My personal investigation is: to create a visual record of the different types of British culture in Britain and the different activities that consist in peoples lives in different parts of Britain. The investigation will explore "British Culture" which will show urban landscapes, sea side towns and countryside landscapes.
Background
I've decided that I would like to focus on landscape photography mainly but I also want to incorporate the activities that go on in the different locations I am going to explore. I plan to travel to different places around the UK, for example I want to travel to Southend to photograph a seaside town and also capture London life by visiting places like Shoreditch and Oxford Street. Unfortunately, I am not going on holiday this year so I have to stick to British Culture in the UK.
I'd like to being this subject by shooting "typical British life in seaside towns". I want to photograph what normal British citizens do in seaside towns and the life of people who live in these seaside towns. I think this is a good starting plan because I will have enough time over the holiday to capture seaside towns which are quite far away from where I live. This will also be a good starting point because I can spend the first few lessons I have editing and writing up the images that I have taken.
Photographers Research
I have researched different styles of photography that may influence my work and researched the photographers that may also influence my work. I think Martin Parr will influence my work as he took images of the stereotypical life in a seaside town, his work is very colourful and saturated which grabs my attention, I want my work to be similar to this. I have also researched the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, I like to use his ideas in my work because of his decisive moment. The decisive moment technique is useful in my work as when I am taking pictures I have to decide the right moment to take these images. Lee Friedlander's work will also benefit mine as it shows a lot of street photography which is what I am mainly interested in as a lot of the places I hope to take photographs consist mainly of streets. Also, Bruce Davidson is another photographer that I have already researched who will influence my work extremely because he photographs more urban landscapes which is the main areas I am interested in and I like to photograph. I am mainly interested in street photography and street photographers because I like the way that these images re portrayed and the way they are taken.
I plan to approach this project by photographing people as well as their activities because I believe this will send the message I want to get across easily as my work will be about the lives of people across the UK. I will also take images of landmarks and famous places as this will help document the UK better and help show the types of places we live in and around.
Illustrations
Whilst researching photographers, I came across a few photographs that have also influenced me as well, such as the images below:
In this image we can see a man eating the stereotypical seaside cuisine, beans and chips, the image is very saturated and Parr has cropped this image so that we are only focused on what the man is doing rather than him himself. This is one of many images that were taken by Martin Parr during his Think of England shoot. This image has influenced my work because it shows the stereotypical cuisine that is eaten by the British at the seaside. The way that Parr has photographed this is interesting because he has focused on the hand rather than the food. Throughout his shoot he looks down on the British people, there are aspects of this in this image as he has focused on the ring which shows that he is mocking the ring as it looks cheap and tacky. The main thing about Martin Parr that has interested me is the way he edits his images and saturated them as it draws us in because of the colours.
This is one of the many street photography images taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in the streets of France. This image has influenced my work because it shows the immediate reaction people have when it is raining by getting out their umbrellas. In this image we can see two men standing with their umbrellas and in the depths of the image we can see other people walking. These men may be considered as richer men because they look like they are wearing suits, the way they are standing shows that they are judging the people in front of them walking. The people that are in the background do not have umbrellas so they could be considered as poorer people. Cartier-Bresson takes his images handheld we can see that within this image because the image isn't entirely straight however, taking the image handheld enables Cartier-Bresson to capture the moments as they are happening. Henri Cartier-Bresson contributes the decisive moment, this image was taken at a decisive moment because he would've had to time the image right to enable him to capture it in this way. The decisive moment is the main thing that interests me because he takes images at the right time to capture them in this way.
This image was taken by Lee Friedlander, it was taken from his car window which we can see because we can see the steering wheel and the windscreen pillar. Through the window we can see an image of a car on a pole in the sky which we may associate with a drive-in or a petrol station. Although this is taken differently to how people would normally take images I think his technique is interesting because it captures important aspects of America in a a more interesting way. The message in this image is showing American culture because we associate America with gas stations and drive-in cinemas. This image has influenced my ideas on my shoots because Lee Friedlander aimed to document American culture but he does it in a different way than we would normally assume. I like the idea that Friedlander has expressed in this image because it shows that whatever way you look at something it can still be considered as beautiful. Although I might not use this exact idea in my work it has opened up my understanding about the ways I can produce an image.
This image was taken by Paolo Pellegrin. In this image we can see a building from a different angle than we would normally be used to. At first glance people may mistake this image as something else but when you concentrate on the image you can see it is a building. The image shows an element of abstractness within it because it doesn't immediately look like a building. The building is shaped similar to a 2D arrow pointing towards the sky. I think the idea behind this image was to document buildings in an abstract way as this image can be mistaken for something else. In Pellegrin's work he takes images of objects in different ways which has influenced my work. Although I may not take photographs like this in my work it has opened my eyes up to the different ways that an image can be taken and made to look like something else.
Techniques
The techniques I intend to explore as part of the project are:
Motion blur, animated gif,, black and
white, colour saturation (Martin Parr) and shallow depth of field, I will also
explore computer experiments and physical images.
