"Dispose" by Marcel Christ

Dispose is a singular image captured by Marcel Christ, which consists of plastic cups and discarded paper and plastic items, which seem to be being sucked up above the frame. The photograph is very clean, which although is not what I am intended to exactly capture, it is something I admire and want to experiment with.

"Flowers" by Irving Penn

Irving Penn has been a massive inspiration to me as to how I plan to photograph rubbish, and items that are considered to be rubbish by one person but mean the world to someone else. Irving Penn created a series of dead flowers for the Vogue 1967 USA Christmas edition, and then produced a book titled Flowers in 1980, with many different smaller series titled by their floral names

I feel that when I am photographing people and their collections of items, as well as rubbish that they keep, that Irving Penn will be a massive inspiration due to the clean and beautiful way he photographs them.

"Recycled Beauty" by Laurie Frankel and Diane Gatterdam

"Imagine everything you have ever thrown away is lying somewhere buried deep in the ground; every plastic bottle, polystyrene container and plastic bag that you used" (Phaidon, 2014)

These two photographers were heavily inspired by the still life painter Willem Claeszoon Heda (1594-1680), and aimed to capture the beauty within recycled rubbish, and how we need to look at rubbish in a different light.

http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2014/february/23/finding-photographic-beauty-in-rubbish/

"Molotov Cocktails" by Donald Weber

Donald Weber captures the still life of cocktail bottles that people from the war drank from. Again, these images capture the items that we would consider to be rubbish, but have a deeper meaning and story behind them.

http://time.com/3626384/ways-of-seeing-documentary-still-life/

"Flotsam and Jetsam" by Peter Tonningsen

"Flotsam & Jetsam forms a unique dialog about the use, condition, and fragility of our marine environment by looking at discarded objects connected to the sea; things I have collected from the shorelines of San Francisco Bay that have been either left behind or washed ashore with the ebb and flow of the tides. 

This project is about discovery and it calls attention to cycles; things we possess and then discard, what the Bay leaves behind with the rising and falling of the sea, and the repetitive process of finding, organizing and revitalizing such debris." (Lens Culture)

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/peter-tonningsen-flotsam-and-jetsam

"Cigarettes" by Irving Penn

Iriving Penn photographed a series looking into the still life of cigarettes that he found on the streets. Penn found his subjects on the street, and brought them into the studio to photograph using a minimalist lighting and layout technique. His work is described as having "transformed one of the most widely consumed and discarded products of consumer society from that of pure detritus into a symbolic representation of contemporary culture." (Hamiltons Gallery, 2015)

http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/artists/27-irving-penn/series/cigarettes/

Keith Arnatt

I was reading the article that Carole Evans wrote on the website titled "A Fine Beginning", discussing the beginning of Arnatt's work and how he was influenced. She comments on how his work is "humorous, playful, observant" and how he has never ventured further than his own door to take his inspired works of art. His work looking into rubbish dumps was the work that inspired me most to photography decaying food as an initial idea for this project, as he made mouldy, discarded food appear beautiful by using natural lighting (I presume) and close up images of the contents of the tip.

Arnatt has always been someone I recognised as using photography in his artwork, as he refers to himself as an artist and not a photographer, and photographs the things that people call "not worth photographing". Discarded food, bricks, boxes and dog poo are some of the well known objects that Arnatt became artistically obsessed with, leading to an inspiring series of work that brings the beauty back into forgotten things.

As a sort of homage to his unforgettable work, I have decided to begin by emulating his work in the studio as a beginning. At this moment in time, I have so many ideas formulating in my head that I have no time to think and distinguish the good from the bad, and the unrealistic from the achievable. I think to gain more knowledge about what I want to do for my final major project, and show at the final show, I need to experiment as much as possible by emulating famous photographers work with my own spin.

http://www.afinebeginning.com/keith-arnatt/

EXPERIMENTATION: Film Photography

I have a 35mm Canon film camera, and always captured beautiful looking images with it. This lead me to experiment with this camera and capture rubbish around my local area as an experiment.

Upon further discussion with Moira, she backed me opinion that these were too literal, and although they represented my idea of consumerism and how we discard things so easily. They look like pieces of artwork because they are aesthetically pleasing to the eye, even though they contain rubbish that has been thrown away. However, they do not allow the reader to think about what they believe the imagery represents. The concept is there, just not as a final piece or concept. My next experimentations are going to involve sculptures made out of rubbish, as well as scenography  to decide what sort of format I want my final images to take, and how things that have been thrown away so easily can be made into beautiful and interesting works of art.

IDEAS

Upon having my individual tutorial with Moira yesterday, I began to formulate a few strong ideas of what I could produce as initial experimentation for this project and continuous research for this project. We came to the conclusion my work was too sophisticated to continue along the line of fairytales, and looking into consumerism as a factual subject would be much more beneficial to my portfolio. Here are my current ideas and how I plan to execute them in the forthcoming weeks before my next tutorial.

1) Discarded items made beautiful

My first conceptual ideas was focussing upon the work of Keith Arnatt and how he began his career by photographing discarded waste from rubbish dumps, but making them into artistic, painting like images surrounded by beauty in such a dismal place. I plan to begin looking at how discarded food especially, can be brought into the studio and look "marketable", rather than something we would normally walk by without a second glance. I plan to photograph bin bags, as they have a strong connotation of being rubbish, as they hold it.

2) Recycled sculptural beauty

Upon speaking with Moira, we picked up on my old hobby of knitting and sewing, as well as weaving large mats that I used to do weekly at Girl Guides. I plan to take this a step further and photographing rubbish or collected items that have been sculpted into art by myself, making it look abstract and beautiful at the same time.

