Lauren Mitchell...

I need some help.. The first picture shown above the other is my first idea for my final project. Its a double exposure on 120 film taking a shot of one set of items then another using one frame. Its slightly over exposed. The second picture, underneath the first, is my second idea. Its a scene using the first shot and items using the second on one frame. I can't decide what works better? Neither images are edited yet.. opinions would be appreciated.. 

Another shoot organised for a singer. 2 large softboxes, one on the left and one on the right and a honeycomb diffuser placed at the back lighting up the background as he had quite dark hair.

A shoot done last week for this group of sisters. I used a simple large soft box placed in front of the models which i moved to suit the different positioning they held. 

My previous shoot taken on a medium format camera. I used a Bronica Zenza and Kodak 100 film and used double exposures to create this effect.

This is my business card created in Photoshop today. Using a picture of a lens off the internet, i edited out the name 'Nikon' due to copyright reasons using the blend tool. I then added a text box and added a curve to fit to the designed of the lens.

This is my first test shoot, shooting on a Bronica Zenza. Its a medium format film camera and I used 125 black and white film. Really pleased with the outcome of the images especially seeing as their my first images and the first time using a medium format. 

My Animation - How to make a cuppa. Make using iPhoto and iMovie.. 

My surreal image created today on photoshop. It is using my knowledge on merging and smart filters. 

Photo Joiner To get this final image I first downloaded my selected photos on to bridge, this helps select the images i want and need. I wouldn't be able to open them up in photoshop straight away as the high resolution would make these files to big to fit on to the plain canvas i would open in order to place all images together. So i opened File - New and i set the canvas to width - 60cms and height - 100cm with the colour, white and 300 inch ppi, which would leave lots of space to work with. To get my individual images on to the canvas, i opened the image in a new tab in photoshop, using the move tool i transferred the picture on to the canvas. This would make the picture a new layer within the whole image. I repeated this with all my images. I shot this in black and white to keep the image minimalistic due to so much going on.

Martin Parr - Martin Parr is a british documentary photographer and photojournalist, born 23rd May 1952. His specific type of documentary photography focuses on very personal and up close views on apspects of people of that time. He likes to photograph in ways that are surprisingly intimate that can almost come across as taking the mickey out of his subject. Parr's work was first recognised with his black and white film images in which he used a 35mm film camera with macro lenses, ring flashes and high saturation film to get the effect on his images but as time has gone on and equipment has improved, he has taken to digital in his more recent works. The image you see above was in his early work called 'New Brighton' that was photographed 1983 – 1986 in Merseyside, England. Parr has taken a view from someone sitting in the background on this busy seaside cafe and froze a moment which many of us see on our summer holidays but have never taken the oppurtunity to appreciate the oh so familiar memory. I dont believe a flash has been used in this image because judging by the bleached out windows and the lightening on the table it seems to be light enough. Despite this image being without any certain positioning I believe the compositioning of this image is great. Not one of the subjects within this image, is aware or interested in what Parr is capturing and the fact the image is completely natural without the need for photoshoping which we see far too much nowadays is wondeful. Hes accentuating on their pale and burnt skin, their wet hair sticking to their head and the fact that everyone is to interested in getting their food then to what he may be doing despite not being with the crowd. I can sort of relate to this as its another artist who's photographed reality rather than covering it up. Like my diabetes, I am showing it how it is despite it maybe not being what people want to see. This is how Parr has shown this in his work, im sure if these people knew that their faces would be famous pieces of work, in books and on the internet, they would change their appearance to try and make themselves look more presentable but instead he has caught them looking as natural as can be. I love his thought in to this work. 

