What...

I havnt put stuff up here for a while. I have been thinking about lots of things and this essay has been chewing my brain.
I have been watching the people as they move past my flat. We are three storys up and it is a view that is seldom seen of another person (from almost top down) it provides a different and new perspective. Ihave also been trying to capture this in a photo and was surprised to find how surveillance orientated these images became...










Such an odd and different perspective...though not unlike what a store surveillance camera would see...

Trying to Think...

Iv been thinking a lot about this whole truth+photography issue/idea. After my meeting with Bridie last week it seems that i need to think more about the production of meaning in the photographs and the idea of Verisimilitude...

Verisimilitude:
1. The appearance or semblance of the truth; likelihood; probablity:
"The Play lacked Verisimilitude."

2.Something as, an assertion, having merely the appeance of truth.

Does a photograph have a semblance to the truth? do the people in it look like people? I think what Bridie was trying to tell me is that whether the photograph is strictly "true" or not is irrelevant. The model may or may not be "true" - s/he could be photo shopped skinnier or more tanned etc.
It is more about how a given photograph relates this appearance of truth; and if this appearance of truth creates the emotional response that the photograph is designed to create.

So an assumption i kinda skipped here...that all photographs are designed, are set up to create a specific feeling or response. This is so true of advertising and the more i think about it....of press images, war images...design, fashion...hmmmm

I found this quote yesterday:

"Photos are representations, nothing more and nothing less.”- John C. Dvorak (Writer for PCMag and tech geek)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2014593,00.asp

So if all images are a representations where does that leave the images makers? It goes from being a discussion on whether an image is "true" to whether the image has verisimilitude and if the images are carrying out there designed purpose. So truth becomes a VALUE of an image...and varies for each and every image?

Hold on...

...think of that family picture album. There's that photo of you and Uncle Bob in front of some lake somewhere. You 12 and pulling this goofy face that makes you look like and inflatable chicken. The person that took the photo is stoked cos they caught your goofy face. But you were only like that for 1/125th of a second while they took that shot. You don't look like that the whole time (i hope) in the next 10/15/20/whatever years of your life you were only ever making that face for that 1/125th of second. So HOW much truth value does that image have?

Its you in the picture, its clearly Uncle Bob cos you know he looked like that back then...the background is that lakeside spot you went every year as a kid...you know all this cos you were there....but how much a of a semblance of the truth does this image have because you don't look like that when someone sees you on the street...

But this image appears to be true, all the other visual clues (need a better phrase...) in the image make this image to at least appear true.

my brain hurts i'm going to go lie down...

The beginning of something...maybe....

I like this...its kinda beautiful. Something really serene about it...More so than the one out of the camera?
Technically: This is the image below but a JPEG copy run through a piece of free software iv mentioned earlier called "PolaDroid". you have no control over the cropping of the image from its JPEG form and it randomly adds the colour adjustment and vignetting! Much like a real polaroid.

Persesus Project...

These images are from a Shoot i did on the weekend with the help of my lovely assistant (read: girlfriend) haha. Continuation of the Jumper images which i am slowly building up a stock library of. Im not really sure why yet but its helping me think about things and process some ideas.

I also wanted to take some images using a screen in front of the model. This was to help distort the outline of the model and was an idea i could see in my head using the shadow and the figure together to create something somewhat bizarre and creepy. I also wanted to keep the whole vulnerability thing there as well so i used a side light to highlight a bit of skin showing through the cloth...


Also had a play with black and white versions of this....



There is also something very very voyeuristic about these images...viewing something hidden, but not entirely so, by a curtain and the whole naked/skin/vulnerable aspect as well... creates a real peeping tom aspect. Almost feels like surveillance omcing full circle!!

Pain...Jumpers...Things...

I had a rapid 5 min talk to Rachel on Monday. She mad ethe point that i probably know what i am on about with the whole issue of truth in the photo and that i need to stop getting hung up on trying to figure out how to show this pictorially. Rachel made the point that these ideas are so ingrained in me right now that they are going to be present and come across in anyting that i photograph right now...so heres some stuff:



Nikon D3 50mm 1.8mm. Studio lighting.
Captured split seconds after he was hit in the face...capturing the look of pain as he was hit...




Falling? or not...?



Nikon D3, 50mm 1.8 Self timed.
Creepy light/shadow/curtain action///

Milton

These Pictures are image shot by Mishca Rhys at the Correctional facility. I shot Medium format black and white images and he experimented with my Nikon D3, documenting what we were doing and capturing the extremely surreal and haunting atmosphere of the facility at dusk.

Barbara Probst

Just realised i didnt have any of her works up on the blog...

I think Probst's works are amazing becasue they exmine this idea of reality and the staged within photographs. They also help dismantle and change this idea of the 'decisive moment'. What if there are many of them>? what if they are synchonised to be extremely close togather?

Each of these works presents the same scene, in fact the we must assume the same split second from upwards of two very different viewpoints. How does this effect our relationship to the frame and to the images?> Is it more real because we see the same scene/person/people from many viewpoints and we can make a more complete picture from this? or does it help us work through (and overcome) the most basic of photographic editing devices- the cropping of the frame-so we "see more".
I love these images for several reasons. They present a scene and a moment in time and space in a very different way and they also alter how we think about these moments. The undermine the concept that there is only one of these moemtns as we push the shutter. These multiple frames are so much more effective than a single still of the below scenes/. This use of many viewpoints alters this whole concept of the truth in the image... it makes us realise how much the camera can be manipulated...which camera is the "true" one? and how would we know?

_Inside the Fence

These Two images are from when myself and Mishca were granted access to the Milton Correctional Facility (prison) We were allowed inside the grounds in order to photograph the fence and some of the security arrangements of the prison. This was an extension of ideas we have both been working on that relate with control and power structures and systems. It was a very weird experience.
We wernt allowed to photograph the buildings and as little of the surveillance (camera) equipment as possible. What we got were a lot of pictures of the big scary fence that surrounds the whole compound. We were kept well away from prisoners and only came into contact with a few of the guards.
we spent two hours there Images mishca shot can bee seen here: http://electart.blogspot.com/
The controlled and heavily regimented atmosphere of the entire place had quite and impact on us...we were both grew more and more reluctant to ask questions and became quiet as the facility had an impact on us...standing on the wrong side of a 20ft reinforced concrete wall topped with razor and electric wire and an 8 foot high inner electrified fence has quite an impact on you...


Both images scans of Ilford FP4 120 roll film, Shot on a Mamiya 6x6