Why I chose the topic ritual
I chose ritual for my personal project because there is such a wide variety of different photoshoots and photo opportunities that I thought of as soon as I saw the Pinterest board inspired by the topic 'Ritual'. 'Rituals' are not just special occasions they occur in everyday life as well like brushing your teeth or walking to a train station and I thought I could experiment and take photos of people without them really knowing to make the photos very realistic and relevant to the topic. I also like how people with different cultures and background have such different everyday lives and everyday rituals and I thought it would be very interesting to compare just how different peoples everyday lives and everyday rituals could vary. Choosing the topic ritual also allows me to take photos everywhere I go and all the photo could be so different but still have the link of ritual to them.
The topic 'Ritual' has pictures of people but also just things that people may use in everyday life or even just occasionally, the topic could also be the process of making the photos for example making a photo in the dark room is a ritual in photography. I liked this about the topic because it would allow me to have a variety of different photos rather then all the photos just being of one thing or person continuously.
The topic 'Ritual' has pictures of people but also just things that people may use in everyday life or even just occasionally, the topic could also be the process of making the photos for example making a photo in the dark room is a ritual in photography. I liked this about the topic because it would allow me to have a variety of different photos rather then all the photos just being of one thing or person continuously.
inspiration/photographers
These are the photos the photos that inspired me to pick the topic ritual because they are very simple to take but very interesting and it really gets the audience thinking about the subject in the photo. I also really like that in these photos the subjects are probably strangers to the photographer as well so the photographer doesn't actually know any more than the audience about the photo. My favourite photo is the last one because there is a moving train in the background adding a very interesting background to the photo as well as the subjects in front.
nigel shafran
These are some of the photos from the washing up series by Nigel Shafran. I personally really like theses photos because it shows that the same place can look so different in someones everyday life. I also really like how 'washing up' is in most peoples everyday life so the audience of the photo can kind of compare it to how they do things differently. One of shafrans intentions in the 'washing up' series was to give people a glimpse of this everyday chore from someone else perspective. I also really like his photos from the supermarket where he takes photos of what he is going to buy just before he has brought it because again it shows a glimpse into someone else's life.
First photos of 'rituals'
These are the first photos and edits that I made inspired by the topic Ritual. I attempted to take photos of people when they didn't know of them doing things in their everyday life. I really like some of the outcomes of the photos but I wish I had a bit more confidence in taking the photos as I was scared that the people would notice and feel uncomfortable about it. I also think that the photos of the people are very interesting because no one looking at the photo would really know about the subjects and what their life is like or what they are going through and you kind of have to guess just from looking at them through a few photographs.
Antoine geiger
I first got inspiration for this idea from a photographer called Antoine Geiger, Antoine Geiger photographed people on the streets and then edited their faces in photoshop to be dragged into their phones showing how phones and media are taking over most peoples lives without them even knowing it. he says 'walking down the street, we stare at the screens of our palm-sized devices, rarely making eye contact with those who pass us by. We have become obsessed with constant simulations from our mobile devices.' He photographed a group of tourists in a museum all sat down on their phones showing how they prefer their smart phone and they can't not go on it to look at the museum they have travelled to come to. I thought his photographs of phones dragging in peoples faces is very relevant to most peoples lives and shows how people going on their phones and not socialising with other people has become a ritual most people follow in their daily routine without even realising it. I also thought his photos represented how everyone on there phones think they are all connected as they are talking to one an other but can never really be sure how the person they are 'connecting' with on their phone really feels.
These are some photos I found online when searching 'everyday rituals' I really like how simple the photos are but how relevant they are to most peoples lives. I particularly like the third photo and how the photographer has also played around with lots of different colours and how all the colours compliment the photo and make it very pleasing to the eye.
PHOTOS
photoshoP AND LINKING DIFFERENT RITUALS
Bas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader is a dutch artist who moved to America early on in his life. He attended art school in holland but failed his exam and left, he then attended another art school in LA and went on to make several videos very much representing gravity. Some of his most famous work shows him hanging on a tree and then the branch snapping also him sitting on top of a roof and then the chair falling and him riding a bike into a canal. His work represents the moment of letting go in-between falling and being on the ground and the time when you first realise that you're going to fall.
Bas Jan Ader went missing around 1975 while attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean from the US to England sailing a 13 foot sail boat. He's never been found but his boat was indicating that he probably died at sea. Bas Jan Ader's work kind of relates to the work that I've been doing in class based on rituals as in his short videos he is carrying out rituals. |
Summer photography photoshoots (30-100 photos)
- supermarkets
- everyday rituals
- holiday rituals
- summer rituals
- How rituals differ between different types of people
Summer photos shoots
I chose to do one of my photo shoots in a supermarket as I saw some of Martin Parrs work from his supermarket photo shoot and I thought it all really worked with all the different colours,tones and textures around. It’s also a ritual for most people to go to the supermarket about once a week,because of this there all sorts of different people with different backgrounds in a supermarket and almost anyone could relate to the photo shoot.
