CONCEPTUAL PRACTICE
UNIT 48
FEEL INVISIBLE
WHAT I THINK I AM GOING TO DO WITH THIS UNIT
As I begin this project focusing on Invisable lines I am going to base my work on photographing equality I am going to focus on equality areas such as racism, homophobia, wealth and other demonstrations that connect with the words of being equal. I may pay an interest to history, I'm going to mention how some things haven't changed as much as we all think and hope. As racism and homophobia is still a big movement that is still happening around the world. I want to shoot all my images in black and white and using bold colours to pass a message across with my images, kind of like a campaign, things that are going to make them stand out.
I have done my research, and I have found images that I feel like my work would easily connect with this kind of imagery. I am going to concentrate on making my images a powefull campaign and I am going to try my best to show a very poweful story with this given unit breif.
B E N E T T O N
Over the past few years BENETTON the fashion brand has been making a campaign focusing on discrimination and has made one of the biggest contraversal campaigns that have ever been made, They did this so that they could show that there should always be equality whether that be because, you're black, gay, trans, a woman, a man, a child, homeless or what ever your situation, they show that how every single person on this planet should all be treated with the same respect and all have the same amount of equality.
A NEW BORN BABY ADVERT
A GUERILLA WITH A HUMAN BONE
HIV POSITIVE
ANTI RACISM (HEART IMAGE)
FOOD FOR LIFE
FOOD FOR WORK
JAMES AND OTHER APES
VICTIM CAMPAIGN
BLANKET
MURDER
CONDOMS
1991
1992
1993
1996
2003
2003
2004
2008
1991
1992
1991
OLIVIERO TOSCANI : UNHATE
T R E V O R P A G L E N
INVISABLE LINES OF SURVILENCE
TREVOR PAGLEN, an American Photographer created a series of work based on what is invisible to every other single normal human being on this planet, in his work he shows us things that normal day to day humans have no idea about, things that put us under twenty four hour surveillance, he shows us in his work how we are watched every day and everything we do is tracked, constantly. This is just a short youtube video of Trevor Paglen, explaining what he does with in his work. I know this doesn't exactly connect with equality, but I am just showing how I understand what the breif "invisible lines" means as it can have many other meanings.
I D E A S F O R S H O O T I N G
When I was doing my research for what to do for this unit, I cam across invisable photography. This consists of capturing an image of clothing but editing the models body and features out of the image. I thought this would be a good idea to do for this unit considering I want to focus on the feeling of being invisible. I also think this story line has a big meaning behind it, as it shows how there clothing is still being shown but we don't know what or who the model is, how old they are, whether they are a man or woman, their sexual preference, or the colour of their skin. I think it has a big story line behind and it is an idea I am defiantly considering commiting towards for this unit.
GHOST MANNIQUIN
BOLD PETITIONS
I think this would be a good way to present equality in this project, maybe if I staged and set my own petition and photographed it, bold words on canvas and people shouting is always a good way to get a message across, capturing the images is even bigger, as you can allow the whole world to see these pictures if you post them online. I think this would be a good idea to do for this project, even if I tried it out to see how far I could get with it. This is something I would want to document through this unit.
BODY PETITIONS
This is just something I was looking at doing as well, I am just adding different things that would be good to photograph to get evidence of equality, I like the idea of printing words onto another persons body, it gives off the impression of a peaceful protest, I like the idea of how powerful this is as well, I could do these and add them to my unit. This could be used for studio work as well. I want to get a numerous amount of body colours and shapes to try this one out with.
S1: Title, Aims, Objectives
The title for unit 48 is named “Invisible Lines”, I took it upon myself to call my own project “Feel Invisable” During this unit, I would like to achive to pass a comment on about equality in this world, I would like my work to have a message representing a message about how every body is an equal person, how every body has the same standards and equalitys whether that be if you are white or black, gay or straight, poor or rich, ect… I want this unit to have a powerful message. I don’t want this to be harmful, offensive approach, I want to have a peaceful, stated campaign for this unit. I want this unit to show me how people actually feel about equality, people are obviously allowed to have their own opinion about everyone and everything, but I want to show my opinion through photographs for this project, I want to show that my opinion is that everyone with a heart is equal in many different ways and how nobody should ever be made to feel as if they are different or invisible to another person.
