Medium Format

Working toward my Polaroid idea I went out today with a medium format camera for the very first time. The reason being because a frame of a medium format camera is much squarer which I think will work better when it comes to creating a mock Polaroid. The only think I'm worried about is what the outcome might be due to me never actually touching a medium format camera I'm just praying that I set the correct aperature and shutter...but I'll do the work on Monday so we will see.

Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen is one of my favorite short film director of all time, and one of my favorite of videos of his is his 1999 Turner prize 'Deadpan'. If you haven't seen it all it consists of is Steve McQueen standing in front of a house where the front simply collapses around McQueen who is left standing due to him standing where there is a window frame (The stunt that Buster Keaton Performs) but it's completely silent and it keeps changing angles. Thinking toward my video piece the idea of repetition is something that I would really want to work with as it would go with my photography and I would also make it fully moving, not stop frame which is my preferred style.The other piece of his work that I have looked at is 'Drumroll'. This video isn't as much of repetition as more of a way to loose you. All it is a simple drum with three cameras attached to it being rolled down a street but it is extremely effective and something that I would like to try and do.

What my ideas are leading me to do is one of two things. The first would be a straight kind of copy as 'Drumroll', but a single camera pointing towards the side of the bridge and being rolled over many bridges, hopefully disorientating you. The second would be a lot of the same but just waking over the bridge and stringing them all together to give the look of you continuesly going over one great big bridge.

William Christenberry

The thing about William Christenberry is that he is a combination between Ed Ruscha and the Bechers. Obviously, it's in colour unlike the Bechers but then it's not as clean, his work is a bit more face on, point and shoot, not from any perticular distance and there is a combination bewteen new and old structures, which I think I'll be able to do as I can visist the likes of Leicester, Birmingham and London which all have pretty modern bridges and mainly made out of metal but I can also visist my home town of Ware where there are also a many smaller villages near me and I can get to more wodern bridges and smaller bridges just created for the public.


One picture of his that has courght my eye is the one in the top right. One thing that I haven't done is straight on, extremly close up to the point where you can barly even tell that it's a bridge. Just another thing to considor.

Ed Ruscha

Another Photographer that I've looked at a lot is Ed Ruscha. The thing that I liked about Ed Rucsha's work over the likes of the Bechers is the has a stronger theme to it. The Bechers take pictures from a certain angle from a certain distance but what I can find theres no link to the water towers, they're simple just from other towns. On the other hand, Ed Ruscha is has a large link in his work, well, it's the 26 gas stations from highway 66.


The other thing about Ed Ruscha's work is that there are a much larger variety of pictures, not just from the same angle, also not all from the same time of day, as you can see in the selection above there are pictures taken in the night. This is something that I need to try, combined with the circle bridge would work quite well, maybe with a slow shutter would look pretty good. I'm also going to have to start with my with layout ideas. I know that I want to do some kind of large prints with a huge amound of prints on.

19th post

Tuesday 24th November, Greg tutorial. So today I had a short but good tutorial. I showed two ideas, the first, my Polaroid/bridge size idea went down surprisingly well. The idea as a whole is something that would be worth pushing forward, I can start to see myself developing this project into just three Ideas which Is good. The thing that I would really want to do is actually get a Polaroid camera and go out and do the work, but, being able to get hold camera and the now rare film would prove to be to challenging. One thing that I am seriously considering is doing take the photos on my Nikon F5 and create my Polaroid picture via making window frames. I made my own on photoshop and cutting it down to size to looking like a standard Polaroid but it didn't look to great.

The second idea that I showed was my bridge world idea which went down very well. The reason I create this was simply finding a good tutorial on the net but I'm pretty glad of the outcome. The picture below only took me about ten minutes to create and is still very basic and very unrefined. I'm going to try and make it so that both of the ends of the bridge meet. What's so different about it is a bridge is nearly always a straight line, maybe curved, but with this picture it's completely changed, you never see a circular bridge...


The third idea that I would want to push forward is the 99 bridges idea which is the most basic of the three. All this project would involve is to take pictures of 99 bridge and then lay all the pictures out into a large grid kind of like the Bechers but It would be in colour and many more then the Bechers use.

Bechers

The Bechers are my main influence on this project and have pretty much been my main starting point in the research. Their main style is to choose a certain item, most famously water towers, and take a large amount of photos of different water towers, but the exact same position each time also, from the exact same distance. This is what I've been trying to achieve for that last few weeks, but, unlike water towers, bridges aren't a single standing structure which makes it harder for me to find an angel which makes them all look interesting. This is what I've been experimenting with lately, find a position, going to every bridge I can find and shooting that bridge from the same angle, some of them have worked, but then some have been a tad boring.

What else I really like about their work is the layout, having all the pictures layout into one large group goes really well. Once I've taken enough pictures and found a angle that I like I will then be able to play about with layout of my work. Also, it goes well with the black and white appearance, it will be another thing that I will have to consider when it comes down to my final layout.
The other thing that I really like about their work is the patterns. What I'm thinking is that I will try and using the sides of bridges and the sides will give of a good look, and combined with the layout It would work well.
What I'm thinking about doing it making all of the pictures square and just making a huge montage. Maybe something like 'the 99 bridges' so I can have 33 x 33 pictures. I think it should work well, but it will show with what I experiment with.