Nan Goldin - Nan done a series of photos taken for her book ‘The ballard of sexual dependancy’ which is a visual diary of the struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends, family and lovers. Her work gives an insight in to how she views the world. The piece is from a very personal side of her life and through documentary photgraphy has displayed something that normally would be covered up so no one would see. In the series, her subjects within the photographs appear extremely glamorous desite the raw reality that they actually face. Goldin said herself that “I want to show exactly what my world looks like, without glamorisation, without glorification’ I feel like I can relate to Goldin’s work in this way as my series of photographs taken whilst documenting myself with diabetes. Medical conditions, like diabetes, are not publicly shown as many people shie away from the subject of ill health and medical conditions as a lack of knowledge can often scare others. I believe that I should not be ashamed of what has happened to me, as it is something I did not ask for nor something that I can change and so I admire Goldin extremely for taking this to a new level on such a delicate subject. The image above marks the end of a long term relationship and an emotional part of her life with an abusive partner, in which she chooses to let people see by publishing in her book. The self portrait of Goldin captures her injuries after she was beaten. Domestic violence is never an easy subject to talk about but I feel this image speaks a thousand words. Here Goldin is staring directly at the camera and is taking up the whole frame and so your eye is directedly focused to her face, I feel like she has positioned herself like this so she is the centre of this image and wants to highlight exactly what has gone on, She has done this by taking up the frame leaving little background to be seen. Despite this, I can see a slight shadow behind her which suggests that she has used flash when taking this photo, maybe to hgihlight her injuries futhermore. Despite her horrific injuries, the bruising around her face and her blood shot eye, Goldin comes across as very well groomed. Her hair has been styled, her lipstick has been applied and she wears a necklace around her neck. In my opinion, this shows me that despite what has happened to her that she is not afraid to show what did and despite the bruising it hasnt changed her as she has stuck to her normal routine of how she presents herself and that she still feels she is worthwhile and makes the effort to dress herself. I admire her not only from a womans point of view but a photographers to as her choice to show the reality of domestic violence can help people who are maybe stuck in the same situation she was once in, to help them realise the horrificness of this abuse and stand up to see that because this has happen that they are still the same person inside and that they are much better than what an attacker may have you believe and I believe this is why Goldin has chosen to display this image and still not name the attacker who done this. 

This is my second image done using the texture technique. When scanning my new texture, a pulled bit of cotton material, when i scanned it in i changed the dpi to 300 but kept it to 24 bit. I once again used the darken layer to create the blue effect but this time also added a painting that i had done previously which i had also scanned in and used the darken layer once again to hide the white background from the photo.

This is the image made using the 'texture' technique. This type of technique is mainly viewed in fine art images or maybe visual communication within an image. This image was made using photoshop. My base image was the image of london and my textured image was a scanned image of a scratched negative. On the scanner, i changed the image of the scratched negative to 600dpi with 24 bit colour. Once scanned i opened both images in photoshop, with the london as the base layer, I dragged the textured image on to the base image. This then covered my base image with the textured and so i dropped the opacity to see what i was doing. Then to create my desired effect I changed the layer of the image to 'darken' and this was my final image. I really like my final image as i believe the textured layer has given a more interesting view on to a dull, cliche photo of london. I like how the scratches within the image have still brought out the colours of the base image.

