Keeping My Options Open

EXPLORING THE PRIVATE MOMENTS IDEA A BIT


What do you consider to be your most private moments?


"taking my make-up off, I wouldn't be seen dead without it"


"being intimate with my boyfriend"


"the conversations I have with my girlfriend"


"when I'm in the bathroom"


"when I'm singing in the shower"


"when I'm crying"

EXPLORING THE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IDEA A BIT

Here I took a photograph of my friend putting her make-up on to experiment with my initial idea of photographs to represent a day in the life of.

Is it the right direction to take?

I am so undecided as to whether I am going the right direction with this project considering I have a few ideas. Should I ask people what people consider to be their most private moments and depict that in some way, or should I do a day in the life of, such as someone doing their make-up, getting dress etc or should I stick with my instinct and depict an exposed affair?

Referring back

This particular image has been my main inspiration throughout this project, so I thought it was important that I referred back to it as it is a great way of transforming a simple photograph of a subject into a voyeuristic style photograph. I love the idea of using a keyhole shape to frame my photographs. I also want to incorporating black and white into my photograph to create a more mysterious effect, which coincides with the feeling of the subject being watched, as well as it appearing to be a strong feature in many voyeuristic photographs

Group Tutorial

When speaking to Hannah on what ideas I had for my photograph she made me realise that I was perhaps making it too complicated and I could get just as good, if not better image, by making it simple, 'sometimes less is more.' However I am still going to take Tim Walkers photograph as an inspiration to my photographs but in a subtle way. The main thing that drew me to his photograph in the first place was the way in which he incorporated the keyhole idea, so I have decided that instead of taking the photograph with the keyhole template in front of the camera I am going to layer a photograph of the keyhole template I take and layer it on top of each photograph and reduce the opacity percentage to make it more abstract.I am also going to stick the idea of an affair as a story line, as I love the thought of exposing the unexposed.

What can be behind the keyhole?

WHAT DO PEOPLE NOT WANT US TO SEE?


When considering the idea of looking through the keyhole more, I wanted to look at what people believe to be private, or just do not want us to see. Despite the fact that we live in a highly exposed world, there is a lot that people do not want us to see and we do not know about, things that are underexposed as well as secrets that are kept.

'Pictures can lie and liars use pictures'- Lewis Hine

Despite the saying 'a picture paints a thousand words' many photographs that are taken are misinterpreted, for example photographs of celebrities, a celebrity could simply be going to whisper in a person's ear and if the photograph is taken at the right time it can look like they are going in for a kiss. We are often exposed to photographs that are in fact untrue, as well as not being exposed to photographs that are too true, for example we never see the true images of war in newspapers. This became very true to me when I looked through and read a photography book called underexposed, which showed graphic photographs of war that we would never normally see and although I found this very interesting, it did not inspire me in terms of taking my photographs.

'We have...become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder 'censorship', we call it 'concern for commercial viability.' -David Marnet

I do like the thought though of exposing the underexposed such as secrets that are kept behind closed doors for example an affair. 

Looking Through the Keyhole

Despite finding many images that inspire me none of them inspire me as much as the idea of taking the photograph as though I am looking through a keyhole. However despite this I am struggling to think of a story to portray behind the keyhole. The only inspiration I have found that in fact links with the keyhole idea is putting an Alice and Wonderland, fanciful style to the photograph or styling.

Tim Walker, Jasmine Guiness, Scotland, 1998

When looking through Tim Walker's photographs he inspired me with respects to the style of the photograph in which I want to take, though none of his photographers appeared to portray an effect of being watched. However when I came across this particular photograph I was completely taken aback, I thought that it was mysterious and he incorporated the idea of the key in such a unique way. Also when looking at the flower being used abstractly as a garment it gave me the idea of using an object that represented the person to that effect.

Image Research

Joy, phone-sex agent, Manhattan

Dubonnet, Newark, New Jersey

West Side Highway, Manhattan

Community worker with prostitute, Brooklyn

These five images were taken from the Red Light photography book by Sylvia Plachy and James Rigdeway which contains voyeuristic style images to give an eye-opening look the American Sex Industry. However I did not select these images purely for their voyeuristic style, I chose them because they also have provided me with different angles ideas to take the photographs from in order to achieve a voyeuristic style.

Anon, Cheesecake, 1940

This images was taken from Bruce Bernard's Collection of a Hundred Photographs.This episode in three frames was made before the advent of phone-sex and is among the most innocent examples of the genre. I was drawn to this series of photograph due to the fact that as part of our brief it requests that the 4 to 6 photograph in which we take should tell a story and I am struggling with how I am going to achieve this effectively, however this has provided me with inspiration as to how I am going to achieve that.

Jack Delano, Florida Migrants at the Little Creek, 1914

Jaques-Henri Lartigue, A bord du Dahu ii, Bib et Denise Grey, 1986

I also selected images from Bruce Bernard's collection of a hundred photographs as they simply illustrated different perspectives of voyeurism from different eras and angles for the photograph.

Terence Donovan, Spy Drama, 1962

I have taken these series of photographs from Open City, Street Photographs since 1950. I chose these series of images as again it inspired me in the way in which I can draw together a series of image, as well as the intriguing detective feel the images have to them.