03: Floors, walls & ceilings
Some photographers have chosen to direct their attention down at floors, straight ahead at walls or upwards towards ceilings. In his project Art School, Paul Winstanley has recorded the structure and lighting of walls and ceilings in empty art studio spaces. In the project Supervisions by Andreas Gefeller, a wide variety of both ceilings and floors have been recorded in detail, often using collage techniques. In many of the photographs by Helen Levitt, drawings on walls, objects on pavements and the design of awnings provide distinctive elements in her observations of daily activity. Investigate appropriate sources and produce your own response to Floors, walls and ceilings.
Joachim Brohm
This is Joachim Brohm, an artist and professor of photography living and working in the city of Leipzig in Germany.
Since the 1980s his photography has been based around the structures of urban development and suburban periphery, this includes the aspects of architecture and mobility. During his long-term projects he created archives which were about places and edges, this was in revelation to the transformation of powers of urban and economic developments. Part of his creative process is to work with the archives, and his take on how they can are can be displayed through exhibiting and publishing.
Since the 1980s his photography has been based around the structures of urban development and suburban periphery, this includes the aspects of architecture and mobility. During his long-term projects he created archives which were about places and edges, this was in revelation to the transformation of powers of urban and economic developments. Part of his creative process is to work with the archives, and his take on how they can are can be displayed through exhibiting and publishing.
Areal
This project by Joachim Brohm, is about looking at different places over a length of time, capturing the world, straight forward, looking up and looking down. I was introduced to this project, and decided to research more into what this photographer has done and look at how I could incorporate his ideas and create my own work.
These images are examples of the each angle of looking at the world, from looking down, looking forward and looking up. Within all of these images I have found that there is a lot of different ways of capturing the time that the images were taken, from the time stamp on the right hand image, to capturing the cars in the other two. by capturing the cars it dates the images which looking back on them down the line, it will show the time that the images were taken.
This is my favourite image from Brohm's Areal project. This image really stood out to me as, the it is framed to highlight something which isn't in the centre of the frame, which makes us as the viewer have to look further into the image to see what the photographer wants us to see. I also like the idea that the image is looking down onto the subjected area of the image, instead of looking at a usual angle, we see the subject from a higher angle giving us context to what is surrounding the area. I also saw that there is a reflection from the blue tiles, reflecting onto some of the image that we cant see from framed image, looking further into the surrounding area of the framed image.
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My Responses
hThis shoot was done spontaneously while walking home from school, I decided to take a series of images that caught my eye, while having the thought of floors, walls and ceilings and Brohms work in mind. I really like how I looked at shadows in the third one, looking behind something to see something beyond that as well. And also the images of the sky, which i linked to the ceiling sort of concept thinking of the different angles they entail.
Helen Levitt: In The Street
One of the most influential avenue photographers of the twentieth Century, Helen Levitt spent many years documenting neighbourhood communities in her native New York, taking pictures every day town existence in neighbourhoods such as the Lower East Side, Bronx, and Spanish Harlem. Working from the Thirties via the 1990s, Levitt produced a considerable physique of work consisting of a range of initiatives and mediums, from images to artist books and was once an early proponent of avant-garde filmmaking. From her early photos of chalk drawings, to pics of New York subway passengers and vivid colour photography, this retrospective brings collectively key works from throughout her lifetime.
This is one of my favourite images that Helen Levitt has taken within this exaction. This image stood out to me from the rest of them as through the floors, walls and ceilings, this image fits into the concept of floors, where the subject of the image is on the floor. This image also caught my attention as there is a child within the image, which is also something which i found really interesting how she captures the life of children throughout her work, looking at how they act and the different things that they can get away with doing as children.
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This is one of my favourite images that Helen Levitt has taken in this exaction. This image really stood out to me as I really like the way that this photograph has been framed. Capturing the two kids, showing the kind of location that they are in and also the posture of which they both stand. The way she has captured the reflection throughout the window shows us as the viewer a little glimpse of what they are seeing and where the rest of the location is based, just from a little bit of reflection.
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I found this interview about this exaction so I decided to watch it to learn more about the exaction and how the inspiration for her images came about:
After watching this interview I found out that not only was Helen known for being a photographer, she was also known for being a filmmaker, and from the words of the interviewee 'To see her only as a photographer, in my opinion, is very restrictive'. Through listening to these words I can really see how she is so much bigger than just her photography and so see her work and to know this about her now, makes me see how she used all of her different skills into her photography, which makes her work much more unique to other photographers of her time. I really like the way that she make her images as I am a filmmaker myself and to be able to see another creators work be collaborated with all of there thoughts through both mediums I really likes listening about.
