“Extraordinarily beautiful images of the last taboo in the West. Berry fills the void that exists in the modern art gallery; these representations of what happens physically after one dies are given a place in the art world amongst other images in progression of life” -http://www.ephotozine.com/exhibition/maeve-berry–incandescence-2609

Berry’s Photos are taken from a small view hole in a crematorium, she captures the process of cremation in what i think is a very beautiful way. I love the colour’s as the warm tones make the photo inviting even though the subject is quite gruesome. In most of the photo’s you are unaware of what you are actually seeing, it is only when you read about her work or are told that this in fact is a cremation when you look at the photos in a different way. One criticism I do have is that the photo’s tend to get quite ‘samey’ after you’ve seen a few of them, this may be because they could only be taken from one angle. Nevertheless I think that she has captured the process  very well and what makes it even more appealing in the fact that it is a process that we don’t usually get to see.

I really like the last of these three photo’s, I think there’s a real sense of peace in it which is apt for what the photo is of. It has religious connotations with the beam of light and looks quite angelic. I think the lighting (although not intentional) is very calming and warm.

Patrik Budenz

Post Mortem

Budenz looks at a very similar subject. His ‘Post Mortem’ work shows the journey after death and shows the process from post-mortem to crematorium. I did find his work quite upsetting, i think it’s hard to think of what happens to your body after you die as it’s not really in the forefront of your mind. I did like his work but I did think it was quite gruesome, it was good to see something different. The lighting in the photographs is quite bright and there is a lot of white in the photo’s, this represents the hospital and emphasises the sence of a clinical space.

Lusito discovered everything from gas masks to propaganda posters, books and magazines,instruction manuals and personal photographs. But it is the buildings themselves which are the most resonant symbols of the fall of a once powerful Empire. A KGB’s lecture hall is laid out  with chairs ready, and theatre spotlights still mounted on the walls, yet the ceiling has begun to  collapse; a Navy’s swimming pool is full of water but this is stagnant water unchanged for years. And throughout there remain symbols of the old regime – murals of heroic deeds and national
glories, photographs of political and military leaders, posters exhorting young soldiers to give  their all for their fatherland” -http://ericlusito.com/cold-war-ussr-military.html

Much like David Creedon, Lusito focuses on what has been left behind. His work shows the soviet union military bases and also what had been abandoned by the civilians. I do like his work and i like the theme of abandonment, i find it very interesting to see what things were left behind as i think it helps you create your own thoughts about what the people must have been going through. It also leaves the audience with many unanswered questions making us think about what we’re seeing.

I do prefer Creedon’s work as i feel it gives a stronger sense of abandonment. I think the fact that because Creedon’s photo’s were of the houses of people who had been forced out of their homes, it gives a more powerful image than that of Lusitos work of the empty soviet union military bases. However I do like the desolate landscapes in the outdoor photo’s and the propaganda that is still evident inside the buildings

“David Creedon was born in Cork Ireland and has been described as a conceptual documentary photographer. Among the projects he has worked on are: The Last Cooper (2010) Una Corda (The soft Pedal), Variations on Pianoforte, Ghosts of the Faithful Departed, Easter Parade, IL Carneval di Venezia.

In Ireland Creedon’s work has been described “as one of the most significant collections of photography in contemporary Ireland and will be amongst the most important works of Irish art in years to come”, while another critic has written, “His photographs transcend the documentary form and enter the realm of art, they are poems in photographs”. -http://www.davidcreedon.com/about.html

Ghosts of the Faithfully Departed

Creedon produced this body of work to show what was left of Irish towns after the residents had been forced out of their homes in the 1950′s.

These are some of my favourite images from the collection: Blue bedroom, Heart of the home, Yellow Bedroom and Pram . I really like the use of colour in the photo’s  as it really brings them together as a collection as a whole, the lighting used also gives the colours a real richness and sense of depth. This makes the photo really inviting even though the room itself isn’t. . I’m not sure whether he has composed these shots by moving anything himself but either way I think that they are really well constructed.

What I also like about Creedon’s work is the way he gives information about the Photo. He explains what is in the photo and a bit of history behind why these houses were left like this, it helps the audience get a better understanding of his work and allows us to appreciate it more.

