Pastiche Shoot & Final Image

     I found this pastiche a lot harder than the first due to location, lighting and weather conditions. It took me quite a while to choose a location after visiting location such as Brighton, Tunbridge Wells and my hometown, East Grinstead I chose to take my image in Lewes. All of the locations had cobbled streets however I felt Lewes’ location related most closely to the original scene.  

     

     I felt the feeling of the location gave of this sense of modern vs. old just like Brassai’s ‘Paris after Dark’; the cobbled streets contrast with the street lights, lit windows and shop/restaurant signs.

     

      - I took the image using Ilford Delta 100 film with a Mamiya 7 so that the image wa in black and white, I used ISO 100 as this was what Brassai would have used as it was the only sensitivty available at the time.

      - I took the photo on a night after it had been raining a little so that the streets were slightly shiny like in the original image so that the streetlights would reflect off of the surface, and it was a clear night so the sky was dark. 

Brassai, 'Paris after Dark, No.27', 1933

    - I positioned the camera on the edge of the street facing up the narrow street that curved to the right but unfortunately this cannot be seen due to it having a slight incline.

      - Although not perfectly positioned in terms of height, shop windows in the background sit horizontal to the street lit up similar to windows lining the pathway either side of the street.

      - As I couldn’t find anywhere with neon signs, I used the street lights to illuminate the scene similarly which glow which meant I only had to use a very short exposure time.

      - Lights reflect off the pavement and cobbles in a similar way to Brassai’s photograph, as well as the sides of the buildings.

      - Although the shop sign on the left of the composition wasn’t white I have managed to include a couple of unlit shop signs  in the same position as in Brassai’s image.

      - I was also careful to position the camera so that the height of the buildings matched the originals; the buildings on the left give the idea of depth narrowing into the background while the first building on the right is tall followed by a lower lit construct followed by a taller building.  

      - Due to Christmas time there was a tree lit up in the background and compositionally this is not right however it does mirror the curve of the shop line light.

      - I used an aperture of around F.8/11 to give a medium depth of field similar to Brassai’s image as his image is mostly all in focus but isn’t perfectly in focus in the immediate foreground and background.

My Final Image (badly photographed)

      - My final print was quite complex, I exposed it at Grade 5 for 10 seconds, Grade 2 for 25 seconds while dodging the sign in the left foreground for 15  seconds. I then had to burn in the street for 7 seconds and the middle section of the street for a further 7 seconds as it was too brightly lit by the street lights.

      - The final result came out as I hoped it would, although it isn’t perfectly like Brassai’s photograph I am happy with the composition and lighting; I think the image gives off a similar atmosphere and feeling of a small cobbled street which would normally be filled with life during the daytime.      

Brassai Research and Pastiche Analysis

Brassai, born Gyula Halász originally trained as an artist dabbling in drawing, painting and writing and his initial views were that photography could and would never be a fine art form. In World War II, Brassai fought against France and the Allie, and after wards joined a group of other Hungarian writers and artists at which point he worked as a journalist.      

In 1924 Brassai immigrated to Paris where he found his perfect surroundings to work as a writer, artist and journalist mainly in coffee houses. In the late 20s/early 30s however, Brassai finally turned his hand to photography; producing his first book ‘Paris by Night’. His work was a vision of how life was being lived at this time in France post World War II.

He used a variety of plate cameras with his first camera being a Boigtlander Bergheil and after that a Rolleiflex. Brassai produced static, motionless images using particular technical choices; he didn’t take endless shots of the same scene but to limit himself to one or two exposures, this makes his photographs look very deliberate and considered.

“There are many photographs which are full of life but which are confusing and difficult to remember. It is the force of an image which matters.”

Analysis of the image 'Paris After Dark, No. 27, 1933'

Image description:

- Brassai’s book ‘Paris after Dark’ was concerned with the lives lived within the city; this included the image ‘Paris after Dark, No. 27, 1933’ Which I am creating a pastiche of as part of ‘The City’ unit.

- The photograph depicts a dark, cobbled street lined with ‘Hotel’ neon signs which reflect off the smooth cobbles. A lone figure can be seen disappearing into the blackness in the background having emerged possibly from one of the dark doorways lining the street. The bright sign lights and illuminated windows gives this sense of life within a small windy backstreet; it’s a different way of viewing these places which during the day would probably be filled with people going about their business.  

- The image has quite an atmospheric feel especially with the dark, shady figure in the background. The buildings tower over the camera from all sides creating quite an imposing scene especially with the building in the background boxing the image in not allowing the audience to see into the horizon which makes the location very anonymous.

Visual choices- focus, distance, lighting, camera position etc.

