Review of Exhibition Inside, Outside, In-between

I Thought the show was quite good there was a range of different techniques used in the final outcomes displayed, but i felt that the photography part was the strongest as the others explored creativity but lacked quality. however each piece was displayed differently and each candidate approached the theme inside, out side in-between differently.

The pieces i liked the most was this below.This student is a fine art student and i like how she's used photography and art to obscure this peoples identity with animals.

I also like this one because i like the quality of the photos and how the subject matter is slightly awkward and not everybody would be confident or comfortable with taking these pictures.

This piece was from the Textiles part of the show i like this piece because of the threaded in typography onto the canvas this screams to me that this required a lot of attention and perseverance.

I liked the photography exhibition the best because every candidate approached the theme in a completely different way there was a lot of originality and a lot of effort put into the work.I also liked how there were different presentation ideas some were hanging, others were on light boxes and others were gif's on the computers.The thing id take from the exhibition would have to be to look deep within the lines of the theme to try and approach it a different and quirky way.

I've been inspired in the sense to really experiment and use different materials when creating a final piece and not go for the obvious interpretation of the theme.

Photographers Gallery

  

The Photographers Gallery is a Gallery dedicated to photography it is situated in Central London not too far from Oxford Street.At the time i went there there was two exhibitions showing one of which was the Claire Ahos-Studio works and the other which was the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013.

The Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013 exhibition featured the work of four photographers which were Chris Killip,Mishka Henner,Broomberg and chanarin and Christina de Middel. The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013 rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, for a specific body of work in an exhibition which has  contributed to photography in Europe between 1 October 2011 and 30 September 2012. The prize is £30,000. Each Photographer is nominated for something different for example.

Mishka Henner is nominated for hes project 'No mans Land' which represents isolated women occupying the margins of southern European environments captured with Google Street View.

Chris Killip is nominated for hes project 'What happened-Great Britain 1970-1990' which comprises of  black and white images of working people in the north of England, taken by Killip in the 1970s and 1980s.

Broomberg and Chanarin were nominated for their project 'War Primer 2' which is a limited edition book that consists of pages of Bertold Brecht’s  1955 publication War Primer. Brecht’s photo-essay consists of 85 images, photographic fragments or collected newspaper clippings. 

And Christina De Middel was nominated for her project 'The Afronauts'  which is a play on 1964, after Zambia after gaining independence started a space programme in order to send the first African astronaut to the moon.

Personally for me I feel Christina De Middel should win the Prize because although the other artists showed great skill and creativity Christina's subject matter relates to a historical event which is well thought out and clever.Her models convey a great amount of emotion which links to the emotions the Zambian Astronauts could have felt and her choice of background locations bring a urban look to the piece which makes it that much more real.

CLAIRE AHO: STUDIO WORKS

The second Exhibition was about the Artist Claire Aho showing her  photographs, spanning her career from 1950 to 1970. Claire Aho began her career in the early 1950s as a news camera operator in a documentary film making company owned by her father and uncle, Aho & Soldan. She was the only female cinematographer in the field, she also filmed the 1952 Olympics, and was later hired by Warner Pathé News. She maintained a successful commercial studio between 1950 and 1970, working for  lifestyle and fashion magazines, as well as directly with manufacturers and designers.Her studio is important as it is the founding part for her photography where her photo shoots and lighting and costume set ups were introduced.

In the exhibition were a lot of interesting images but this one below stood out most for me because it reminded me of the work of Jan Von Holleben the way in which he uses child models and props to stylise a scene.I particularly like the baby pure colours used in this scene and the emptiness of it as if this were a real child's party things would be chaotic and wild but in this picture the children are sitting around the table nicely smiling almost like adults.Overall i found the trip to the gallery was a inspirational and productive one.

Chemigram's

This is a stop motion short film of making a chemigram. A chemigram is like a photogram except a chemigram is done in daylight whilst a photogram is done in the darkroom.

Their are two ways to make a chemigram and both look very different.
The first way the way shown by me in this video is to put a object in the developer my object begin my hand, secondly place the object on the photographic paper for 20secs then put in into the stop then fix and finally wash the print. the other way to do it is to put a object into the fix then place it onto the paper and process the paper by putting it in the developer stop and then fix again.
The first step by step produces a black imprint whilst the other produces a white imprint almost like reversals. 
If using your hand like i did a health and safety procedure would be to first test a small area of your hand to make sure your not allergic to the chemicals and of course don't try it if there are any open cuts on your hand.
Overall the process of making a chemigram is fun and exciting. Here are some of my end result chemigrams and my leave rubbing composition sheet.

