Blog3: Project Outcomes and Personal Development Reflection
The subject I have chosen for my Better Lives unit was Contemporary Portrait Photography. In the first few weeks of Contemporary Portrait Photography, we had lectures and talkings with people from the industry. Each session were followed by workshops or tasks to be completed. We had chances to look at a variety of works and aesthetics, and also test with different methods and subjects. During the beginning few weeks, I took series of photos by trying different lightings and playing with aperture and shutter speed.
My project first started off with home portrait practice, a task we were asked to do. That was the time I just went back to my home country and was on my 14 days self quarantine. I was isolated in a spare flat of my aunt’s. While staying there alone, I examined the absence of portrait. In those photos I took, there were only objects and the space. I explored the relationship between both and the composition of an image.
Because of the social distancing and isolation rules governments set up, I feel like intimacy is something lacked around the world during this pandemic. In fact, physical contacts have already been missed much more earlier, as the internet has been widely used in the digital world now. While we breaking new ground in artificial intelligence innovation, the raw emotion and the primary behaviour of human beings are the real things that I strongly believe can never be substituted and overlooked. I felt that using the body and skin can best convey that inwardness I want to present. I did some research in themes of body in different aspect, and one of those article I felt engaging, ’Be kind to your body on lockdown, look to the diversity of people in the real world’ (Ogden, 2020).
After leaving my self-quarantine place and went back home, I started developing that idea through lightings, composition and the shooting distance between me and the subject ( body parts). I tried my best to produce quality contents with limited resource. All photoshoots took place in my own house and casting me and my mom, who we both aren’t those ‘ideally beauty’ whether age or appearance. I intentionally took really close up photos to strengthen that feeling of touchiness and create that secured and settled atmosphere by shooting with small aperture. I played around with positions in the frame and the layout of the outcome. These body parts in my photo series are twisted, visually overlapped or in weird angle.
For my future steps, I think it would be interesting to see these photos be printed out in large scales, and the do another photoshoot with models interacting with the large printed pieces in an open space. Due to the pandemic, there is an effect on our project in many ways, teachings, limitation of casting, location and resource, etc.. I felt a bit pity for not being able to have more physical workshops, as when I bided for this project, I was so excited about having an opportunity to learn more in-depth about photography and get more familiar using cameras and studios. Though it is not perfect, I did enjoy solving the problems during the process, and learned from it.
References
Ogden, J., 2020. Be Kind To Your Body On Lockdown, Look To The Diversity Of People In The Real World. [online] The Conversation. Available at: <https://bit.ly/3dsgwmx> [Accessed 24 April 2020].
9th May 2020 @ 10:44 pm
I immediately gravitated towards Yen-Fang’s image outcome for contemporary portrait photography. Since we are in the same practice, I was interested in someone else’s thought process behind the project brief home portraits. It was intriguing to see a different perspective of the quarantine experience on the other side of the globe from Yen-Fang and how that inspired her to delve into the idea of intimacy. Since I live alone in London with friends and family in different parts of the world, the idea of intimacy and lack of physical contact hasn’t crossed my mind at all throughout this lockdown. The images are visually very powerful with the strong contrast highlighting specific parts of the human body delicately, creating a strong emotional atmosphere. Especially in the center image, where the softness of the skin contrasts with the harsh and rigid lighting. The composition draws the viewer’s eyes in to figure out which parts of the body are overlapping. I found it impressive as there is no indication that this was shot at home under quarantine.
In contrast to my own thought process, we have gone in completely opposite routes which was exciting to see. I liked the idea how both the subjects in the photos are not your traditional ‘ideal beauties’, and that nothing in the images indicate their appearance and identities instead showing snippets of their bodies in a dramatic way elevated that meaning behind it. Drawing from the Better Lives theme of diversity, I found that the certain level of anonymity and ambiguity in Yen-Fang’s photographs allow some space for imagination which can sometimes connect with a broader spectrum of audience despite race, gender or age. It was evident that Yen-Fang utilised her technical skills gained from the unit to set the scene through using a small aperture which focused on the subject in the foreground, creating some depth of field in the image. The act of performance is evident in Yen-Fang’s work through the body language and composition of the images. Her outcome echoes the current Covid-19 situation from a different angle and provided me an insight into how social distancing has inspired others to develop a conversation through photography.