- The Depth of field in the image is quite average, although I would say most of the image is in focus I wouldn’t say it has a really high F. stop. This is because if the F stop was high then the exposure time would be increased and therefore the figure in the background would be a lot more blurred than it is.

- However looking more closely at the image the exposure time would probably not have to be very long as the vast amount of lights filling the street would have been enough to reduce the exposure to possibly seconds.

- Due to the time period it is obvious that the ISO would have been low, the image is quite dark with lots of black and grey but not a lot of white apart from the bright white lights.   

- The weather conditions are quite calm and clear from what can be seen of the sky; due to the shine of the cobbles however there could have possibly been rain earlier in the day.

- The camera is positioned on the edge of the pathway angled slightly into the narrow road looking down the curved street. The camera is angled looking a little towards the sky showing the vastness of the buildings lining the street.

Process & techniques

- The image is a black and white analogue silver print printed in 1933.

Social & cultural background

- ‘Paris after Dark’ was Brassai’s first set of images within his photographic career which he began after emigrating from Hungary in the mid-1920s.  

- He was a writer, journalist and artist which inspired his photography later which are all quite artistic in composition and lighting.

- It is possible that Brassai’s work was influenced by the great depression affecting France from about 1931 through the following decade. His images taken at night when the streets are empty could be a metaphor for the lack of money and trade in France; however it could also be highlighting the robustness of France during this period due to the continuing trade shown through the lit up Hotel signs.

My feeling & reaction

- When I look at the image a feel a slight sense of seediness as although the street is lined with Hotel signs so is therefore a busy street it also looks like a backstreet especially with the shady figure loitering in the background disappearing into the night.

- The bright lights encased by the window frames at the end of the street make me very inquisitive and wonder what the building is; whether in actual fact the photograph is taken during Winter (possible due to the coat worn by the figure) and the image is actually not taken that late at night and therefore they are houses.

- I can also imagine a roaring trade behind the hotel doors, the bright lights give this sense of optimism, modernism and forward-thinking in contrast with the old, narrow cobbled street they line. 

- I have used this analysis of the image to create a pastiche which I think mirrors these sort of ideologies I feel Brassai may have had, I also thought very carefully about the composition of the image, the time of day, weather conditions and camera settings.   

- I will make a blog post about my pastiche shoot and the final image print shortly.  

The Body Unit: Final Ideas, Research and Shoot Plan

Reading a book called 'What is a Child? Popular Images of Childhoos' by Patricia Holland which analyses how children have been portrayed in the media drew my attention to the idea that girls grow up with a totally different perception of the world.

 Girls grow up having to learn how to present themselves obviously more exaggerated before the 20th century where females were expected to wear floor length dresses and behave respectfully; however girls are still more aware of being watched rather than watching others. It is a sort of exhibitionism where they observe adult behaviour and reproduce the qualities they see and think is expected of them; by deliberately putting themselves on dispaly like this they have already lost their innocence in this way. 

Whereas I felt when reading the book as well as in everyday life boys have a lot less expected of them in terms of behaviour especially at an early age as it has been found that the male gender mature a lot slower than females. Therefore I decided to use male models as they are often less self-conscious and less posey, so will have produce more naturally occurring scenes in my work.

The child's obliviousness to the camera would create the most natural image and in turn a much more innocent result. My first concept that I wish to capture in my shoot is an image where the child is distracted inspired by Bettina von Zwohl's work where she hangs a toy out of frame to distract the attention of the one year old. 

  To create this I may use the mother with a toy stood to the side of the shot or have the toy in the frame of the image so that the child is playing with it like a cuddly toy. As I have two models it would be interesting to do some individual shots where they play on their own and other when they're are interacting with one another to see what sort of image this gives me. 

Learning is a part of life which comes in many forms- socialising, playing but nowadays this has taken the form of technology such as telelvision programmes and Nintendo DSs; I feel that this distracts the child from the real world and limits some areas of leanring. I have asked the mother to bring something similar to this and she is bring a Leapfrog game, again on the one hand the child playing with it will be acting naturally to the game but at the same time have an unnatural feel as the child is unsociable and in a way we now expect children to pose in front of the camera lens due to familiarity to technology. 

This was discussed through a series of images made by Wendy McMurdo called 'Dark Matter: Digitial Play 2007' which depicts children emersed statically in their DS while surrounded by a location normally associated with activity.

They are very uncomfortable to look at as they are showing the reality of childhood these days, emersion into a screen and anti-socialness which I think stops creativity and for me being an art & design student when I see an advert for a DS game where you can colour in drawings on a computer screen and this is called creativity I am disgusted by what a child's creativity has been boiled down to; which begs the question what is innocence nowadays really?

