Presentation & Ideas

In my previous posts I stated that my work was to show how being homeless damages them on a personal level. Affecting their identity, isolation, mental and physical health.

After completing my shoot and images I’ve realised my work became more about the individual person i photographed.
Each film represented them, it was left in their area for a long period of time just like they would have been, it went through all of what that person would have had to endure. Being homeless does affect all the aspects listed above but I don’t want my images to further damage the issue of homelessness, or put it in a negative light, not all of them have mental problems or illness.
My images became more about the identity of these people, the films went through what they would have gone through, there was a danger that the rolls could have been moved, damaged or thrown away, this is what they have to worry about on a daily basis. Kurtis didn’t do his images to say that illegal immigrants were damaged people.
My images weren’t made to look at the negative issues that tag along with the homeless subject. I wanted to represent them individually.
I found it really interesting that these people have such a different way of living, they are isolated from our society but they have formed a underground one, they all know each other, help each other. Their daily goals are much different from ours, they are so caught up in living their lives day to day, trying to find shelter for the night etc, not being able to think long term to help them out of their situation.

Presentation

I have decided to go with the Japanese style book, I think that this design really strengthens my idea and makes the images  more of a group rather than being separated by borders, it’s also a black smart book, not a scrap book which i think gives the right impression.

So the smallest I could print my medium format images was just a bit smaller than a A4 print which was way to big for my book.
Matt gave me the idea of doing a contact print of the images, so that they would be the same size as the negative frame. We tried it with my contact sheet and it looked good and i think it was a unique way to present my work.
I was worried that they would be too small, i felt like i was holding the image right up close to look at it properly but this was actually a good thing, peering at the image.
I printed my images at A4 size to see what it would look like, I was looking at the images from a distance, everything was visible without getting up close. With the smaller images it felt more intimate being closer to the prints, it created more of a personal relationship and interaction between the viewer and the subject. This of course worked really nicely with my idea, some people are afraid to get up close to homeless people.
When I was printing these in the darkroom, I saw a few people comment on how small they were but also they were getting closer to the prints squinting at them to see what it was of.
The size is similar to a passport photo which is ironic because most of these people don’t have any ID, again commenting on their identity. If you think about traveling with a passport the border police peer and squint at the image to see the image.

A problem I encountered with doing a contact print of each image was the black border around each image, I didn’t want the Instagram look to my images and i thought it would look much more professional and neater if they had a white border like most prints do.
I rectified this by moving the enlarger lens right down to about 3 inches away from the board, this narrowed the light and made the square of light just smaller than the neg frame.
Because i couldn’t focus the enlarger lens (was too close to the board) instead of having sharp lines around the light it had a very soft edge. At first i thought that this wouldn’t do at all, when i took it out and showed a few people they said it added to “not perfect” look I wanted and complemented the light leaks.

I knew i wanted something that explained my process in the book, because this was probably the most important aspect to my images.
I thought about a short statement, but I thought this might have been too straightforward.
Matt suggested a grid reference or street name and how long the film was left out for.
I thought about the latitude and longitude and the hours the film was left out for. But I don’t want it to be too complex.
The street name would be more vague so that these peoples identity would be protected and then i think it would be important to include the amount of time the film was left out for.
Below is an example of what Seba Kurtis included on his website, he placed text amongst his image slideshow to give context. They explain why he has done the work and what his process was.

Seba Kurtis “Drowned”

Seb Kurtis “Rif”

“Each roll of film represented each individual.
I shot the film, left it outside, unprotected in their place for days…
bared to the elements, just like my subjects.”

Above is the statement I will use to put my work into context, hopefully this will prompt the viewer to back through the book and they should understand the captions under each image.

I have paired some images together, like the brothers they are on opposite pages and 2 other people that I met because they were together.
The order of the images is roughly in the order that I met them, bar a few because i had to do some moving around to get the images I wanted together . I chose to go for the polaroid style shape with the prints, normal borders just didn’t look right. Each print varies in sizes but i thought this just added character to the images.
They’re not neat prints, I would have liked to have done some dodging and burning but I felt that would have been altering the image by getting rid of the faults.

