Stephen Gill Field work (In School)

For the Stephen Gill field work for in school, I wanted to take photos of peoples diary's. I wanted to do diary's because I was thinking about it, and most of the time if you look at someones books and see how they treat them can a lot of the time reflect on what they are like as a person. For example, if someone always kept there diary's up to scratch and nice and clean then they would probably be a very organised person and were the type of people who didn't say much, and if someones diary was quite messy with lots of paper and doodles on it, then that person would probably be quite scruffy and bit less organised. But what I did find was that all the people who had diary's with a lot of colorful doodles and things that they had stuck in, there normally quite a bubbly and friendly character. 

Although I did do everything that I wanted to do, because it is still quite close to the beginning of the year, most of the ones that i did take photographs of were still quite clean and in a descent state because the people owning them hadn't had the time to scribble in them or decorate them.

Sohpie Calle Project

From inspiration from one of Sophie Calle's pieces of work called 'The Shadow', I decided to go out around where I live and take photos of places that have some type of personal meaning to me alone. 



This was the first place I learnt to ride my bike
with out stabilises. 



This was my pre-school.

This was my Primary school.

This is one of the many trees that me and my friends
liked to clime when walking home from primary school
but would almost always with someone getting very wet and muddy. 

This was some random in closed wooded area that we found and called 'The Den'.
There was always a rumor that there was a homeless person living there, but we never found anything.

This was the first place that i caught my own fish with my Grand-dad. 

My Grand parents house was quite an important place for me during primary
 school  and the first couple of year at secondary school because
my parents both work full times so me and my younger sister would have
to go there after school and they would give us tea and we would stay there until
my parents got off work.

Me and my sister always loved going to there house though because they would
always know just how to treat us by taking us to places like McDonald
and then beach and by giving us lots of sweets, ice cream and  biscuit as seen here was the 'biscuit jar'.

Even though we still do like to visit them, because we have both started secondary school,
 me and my sister don't see  as much of them as we did when we saw them nearly ever day,
 so now all of my Grans cupboards are still filled with biscuits and loads of toppings that we would like
 to put on our ice creams, normally a bit too much.

This is the church that my Grandparents go to and we would go help out at
when ever it was a teacher training day and we were with them,
but we would always go to get a drink and something nice to eat when we went there with them.

This is one of my most favorite places to go after school because they did really nice
hot chocolates, it was right next to the beach, and just around the corner from my school and my Grandparents
house so it was always really easy to get to. 

This is the tennis club that i did when i was younger for about 2 years.

This is the newsagent that me and my friends go to almost every weekend
to buy a ton of sweets.

And this was the first places that i got proper told of and shouted at
for skateboarding there.

In a way this could also be linked and inspired by Stephen Gill as well because i was taking photos of just ordinary things and places, but because that place has a much bigger meaning to me, it makes the photo have a lot more value.

This is a video of a guy that i like to watch on YouTube and he has gone back to his hometown and has done a very similar thing to what i was doing here as well.

Stephen Gill

Stephen Gill was born in Bristol in 1971. He was introduced to photography at a very early age by his dad and was interested in photographing in birds, animals and music.He is now living in Hackney, London, and does very fieldwork art, he had won over 20 awards to do with photography, and has done just under 40 exhibition exhibited with his work.

Off Ground

Most of his work is very quite in the way that you can imagine him, for example,  just going out at the end of a big event and just be that one man taking random and plain photos, and that is what he does in a project called 'Off Ground' where he went out after the riot and photographed piece of rubble and brick individually, so he was not getting lots of people involved helping him going out to do this very big piece of art, instead he did it alone and just collected the bits of brick and then took photos of them on a black and white back round one by on

This is an example of one of the bricks that he took a photographed.

This work is could be look on to be very boring, just taking photographs of some bricks, but it makes it much more interesting, and gives a lot more value when it has something to do with such a big event in London and that changes the way that you could look on it. I feel really interested in this type of quite and solo work because he is portraying this event just in a very different way and using in inanimate object to tell the story.