S2: Reasons for choosing this project
The reason I have chosen to do this project, because I don't think equality is looked at enough as it should be in our generation. I understand how things have changed drastically over the years and we have a lot more freedom in this century than we did in the last, but there's still people out there with opinions that could be changed to see how everyone is an equal person. I think it's a good project to do for this unit, because people who are made to feel like they don't have a voice, made to feel as if they are different to everyone else, they are all made to feel invisible; as I am doing a unit briefed on invisible lines, i feel like this project is a suitable case to look into. I think a lot of people will be able to connect with the work I will be producing as there are a lot of people out there that still struggle to say what they think is right and what is wrong. I am taking it upon myself to share this message with numerous people. Equality with colour, race, wealth, sexual preferences and many other ways of not feeling invisible
S3: Technical, Aesthetic and stylish considerations
For this unit I want all of my images to be photographed in black and white, I don’t want any colour bringing into this project at all, I want them to come across as a campaign; I think images come across stronger when they are in black and white, as I would like to add some bold writing into my images I dont want anything to distract the attention away from what the words are saying. I like the idea of capturing the protest through words as people cant hear things from photographs but they can read when they are being given the chance. I want some of my images to just be candid images but I do want a collection of staged images as I want to see what I can do with staging processes and seeing what I can do in the studio with models in this project.
S4: SWOT analysis
Strengths: My strength for this project is that I have a lot of roots I can go down and a lot of methods of things that I am going to be able to capture.
Weaknesses: Weaknesses for this project are limited as I don't really have many, the only weaknesses is that I may struggle to find some protests for this unit as there isn't many protests for equality near where I live
Opportunities: I am going to have many opportunities in this unit as there is many things for me to go into, so there are going to be many things for me to be able to experience and a lot of things I will be able to do that link with this project.
Threats: Only threats for me for this is if people get offended by what I am doing, but that's the whole point behind why I am doing it because I am showing that my opinion is that everybody should be equal and everyone should have the same rights so it doesn't really allow people to backlash their opinion on mine.
PROJECT PROPOSAL
PROJECT PROPOSAL
MAKING A CAMPAIGN
MAKING A CAMPAIGN
I like the idea of the typical google search campaign. This campaign was done for women's rights and I think it is a really powerful movement and it gets the message across. Its more of a campaign thats been turned around to catch people out because its not something you would typically think to say, but its how some people act.
This idea is a powerful move, they have cropped the image of the woman out of each of these magazine covers, this sends a deep message across because it is taking the empowerment out of the woman and leaving the only thing to look at is the man in each of the magazine covers.
VIDEO CAMPAIGNS
Videos are a big movement when trying to get a message across, because you are being spoken to and you're watching something that inspires you makes you more alert of what is happening. Doing a video is something I could consider doing but it would take a lot of time and consideration to do this.
ISAIAH & TAYLOR
ISAIAH & TAYLOR
The first artist I payed the biggest interest in is Isahia and Taylor, they created a series of work based on isolation. They did this series of work to show how it feels to live with a chronic illness. They got a model to dress in a full body black suit to show that this is a mysterious person who nobody knows. They are trying to make the image come across as that this person is invisible, and nobody around understands that person. “ illustrate the unseen, daily challenges and ever-present shadow worn by the people that live with chronic illness.” Isaiah and Taylor [online] Available from: https://www.stocksy.com/blog/living-in-shadow-with-isaiah-taylor/ [18.10.2019] This was a campaign that shared the story of a lot of mental illnesses.
PRACTICE
SHOOTS
So for this shoot I have decided I want to take female models and give them a powerful vibe look through taking their pictures. As you can see with these images I used the fur coat to embrace empowerment in the image, it gives the model a look of luxury and makes the image look a lot more powerful. I really like how these images have turned out. I documented how the process of editing these images. I wanted to show what they look like before I add text over the top of them, these are the underlay images. I edited all of these images in Lightroom and used photoshop to put together my contact sheets to show all of the images from this shoot.
These screenshots are trails of the process of editing these images, I wanted to go for a theme where the image looks powerful but doesn't take the attention away from the actual model to much. Where as with these images the filters take most of the attention away. I wanted to keep with a dated look theme and the one I chose eventually worked quiet well because it still makes the image look powerful but embraces the model and the garment more. I am really happy with how these images have turned out and I am going to try proceeding this shoot further by editing text on top of the image. Personally, I don't really like these trial edits as I think they do just take the vibrance away from the image and make the pictures look more washed out.