Presentation Ideas with Carolyn Lefely

We had a guest Lecturer Carolyn Lefely
She told us all about her career from her Degree at CU until now.

She also spoke to us about ideas of how to present our work.
I found the way she presented her most recent work was very interesting, she made a collection of different artefacts for her project.
The way we present our work should strengthen our idea, give the images context and help the viewer grasp the meaning of our work. Carolyn used liquid light to print images on the rocks she found at the place her project was based on.
We also did a activity on ordering images. It made me realise the importance of ordering images because it could completely change the meaning of the work, especially if they are telling a story.

I started to think about ways I usually present my work.

Framing with Mounts- This is how i normally present my work and is what you usually see in a gallery.
I started to think about framing my work but I felt that the borders of the frame would create too much of a separation between each person. During my shoot I found that the homeless had a society of their own, and this is something that I wanted to show in my project, I don’t want to show that these people are separate and don’t associate or interact with each other.

So with this in mind, I started to think about alternatives, were there any materials i associated with the homeless?
I then started to think about a family album and i liked the idea of using a book.
I particularly liked this idea because it would be different from what i normally do but also the thought of it being a bit like a family album.
The book would bring all the images together in one place which means each image wouldn’t be disconnected from one another.

When looking at books it took me a while to find the right one, some were a bit like scarp books and I didn’t want something like this. I didn’t want it to look like my subjects didn’t deserve a smart looking presentation, a scarp book would have given off the wrong idea. There were photo albums but I didn’t want the album idea to be too obvious and take away from my main idea of representing the homeless people individually.
I came across a black Japanese Style book. This design is like an accordion which means each image could be on a page and could be flicked though like a normal book but if you pull out the pages they are all side by side.

I thought that this style would be perfect, all my images would be a group, with nothing separating them, representing my subject’s underground-like society.
This book was very small at around A5 size so I ordered a normal A4 size as well. I haven’t decided what size I want my images yet but I don’t want them to be small and have no impact or be too big and become boring.
I will need to print a few at different sizes and see what works best.

I already have a idea of what images will be grouped together, like the brothers in leamington and potentially the vacant image and my old image with the homeless person present.

Contact sheets

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2

3

4

5

These are scans of my contact sheets for my final shoots.

I have marked the frames that i think are the ones i will use. Some of the frames in the contact sheets are blurry this is because the contact glass wasn’t completely flat when exposing my paper and this has caused blur.

Initially i was worried that the light leaks and defects weren’t very consistent through all the rolls of film, some rolls had been affected much more than others. I was worried that the viewer may read into it too much and think that i purposefully damaged a certain film more than another for other reasons. After speaking to Matt i was assured that it didn’t matter, it was interesting that each film is different and reflects the conditions they were left in.

Contact sheet 1

I chose one image to print in this set. This one has quite a bit of light leakage around the edges, Darren and bubbles are both visible and sharp which draws the attention to them. I like that he isn’t looking towards me in the image and is acting like I wasn’t there.

Contact Sheet 2

This film contains Steve and a Big Issue Seller (didn’t get his name).
I have chosen 1 image for the big issue seller, the image is sharp… the contact sheet doesn’t show this image well because i was exposing for the other images.
With Steve there were 2 different types of images of him. I preferred the one where he was standing up, it showed his personality much more, the way he is standing and holding himself shows he is uncomfortable. the ones were he is crouched outside a shop is showing him in a bad light, whereas with the other image i have chosen, he could be anyone not necessarily homeless, we don’t pity him in this image which is something i feel is important.

Contact sheet 3
Only 1 image is sharp out of the 2. I am planning to print my previous image of Andy from a few years ago to go along side this image. I am a bit worried that they are different formats.