Jan Von Holleben Outcome

These are the outcomes from the Jan Von Holleben response photo shoot, In my opinion i think the blue sky background worked well with the flying elevation shot as well as the hot air balloon, i also think the contrast of the yellow stars worked really well with the black background.If we were to do this again i think maybe we could add two people to a frame and let them kind of tell a story instead of one person.Also i think going along with the theme of Jan Van Holleben this could be better if we used models such as small children or maybe even animals or try to create a scene with just objects.

We could also have followed a well known film or television show like this.

This is a person waving from a hot air balloon this was inspired by this image.

 This is a superhero flying through the day sky it was inspired by this image.

This is a superhero flying through the night sky this inspiration was taken from this picture of Jan Von Hollebens work. With the idea of a space scene.

Jan Von Holleben Planning

Inspired by Jan Von Holleben we have been asked to create a scenery photo shoot alike his.
For our teams photo shoot we are going with two main ideas one of which is a superhero shoot similar to this below except there will be 3 of us in the shoot.

To create this our group members will need capes of some sort or material that could be tied around them like capes.


Our second idea is also similar to the work of Sam Taylor Wood where we will be doing elevation with balloons.

Except alike Jan Von Hollebens work it will be set on the ground so it would look more like this.

 To make this as a group we are going to need balloons some strings and ourselves, To shoot it we will need a extra person to take a Aerial shot from above.Then to set the scene we will simply blow up the balloons add the string to the bottoms add a person on the bottom and then take the shot.

Jan Von Holleben Analyisis

This is a Photograph taken by the photographer Jan Von Holleben. He is a German photographer born in 1977, He lived most of his youth in a commune but began experimenting with photography at the age of 13 where he followed his fathers photography traits. After following his first ambition to be a teacher to disabled children he came to England to study photography at 'The Surrey Institute Of Art and Design' soon after he began his photography career. Holleben identifies a strong connection with his photography work and the influence of his parents and childhood memories.

This photograph is one of many from the project the dreams of flying.In this project he uses child models to create a creative scene which is illusionist whether its on the ground or not.
 In the interview below he states that nowadays people become so obsessed with the aftermaths of a photograph editing and transforming its original form, the public eye has learnt not to trust the beauty in the faces of the models because they are either made up with a whole heap of makeup or digitised and photo shopped. With his photography he aims to be natural but be creative and play around with the scenery to produce something imaginative and interesting.

Jan Von Holleben Interview

To create this photograph Jan Von Holleben set up a photo shoot and positioned his camera aerial to the floor.He then with his team set up the scene with plant pots and garden hoses to create the atmosphere of a jungle with snakes and animals,He then had a plan drawn out of paper and asked the child models to be positioned in this way i would imagine he would take this shot a lot of times to make sure everything was as realist and composed exactly how he wanted it to be.

To understand how he set up this i watched this video below.

Dreams of flying Photo shoot

In this video it shows the hard work that goes on behind the work of this photograph which is a lot of planning and evaluating before the final pictures are taken.The environment in this video looks quite exciting and fun which is what i think he is trying to create in this photograph.

I have chosen this picture to analyse because like Holleben's intentions i find it interesting and exciting to look at let alone analyse. Significant props in this piece include plants, ropes, A garden hose and a teddy bear monkey all of these props help create the jungle atmosphere in a modern way.I think this piece tells a story the guy on the rope represents the hero and the small girl holding his hand the damsel in distress and of course the small boy crouched down in the bushes the villain.

This set up is classic child's play as children often pretend to be superheroes and in every great superhero story are these characters. There could be many story's made up from this image but to me i can think of a story close to the children's adventure classic 'Jungle Book'  whereby the boy and the girl are being chased by a evil monkey and as they are running they come across a big ditch with nothing but a rope hanging to get to the other side, the boy hero runs and jumps to the rope but the girl is left behind and the villain is coming closer to her so the hero reaches out his hand for her and she jumps and clings to it just before the villain grabs her.

I think the fact Holleben used child models instead of adults or even objects (which would have worked quite well with the surroundings) hint a deeper meaning which is that children are open minded and have a vivid imagination so to someone analysing this piece they might soon find out this is all on the ground and not in a jungle but to children using their imagination to analyse this piece they will see a jungle because of the creativity in their minds.I also think Holleben was maybe recreating some of his fantasies as a child and some of his childhood memories which is also what makes it personal.

To make this piece a lot of planning, organisation and time went into it and overall i think it is a very good photograph that displays imagination and creativity and fun.This piece has inspired me to take time and plan sufficiently when organising a photo shoot and make sure the models involved are feeling the emotions your trying to convey whether that's excitement or sadness or worry if the model feels it and believes it so will the photograph.