Even without a computer screen young children are often seen staring into the distance emerged in their own little world or just simply playing by themselves; when looking at Vee Speers although so are slightly twisted the costumes are an expansion of the child's imagination. 

So in a way I feel that these children are portraying more innocent acts than those in Wendy McMurdo's images as they are simply acting out and dressing up as a character they have dreamt up rather than characters of a story being forced on them like in many DS games.
And interestingly even though Speers images sometimes contains dead animals, I find Loretta Lux's images less innocent, they are very posed and the children dressed by Lux are almost perfect doll-like figures frozen in time.

The setup seems a lot more contrived as if trying to portray a perfect world rather than a child's imagination unlike Speers work.
I want to try and have some much more posed images like Speers and Lux's where the child is still, looking either into the camera or in to the distance much like von Zwohl's work but in a much more setup scene.

Although I interpret Speers images as a portrayal of childplay the overall feel of the images are quite eerie touching on this idea of tainted childhoods due to the media, technology, society etc. Being exposed to things affects our behaviour whether it be a camera put in front of us or a more disturbing occurrence such as witnessing violence or being exposed to sexualised behaviour. I watched a programme which drew my attention more to this called 'The Sex Education Show: Stop Pimping our Kids' where they highlighted the way that the most recent generations of children are growing up too fast due to watching sexual behaviour in music videos, wearing inappropriate clothing and observing men's lifestyle magazines.
Speers seems to highlight some of these factors in her work, where children hold guns and dead animals which we wouldn't normally want to expose children to tainting the idea of innocence. 

The flat lighting combined with the dead pan backdrop with cracks in is also intriguing as white is usually associated with innocence which gives this feeling to the image but is almost to flat giving a peculiar unease to the scene. 

I want to create a similar background for all of my images but with a different message linked to it; I will use creased fabric to mirror this idea of children plaing in their bedroom building imaginary locations eg. castles and tents which reverts back to this feeling of innocence. I will use flat lighting to make sure the backdrop & child's complexion is quite pale to make it very soft and not high in contrast. 

In the posed images I want the boys to look straight into the eyes of the audience to create a feel of innocence like in charity adverts; children of third world countries are filmed looking down the camera at the audience sat at home which tries to persuade them to donate.

This is innocence where the child would not be very aware of what it is they are looking at but at the same time they sort of aren't portraying true innocence due to a foreign object being shoved in their face.

I also looked a little at Ingar Krauss' Juvenile prisoner series where she uniformly photographed children in the prision against a blank wall. This children due to the fact that they had committed a crime are no longer seen as innocent therefore I wanted to think about what it was that makes the children look different to Speers' children.

The bricks gives this sense of hardness, a barrier stopping the inmates from escaping and therefore conflict with our idea of a child's persona. The uniform of the children without knowing the reason for them wearing it is very bland and doesn't remind me of what a child should look like. The expected clothing of a child would be pastel tones which is why I will have my models in light clothing.

The camera position is below the figures eyeline which I find intriguing as it gives this sense of the child overpowering the adult audience members making them look quite powerful. Therefore I will position my camera ever so slightly above the child so as not to intimidate the subject but to show them as how they should be. 

Again I will use soft lighting and the children's own light coloured clothing to keep it natural rather than looking like Lux's almost small adult looking children where she dresses them in shirts and suits.

      So to recap my two models are boys aged 4 & 7, I will have them dressed in light clothing, with several different concepts- some posed and some natural. I have asked the models' mother to birng some of their favourite toys both soft and cuddly like teddies and technological like Leapfrog to capture different emotions and expressions produced by the children. 

      I will bring in two small chairs to give a well-proportioned image rather than adult chairs so it gives a more childish atmosphere combined with the crumpled white sheets. 

      I will create my lighting using soft boxes to create extremely soft shadows and no harsh bright light on the surface of the child’s skin (as shown in the diagram below)

It is interesting how when we think of child toys we see cuddly toys like teddies etc. as a symbol of childhood innocence whereas technology is associated with adulthood eg. Mobile phones etc., the teddy bear is like the modern day lamb that represented Jesus. So it will be interesting to look at the way an audience views a child with a cuddly toy compared to a technological toy like a leapfrog. Doing research into child toys I have found that even Leapfrog games are being turned into a sort of advertisement for products which children seem to be acquiring earlier and earlier in life; for example they now produce LeapPad with apps which will lead on to iPads and phones etc. This makes me curious as to whether children are being exposed to technology too young and therefore making them lose their innocence at a much earlier age.

I don't think I will ever quite figure out what innocents is as it has been interpretted in so many different ways through history and art forms; but in my final image of the Body unit I want to portray my personal view on innocence or possibly the loss of it.