Contact Sheet 4 & 5
These are the brothers that i will be presenting next to each other.
I’m not sure if i want these images to be similar to each other so i have chosen a few, I will print these and see what works best.
In contact 5 i really like the middle image but not sure if it will work with any of the contact 4 images

What is a Landscape Lecture

What is a Landscape?
we started to think about the conventions of landscapes…

-Nature
-Somewhere we haven’t been before
-Not a lot going on, something to contemplate
-Can be nature or urban or both in harmony or conflict.
-Can be portrait or landscape
-Often intended to represent places we’ve never seen. To make us think differently of places we pass everyday.
-Can be populated or un populated.
-Doesn’t have to be Landscape orientation, could be portrait, square.
-A view

Human Presence

We spoke about human’s presence in landscape photographs, this is a way we could represent our ideas without being too straight forward or literal in our images.

Elinor Carucci’s image below shows a man with creases across his chest, this tells us a lot of information without being too straightforward. We know he has been sleeping and a image that shows these marks is a lot more interesting and relatable than a image of someone asleep.

With this idea in mind, we could apply this to a landscape;

Edward Burtynsky photographed a series called “Oil”.
Above is a image of a landscape that portrays human presence and human’s effect on nature and land.
The rolling hills of tyres are reminiscent of actual hills, this makes us contemplate what will we do when there is no more room for more tyres? theres only a small bare corner left.
This is a landscape of human presence, you do not see humans dumping tyres here but it’s obvious that this has been happening. The hill effect makes us think of our impact on our world, we now have hills of rubber rather than grass.

Fred Ritchin
This photographer recently commented on documentary photography’s ability to make people react but not to prevent the problem its documenting.
This was something that I could relate to my idea with the homeless, I didn’t want to add to the catalogue of disturbing images of the homeless that shocked viewers, I wanted to prevent and help. This proved to be difficult, my images aren’t shocking like some you see of people living in boxes etc, my images aim was mainly to represent the individual.

Simon Norfolk
Norfolk uses beauty as a tool, we watched a video where he explains that he uses beauty to trick people into looking at his images. He is documenting the war in the middle east, he creates beautiful aesthetic pieces that draw people in with complementary colours and beautiful sunsets but instead depict the brutality of the Afghan War.

Above is a image of a watch tower, the colours of the image are truly beautiful so you are intrigued but on closer inspection you see the sharp barbwire, the security camera and the military setting.

I really liked this idea and is something that influenced my work, Norfolk uses beauty to get the viewers attention to then make them look at something we would rather forget about or not think about. This is something I thought could be relevant to the issue of homelessness, by using defects in my images (not beautiful but different to ordinary prints) this gets the attention of the viewer and then they are looking at something they wouldn’t have normally picked up  or would want to look at.

What is a Photograph Lecture

In this lecture we looked at what makes up a photograph, the limitations and characteristics.

We listed the things we think about/of a photograph

– It is 2D

– It flattens the world

– It has edges

– It is an artefact

– It is still

– It is fixed in time

– It is (colour or) monochrome

– It has denotations and connotations

– It is a truth

– It serves a purpose/is considered a work of art

– It involves a relationship between it’s participants

– We often do not fully understand the context of the image without more information.

I often forget about an image as an object and its physical form, usually a piece of paper, but rather get too distracted about what’s in the photograph. So it was interesting to think about the edges of a photograph, its texture and its form as just a photograph.

“A photograph can be viewed on several levels, To begin with, it is a physical object, a print.
On this print is an image, an illusion of a window on to the world. It is on this level that we usually read a picture and discover it’s content: a souvenir of an exotic land, the face of a lover, a wet rock, a landscape at night. Embedded in this level is another that contains signals to our mind’s perceptual apparatus.
It gives ‘spin’ to what the image depicts and how it is organized”

– Shore, S (The Nature of Photographs) 2007

This quote made me contemplate the physical attributes of a photograph and how they can affect what we take from the visual objects in the image on the print. We read differently into images that have been presented in different ways, so why would I disregard the qualities of the actual photography, as an object in it’s own right.

I was quite relieved to see “We often do not fully understand the context of the image without more information” because this is something that happens to me a lot. I read into images in my own way that might not have been the photographers intensions, whether this is good or not I’m not sure.
I think that once a set of photographs have been put into context it strengthens the images for me, I see their purpose and the intensions behind the work and completes the work.

