There are 4 main titles that need to be explored:
1. A Familiar Place that is significant or important to you
2. The City or Urban Sprawl
3. Wilderness or Countryside
4. The Alien or Foreign Environment
I have a number of ideas which I wish to explore. I also want to experiment with each title before choosing one to commit fully to an end project.
I also wish to experiment with different formats of camera whether that be digital or silverprint processes, to examine which process is best for which situation.
To get the creative juices going I produced a mind map:
Some of the ideas to date:
1. A Familiar Place
Idea 1. My wife's grandfather used to run a theatrical boarding house in Blackburn along with treading the boards himself. Her father and uncle both performed all around Lancashire as well. This gave me an idea of finding all the old cinemas and theatre buildings in Blackburn showing the use of said buildings now.
Idea 2. My second idea is to take a series of images of all the homes I've lived in or that were important to me. The big influence for this work is Bernd and Hilla Becher. They developed a style of seeing the beauty in the ordinary. They are famous for taking images of subjects that include water towers and gas holders. They used a plate camera 5 by 7 inches. For this project I would use large format 5 x 4 choosing grey overcast days to re create the style and feel of the Bechers.
Idea 3. The Little book of Mishaps & Naughtiness: Taking inspiration from Sophie Calle's book 'Appointment'. On my first reading of this book I thought it was a little strange and did wonder why it had been included on the course reading list. However, I change my mind on the second reading. I thought it was a clever way to combine images with written word.
The title of this project sums up my teenage years in my home town of Worcester. Like any other kid growing up in the 70's and early 80's, I had my fair share of mishaps and touches of naughtiness. My idea is to symbolise certain events that happened to me at this time. This would be done in the studio to represent times and place in the past. Hey its my interpretation!!
The way in which I would take this images would be in the style of Karl Blossfeldt. Very simplified forms, neutral backgrounds:
2. The City or Urban Sprawl
Idea 1. I want to visit Manchester & Salford, being a bigger urban sprawl than Blackburn. I am interested in looking for colour, form and shape within this landscape. Influences from the art world are the Cubists, artist such as Braque and Modrian.
Influence from the world of photography is William Eggleston. I have started to appreciate the way Eggleston is so good at capturing colour in his compositions. His use of perspective is very clever too. He brakes all the rules but produces stunning photography:
Idea 2. I am fascinated the way a building can change its character when its covered by scaffolding. Any building transforms from ugliness into intricate shapes and form. A serious of buildings captured in monotone by either large or medium format I believe would make for a fascinating collection. The influence would be of course the Bechers - who else!!
3. Wilderness or Countryside
Idea 1. An area I visit annually on a regular basis is Bala in North Wales. This is an area of outstanding beauty but does not get the recognition as other mountainous regions such as the Lakes. My idea is to produce a serious of images that promote this region and shows what it has to offer. All camera formats could be used to help with this project. Large format and Medium format for large impressive landscapes to DSLR for village life. I'm sill researching artists and photographers for influences.
4. The Alien or Foreign Environment
Idea 1. There are 47 Mosques in Blackburn. Using the influences of the Bechers, I thought it would make an interesting serious to photograph all 47. Again, this is to breakdown barriers and see the beauty in buildings that are alien to me. By photographing and researching this subject matter, I would be able to learn about a topic I know little about.
Idea 2. Carrying on the Asian theme, I would like to take the colour and imagery of Asian grocery stores. Influence for this serious would be a student of the Bechers, Andreas Gursky. He is another photographer who can see beauty in the mundane.
5. Spooks Apprentice - by Joseph Delaney:
The final idea is to produce a series of images that fulfill each of the 4 categories that have been influenced by a serious of books.
The Spooks Apprentice is for readers who have out grown Harry Potter. The author has described and based many of the locations in his books on real places in Lancashire:
He describes two cities Priestown & Casters which are Preston and Lancaster respectively. The wild moors of Anglezarke which can be found just above Rivington. My idea is to create images based on the authors description of places. Using DSLR to capture these images and manipulating in photoshop to create the eeriness portrayed by these books.
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