All of these little images are my contact sheets from this exact shoot that I did, I chose the best four in my opinion, I have kept all of the other images for back up and I am glad I did, when you look more closely at the contact sheet, the first few images I started shooting with just a casual t-shirt on, but half way through I thought "this shoot needs a little more empowerment". So I found a fur jacket that I knew would of made the shoot 10 times better, and thats exactly what it did. The jacket gives a lot more to look at and gives more of a luxurious look to the image which I think personally puts more of an empowerment on the model wearing it. There is a few more images on these contact sheets that I would like to use further into this project as I think this was a good shoot and would be a waste of images if I didn' t get the use out of them.
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MAKE UP LOOK SHOOT
These are the final outcomes for this trail. I love how these images turned out. I wanted to put catchy little slogans over the images to represent and show more meaning of what story I am trying to tell over these pictures. I am more than happy with how they have all turned out, especially with all of the writing overlaying them.
The images above are images straight from the camera. (unedited) these were the best four I decided to select.
The images above have all been edited using the platform Lightroom. All I did was enhance the colours to make it pop a bit more because the make up look was bright I wanted it to be a main focus of the image. I am happy with how these images turned out. I am going to progress editing further by putting quotes overlaying the image. I have screenshots of proof of the editing process. Please see below.
These screenshots are trails of the process of editing these images, The way I edited these was just by enhancing the blue theme. The colour blue is supposed to come across as a masculine and powerful colour so I wanted to overlay my images with it as it gives more power to the image and makes it pop a lot more than the original. If you look at the original image you can see how its dull and lifeless where as when you look at the edited version, all of the colour just seems to pop and looks a lot more iluminate. Overall I am more than happy with how these sets of images have come out, it was the look I was trying to aim for and I feel as if I have achieved it. I know that I need a little more practice on the photoshop and Lightroom processors but I am getting there slowly.
All of these little images are my contact sheets from this exact shoot that I did, I chose the best four in my opinion, I have kept all of the other images for back up and I am glad I did.
Another series of images, finished. I have put a screenshot of the software I used to edit the text onto the images. A website called www.canva.com I used this to develop the text overlay onto the image and I am more than happy with how these series of images have turned out. The message I was trying to get across has clearly been stated. I now want to look further into ways of developing my ideas even further. The text I used is in a bold font because I want it to be a main focus but not to take to much attraction away from the actual image.
A NEW SERIES
After reflecting on my own work, I know what else I could do to take these experiments the next step further. I want the image I take to connect with the quote I am placing over the image. I think it will make it a lot more special if they define with in each other. I am going to put some examples of what I would like to achieve from doing this below.
With this image, I found a quote that connects to negative thinking, its easy what I did to this image but it shows a really strong message that I am trying to get across through it. All I did to this image was have two of the same image and I converted one of the images to a negative and kept one as a positive. I cropped the negative down the the size of the models head as negative thoughts only come from the mind and no where else. I thought this was a strong message to get a cross. I am happy with how this one turned out and to take it further I want to make a series of these kinds of images. As well as different ones. I like the style of Barbra Kruger's work because she does what I am trying to do. She collects her images and then adds her text on top but makes them both connect with each other. Barbra Krugers most famous piece "Your body is battle ground". I copied her idea as research to see how my own would turn out and I really like the end result. So the next series of work is going to be of the model dressed and acted to the certain quotes that I pick. I will be picking three separate quotes at random to do with the involvement of power and to get the message of empowerment across. I am going to keep track of how I do all of this, so I can see what I can work on and try and improve and see how much of a good track I am on.
To the left and above are the images from Barbra Kruger, as you can see with these the actual photograph matches what the text states.
The image the arrow is pointing at is the one I did inspired by Barbra Krugers work, inverted the colours with an online website and cropped it in half and placed it over the original image , I then put a black and white filter over them both and then edited the text on an overlay, I am really happy with my outcome for this and I am looking forward to see how they rest of this series of images turn out.
Throughout this project I have found it interesting to see the background behind the word isolation, other peoples views and statements on how certain people should be treated. It was interesting putting together a campaign that documents women's rights and initialises how they are just as important as men. In summary, I am happy with my final outcomes, I think my images have made a statement and I have achieved at getting the message across about equality.