Deconstructing a Photograph

It Flattens the world

We said that a photograph squishes our 3D world into a 2D one. Which is something we often forget about in an image, because we are so used to seeing flat images of our world, we think nothing of it. Is this a limitation? it’s defiantly something to consider in our work.
We can of course apply depth to our images by using techniques like depth of field, Leading lines, Objects to give the image scale.
Many photographers create a path for the viewer’s eye to tour the image in a certain set out manner.

It has Edges – It’s a window

“Photography is inherently an analytic discipline.
Where a painter starts with a blank canvas and builds a picture, a photographer starts with the messiness of the world and selects a picture.
A photographer standing before houses and streets and people and trees and artifacts of a culture imposes an order on the scene – simplifies the jumble by giving it structure.
He or she imposes this order by choosing a vantage point, choosing a frame, choosing a moment of exposure, and by selecting a plane of focus”

– Shore, S (The Nature of Photographs) 2007

This quote starts to touch upon the elements we have to consider when composing our photograph, the framing, the timing etc.
As a photographer we have to select what we want to photograph out of everything.
A painter will create what he or she wants to depict, photographers have to work what is in front of them and make decisions like framing, exposure, timing, focus to make it our own and let our work say what we want it too.

We start to think that a photograph frames a small part of our world, do we just think about the things within this frame, do we start to imagine what’s outside of the frame, does what we see continue after the image has been taken?
We could do small things within our images that hint at these points above.

In this image by August Sander all the subjects are very central, sitting comfortably with the frame, not squished in, head room, room either side of the group. Its not a cramped photograph, we don’t seem to be interested with whats going on outside of that frame and all of out attention is taken to the subjects within the image.

But with this image by Christopher Dunn, we are curious as to what is going on outside the borders of our vision that has been restricted by the edges of the frame. This is because the subject is looking outwards and we are left wondering at what he is interested in looking at.

Fixed in Time

Of course a photograph is referred to as a moment fixed in time, something from the past that have been preserved on paper. That particular is ageing as soon as it has been taken, but what about the physical photograph ageing itself, left out in the sun and the colours will bleach and fade leaving traces of it’s life and events. Photographs will stick together if they get wet, some may yellow/brown with age showing their age length and events of it’s existence.
I really love this  idea and this is something i’m using in my final idea.

Another thing we looked at are photographers that use stillness to provoke us to think about what happens after the image has been taken. Like a film still.
Gregory Crewdson  creates images that do just this. There is a certain anticipation in his images that leave me waiting for the image to move and carry on with the story.
This type of image makes the viewer question what is going on? why are they doing that? and perhaps when there isn’t much going on we stop and think well this image isn’t telling us much, why has it been photographed? and this leaves our imagination to carry the sequence on.

Denotation/Connotation

A denotation is the literal meaning of the image.
A connotation is an association, emotional or otherwise, which the image evokes.

“The studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of inconsequential taste: I like/I don’t like.
The studium is of the order of liking, not of loving; it mobilises a half desire, a demi-violation; it is the same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds ‘all right”

– Barthes, R (Camera Lucida) 1980

A Studium is what we might like, consider as alright, in a image. The Punctum is what makes us love an image, makes it our favourite. Someone’s punctum will be another’s studium.
It serves a purpose or is considered a work of art

We started to think about the purpose of images and how we look at these images can be altered by altering their setting.
Like putting the family photo collection into a museum, we are primed to see art in a museum so we will probably  consider the work as art instead of a memory, which was it’s original purpose when it was in a shoe box in the spare room.

There is a relationship between it’s participants 

We named the 3 participants of a photograph as
-The Viewer
-The Subject
-The Photographer

We have to consider the relationships between these participants when considering a photograph. This is what will evoke ideas/emotions in all of these people and this is what we use to bring our ideas and meanings forward in the image.

 

An Image relies heavily on context

Images usually have some sort of context to place it better in the world of photography and it’s meaning as without context it would get lost in the viewers own perceptions of the work.

