The last brief but by no means least that we were set was the ‘Home’ brief. The aim for this brief was to produce a set of images that reflected how we interpreted the word home and what it means to us. This proved to be a very interesting yet quite difficult brief as we, as first years are currently in that transitional period between living in a brand new town alone for the first time and still regarding our hometown as home.
Home has for most people, has become a feeling rather than a specific or rooted place due to all of the moving around. For me, home is the feeling of familiarity and comfortability, knowing your surroundings and being completely at ease in them. I have found that I also consider this feeling with particular people in my life. There are individuals that make me feel at home as I do not have to try with them, I feel 100% comfortable and don’t have to think about what I do or say before I do or say it.
Research
Before I had even began my research or decided what exactly it was I wanted to photograph, I knew what style I wanted to execute for this project; double exposure. It is a very popular style of photography but one I have never explicitly attempted myself, although I admire it very much so.
I began my research by looking into a more traditional looking approach to double exposure photography. I came across a man named Andre De Freitas who has some very beautiful images;
I find his use of double exposure to be very classic. I like how he varies his images between noticeably seeing the face of the subject and also having silhouettes and both ways work just as effectively as each other. It is interesting to note how almost all of Freitas’ double exposed photographs layer a person and a setting. Using a landscape to layer with a figure works to great effect as the landscape becomes a sort of texture that is adopted onto the figure. What I also love about these images and about the style of double exposure in general is how you know there must be a connection between the person in the image and the setting they have been combined with, however that connection usually appears to be personal to the photographer.
I then began to look into more contemporary approaches to the style and found a lot that focus on the use of the figure in order to frame the images with either a very set back background or subtle, off white colour. A key photographer who comes up in almost all searches for double exposure is Dan Mountford. Another photographer who also works with very similar methods and style is Christoffer Relander.
What I love about this more contemporary style is how perfectly balanced the two images are; in particular I love how with the side profiles, they are not just double exposed but they also fade into that single image. It has turned the style into much more of a craft. The use of a plain background works brilliantly in order to enhance the detail within the edits that both photographers have achieved. The use of the plain background adds an element of simplicity to a complex style of editing which means there is no distractions from the imagery. The viewer is encouraged to consider how the two images have been formed together and be fascinated in it’s distinction from other photographic styles. It’s intriguing also to see the contrast between Relander and Mountford’s use of imagery for the photos I have chosen to focus on; Relander and his focus on the more natural scenery in the world vs. Mountford’s man-made elements. I would like to attempt both of these styles in my own work as I feel they do work well in coming together as a series.
My images
For my images, I looked back through my archive of images in order to find photographs of people and places that I had taken that emitted the feeling and sense of home for me. I began to experiment with two images, one of a best friend from home and another of one of the hills not far from where I live. I trialled a few different ways of editing double exposure before settling; I experimented with having the order of the two layers differently and also with having one layer black and white so that the colour of the trees layer came through the image of my friend a lot richer and not so lost.
To get to my final image for this edit, before applying the images together to create the double exposure, I sliced around the shape of Maddie (the figure in the image) and deleted the space on both layers so that when they were digitally double exposed, only what was inside the shape of the figure came through. This was the result:
Once I had nailed the technique with this image, I began to apply it to my other selected images, keeping the style consistent.
The first two images that I have created for this project are of two best friends from home and use two landscapes both taken whilst at home. The landscapes are both in large open, natural spaces; I feel very at home in these environments as it reminds me of summer as my friends and I used to spend days in the local park, wasting time. Therefore, anytime I am in an open green space like that, I instantly feel comfortable and am flooded with memories and the feeling of being with people I know, only a short distance from my home, situated in a town that I know better than I know some people. The landscape used in the second image in particular looks out over Cheltenham which is my hometown, giving a literal response to the project. These images mean home to me as the combination of the two people who are photographed and the two settings they have been double exposed with take me back to the feelings and memories that I experience when I am in those places with those people; it is as literal as the images suggest.
With the next two images, I have continued to capture the same concept of the people I associate with places, the people who make me at ease in the spaces that make me feel comfortable enough to ‘feel at home’. These two images however, are of two friends from University and the landscapes are both set in Lincoln. Lincoln has become my temporary home and with the amount of time I spend here, I feel very at ease. As a city, Lincoln very quickly felt like home as my grandparents live not too far from here so I had visited a few times before. As mentioned several times above, the key notion for me that ensures a place represents home is the feeling of being comfortable and familiarity. Yet again, for me, these images and the fusion of who is in them and where they are perfectly encapsulates a home away from home.
I intentionally wanted to have two images from my original hometown and two from where I live now as it is possible to have more than one place mean home. I have put some consideration into how I would order them as well as seen below:
Overall, I am happy with my final images and how they work together to become a series, I feel it works having alternate photos with grey and white backgrounds as well as having the first two images have those hints of colour still coming through. I found that it was effective to retain some of the colour in these first two images as they portrayed the strongest sense of home for me.
To improve upon this series, I would consider retaking the images of the figures so that the shaping and composition was more consistent across the four images. In addition, I have noticed that the last image on the right of my friend Jack and the Lincoln Cathedral stands out as being very different to the rest as it uses architecture rather than a natural space and uses a male figure. If I were to redo this project in the future, I would consider using an image of a male friend from my hometown with a piece of architecture from there also in order to provide balance to the series as a whole.
I struggled with achieving this brief overall as I am a perfectionist when it comes to my technical and practical work, so the fact I couldn’t execute my images to a professional-looking standard was very frustrating. That being said, I am happy with the outcome and pleased with how the style has remained consistent as well as (in my opinion) perfectly capturing the essence of home.
Andre De Freitas- http://andredefreitas.com/Double-Exposures
Christoffer Relander- http://www.christofferrelander.com/
Dan Mountford- http://www.inspirationsweb.com/design/double-exposure-photography-dan-mountford/2/
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