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Experimental shoot one
For this shoot I decided to experiment with shooting my images in black and white. As through my research I have looked at different artists and the way they display there work in colour and also in black and white, and through this research I found that I was more interested in the way that the black and white images looked. So I decided that I would experiment with the use of black and white for my first shoot, and this is what the images turned out like.
After looking back on the images that I have taken within this shoot, I have found that I really enjoyed having to looking at what the trace of people have left on floors walls and ceilings. I think this shoot went well, one thing that I think went particularly well was the way that I framed the images, making sure to capture what I want while also showing the surrounding area which the subject is around and the environment that it is in. One thing that I think I could think about for my next shoot is maybe looking at areas which I don't know and which are unfamiliar to me, I think this would be good for me to do as I then don't have any idea of what I am going to take pictures of and I can just let my eye wonder from image to image.
Federico Clavarino
Europe, a little more than a group of nations or designation of a geographical area, can be understood as an idea or set of ideas. European thinking shapes and drives the history of significant parts of the planet, from the ancient Greek and Roman empires to the colonial rule of the last few centuries. The purpose of this series of photographs is to trace the traces left by these ideas on the surfaces of objects and people in Europe after the Second World War, on the walls of cities and in museum galleries where one can learn about its history. To be seen is to be preserved, to the barriers erected to define and defend the boundaries of its territory.
The Castle:
From this photo book I found this image really stood out to me. I really like the way in that the photograph has been captured in black and white, and that throughout this colour adulteration it highlights the shadows and the overall lighting, which we wouldn't nessaserly have seen if there was colour added to the image.
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From this book I found that this image stood out to me. I really like that the photographer has chosen to show this image in black and white, and also that they have captured the subject in an angle which shows the reflection of the sun onto the structure.
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Experimental shoot two:
For this shoot I started to look at the floor more, looking into how we as people have left an impact on different places on the floor. I also decide to play around with the editing proses of these images, looking at putting them in black and white and how that effects the way the viewer could these images.
The Red Ceiling
In the mid-1960s, William Eggleston created the first successful colour photograph. When he appeared in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976, these vivid, seemingly nonchalant images of the everyday world around him sent shockwaves through media history. Her appearance at MoMA probably marked the beginning of modern colour photography. Born in Memphis and raised in Mississippi, Eggleston worked as if "Mississippi her delta was the center of the universe." Family, friends, lovers, neighbourhood's, and local hangouts in his Southern home served as frequent themes.In The Red Ceiling, Eggleston describes his best friend, TC, from Greenwood, Mississippi. We shot the blood-red room in the home of a dentist named Boring. The abstract "flying perspective" of this space is a reminder of how Eggleston's compositions often appear formal and deceptively simple. His dedication to the dye transfer process, which allows for greater control over colour saturation, underpins the vividness of the reds in the images. Eggleston once likened the making of this print to "Bach's practice...because I knew red was the most difficult colour to work with...except for commercials, bright red images I don't know.” More pictures to come. I am shocked every time. "
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Threshold Concept 6
"Photographs rely on chance, more or less."
I believe that this concept works well for what I am trying to achieve with my projects, In the sense that I when capturing things that aren't garnered to be there the next time you go back or may have changed. Throughout floors, walls and ceilings my aim is so capture the things that people have left on the world and also the way that chance relies on that, for example, if there was something sitting on a wall outside someone's house one day and you were to capture that, and then it was gone the next, then you have captured that image through chance, that thing will never happen again.
I found this artist who fits this concept quite well so I decided to looking to them more and make my own response from there work. |
Masahisa Fukase's Everyday Streets
My Response:
To do this experiment i started off by printing all of my black and white images on A4 pieces of paper. I then got some drawing ink, and started to splatter it into a sink, from that point on i experimented again and again, with different colour combinations and patterns to make each of these images unique in their own ways.
This experiment had been done with the idea of concept 6 in mind:
Before Refining:
Looking back at these pieces which I have created I think that they work really nicely. I think the contrast between each of the black and white images, to the splattered and running colourful ink, makes the image pop in a whole new way. I really enjoyed working in correlation to this artists work and taking inspiration for something that they have done so well and made it my own which I really love to do.
Seth Lower
Units - 1994-2019:
Unit contains photos taken between 1994 and 2017. The images depict a variety of everyday materials and situations, many of which are found in sets, parts or multiples. In scenes like that, I looked for a kind of completeness or lack thereof. Vague questions about metrics, importance, boundaries off entities and experiences. Signs swallowed by bark, small collections of chimneys, stoves for sale in the sun.