Covered or Removed

Another project he did was also very simple, but had a lot of meaning just portrayed in a different way was called 'Covered or Removed' and the title is almost like a rhetorical question. His idea was that because of where he lived was in London, there was a lot of graffiti and the council would have sent people to go out and paint over the graffiti to try and get rid of it and remove it, but then he started to think about are we really removing it, or just doing more graffiti over the original graffiti.

It's interesting because the more you look at Stephen Gill's work, you realise that he has a very different, but very clever way of thinking, and showing what he wants to photograph and I like the way that he is quite suttle in what and the way he goes out and photographs the ordinary, and makes it interesting.

Bill Boards

Bill Boards is a range of photographs that are of bill boards, but not the way you think it would be photographed. Stephen goes out and take photos of the back of the bill boards, not the front where most     people would look and the information that the board would be presenting is. 

When doing this, what he is doing is taking everyday things just on the side of streets, but looking at them in a different views, not the way we are meant to see them. It also gives it another view in the sense that the front is made to look good and attractive to the eye, whilst the back is much more boring and dull with just some metal and planks of wood to hold it up, even though it is just as important as the front because that is what supports it and structures the whole board.

Outside In

This was a very interesting project because Stephen Gill is taking, for example, the visual element of texture to a whole new level by actually putting a 3D object inside the photo. What he did was go to Brighton with an old fashioned box camera and pick up things from where ever he was and put them in the actual box of the camera so that when he took the photo of where he got the objects they would get in the way of the light coming into the photo and appear as if the objects where just placed on top of the photo. 

                                                                                                                                                   

           

You can tell that this is one of Stephen Gill's ways of thinking, because he isn't just taking a photo of the people and things around Briton, but the simple things that he found around on the floor. It also gives quite a quirky feel to it because you know that what ever is in the camera shouldn't be in there, but then it also gives it demotions and texture.

A Series of Disappointments

This was where he went to a betting parlor and took out the betting slips of people who had lost, screwed up and thrown in the bin in either anger, frustration, or disappointment.

Looking at the differences between the ways that they have been discarded, you could possibly tell a lot from just the way that they took there emotions out of this little bit of paper. For example, the simple once that have been screwed into a ball would have probably been out of anger because it is just a quick way to get rid of it, bet the ones that are a little more creative and you can tell that it has taken someone some time to do so might have been more to do with the disappointment of things because maybe the only reasons that they are betting in the first place was because they don't have anything else to do and now that they have just lost and wasted how ever much money, they would be a bit startled and now don't have anything to do again.

Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is a French artist who is very destined in her work because she seems to do art work around other peoples privet life, and has got her self in to quite so trouble doing so. After she left school, she spent seven years of traveling, and after returned to Paris and started her work about the city people and there life's. This is where most of the imspuration from her current work comes from, and what she mostly bases her work around.

Take Care of Yourself 

One of her most famous project is called 'Take Care Of Your Self' and it was about how Sophie's boyfriend dumps her by email and she takes the email and sends it to 107 different professional women and used the email in there job to use in her exhibition, for example; she sent it to be made into a cross word, it was shot by a marks- women, turned into a dance, acted out by an actress, and evaluated by a judge. The project was called 'Take Care Of Your Self' because that is how her boyfriend ended the email.

Crossword

Dance

I seem to really like this type of art because the whole thing is to do with an actually  life event, and then sending the message to people and them involving it with there work and then putting all of what they did to it back into one exhibition. I think the reason that she did this is because she works around peoples life but this one is involving not just her own life, but over hundred other women's life as well, and she might have been trying to get back at her ex as well.