-Pairings
-Sequencing
-Scale
-Presentation methods – exhibition/book/box etc
-Titles
-Artist statements
-Previous work
-Medium

The above are things that will place our images in context to support the ideas that are trying to be portrayed.
Simple things like reading the title of the work will hint at the purpose of the work and will usually change our previous perception of it.

For instance the image below would be viewed as an abandoned house that has been left to rot. Nothing much else for us to read into it.

Then we read the title

“From the 1920s through the 1950s, the city of Niagara Falls, the United States Army, and the Hooker Chemical Corporation dumped over 200 different toxic chemicals into Love Canal”

…it gives us a completely new angle to view the work from. We have a lot more information about the purpose of the work, and I certainly look at it differently from what I did previously.
For me, the title gave the image more strength, it obviously has a lot more meaning and purpose behind it than what I previously thought.
This shows the power of a simple title.

Encountering Culture – 2nd Test Shoot

For my next shoot, I went to Leamington and very quickly came across 2 homeless people.
They were brothers, Andy and John. I first met Andy, again he was very open with his story and very happy to have his photograph taken. He told us that this will be his eighth christmas on the streets, they both get moved on a lot and have been all over the UK; Manchester, Bournemouth and now Leamington.

He also told me about a photographer that did a project in leamington based on the homeless called “On The Street”

His project’s aim was to highlight the issue of homelessness in Leamington and to find some good in the people they see on the streets. This project was taken over a year. His images were exhibited in the local gallery and I think did achieve to raise awareness of homelessness in the area.

John had been homeless for 5 years, he told us that he had been in prison for a while and found it difficult to get a job once he was out.
Both of them were so open about telling us all about themselves, this is something i have noticed when talking to all of these people.

I then spoke 2 a Big Issue lady, she didn’t speak much english but when i asked her to photograph her so said that she didn’t want to. So i took 2 blank images (lens cap on) to represent her.

I then met Will who was a big issue seller, who wasn’t homeless but he helps and volunteers at the homeless shelter and he offered to take me to the shelter on one of their meetings. this is where they pick up their magazines, have a cup of tea and meet up. I arranged a date and time to meet him, but he didn’t turn up. I did find out where it was but i felt uncomfortable to go barging in uninvited so I didn’t go but the info is here.

I have been leaving the films in groups, so i shot 3 films in leamington so I left them together in the park (somewhere they won’t be found).

 Then on the next day, I went to Stratford Upon Avon, because I have photographed Andy there before (2011)  who had been discharged from the Army and has since been homeless for over 20 years.
When I went he wasn’t in his usual spot, he’s always here everyday but on this visit he wasn’t.
I was quite disappointed because I really wanted to photograph Andy because he’s been homeless for so long and he’s so lovely!
So I photographed the space he usually sits, just outside of a shop, I was thinking that I could present this image next to my previous image of him, they won’t be identical because my previous image was square format but it will show that he has obviously been moved on or maybe he’s not around anymore.
But a vacant space will get the viewer thinking why has this image been included and hopefully it will trigger a few thoughts about being moved on, everything is temporary or maybe he has passed away. I will have to see how these images turn out to decide how I will present these.

Encountering Culture – Light Leak Test

I followed the tutorial I found on how to add light leaks to 120 film.
I did a quick test film using this technique and it worked perfectly, there were variations in the amount of light leak throughout the film but this works well because i may decide to add more or less defects to a certain person to add to the message.

Jon also introduced me to a photographer called Daido Moriyama who also used manipulation in his images to turn beautiful Japanese scenes like cherry blossom trees what looks like a nuclear explosion.
He used a range of techniques like when developing the film he would use boiling water to affect the emulsion.
He wouldn’t look after his negatives, some have footprints on from where they have been kicked around his darkroom.
His manipulation shows his resentment to the disasters of Japan and he has done this by defying the rules of traditional photography.