Holidays are a type of family ritual that a lot of family’s have in the summer and because of this I thought I would use my holiday as an opportunity to take lots of photos. I also like how the photos from peoples holidays are unfamiliar to lots of other people as they might not have been to the same country as you and even if they have they probably wouldn't have gone to the same area as you. I like how the photos I took are so different to photos I would take in England and any other photoshoot I could do in England. From the photos you can see how different countries can be from one another and how laws could differ. I also like how colourful my photos were and how well the colours work together.
I took photos at temples I went to on holiday as it was an old ritual for people to build the temples and it is also another ritual for people to go and visit all the temples. I like how within the photos I took there is a lot of history and its also something many people may not have seen before making them really interested in looking at the photos. All the nature around the temples was really different to what people might see in England as the buildings are so old that trees have grown around them and kind of weaved themselves into the buildings almost making themselves part of the building. At first I think some of the photos could look edited to some people at it is so unusual to see trees like this, this made me want to photograph them even more as people would almost second guess my photoshoot in a way.
Peter Davito
The photos above are photos that I found on Instagram by a photographer called Peter Davito. His photos really intrigued me as it’s a cross over between two different themes we’re studying at the moment. In a way someone could say they’re to do with the unusual portraiture as they are unusual portraits at first glance but then if you look deeper in to the photos and the meanings behind them you could say the photos are more ritualistic. I believe the photos capture the rituals of people insulting others in a very real way. People now have become very critical and it’s almost a ritual in most people’s lives sheathed you say it or not and the photos above really capture the harmful effects that the comments could have on others and possibly be rituals the victims go through trying to live past the comments.
Diptych and triptych's
Diptychs and triptychs are a form of photographs that have some relation between the photos used within them. A diptych consists of two photos that have some relation between them and a triptych is formed of three. The photos could have any relation between them whether it be the colours, materials or even tones, They could consist of any type of photos complicated or simple. They were used by ancient greeks particularly triptychs when they had to go somewhere else they would take a triptych with them that had religious photos on it and then use it to pray when they got to wherever they were going.They can be folded or just left as they are when they're made and are very interesting as they will make the audience think of the relations between the photos that are within the diptych or triptych.
traditional triptych
Sophie calle
The photos above were created by a photographer called Sophie Calle. She based her photos on a chromatic diet where she only ate foods of a certain colour in one meal.
PhOtographer quote
The quote I chose is from a photographer called Ansel Adams ‘there are always two people in every picture the photographer and the viewer’ I thought this quote related to rituals because it shows how photography is a ritual and the audience of photography is also a ritual. The rest of his photography was kind of ritualistic as well because he he focused on photographing landscapes and he normally photographed in black and white.
Homework
The photos above are inspired by Nigel shafrans series of photos in his kitchen. I first saw his photos from supermarkets and then saw his photos from his kitchen after. I really liked the supermarket images and then decided to take a series of photos inspired by his other images as well. The photos allow you to have some level of personal connection with the photographer but you still know so little about them.
hAlf term homework
The photo above is a photo is from the Tate Liverpool, it was shown there from December 2002 to march 2003. I chose to research this photo because it links well with the topic rituals and the kind of photos that I have been taking so far during the topic. The photographer that took this photo is called Albert Dock and he says he purposefully took the photo to capture the modern day rituals of shopping. Dock says that he is interested in the ritual of shopping because it shows the relationship between display, distribution and consumption I thought this was really interesting as well as from looking at the photo you can clearly see the choices people have and you can even see some people in the photo down isles making different choices. From the photo you can also see how brands market their products in order to bring in customers by all the different colours and patterns on the packaging. You can also see that as well as brands trying to bring in customers the shop does as well by using 0.99 signs for certain products
8 week plan
week 1-
week 2- supermarket photo research
week 3- supermarket photoshoot focusing on one type of colour at a time and evaluation of photos
week 4- clothing photoshoot focusing on one type of colour at a time and evaluation linking to supermarket photos through the colour
week 5- photographing different flats outside (insight to the ritual of how people live
week 6- check through website
week 7- research of photographers work and link it to work that I have done/ I want to do
week 8- crate a type of final outcome with supermarket photos and clothing photos linking them together to show two different types of rituals.
week 2- supermarket photo research
week 3- supermarket photoshoot focusing on one type of colour at a time and evaluation of photos
week 4- clothing photoshoot focusing on one type of colour at a time and evaluation linking to supermarket photos through the colour
week 5- photographing different flats outside (insight to the ritual of how people live
week 6- check through website
week 7- research of photographers work and link it to work that I have done/ I want to do
week 8- crate a type of final outcome with supermarket photos and clothing photos linking them together to show two different types of rituals.
photos
The photo shoot above was taken over a day when I went into London
evaluation
2 best projects in component one
In component one I experimented with many different editing techniques and any personal projects. I think my best projects within component one were 'abstraction' and 'rituals', this is because they were the projects that I experimented with most and produced the most images for. I also really liked how my final outcome came out for abstraction, my final outcome was a book and it allowed me to experiment with a different technique and a new set of pictures on each page and it still turned out to all work together. I also experimented with different methods of binding my photo book together and ended up using a method called Chinese binding