Through my research I have found that I really like the way that Lower has gone about photographing different places, so I decided to make my own response to his his work on units to find my own response to this concept and his work.
Through my research I have found that I really like the way that Lower has gone about photographing different places, so I decided to make my own response to his his work on units to find my own response to this concept and his work.
My Response:
Looking back on this shoot, I think I found a way of capturing the floors, walls and ceilings within the area I was walking while still using Seth Lowers concept of many things in one place. The one thing that I would take away from this shoot for the next shoots looking forward, is to try and look beyond just the image and maybe try and experiment with the pressed after the shoot and how I could incorporate editing into how I take my shoots from now on. I personally do not necessarily thing I will bring this concept into my final idea, the reason being that I think that I have fallen for the idea of photographing pointless objects to me, I think I need to look deeper into my idea and find some sort of pattern and meaning with what I am taking, which is what I have found is where i thrive most, in something that I am passionate about.
Paulina Korobkiewicz
Paulina Korobkiewicz (born 1993, Suwalki, Poland) is a photographer and visual artist. Her work shows how spaces are constructed by the people who live in them. She examines post-communist national trauma, identity politics, homeland and belonging. Paulina is particularly interested in the impact of the transition from socialism to capitalism on today's human-altered landscape.
Disco Polo:
Disco Polo chronicles the East Polish aesthetic since 1989. The project focuses on the mixed influence of East and West, the impact of global capitalism on the Polish landscape dominated by consumer colourful advertising. Lacking an expert in the local housing association, a random colour scheme was made, turning the streets into a vibrant collage of pastel skyscrapers. The project presents rustic billboards, suburban nightclubs and kitsch made of colourful concrete blocks.Exploring the visual chaos that pervades the urban landscape and searching for a 'better world'.
This image is my favourite image which Korobkiewicz captured within this series of images, this is because I really like the way the image has been composed and how it shows the life and culture on a wall that could look really plain and boring. This is shows by capturing the contrast of colours from the wall and the floor within the image. By adding the floor into this shot, it really shows the way that the area surrounding the frame is lived in and with the basket ball hoop, it adds to this. But with all of that in mind the image is still very simple and there isn't much going on which is one of the main things that I like with this image, that it is simple.
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I was lucky enough to have a one on one chat with Paulina Korobkiewicz , she came in to talk with us as a class about her work and to look at ours to see if she can help with ideas and to look at what we have been doing so far. I had a 20 minute chat with her about the work I have been doing with the concept of floors, walls and ceilings, I started of by showing her some of my shoots that I have done so far, and then discussed the ideas that I had for up and coming shoots, including the idea of me to take images of my home away from home and incorporating each of them together some how to bring both homes together, through my shoots. She gave me some pointers about, how to experiment more in-depth about the idea of home and how I could show this to my viewers in an abstract but solitude way.
Reflecting on her visit I believe that talking to someone who haven't seen my work before and doesn't have a bios opinion really helped me get really raw feedback on how i could improve and develop my idea further.
Reflecting on her visit I believe that talking to someone who haven't seen my work before and doesn't have a bios opinion really helped me get really raw feedback on how i could improve and develop my idea further.
Megan Mette
Megan Alexis Metté is a lens-based artist interested in exploring home ideas and what it takes to be comfortable in the modern world. She uses abstract imagery to challenge our expectations of an ideal environment and what we do to feel in control. She constantly questions her surroundings, gains insight, and explores the space between the beautiful and the disturbing, the real and the fantasy, the nightmare and the daydream. She uses frames to capture these contradictions, reusing the spaces and objects around her to create abstract canvases for our contemplation, and bringing inanimate surfaces to life.
There isn't much that I could research about this project but from what I can see a lot to the focus of the shoot was on the corners, floors, walls and ceiling which is what this component is about and through this project I will experiment and see what I can do to make a response to this project. I am also think that though my experimentation I will understand how I want to look into further what my project will lead further for the final project.
My response
for this shoot I decided to focus on the architecture within my house, taking images of the floors, walls and ceilings around my house. looking at the way the shadows fall and the lines and corners of each of the places within the house.
Editing:
I decided to refine these images more by putting them into photoshop and playing around with the threshold layer on each of them to help highlight the laces I want to within these images. Refining these images really brought them to life refining all of there edges and curves.
I then decided to go further with these images and to make an exhibition with them looking at how different people would place them and how they would interpret them differently to others.
Exhibition:
Seeing the way that different people interact with my work and how they feel and see my work, the orders they came up with shows difference in how they see the images and how they react and rearrange the images to how they think they should be. From this experience I have found that there is a-lot of thing to learn from, as the way that they all see and interact with the images are all completely different.
