Diary
Diary photography seems like a tough topic for photography, however, I find it very interesting, I feel like it will allow me to try and use my skills to their full potential. Before choosing this topic I did some background research to help me decide whether it's suitable for me, whilst researching I came across some very interesting photographs of events photographers want to remember or a diary of a specific persons routine. After I finally decided to choose 'Diary' photography I looked at the two following sayings; "Same old, same old..." and "A time to be remembered.". Then I used a website called 'Coggle' to make a mindmap of ideas and things that inspired me, which I will share further down on this page.
Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt was born in Hermann Wilhelm Brandt, on the 2 May 1904 Brandt grew up during World War I, with his father, who had lived in Germany since the age of five,who was interned for six months by the Germans as a British citizen. Brandt later disowned his German heritage and would claim he was born in South London, he died in London on the 20 December 1983. Brandt was a British photographer and photojournalist. Although born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his images of British society for magazines such as Lilliput and Picture Post, later his distorted nudes, portraits of famous artists and landscapes. He is widely considered to be one of the most important British photographers of the 20th century.
Bill Brandts photographs are all very dark and gloom, I feel like he's trying to express a sense of loneliness, maybe that's how he felt however, I really like it. Majority of his photographs show skin and nudity, which shows purity and emptiness.
Kitty & Nathan
Kitty and Nathan were both born in the summer of 1990 they live in a little 100-year-old white house with a blue door in London with their puppy Florrie. In summer they spend all evening watching the stars. In winter they light fires and roast chestnuts. They try to make the most of the little moments that make them happy and then they capture the moments with photographs. Searching for Tomorrow began as a creative outlet for Kitty to share her photo stories, writing of thoughts and diary pieces. As it grew in age, Nathan started to hold the camera once more and soon the blog posts became a joint effort, they had become a photo-creating team.
Kitty and Nathan's photographs show an adventure of them being together, it's like a never ending cycle, which is where the concept of 'Diary' comes in and 'Same old, same old...'. Nothing between them changes, there's always an adventure they can capture with their cameras and I really like that. Kitty and Nathan's style of photography is the opposite of Bill Brandt's work.
ann Rosener
Ann Rosener was born Nov. 25, 1914 in San Francisco, California, a third generation Californian. Census records show that the Roseners moved frequently in the San Francisco area before they settled in Menlo Park and had as many as six servants at a time from various U.S., European, and Japanese locations, something that could contribute to a cosmopolitan household. According to ship passenger lists, they also traveled to Europe and Hawaii.
Since the beginning of the women's studies movement in the 1970s, Ann Rosener's photographs have intrigued those exploring women's changing roles. From February 1942 until July 1943, photographer Ann Rosener documented preparations for war and home front activities for the Farm Security Administration. In 1942 Rosener covered mid-western states and in 1943 she worked principally in her native California. Her photographs illustrated several newspaper stories about war support activities but they were not published again for decades.
Since the beginning of the women's studies movement in the 1970s, Ann Rosener's photographs have intrigued those exploring women's changing roles. From February 1942 until July 1943, photographer Ann Rosener documented preparations for war and home front activities for the Farm Security Administration. In 1942 Rosener covered mid-western states and in 1943 she worked principally in her native California. Her photographs illustrated several newspaper stories about war support activities but they were not published again for decades.
Ann Rosener's photography is based on women's roles in society over time and I really like that because she expresses their roles very vibrantly, I also really like how her photography is black and white, I think it shows how old the pictures are and how long everything has been going on for.
My ABBREVIATION of diary photography
Whilst doing my research I made the decision to base my shoots on quotes I've found on the internet, I feel like that will expand my ideas and make it easier to take each shoot.
