Body Image - Studio Work

For one of my projects I have looked at how body image is portrayed in the media. We are constantly seeing stick thin models in magazines. They are not real they are photo shopped manipulations of their actual body. There is no such thing as perfection, just what people aspire to be. I have mainly looked at anorexia and how people have starved themselves in order to achieve this perfection that they so desperately want. However anorexia is so much more than just starving yourself. You can't see yourself as being in an unhealthy state as you deem it to be normal for your body and you carry on wanting to loose more weight. However others can notice and become worried, the media doesn't help anorexia as it can influence it even further. The use of "Pro Ana" sites have become increasing popular throughout the years offering tips on how to starve yourself. Having open chats where people offer advice to one another encouraging the disease to keep going. It is unhealthy and can eventually lead to death. It affects both males and females even though it is more commonly females.

Long & Double Exposure

When studying long and double exposure I choose to look at the city of Hull. Personally I think that Hull has some amazing architecture within the city center itself. For the first image I have layered two images of the buildings on top of each other then using the opacity of the top image I have merged the two images together.

For the fountain near Queen's Gardens I have used a long exposure in order to capture the changing of the colour's at night time. Queens Gardens really starts to look magical on a night time when the fountain is lit up gradually changing colours. The gardens itself is used for many different purposes. For example festivals, freedom festival every year, a casual hang out point. It is a beautiful place in order to capture photography.

Abandonment - Architecture

 St Andrews Docks Hull
History - St. Andrew's Dock was originally designed for the coal trade but by the time it opened in 1883 it was earmarked solely for the use of the fishing industry which, with the development of steam powered trawlers and of the railway network, was undergoing a period of rapid expansion. The dock extension was opened in 1897. By the 1930s road transport was challenging rail and the last fish train ran in 1965. The last boom period in the industry was in the early 1970s, but by this time the fish market buildings on the north side of the dock were in need of repair. With the expansion of the freezer trawler fleet it was decided to move the fish docks to new buildings at Albert Dock in 1975 and St. Andrew's Dock was closed. This move unfortunately coincided with the declaration by Iceland of a 200 mile limit, the outbreak of the last Cod War, and a decline in the industry from which it has never recovered. On the 3rd November 1975 St. Andrews was closed to shipping. In 1985 the dock was filled in and it is now the site of a retail park named St. Andrew’s Quay.  ( Taken from http://www.hullwebs.co.uk/content/l-20c/industry/fishing/heritage/st-andrews-dock.htm )

The buildings in which have being left behind from the fishing industry have being left abandoned in terrible condition, they are falling apart and covered in graffiti by vandals. This has left the docks in a state beyond repair. In 2015 started the demolition of  some of the buildings the main building  The Lord Line is iconic to the city's fishing trade. Is still one of the remaining buildings standing amougst all the rubble.

Before they started to knock down all the buildings I went for a walk around all the abandoned buildings looking at how they have deteriorated over time, with nature slowly taking back the land growing through the rubble.

Typologies

A typology is a collection of images with something in common/ a reoccurring theme running throughout the images.

These are some examples of typologies that I have created in the photography studio using a soft box for lighting and a plain white background. For the first typology I have looked at hair (colour, length, style) this typology shows different people and how they all style their hair. I had each model face with their back towards the camera and to stand center frame, this made sure that all the images looked very similar. The next example of a typology that I have created is an umbrella held by different people in the same positioning and place.

For both shoots I have used a soft box (artificial lighting) with no flash from the camera. I have used a tripod in order to keep the camera in the same position throughout the shoot so that I have the same amount of background behind each person in the frames.

Portraiture

Portrait photography or portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person's face, although the entire body and the background or context may be included.

When photographing these students I have looked composition of the images, making sure that they fill all of the frame with a slight border around them. I have looked at both colour and monochrome images as colour can have an effect on how you look at the image. For example in the images with colour your eyes are drawn straight to the colour eg the bright books however in the monochrome images your more focused on the person in the image due to the colour not distracting you away from the main focus of the image. The students have a very neutral expression on their faces. they arnt smiling or showing any kind of emotion. When photographing these students I had looked at multiple photographers that have used a similar technique using natural lighting outside against a plain background.