I have managed to mainly have a problem free editing session, the only problem I did have was with rendering. As I had used a preset graphic for my title and ending they needed to be rendered to work properly, however when I pressed ‘render’ it kept telling me that i hadn’t enough memory to save the render and would therefore not allow the action. To rectify this i had to make sure that all of the capture scratch settings were set to my external hard drive and not to the mac, I did find out that they weren’t all set to my hard drive which is why it was saying that I had insufficient space.

This did set me back quite a lot as I was unsure how to fix the problem, however I was very happy when it got sorted and i was able to carry on. I’m pretty much finished now, I just need to do the finishing touches and make sure that the video is as good as I can get it.

Things to do:

Render to 100% quality

Sort out/ change the order of the photo’s in the eye section of the piece

Sort out the sound levels.

I am really happy with hows it’s looking, and now its up to 30 seconds it’s really starting to gain a narrative. The sounds still need a lot of work, at the moment I have two sound clips, one is of light traffic and birds in the background, and the other is of a robin tweeting which is playing at the transition from the ball splitting to the birds.

Other sounds i will be using are – Alarm, Kettle boiling, Tea pouring into a cup  & Cars.

The photo’s are playing at 4 frames per second.

Some photo’s can be named separately such as:

Deserted Babies – this photo depicts a mass of dried up foetus’ however we don;t know anything about the babies, we don’t know whether they had been aborted or whether they were still born etc – the title helps us make our own assumptions of the photograph. this emphasises the importance of a title.

Devils Tower – This photo has a very literal name as it is a well known mountain in Wyoming. However with the stormy sky and the colours of the photo, the title gives it another meaning and makes the photo quite moody and mysterious.

Some photograph can me named as part of a portfolio:

Silence – this is a portfolio by Muge – his photographs are very obviously part of the same theme as they all have similar aspects such as, being in black and white, a sense of stillness, and a figure/figures in the photo. The fact that it’s called silence makes the audience feel that the photos are quite calming and still.

Manzanar - A body of work taken by Ansel Adams, the photo’s were new and exciting as no-one had seen inside the Manzanar camps before.  He showed how well the chinese were adapting to their new situation and also focused on the families that were living in the camp. He wanted to show that they were just like anyone else.

I am happy with how it has turned out considering that this is my first attempt at a proper stop motion film. The only thing I would like to improve is the  stillness of the shots – i.e. i would try to make sure that the tripod stays in the same place constantly. Though this is quite hard to do as I can’t leave it set up.

I have studied Muybridge’s work whilst I was doing my Art GCSE. He is famous for creating stop motion photographs “ using a battery of from 12 to 24 cameras and a special shutter he developed that gave an exposure of 2/1,000 of a second”, one of his most famous pieces of work was the running horse. I found it very interesting that he only created this work for a bet and not for photographic purposes. He wanted to prove that at a certain point whilst a horse is cantering, all four legs leave the ground. In doing so he created really nice stop motion images.

Carl Wooley

I wasn’t overly keen on Carl Wooley’s work, to me they’re just empty photos. However I do like the contrast in colours and the fact that they’re all shot at night. I feel that this creates a real stillness  to his photographs but as I said before they’re not my favourite pieces of work.

Polixeni Papapetrau

I really like Papapetrau’s work, it was really fun and colourful and took a new take on the fairytale story. I thought that the constructed painted backgrounds were really clever as it made the photograph have both 2D and 3D elements which makes it different and intersting to look at. The use of a child actor is important as they are able to convey the emotion in the image.

Dina Goldstein

Dina’s work also follows the theme of fairytales. She has taken typical fairy tale characters such as Snow White and Rapunzel but photographs them in very real situations. The photo’s are bizarre but very clever and I am definitely a fan of her work. Although they are quite playful images i do find the Rapunzel image quite hard hitting, probably because of the subject matter. However i think that they are great photo’s and something that I have never seen before.

Benetton

The united colours of Benetton adverts very well-known. Their purpose of these are mainly to advertise the clothing brand, but they also challenge the subject of race with their powerful images and clear focus on black and white. The photo of the black woman breast-feeding the white baby is, in my opinion, very poignant, and they way its lit makes the photo very beautiful. However i do think that some of the images are unnecessary for a clothing advert e.g, the man holding the human bone and the new-born baby. I like the photo’s with the white backgrounds, particularly the man and the girl playing the piano as they are very clean and aesthetically pleasing. Most of the adverts are designed to shock the audience, not something you would expect of a clothing company.