The Blind

Another big project that she did was called 'The Blind', and this was where she got 22 blind people and asked them what they thought the definition of beauty was, and then went to photograph what they say and then put what the blind people actually said. One of them said, on the Musee Rodin, there is a sculpture of a naked women, and this person knew what the women looked like because she had used her hands to make a picture in her mind. She said, 'In the Rodin Museum, there is a naked women with very erotic breasts and a terrific ass. She is sweet, she is beautiful.'

I also like this project because it's interesting to think about what blind people think is ugly, or colorful, and if they have an imagination, and it makes you think about how lucky you are to be able to see something that is quite ordinary and everyday, but someone who has never seen it would think that it was the definition of something because it must be that good.

The Shadow

Sophie also did something called 'The Shadow' and this was where she paid someone to follow her around for a day so that she could go to memorable places privately to her, and the investigator take photos of her in that place and then he would document about what he thought of the place. For example, she went to the park where she had her first kiss and that would have been a special place to her, but for in investigator, it was just an ordinary park, and it's not that the park is important to Sophie, it's the meaning and what happened there.

I like the idea of this because, there could be two people looking, and at the same place, but it could be more important to one person than the other, and that is because of personal experience, and i like how that can change something for only you personally.

The Hotel

She also did a project where she got a job as a chambermaid at a French hotel and took photos of the peoples in the hotels posietions, there luggage, the bed before it had been made, any other objects that they had left in the room, and other day to day objects that could possibly tell what the people who were staying in the room where like. It took her just under two years to complete and finalize the whole thing, " For the Hotel I spent one year to find the hotel i would use, I spent three month going thought the text and writing it, three month going through the photographs and one day deciding on what size and frame i would use."

Exploration and Discovery

Exploration- An act of exploring, investigating, or examination of unknown reigns.

Exploration can be used and have different aspects in what subject you are using it in, but most people would associate the word with someone going out into a unfamiliar place and getting new knowledge from what they find, but that could also link that description with discovery as well. Even thought that is the basic way of describing what exploration means, it could also be used in the same way but in a context way, so you would be exploring a book because you haven't read it before and your getting the information the book has to offer. Or studying something like the brain and when you explore in new places, you are bound to discover, and this is where the link between the the words become.

Discovery- To be the first person of your kind/ group to find, learn or observe something unknown and take knowledge from this new 'Discovery'.
The two words link together so well because that is the reason that you explore and it is it discover.
Theses are some photos that I think have something to do with discovery.

When doing photography, one of the first things you will discover is your camera and what it can do such as all the settings and the things that make taking the photo that you exactly want much easier. Here is a photo that labels all of the settings and features of my camera:

As you can see it is a fairly simple DSLR, but does have some special features that not all of its kind would have. Firstly, one of the main extra things on this model is that it can record in 'AVC HD' and also take ordinary still motion photos. And also it has a touch screen that can also flip out to different angles, so for ex sample, when taking a photos of something higher up, you can hold the camera up and twist the screen down so you just have to look up with out needed to get on a higher ground to look at what your taking a photo of. Likewise, if your taking a photo of something on the ground or lower down, you don't need to actually get on the ground and lie down when taking it just twist the screen up and look down on to the screen.

On the top of the camera you have the pop up flash, the top of the view finder, and a place to attach an exstened flash and microphone. On the right hand side we have the shutter, the motion picture recording button, 'auto intelligence setting', and the mode dial where you can change the main amount of settings.