Working in the style of BILL BRANDT
Perfection
This is a good photograph because it's capturing natural behavior, therefore the photograph looks much more realistic and not staged, which is exactly what Bill Bandt did. The exposure should've been below 0 for more darkness. The only difference is that my photograph is in colour, however, below you will see the process and outcome of my edited photograph.
worst
I don't like this photograph because it's a terrible replicate of Bill Bandt's photograph, however, I really like how casual the students look. To change this shoot I asked the students to face the camera, but still look natural.
editing
Edited and Perfected
Mine
BIll Brandt
After some simple editing the photograph was completed, I think that it's a good replicate, however, I would've liked my version to look much more 'old fashioned'. Even though there's a clear difference between the two photographs, I think they show that friendship is always around us no matter what era we're in.
review
Overall, I enjoyed working in the style of Bill Bandt, it gave me a deeper understanding of his style of photography and it showed me the difference between mine and his style. Mine would be more modern and focused on capturing natural settings, where as his is similar, but the only the difference is that his is focused on the things we have in life, which has more meaning because at the time of his photography, things like friendship would've been rare.
"same old,same old..."
I chose to do 'Same old, same old...' due to the simple fact that I can relate to it, the phrase sparks something in me, there's several ways you can interpret it, however, my interpretation is more personal. I feel like the phrase is used as a human defence against their own emotions... When people ask us how we are, our reply may be 'Same old, same old...' even if inside we're barely griping on to life. However, others may use it differently and interpret it differently.
shoot one
"You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one"
Plan:
-A book with chapters.
-A pile of books.
-Camera.
-Table.
-Photoshop.
-Photograph of babies face.
Camera Settings:
-White balance: Automatic.
-Aperture: 4.6 (so that the background is out of focus).
-Exposure must be perfect therefore it should be set in the middle of the exposure line at 0.
Thoughts behind shoot~
In my first shoot, I wanted to use books to show the beginning of life and to do this I will add a babies face over the page.
-A book with chapters.
-A pile of books.
-Camera.
-Table.
-Photoshop.
-Photograph of babies face.
Camera Settings:
-White balance: Automatic.
-Aperture: 4.6 (so that the background is out of focus).
-Exposure must be perfect therefore it should be set in the middle of the exposure line at 0.
Thoughts behind shoot~
In my first shoot, I wanted to use books to show the beginning of life and to do this I will add a babies face over the page.
Perfection
I think that this is a good first shoot because it allows me to think of other possible shoots I could link to this. In this photograph the exposure is correct because the photograph isn't too dark or to bright, the aperture makes the background out of focus so that all the attention is fired at the books. I tried to make the 'Chapter One' stand out as much as possible and I think I did really well.
worst
I don't like this photograph because I think I captured too much of the background, which is fairly colourful, therefore , the attention is more on the background even though it's not in focus, however, I like how 'Chapter One' is very vibrant and in colour.
Editing
Outcomes
In Colour
Black and white
In my opinion this shoot became much stronger when I 'Warped' a babies face on to the book, I think it shows the beginning of life. I think that the coloured version represents the modern day birth and beginning of life, where as, the black and white version would represent the olden day birth and beginning of life.
review
Shoot one was an interesting experience because it was the beginning of 'Diary' photography. This shoot was simple, I experimented with different angles and levels. I wouldn't say that there were any major difficulties in this shoot, except for finding a book with the words 'Chapter One' written in it.
shoot two
"Same old story"
Plan:
-Lined piece of paper with the words "I'm sorry..." written over and over again.
-Black pen.
-Table.
-Camera.
-Teabag.
-Black ink.
-Water.
-Face.
Camera Settings:
-Aperture should be set so that the focus is on the words (4.6)
-Exposure must be perfect therefore it should be set in the middle of the exposure line at 0.
-White balance: Tungsten or Shade.
Thoughts behind shoot~
When capturing this shoot, I thought about how people get hurt, over and over again and apologies are thrown at them, however, they never mean anything and it's like a diary of pain and regret.
-Lined piece of paper with the words "I'm sorry..." written over and over again.
-Black pen.
-Table.
-Camera.
-Teabag.
-Black ink.
-Water.
-Face.
Camera Settings:
-Aperture should be set so that the focus is on the words (4.6)
-Exposure must be perfect therefore it should be set in the middle of the exposure line at 0.
-White balance: Tungsten or Shade.