Gregory Crewdson - I recently watched the documentary on Gregory Crewdson called brief encounters. It gave an insight in to not only Crewdsons work but an insight in to the thoughts and ideas to create the amazing work that he does. I watched his progression through a series of photographs called brief encounters, the image shown above is one of them. Crewdson spends a lot of time and money creating dramatic scenes for his image like staged images from a film. Crewdson admits that he doesnt take pictures to elaborate from, he creates scenes in his head in which he openly admits are mainly projected from his own story of his fears, anxiety and desires. To create the image shown above, Crewdson sketched the scene by hand and his ideas for how he needed the scene to look came through. Crewdson decides to shoot his images on a large format camera with 1 second exposures making preperation for these types of images last at least 2 days to shoot. He lit the scene above using lights from the right hand side shining through window props to make the scene look like it was lit through moon light, he continuesly moves the sheets on the woman laying down to make sure that enough flesh is shown on the woman and that her expression and the way that she is laying is dramatic enough and he simply tells the young girl to look aimlessly infront of her. This sense of sadness in his work continues through most of his images, there is a sense of regret that is captured by where his model is placed and how he gets them to look. I believe this is due to him telling his audience about his dad being a physiologist and I believe that through this, it has created a man who is trapped within in his emotions stimulated through his fathers job, who has become almost obsessed with sadness and the relation beauty has with sadness. I believe most of his ideas how stemmed from the way maybe his father viewed peoples emotions and Crewdson has grown up remembering certain people his dad saw and how their emotions have stayed with him and helped him develop such creative images filled with so much emotion. Looking through his work, I do not believe that Crewdson is depressed but more obsessed with sadness and it makes me think that Crewdson doesnt understand sadness. Why do people feel sad? So he creates these scenes in certain locations to reanact something that would make someone feel sadness as maybe a way of trying to teach himself about it. Crewdson also told his audience that he is extremely dyslexic and so reading about such things would be difficult for him and so he uses his photography to maybe explain what he cannot read? I also believe this is why Crewdson doesnt take his photos himself. In the documentary he has a major part in the ideas of the images, the way things are placed and how he views the image but says he wants to have the most direct experience with the scene and so chooses not to actually take the final shot. I really enjoyed looking in to his work and how he thinks in relation to what he shoots and like me he says that his photography is inspired by preserving the moment you are in. I am extremely curious in to how he thinks as his deep emotionally ideas play such an important role through his work. 

Eva Lauterlein - This is one of the images taken by the photographer Eva Lauterlein in one of her series called 'Chimeres' created from 2002 to 2007. The word chimeres is french for 'figments of the imagination and guessing by the way this technique has been created in her work, this is how she wants you to view her subjects.. through your imagination. The series was thought through by Eva as she was trying to find the line between attraction and repulsion. Me personally, I am curious to know whether this was directed at the subjects being manipulated like this, wondering if they are being judged by the audience to whether the viewer is attracted or replused. The odd expression on the subjects face is due to the technique 'manipulation' done through photoshop. Eva could have up to 40 different images being manipulated in to eachother to create one final image like the one shown above. Eva would of used a similar technique like opening up her images in to photoshop, probably not all but the ones needed for that particular area, she would have over lapped an image over another but only one image would have been shown and using the paint brush tool, would have painted over the image to reveal the image underneath, merging them together. She would have done this to create a full image of someone that doesnt excist, I believe the technique behind the work of Eva Lauterlein is extremely creative and her ideas behind her work but I believe negative comments could arise from this work as I find the manipulated models are quite disturbing and it offends me, knowing they have been manipulated to look like that, that there are people in this society who look like that generally and she is causing them to be forced on to this line between attraction and repulsion. All the models within this series do not hold happy expressions almost like its not okay to look abnormal.

Elina Brothereus - Another artist, similar to Jo Spence, who I researched. She also took to photography whilst she experienced a medical condition, hers was IVF. The series of photographs was taken in 2009 and named “Annunciation”. It was said that it was own personal experiment at unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant. I took inspiration from Elina in this sense as I thought of my series of photographs being an experiment in to showing people about diabetes and maybe finding out things I hadn’t noticed before about my own conidition. Annunciation was seen in two ways a woman was trying to express herself, the grim reality of the impossibility to have a child as a woman and then the creativeness of a woman through her artistic ways. It is said that all the documentaries, interviews, articles and TV shows, all show a happy ending but in reality this is not the case. This is where my inspiration grew, to where I also wanted to show the reality of a medical condition that only someone going through it would know. I believe mine and Elina’s work relates with the harshness of what really goes on, we haven’t sugar coated what happens because we are ashamed but simply exposed the truth over what people, like me and you, go through behind closed doors. Annunciation was photographed in 1972 in Finland where Elina lives if she isnt living in France. The name for the series, Annunciation, comes from the religious paintings of the scene where Angel Gabriel is sent down from God to tell Virgin Mary that she will be giving birth to baby Jesus. This is obviously what Elina is hoping to happen but as seen in her photographs, she is repeatedly seen sitting on her sofa taking numerous self portraits with negative pregnancy tests. As the photo's become more frequent the emotion within the images through Elina is greater as the sadness and the loss of no pregnancy starts to show.