Olivo Barbieri

I know that Olivo Barbieri doesn't look at bridges but the technique that he used is something that I would really consider using. The look that he creates is to make a city almost look like toys and I'm thinking of doing that myself. I think that I can push that forward with text and possibly try and add some kind of narrative into the work.What I really like about his photography is that it completly changes the overall look of a picture. One of the main points of me doing this project is to try and make bridges look different and I really think that this could be my way forward. I'm not sure exactly how I'll work a narrative or text but that will be the fun of it and will unlock a new a path of experimentation to enter.
For me to create this effect I and going to have to go out and take more photos. The photos that I got taking are slightly to close to the bridges so I think I will need to take picture from a further distance away. It shouldn't be hard but it will take me a couple of days to get around to doing it.

Edouard Denis Baldus

So finally I have got around to uploading the artist research that I have been doing over the last month. The first person who I have been looking at is Edouard Denis Baldus. The reason being is because his main body of work is of old architecture, and within this word several bridges do pop up. Also, one of his more know photos is of a huge viaduct.Looking at this work and combined with my own black and white work I really do like the whole old fashion look. The problem is that it hard to find bridges that look old, and with cars and modern building in the background I'm not sure how easy it'll be. I'll try and take some more picture and maybe do the whole old with the new and maybe edit the black and white work but I don't think that it will be an idea that I carry on much more, just play around with it.
With this photo another idea comes up of a bridge in a bridge, or better put two bridges in a single photo which I think could become an interesting idea, however Greg said to try and get a narrative and I can't see myself using one with that idea.

First 35mm shoot

This is just a picture update of the 35mm work that I said I had shot. They do have that look of slightly aged photos which I was looking for and I'm happy with the outcome.

Film work

This afternoon I developed my pictures from the weekend, unfortunately I didn't have enough time to get into the lab to create a contact sheet or to make any prints. From what I saw they looked good, pretty much what I expected them to look like but I wont be able to tell until I've had a better look. I'll try and get them uploaded within the next couple of days.

Greg Tutorial

So today I had an tutorial with Greg which was useful and has got me thinking a lot. He has recommended that I should try and get a narrative into the work and try and use some text. I'm not really a fan of text but it will be interesting to try and adapt it somehow. What I'm thinking of doing is start taking a photos like I have been doing, but select only two of the angles and then make them looking like a Polaroid and under just right, S(small), M(medium), L(large) XL(extra Large). For example, a pedestrian bridge would be M, a automobile bridge would be L and then if I went into London I would get XL and some kind of bridges would just me S which I think could work out OK.
Another idea that I would like to try and do but I think may be to hard would be to make a bridge would. I've seen some shout that are like a fish-eye picture that has been made into a little planet, which, If i was able to accomplish would be a bridge world, but this is a big maybe.

I've also had an Idea about what I would do for a video. All I would think of doing is simple walk across a bridge, camera kept low and walk on the right pedestrian footpath, or on the right side of the road if I have to. Then, once I've got a good amount of footage I will simply string it all together, speeding it up a lot so it will looking like your continuously walking over tons of bridges but it will look just like one huge long bridge.

Busy week on other work

I haven't posted in a week as I've had to be doing other work and been going other places.

So today I went out to do an experiment with my 35mm camera, nothing really all that special but just wanted to see what the pictures would come out like. I wont be able to develop them until sometime during the week but I'm looking forward to see the result. Hopefully the pictures may gain an old fashion look and make the bridges look aged, will have to wait and see.

Shoot no.3

So today I went out and did my third shoot of the project. The two shots that I decided to use and experiment with was a basic portrait short with the aim to get some of the reflection of the bridge in, the sky and some kind of background, but not show what the bridge is actually used for. The second idea I played with was a close up of the lower half of the bridge, so I positioned myself on the same level as the bridge but looking down toward the where the bridge becomes a bridge.

These two shots are examples of the second idea but I'm not totally sure that they really work, like they do look different, and it is slightly interesting but I feel that some of the ideas are a bit stronger and I don't really see anything that makes me think that it is at all special. I'll produce a contact sheet of the pictures and put it in my sketch book but I can't see me carrying it on.

This picture below I actually like, apart from it being a overcast day, I like the layout and the reflection works particularly well I feel. What I think I could experiment with is exactly how much of the bridge is show, say have more water or have more sky. This idea, unlike the other, I think is worth pushing forwards and something to experiment with some more.

Over the weekend I had a trip to my home town of Ware and took my camera along so that I could take photos of a new range of bridges and to experiment with some different Ideas. What I decided to do this time was to experiment with my fixed 85mm lens. How I went about this was to again go to the under bridge look, but still be pretty close to the bridge so I was still very zoomed and had a huge close up of the bridge, see a lot more detail and just a small amount of the background, and it worked pretty well.



I'll have to play with this idea some more when I get back to Leicester as I think it could be a strong idea, I'm also contemplating to do only under bridge shots and to use two different idea and let the viewer guess what the bridge is used for.