Thoughts behind shoot~
When capturing this shoot, I thought about how people get hurt, over and over again and apologies are thrown at them, however, they never mean anything and it's like a diary of pain and regret.
perfection
I really like this photograph because of the colour contrast, I think there's a variation of colours, which allows the phrase 'I'm sorry...' to stand out. I also really like the black paint, moving and splitting into different directions, making it seem like cracks, this could represent how broken the person is. This photograph also has the correct focus point because the lines start going out of focus, this indicates just how sorry the person is.
worst
This shoot is perfect, the angle fully absorbs the meaning of the words written on the piece of paper, I love how the words are slowly going out of focus to show time, however, the 'tungsten' white balance removes the true colours of this photograph, which would be the only flaw in this photograph, that's why I changed the white balance to 'shade' after a few photographs.
editing
outcome
The editing adds more emotion and despair to the words written on the page, which is definetly a very good thing. The eyes of the girl glistened in the light making it seem like she's going to cry.
review
In general, this shoot was very stressful because it was difficult to design the piece of paper with the words written on it, I kept trying to add smaller amounts of black paint so that it would create smaller, but more affective cracks and because the paper was different moistures due to the wet teabag being dabbed on it, it absorbed more paint than it shouldve, therefore I had to re-design the paper several times, however, I still really enjoyed shooting this shoot.
shoot three
"A re-lit cigarette never tastes the same and that's all I'll preach on rekindling old flames"
Plan:
-Newspaper.
-Lighter.
-Tin lid.
-Cigarette.
-Table.
-iPad.
-Torch.
-Photograph of a person walking away.
-Photoshop.
Camera Settings:
-Focus on the flame and keep the photograph original.
Thoughts behind shoot~
I think the flame represents loss or someone that gives up easily, therefore it would become a diary of someone with very little belief in themselves, many teenagers could relate to this, which makes this shoot very special.
-Newspaper.
-Lighter.
-Tin lid.
-Cigarette.
-Table.
-iPad.
-Torch.
-Photograph of a person walking away.
-Photoshop.
Camera Settings:
-Focus on the flame and keep the photograph original.
Thoughts behind shoot~
I think the flame represents loss or someone that gives up easily, therefore it would become a diary of someone with very little belief in themselves, many teenagers could relate to this, which makes this shoot very special.
perfection
This shoot was done in my own time, therefore the quality of it wasn't as good due to the fact that I didn't have a professional camera, I attempted to make up for it by including different lighting and textures by putting it on a old dirty wooden table. I think that this shoot has a lot of colour and lighting variation, so I really like it.
worst
This shoot is really good because you can see the newspapers texture as its burning away slowly, however it would've been much better if it was darker, therefore I moved the torch further away from the objects for less lighting.
editing
outcome
The addition of the person walking away and the editing makes it seem as if she's a ghost or that she's part of the flame and I think that it looks as if it's a soul floating away.
review
This shoot was a big struggle because the quality of an iPad camera is far worse than a professional camera, however, it was really fun to shoot and experiment with different lighting.
The big exam
The stress and pressure of the big exam getting closer and closer was getting to all of our heads, it was as if it put a cap on our brains and stopped any imagination from spilling. However, we could not let that stop us. I took many photographs to try smaller versions of what I wanted to do for my final piece, but none of which made me say "That's the one!". Eventually I came up with an idea, I wanted to make my final piece emotional and to do this I thought about emotions and how they're portrayed. There are millions of people that feel many things, however there are also several million that hide those emotions. Therefore, I captured the change of emotion on someones face and then used Photoshop to edit the photograph to make one whole face, this made it seem like the person was feeling all of the emotions all at once. Then I added black borders around each photograph to make it seem like prison bars, which would represent the barrier of showing emotions and using the term "Same old, same old..." even if inside that's not how we feel. I represented each section and emotion with a colour, for example; Blue for sadness... I stretched that idea by adding quotes to represent the colour and emotion, which gives people a deeper understanding of what I mean and also, throughout my exam, I used quotes to title my shoots and also to act as a support for my ideas and imagination.
Plan:
-A persons face.
-Camera stand.
-Camera.
-Chair.
-Table.
-Colourful background for variation.
-Quotes.
-Paint.
-Paint brush.
-Water.
-Photoshop.
Camera Settings:
-Focus on the face, but have the background slightly blurred to do this have a low depth of field.