Overthinking the rectangle - John Maclean
Outthinking the Rectangle is a book that doesn't get bogged down in rectangular thinking or constrained by traditional book formats. This is a loose bound book about the edges of images and the psychological need to frame the world we experience. “The worst thing that happened to photography was the viewfinder,” says John Baldessari.
The consent of this book is for the viewer to see the images in their own order and for everyone to see the series of images in a different sequence and order.
The consent of this book is for the viewer to see the images in their own order and for everyone to see the series of images in a different sequence and order.
Within these images, this one really stood out to me though the rest. From looking at the title of the images I found that this image felt like it represented it the best, and also made my think that about the different shapes going on within the image. I also like the fact that without even thinking I have already overthought the image and the title, which is what the photographer wanted to portray with this title.
My Response:
I decided to take the game and chance concept and make a little game of chance, through my research of the Overthinking the rectangle, I got some inspiration and ideas of something that I could make.
Home away from home
As I took some images in my home and they were very abstract, I decided to have a look home away from home and how that would look with the concept of floors, walls and ceilings. So when I was way visiting my family I decided to make a series of images following the concept, and thinking about going much more opposite to the first shoot of home which was really abstract, and I took images of things which are there and I just capture what is there instead of finding and moving things to make them look specific way. I also didn't edit these images at all, which shows the contrast between both of the shoots with my home away from home.
Refining my shoot:
Thinking into how I could combine these images together to create my home away from home, I came to the conclusion that I wanted them to look some what similar when putting them together. So I decided to put them into photoshop and play around with different ideas of what I could do to these images to make them more abstract. I decided to look at inverting all of the images, adding the abstractness to each of them while also highlighting the subjects which make them feel more home like to me.
This is the process I went through within photoshop to create these new edited images:
I really like the way that they turned out. I like the way that you can still see the different objects and subjects of the photographs which make them feel more homely to me, and then I also like the way that they can now coincide more with the other home images as they are more abstract which gives both of the series of images more than one connection to them.
After having a think and discussing some ideas with others, I decided to play around with the idea of chance again and look at combining each of the two shoots together somehow. The first thought I had was to make them into a series of diptychs, with one photo from each shoot put together randomly in a diptych. I decided to print out each of the images individually and lay them out randomly to see what came out of this chance experiment.
Here is a photograph of the the experiment:
Here is a photograph of the the experiment:
After discussing this idea further with a couple more people I came up with the idea of making the merging of the home away from home more literal, and decided to experiment with merging the two images together in photoshop. While still playing with the idea of chance I decided to chance the merging, so I would just pick a number between 1 and 8, and then did the same for the select few that I chose from the black and white images. After picking each of the images I then went into photoshop and started the process of merging them together, like merging the two homes together.
This is the proses which I took in photoshop to merge these images together:
This is the proses which I took in photoshop to merge these images together:
Here are the results of the merging experiment:
During this process I was thinking about what I could do to make this more interactive for people who see this, I thought about maybe making a sort of game out of it, where people would come up and ether role a dice or throw a dart at a black and white image and an inverted one, and the images which they came up with I would then make into a little zine or booklet or something physical for them to take away, while documenting the whole process by filming and photographing it.
Preparation for the controlled assessment
I first made sure that I had all of my work and images on a USB so that I could have the images in one place, which is secure. I then looked through all of the images fo each shoot that I have done for this concept, and put them in different folder according to what I think I could use as a set for my final product.
Ideas about what to make on the day:
- Make a poster/posters and place them in different parts around the school, in different sizes experimenting with size and placement
- Make a game with the different images, with all of the photos I have taken, thinking about the concept of chance, making a sequence or an order.
- Make a couple of different photo books of each shoot that I have done, and make a compilation of them them together, Hand made or digital
- Make an interactive gallery where images are on the floors walls and ceilings.
- Making a gallery with images on of the black and white images over the top of them overlapping them revealing different parts of the image.
I have decided to make an interactive gallery on the wall of the school where people can see it and interact with my work while I am constructing the gallery and after. I have also make decided that I will make a booklet /zine of the gallery as another side part to it, giving the gallery some sort of way to travel. I decided to make a gallery as I wanted to add the floors walls and ceilings to into the way that I show the images. I will use the the floor walls and ceilings of the location to place my images on.
These are the images which I have decided to use. I decided to take these images from a couple of my shoots and not just ones, this is because I wanted to use these images as optimal as possible and be able to show the way I saw the different ways I translated the concept in different locations.