“Cherry Blossoms” doesn’t show any sky at all; the whole frame is filled with the blossoms which seem to explode out from the tree, against a black background which dims at the edges. It’s the most aggressive cherry blossom tree I’ve ever seen” Eve Tushnet The American Conservative

This got me thinking about his manipulation. He put his film through all the things it’s not meant to suffer to create something different. In a similar way homeless people are put through things, we as a human being, are not meant to. Like extreme temperatures, all weather conditions, no food, no shelter.
If i was to boil film, not look after it etc, this would represent this quite well, by ignoring the rules of film photography this shows what is happening to these people on the street.

Something else to think about. I am still going to leave my film outside, exposed to all weather conditions etc.

Encountering Culture – Shoot Notes

This week I have been pursuing my idea and I started my shoots in Birmingham city centre.
Birmingham is one of the worst areas for homelessness and poverty in the UK and because i was finding it difficult to locate homeless people I thought this would be a good place to start.
The German Christmas Market was on in Birmingham so it was very busy with both local’s and tourists.
I managed to find quite a few homeless people in the area, I photographed 4 people and 2 of them were Big Issue sellers.
I photographed Steve, he was stood with a big issue seller… first off I photographed him standing up stood next to the other homeless person. He then suggested for me to photograph him how he would normally be when he is begging.
So he crouched outside House of Frasier and put a blanket over his legs and told me he wasn’t going to look at the camera, because he usually searches for peoples eye contact in the crowd to try to get their attention. I found this really interesting and it reminded me of Luvera’s practice, Steve really took control of the situation and decided what he was going to do to get a accurate photograph for myself. He explained that the money he begs for is for accommodation for the night and that is his main priority as he has to come up with the money by 4pm everyday. He then quickly disappeared because he said the police would move him on soon.

I then photographed 2 Big Issue Sellers close by. I’m not sure if these photographs will be very good because they are stood up, and they didn’t look particularly homeless. I guess we’ll have to see how these turn out.
They explained to me that they buy in the magazines for £1.50 each and try to sell them for £3, but because they are weekly magazines they have to sell them within the week otherwise they are landed with out of date mags that won’t sell.
It really makes me wonder how much The Big Issue is helping these people, they must be making a lot of profit from the magazine because i’m almost certain it wouldn’t cost £1.50 to print a national magazine in the numbers that they do.

I then met Bubbles and Darren, also a big issue seller who had recently adopted a rescue dog (Bubbles).
He was so kind and supportive of my project, in fact everyone I have spoken to has been, he asked me about my degree and previous courses and wished me luck with it all. He also added that he hoped I managed to do something with the degree afterwards. I found this conversation very sweet because none of these people are spiteful towards people that are more fortunate than them, he was generally interested in my course and what i’m doing. I was expecting homeless people to be angry at the world.

I found that the power relationship wasn’t uncomfortable or unbalanced. I had the camera, they all asked me what i wanted them to do and i told them to do whatever makes them feel more comfortable. Some found it more natural than others, some smiled, some looked away, some looked directly at the camera. I thought this was a nice element to the images, they presented themselves how they wanted to and how they felt comfortable, this is showing that they have control over themselves within the images.

Just before I went home I spoke to a police officer to get their view on the homeless situation in Birmingham.
I asked him if the police tend to move homeless people on a lot.
He kind of tip toed around the question and said that they don’t have a problem with The Big Issue sellers because they have posts and have regulations etc. But the other homeless people like the beggars do get moved on because most of them are begging for money to fuel a drug or drink addiction and actually have homes to go to at the end of the day.
They did some sort of survey/operation to find this out.
He said that obviously not all of them are like this, closer to christmas they will work more closely with the homeless and find out what they need to help them, for those that need help.

