'no bed to lie on, she slept in the ashes on the hearth'

'Cut off your toe'

Robert Morgan

Summer Work

Raw Meat and Hearts = Dinner Time

Summer work experimenting with grim ideas!

and my final year begins...

Creating Grim Fairytales...

Funny sky broadband advert I saw over summer... Princess and The Pea - purely for research on props and setting.

EVALUATION

EVALUATION
From the research project I have developed my idea of taking my transitional space of my mind further. In the negotiated project I first decided to stick with stills rather than video because I could achieve more effective images and a variety of ideas within my depression theme.
To carry on the theme but narrow it down and refine it I wanted to focus on exposing and expressing my feeling of having a tight layer around me or a force that is invisible. I wanted to make this visible. Through my research I looked back at the photo shoots I had done and the photographers and artists I had looked at. Using this inspiration I followed my idea of being suffocated/claustrophobic. I created several shoots, some that didn’t work so well... my cling film and tape shoot that followed on from my mini video in the research project. I decided to work with more significant locations and concentrating back to the idea of having a grotty and gritty background or idea so that the viewer has no comfort in viewing any of the photographs.
For my final shoots I decided to have 4 shoots with 4 different ideas surrounding my same theme but taking it to the extreme...bandaged, hung, drowning and stuck. Overall my project has come out really well; I feel I have successfully achieved what I set out to do I have achieved a higher understanding of presentation and I have improved my technical skills. Highs and lows I got through the project, because I chose such a personal project I defiantly found it draining and exhausting but I put all my effort and passion into it. The final photographs work really well but I think if I were to improve anything I would maybe shoot some more ideas to have a bigger larger body of work if I were to be exhibiting my work.
I have discovered that I set myself very high tasks and I can’t always meet my own targets and standards, in this project I have learned to take a step back and look at my whole idea and everything all together before I rush into anything or start panicking about things and to critically evaluate my work and develop different concepts to my work.

FINAL IMAGES AND LAYOUT

This is my plan for roughly how my images would be laid out if I were to exhibit them on white walls.
Wall 1

Wall 2.

Wall 3.

Wall 4.

Through my research at the Tate modern of presentation I came up with this being my most succesful was for presenting my work, simple but effective.

FINAL SHOOT - WATER

This is my final reshoot of the bath photographs. This time i used a deeper bath and filled it as much as i could with water, i opened the curtains of the window by the bath to get light reflections on top of the water. These all work really well. I want to use the bottom two photographs in my final set of photos.

FINAL SHOOT - BANDAGED

Taking my idea of cling film, tape and bandages further i wanted my final images to be bandages to signify pain and to seem uncomfortable. I wanted them to be dirty rather than clean and soft i wanted them to be itchy and dirty. These are 4 of my final images i will be using as they are all really strong. I used inspiration from the postcards i picked up at the tate modern for my poses, i again edited them to make them gritty and grainy.

FINAL SHOOT - HUNG

From my previous research and experimental shoot -twine, i wanted to carry on the idea of hanging myself but this time completely being lifted off the floor... more painful than i thought it would be! I love how these photographs have come out, i have edited them to look gritty and dark and i plan to use the top two photos in my final images.

PROJECTION SHOOT

Postcards from Tate Modern

I found these postcards in the Tate Modern shop, I am using them as inspiration for my poses/positions in my photographs.

KIKI SMITH - untitled 1995

KIKI SMITH - SUENO 1992

DWAYNE SHIRLEY - THIS IS LONDON 2008

Marcel Van Der Vlugt

Bandaged
PHOTOGRAPHER - MARCEL VAN DER VLUGT

When I did my cling film and tape shoot the idea came to my head of other things I could wrap myself up in. Searched for bandages and found these photographs by Marcel Van Der Vlugt i love this idea and I am going to use this idea for one of my final shoots to contrast with the cling film and tape.

Making the invisible wrap around me visible.

CLING FILM SHOOT rough edits

These are my selected favourites roughly edited. I think they work well and create the atmosphere and feeling I wanted to achieve. I have found that the photographs without my head in seem to work better than the decapitated looking ones as you could still see my face and my identity.

Cling Film Shoot Plan

For my cling film shoot to re-experiment with the idea I used in my mini video I am going to combine cling film and black tape to create a wrap around myself, wrapping every limb separately but tight to keep the uncomfortable feeling. I am going to use a black background which I will be lying down on and moving around making different shapes and positions.

Twine 2 experiment

This is my experiment with my re-make and re-master of my twine shoot from my previous experimentation. I need more rope and twine so I can completely suspend myself off the floor. I would also be wearing my black top and black opaque tights still. I want to encorporate dirty skin like in David Sim's photographs I have researched. Same location as last time.

Elliot Lee Hazel

PHOTOGRAPHER - ELLIOT LEE HAZEL

going back to my idea of using white and black I searched through some more magazines and found this image by Elliot Lee Hazel. Love everything being white but it adds more of an innocence to the photographs than what I really want. Love the angle though. With my final twine shoot I might experiment with more angles that I normally do purely because I am taking them of myself and it is convenient to keep to the same set up. BUT I want to push these boundaries...

SHOOT 4 - SKIN AND GLASS

SHOOT 4 - SKIN AND GLASS
A few edited images from shoot 4...

IDEA Shoot 4 - skin and glass

FINAL IDEA FOR SHOOT 4
SKIN AND GLASS
I plan to take photographs of myself in my underwear pressed up against my shower door.. this is the largest area of clear glass/plastic in my house so im having to make do! In my final photos I will have tight shots of my skin to emphasise a small area and being boxed into a small clear cube... the invisible constriction in my mind.

Zana Bayne

PHOTOGRAPHER - ZANA BAYNE

Found this image on google when browsing and loved it. The tightness and confinedness and the thought of how uncomfortable it must be... this is what I am doing for my photoshoot next... black tape and cling film.

The Face Magazine

THE FACE MAGAZINE - unknown photographer

Looking for further inspiration on my twine photoshoot I found this image in a magazine that I had already torn pages from.. so I do not know the photographers name. I love the silhouette idea, which I had earlier on in the porject so I might go back to that idea and experiment with that again. And further experiment with suspending and hanging myself from something.

David James

PHOTOGRAPHER - DAVID JAMES

From looking at the previous image by Francesca Woodman I have searched for further inspiration on the idea... a friend suggested this photographer jsut generally for my research and I came across this photograph. I love this idea of skin up against glass. I am going to explore this in a shoot as well. The challenge being getting no reflection and keeping it so it fits in with my theme and ideas well.