need to finish.......)






Overall, I'm very happy with the final images because I managed to recreate my initial influence and have my own rendition to represent my theme of time-lapse. The timings were all kept the same, with 5-minute-intervals and 7 days of the weeks having obvious relevance. I think I've managed to emphasise the use of contemporary colour photography well, even if the quality is questionable - and this is because I didn't change my camera settings to RAW, so they have been edited in the form of JPEGs. Whilst they will suffice, when enlarged there will be loss of detail and some pixelation or graininess, so I think it would be a good idea to re-shoot in RAW. I also think it will be good to revisit this project idea at some other point in the year and see how it differs.


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The Exhibitions
On 24th November 2011, we took a trip up to London to visit 4 exhibitions which link to our colour project. Overall the experience was good, some work more intriguing than others but undeniably all were great examples of the use of colour photographically in contemporary society. Whilst on the trip, we had the task of identifying one piece of work from each of the exhibits to further our research on. We were given the following things to think about:

• Describe the purpose of the work
• Does it remind you of any other photographs you have seen before?
• How will it influence and give direction to your own work?
• Who is the intended audience?
• Who made the photograph?
• In what year was it created?
• What genre does it fall into?
• Is it Colour or Black & White?
• Is it a digital or film image?
• What format is it? (i.e. 35mm/120mm/5x4/Polaroid/Other)

[1] Dazed & Confused, Somerset House

Exposing the magazine's most infamous visual stories, it utilizes "underground style and counterculture", and we gain insight to inclusive photoshoots and iconic covers that brand Dazed & Confused as the utmost of contemporary popular culture today. Collaborated by Jefferson Hack and Emma Reeves, this exhibition features incredible photography by Nick Knight, Rankin and Terry Richardson.

[2] Amazon, Somerset House
An exhibition in aid of Sky Rainforest Rescue with photographs by Sebastio Salgado and Per-Anders Petterson.

http://rainforestrescue.sky.com/our-campaign/news-items/amazon-exhibition-launched
http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/amazon

[3] Taylor Wessing, National Portrait Gallery