Encountering Culture – Test shoots

My first film was of 2 homeless people (before my idea changed) with no manipulation.
I did a contact sheet and printed 3 images from this film. It might have been worth using a filter in the images as the contrast is a little flat but they seem to be generally good prints

 

Above are the 3 images I printed. I’m quite pleased with them, apart from the one of the man in the doorway as it’s a little soft on his face. I think this was because it was a dark doorway and i was trying to use his hands to focus and at F4 this has given me very shallow depth of field.
I do like the other 2 images; his eyes in the closely framed image are very captivating… they draw you in which is very interesting. I like how each subject reacted differently to the camera, the first man (doorway image) was new to being homeless and said that he didn’t want to look directly at the camera and was very nervous, where Steve in coventry has been homeless a lot longer and he looked directly into the camera and is kind of presenting himself confidently to the camera, pulling a mischeivious smile. He was sat under the ring road in a wide open space which is quite unusual as we usually picture the homeless in door ways or streets against the wall.
The location is very reminiscent of a temple, because of the open space and pillars, I found this interesting because this is of course his space that is invaded by passers by and is often moved on by police.

My second film was the quick test film I did at home, I shot normally and breathed on the lens on a few images (trying out Kurtis’ technique). I loosely wrapped this film and left it outside overnight, hoping to get some light leaks and other defects before I developed it.
Once developed, the film came out technically sound; no light leaks, no marks, no defects… obviously this was quite disappointing! All images were sharp and good in tonal range.
The night that I left it out was very very cold which is actually good for film, it stops any chemical changes like colour shifting (in colour film), so this might have been part of the problem. In fact, it’s heat that affects film the most.
It was also a very dry night, so no rain would have falling on the film to cause marks.

The only interesting images that came out on this film was the ones where I fogged the lens.
These images were bleached out in areas due to being slightly under exposed (the fogg on the lens must have reduced the light going in causing under exposure). Other than this, what I found aesthetically pleasing was that some areas were sharp in focus and some were very soft giving quite a dreamy look which I liked. The image is very similar to Kurtis’ image

In regards to the lack of manipulation in this film, I found an article on the Lomography website with a tutorial on how to add light leaks to 120 film which I’m going to give a go!

Encountering Culture – New Idea

After having a tutorial with Matt, it became apparent that my idea had become a little confused and mixed up.
I realised I had to refine my idea a bit more and really nail down what I wanted to say.

It was suggested that I look further into why and how Seba Kurtis manipulated his images
so I watched this video

Seba Kurtis

Looking at his project “Immigration Files” he explained the reasoning behind his manipulation of his images.
In “700 Miles” & “A Few Days More” he manipulated selected images in the camera by opening the back of the camera, removing the dark slide etc. He said that when he was living as an illegal immigrant it quickly became apparent that he might not be around tomorrow, he may get deported today or get caught. He found this very chaotic and if something of his was broken he wouldn’t pay to get it fixed, he might get deported and it would be a waste of money.
he manipulated his images to show this but also he let the light decide who would get bleached out to show his uncertainty of the situation.
In one image he photographed someone who was in a similar situation as his brother, this boy reminded him of his sibling so when photographing him he breathed on the lens to put a part of himself in his image.

Another series he did was called “Drowned” these images were taken on 5×4 and he photographed Italy which is where the illegal immigrants were heading, most of them drowned or died from dehydration, on one trip only 2 survived out of 150.
They were desperate to escape and they would risk everything to get away.
Kurtis was so angry after hearing how many people died that day he was shooting, he threw the box of exposed film in the sea where they were trying to cross. He then rescued them and printed them. The images having shifted in colour, been bleached but they were drowned and developed by the water as did the Illegal Immigrants.

My New Idea

Concentrating more on the homeless I wanted to show how being homeless damages them on a personal level.
They lose their identity, they become isolated, both their mental health and general health are affected.
In a similar way to Kurtis with Drowned, I want to photograph a homeless person, and leave the film outside, exposed to the elements like they are. This should give me defects like light leaks, water marks etc and this comments on the effects of being homeless.
I will leave the film over a period of time in the place where I photographed the subject and collect it afterwards.
I will try to hide the film to avoid all of them being taken away/ picked up but if they are I will have to find something else to represent that person. Th

I will do a test shoot, and leave it outside over night to see what kind of effects I can expect.
I have also photographed 2 people already so I will print these and add light leaks in the darkroom to see what effects I can achieve.