-A persons face.
-Camera stand.
-Camera.
-Chair.
-Table.
-Colourful background for variation.
-Quotes.
-Paint.
-Paint brush.
-Water.
-Photoshop.
Camera Settings:
-Focus on the face, but have the background slightly blurred to do this have a low depth of field.
photographs -unedited
text and quotes
I had to make the edited piece look not only colourful, but intriguing, to do this I spent a lot of time finding quotes and typing out one word at a time, changing the font, size and position of each word to make the final quote. Above is an example of something I did with one of the quotes used in the final piece.
The Quotes
-Pain
-I'm hiding what I'm feeling but I'm tired of holding this inside my head.
-Letting go
-Never let a stumble in the road be the end of the journey.
-Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one.
-Anxiety
-Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly reexperiencing failure in advance what a waste.
-Learn to asses yourself which means combat your happiness.
-Love
-Speak when you're angry and you will make the "best" speech you will ever regret.
-Something tells me I'm going to love him forever.
-Future
-Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
-Friendship
-Good friends are like stars you don't always see them, but you know they're always there.
-Hope is the one thing stronger than fear.
-Belief
-Only those that care for you will hear you when your quiet.
-I never dreamed about success I worked for it.
-Stop hating yourself for everything you aren't and love yourself for everything you are.
-Being yourself
-Be strong.
-Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.
-I'm tired of fighting, for once I want to be fought for.
-Support
-Work hard dream big.
-Life goes on...
-It's okay to be a glow stick, sometimes we need to break before we shine.
-Memories
-Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
-Life is tough my darling, but so are you.
-Own thoughts
-Your mind is a powerful thing when you fill it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change.
-We were born to be real not perfect.
-Courage
-Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
-It takes courage to grow up and be who you are.
-Thoughts
-Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out.
-The best way to produce the future is to create it.
-Growing up
-It's not the future that you are afraid of, it's the repeating the past that makes you anxious.
-Don't judge my choices without understanding my reasons.
-Pain
-I'm hiding what I'm feeling but I'm tired of holding this inside my head.
-Letting go
-Never let a stumble in the road be the end of the journey.
-Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one.
-Anxiety
-Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly reexperiencing failure in advance what a waste.
-Learn to asses yourself which means combat your happiness.
-Love
-Speak when you're angry and you will make the "best" speech you will ever regret.
-Something tells me I'm going to love him forever.
-Future
-Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
-Friendship
-Good friends are like stars you don't always see them, but you know they're always there.
-Hope is the one thing stronger than fear.
-Belief
-Only those that care for you will hear you when your quiet.
-I never dreamed about success I worked for it.
-Stop hating yourself for everything you aren't and love yourself for everything you are.
-Being yourself
-Be strong.
-Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.
-I'm tired of fighting, for once I want to be fought for.
-Support
-Work hard dream big.
-Life goes on...
-It's okay to be a glow stick, sometimes we need to break before we shine.
-Memories
-Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
-Life is tough my darling, but so are you.
-Own thoughts
-Your mind is a powerful thing when you fill it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change.
-We were born to be real not perfect.
-Courage
-Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
-It takes courage to grow up and be who you are.
-Thoughts
-Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out.
-The best way to produce the future is to create it.
-Growing up
-It's not the future that you are afraid of, it's the repeating the past that makes you anxious.
-Don't judge my choices without understanding my reasons.
editing process
EXPERIMENTING
These three pieces were small draft versions of the original piece to see which filter should be used overall and in the end I decided to keep the photograph original because when I added a filter it was either too bright or too childish and that was definitely not something I was going for.
final piece
This is the overall final piece, also the last piece of work for my photography website, looking at the complete piece I think it's really good and I'm proud of the outcome. The edited piece shows emotion and different perspectives, I think the colours and the black paint splats are a contrast to each other which adds more emotion and catches the eye of the viewer. In each colour, or strip of a photograph I added 2 or more quotes, also to add emotion.
review
The exam adds a lot of pressure and trying not to crumble under the pressure is difficult, however, I thought it was more tiring than difficult. In general I'm really proud of my outcome and I made sure to use my time effectively throughout.