The second brief we were tasked with was titled ‘Found Objects’. Where these objects were found was decided upon by the group together; we decided that our found objects must in fact be objects that were given to us. It took some thinking as to what these items could be as the majority of objects I own at uni are bought by myself. However, before I arrived at university my best friends from home gave me a freshers survival kit including many items from playing cards to paracetamol. I combined this with objects I was given during the freshers fayre and decided to base my found object project around this.
Research
In photography, personally, I tend to favour images that are clean, simplistic and usually photographs that stick to a minimal colour palette. These things are what I considered for this project when I began my research.
I found a still life photographer named Sara Morris and especially liked her choice of placement and use of movement within her compositions.
The way she has positioned these two still life compositions in particular is quite playful, matching the choice of colour, the items themselves and the soft lighting she has used in the studio. All of these elements have worked together to meet the same end. This is a concept I would like to replicate within my own work, creating imagery that appears quite harmonious.
In addition, I looked at a photographer named John Watson who had written a blog post on still life photography.
As mentioned before, I love minimalistic colour choices and the use of black, white and red in particular, I find to be very effective. It produces high contrast and within still life photography in particular, allows you to manipulate shape and light easier; shadows are greater and highlights are far more intense. I think Watson’s choice of a black back drop here for these images works very well with his choice of objects; had his cups been red, a white back drop may have been more effective and if they were black, a red back drop may have been. It’s important to note how the colours should be picked are how they have been.
Finally in my research, I looked at a website named ProductionParadise.com where I found still life photography from a studio in Paris. What I found particularly interesting about their work was how they photographed glass. To my knowledge photographing glass can be a difficult thing to get right but when done correctly it’s very successful. I looked at how the studio had composed the image and tried to decipher their use of lighting and how they managed to not get any reflections; something that I will consider in my own work.
In our workshop sessions, we looked into home made studio set ups and what can be done with a piece of card and one light. This proved to be very successful and allowed me to see practice professional, studio looking photography with minimal resources. The sessions also allowed me to become familiar with my own camera and experiment more with manual settings.
After experimenting in the workshops, I began to consider what specific objects I would use for my triptych. I wanted objects that I could use to create interesting compositions instead of simply an item on a make shift back drop. I chose a pack of cards, straws, stirrers and cobra bottle and a quack duck with a pair of shutter shades. With my research, preferences and the colour of the objects themselves, I thought about the colour of back drop I wanted to use and decided that black would be the most suitable. I also felt that using a black back drop with my chosen objects allowed for meaning to be inferred in that freshers week was a time when everything was so new that I was very unsure what was happening, where to go, how to make friends… as freshers we were left a bit in the dark (pardon the pun).
This was my makeshift studio setup, I simply used, a black piece of card, my flatmates desk lamp and a light reflector made from my notebook and some tin foil. I folded the card to give it an infinity back drop effect rather than having two separate pieces and being able to see the break.
I played around with different apertures and shutter speeds until I came to a style I favoured (f4, 1/100s, ISO400) which I was able to use for each of my different setups. I considered different movements of the objects and different positioning within the frame.
These were the two triptych’s that I took into the workshop to show the group and see what needed changing or altering. I couldn’t decide which playing cards image I preferred, the more extravagant movement or the slightly quieter in its presentation of movement.
Final images
After discussing my images with my tutor and my group, this was my final triptych.
I’m very pleased with the outcome, it’s quite consistent with my style that I have used in other modules and I have learnt how simple a ‘studio’ setup can be. If I were to make any changes or do the project over again, I would focus more on having a consistent horizon line across the three images so that all objects appear to sit on the same level.
I feel the images perfectly portray the concept of freshers week also in quite a playful way as I personally find these objects to be key imagery that I would associate with being a fresher, yet still surrounded by this sea of not knowing what’s beyond, what comes after and what to expect implied by the black background.
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