3) Scanography

I have been inspired recently by the work of graduate students in Photography that Matthew and Moira has been showing us, that have used scanography, to capture moody images of objects using just a scanner. I have experimented with this when I was at college, and decided it would be a good idea to try this idea again with things that I have found.

4) Hoarding and collecting

I have been looking at how people willingly or unknowingly collect items and keep them for years, although to the common eye, these items can be seen as rubbish or unnecessary. Although this is not related significantly last project, which should have been a direct continuation onto this, it will explore how people collect items that can be perceived as rubbish to a different eye than their own.

BRIEFING and REFLECTION/FUTURE PLANS

We have received our briefing today with Matthew Andrew for our negotiated major project which is twelve weeks long, and totals at 40 credits, rather than the usual 20. This module focussed upon preparing us for the real world, and helping us to create a body of work for our portfolio and final exhibition, as well as producing portfolio material through experimentation and reflection. My work in my previous module was very much portrait and fashion based, with some aspects of food and still life being present. However, reflecting on my feedback, I have decided to concentrate more on still life and art photography as a concept, and work from there. Although portraiture is something I feel passionate about, I feel that my ideas and concepts would work better with still life being at the forefront of this exploration.

We first discussed the MIS which looks at what we had to do for each point of the module to gain marks. In short, we need to look at relevant photographers, work upon my ideas and their concepts and create an inspired series of work. He also talked about professional practice and how our final piece is "marketable", which means something we can be proud of but at the same time, appeal to a wider audience.

The first thing we discussed was budgets, and how prints and work can be presented. My feedback touched upon my budget, and how a lot of my research was focussing upon cinematic photographers and filmmakers with bit budgets and lots of time. I now understand a budget of £500 is not going to cover the ideas and dreams I have for this project, but my tutorials with Moira will hopefully guide me towards a good budget and controlled props and locations that are within my budget. I have already been sourcing budgets and outfits for my initial experimentation from charity shops, so I am trying to stick to my budget through sourcing cheaper alternatives and experimenting with alternative ideas. I am also trying to work with models, make up artists and other creatives on a TFP basis, so we can all help each other and it keeps my budget lower. At the moment, my presentation of my work is based around the concept of high class fairytales, so if all goes according to plan will present my images in gilt frames to represent the theme behind them.

Public engagement is something that is especially important when looking at our exhibition space and personal body of work. We need to focus on the audience of the exhibition, and what sort of audience our work will attract. I also need to think about publication for my work, in magazines and books such as fashion and beauty reading, and tailor my photographs towards that ideal. 

The timetable is spread evenly between individual tutorial times with our mentors, and workshops/discussions as a group. A professional practice day has also been scheduled, whereby graduates are coming in to discuss life after University and the options available, as well as a trip to London to visit galleries and exhibitions, where we can gain research into framing, printing and presentation. I think that these will be especially useful in getting us to think about our final major exhibition, and how we are going to present our work.

My last module looked into fariytales, and after speaking to tutors after handing in, I have come to the conclusion that my work needs to take a more sophisticated approach. Therefore, I decided to read my project proposal again, and see what I could change to make this fit my professional portfolio more.

"For my final piece, I plan to bring together everything that I have explored in my experimentation in a collection of carefully planned images representing the themes and food that are included within them, but creating a cinematic feel in all. The fairytales used will be Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella. I aim to explore this using inspiration from Gregory Crewdson and Margarita Kareva, as well as paying attention to outfits, props and location. Here, I plan to develop my ideas into editorial styled images, selling the food but paying homage to fairytales and the darker side of them.

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For my final piece, I plan to bring together everything I have done for this module in the form of a staged piece, advertising the food but using models and elaborate set ups to recreate the fairytales. The five fairytales and children’s stories that I plan to represent are Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella. All of these fairytales have food that represent them, and are part of the storyline. For example, the red apple will represent Snow White, as I have already experimented with. A gingerbread house will represent Hansel and Gretel, a bowl of porridge will represent Goldilocks, a pumpkin will represent Cinderella, and finally the tea party hosted by the Mad Hatter will represent Alice in Wonderland. My main inspiration for this work is Ernie Button, Kyle Thompson and Margarita Kareva. All these photographers work have inspired me for a number of reasons, all relating to their ability and creative drive to capture beauty within people, nature, animals and food. I have also been inspired by the work of Gregory Crewdson for his technique and lighting. My work will be presented in a gallery format, printed on large glossy paper in a white or gold gilt frame. I will also plan to submit my work to magazines such as Dark Beauty magazine and other independent photography magazines that would showcase my work. This will be my last chance for a year to produce photographic work before I go and study a PGCE in Further Education, so would love to build my published portfolio before this. I will have to pay special attention to lighting, location and the models pose and clothing, to create the best possible image and meaning. The equipment I will have to use is my DSLR camera, alongside lighting equipment with a generator so I can use the equipment on location, as well as speed lights to create depth and atmosphere to my images. For travel and transport consideration, I have access to a car, as well as a few friends and family members who own vans for transportation of bigger props, the only problem being I will have to work around their times. I plan to set a budget of £350 for this project, which should cover the props and outfits I will need for my project, as well as location hire, prints, frames and props needed for the layout of my final exhibition. I plan to rent outfits from high street stores and local designers, with the fee being my services to save money to make sure my budget is focused upon the printing and framing of my images. I will have an extra £150 on the side incase I need to buy more expensive prints or props to make my shoot and final images the best quality possible."

I still would wish to produce a good quality project before I head off to University to study my PGCE next year, however, I have been thinking that this is the only opportunity to create a series of work that allows me to connect with my work on an academic basis, by referencing my work to books. I fear my work will be overshadowed by the amazing, deep work of my fellow peers, so I need to experiment and come up with a plan for my work to stand out from the crowd.