On the dial there is on 'on and off' switch, and then a multiply switch that can rotate from 'single photo', 'burst mode', auto brackets', and 'timer'. Then on the actually round dial, there are 13 different settings of your choose. The most common one and simple one is the 'P' setting and that stands for 'Program' and that means that it sets the shutters speed and the aperture by it's self, but it is different to the auto setting because you can change the focus and where the main focus will be unlike the auto setting. The other two settings stand for 'Aputure' and 'Shutter speed' and in those settings you can manually change the shutter speed or the aperture value depending on which one your on, but it will automatically set an average of the setting that your not manually adjusting. the last one in the white ring is M and that stands for 'Manual' and this is where the camera just takes the photo with out adjusting anything its self, so it is where you can set the shutter speed and the aperture value your self exactly how your want it. Then going up from the manual setting, the is 'Cust' which is custom setting where you can choose the type of settings that you might use quite a lot and keeps those settings so you don't have to go on manual and change them if that is the type of settings that you use the most. Then we have the 'Motion Picture' setting which is were you can change all the recording settings, then 'SCN' setting which is set for taking a photo of a landscape scene picture, then there is face recognition where you can registers peoples faces and the camera will remember the face and name who ever you have register if you take a photo of them, then there is the 'Micro setting' which is used for taking photos of something small and close up, then there is 'sport made' and this is where the camera will make the shutter speed just right for a fast moving object so that it will have the right amount of light, but also be a very sharp photo, then there is land scape for taking photos of a large landscape picture, then portrait which is for taking close up photos of peoples faces and that can work in unison with face recondition as well, and Finlay, there is 'custom colour' and that is where you can change there colour settings, the brightness, the contrast and how much colour is actully  the photo.

Shutter Speed and Aperture

Shutter Speed

Changing the shutter speed on a photo can really change the out come of the photo dramatically, and knowing how to yous it with all the other settings will make it look even better. The way shutter speed works is that it controls the amount of time that the shutter is open for, there for the amount of light that comes into the lences and makes the photos lighter. If you have a low shutter speed, then the shutter is only going to be open a short time, likewise, if its high, then the shutter will be open for a long period of time. Also changing those settings will change the sharpness of the photos, for instance, if the shutter is on a high setting, the shutter is goning to be open for a longer time, and if the camera moves of shakes even a tiny bit, then the photo will be blurred becasue the shutter will be open and it will start capuring what your taking a photo of at a different angle and the two angles will be murged together.

This is an experiment that I did using a dark room, a bright light, and a long shutter speed. As long as i stood really still, and only moved the light, then the backround would be nice and sharp and it would leave a clear trail where the light was.

I also did this thign quite a while ago where it was just starting to get dark and i set my camera on a shutter time that only lasted for a couple of seconds, and a high aperture vale. Even though the shutter was not open for a long peroid of time, it was enough time that the camera could capture something going at alittle bit of speed, and get a slight trail from where they have been. Then i gave the camera to some of my friends and didnt change the setting so that all the photos would have had the same effect, but even though i did not take all of the following photos, I changed it to the sutible setting and it was just abit different and made the photo look better than it would have it it was just a normal picture with a low shutter speed.

 Also a thing that I know about shutter speed is this type of photo because i have seen alot of these photos and i wanted to have a go. so i set up a tripod and in the road behind my house, and just had to wait for a car to come and then take the photo, and because the shutter speed will be open, it will caputure the bright part of the car which was the lights and showed which way the lights went. The shutter was only on for about 5 seconds and I needed to do it in the dark to get a good balacne of light. I did try doing it with acouple of cars but on a shutter speed for about 10 seconds, but it just made the back round really bright and the lights from the car where a bit blurred.

Aperture

The aperture is how much the shutter is open, so if it was a high aperture value, then the hole would be open more than if it was on a low aperture. Having a bigger aperture will effect the lighting of the photo, and the amount of photo that will be sharp and in focus. This was and experiment that I did using the aperture setting on my camera with candles.

For this photo i had it on the lowest aperture level
so it only had a short depth of field
 and focused and sharpened the closets candle.

This one was on just under half of my shutter setting and you
 should be able to tell that now not only the first candle
is in focus, but also the second one.

Even though there is only a slight change in the photos, if you compare
 the first and last photo that i took, then you can defiantly tell that
 there is a difference  in the depth of field.

This is the last photo that I took  and it was on the highest
 aperture setting so there would be a big depth of field meaning that the
camera shouldn't be focused on a certain spot in where ever you are
taking the photo.