Marks and Scars

Statement of intent

For my weird and wonderful project and I have chosen to go down the route of the human beings. By this I mean we are all weird and wonderful in our own individual way. I have considered photographing people in society who are deemed to be different, who may generally stand out in society. For examples people who have a weird and quirky fashions sense to people who are inked from head to toe. I will also take a survey and ask people what they like about themselves and what they dislike about their appearance, because although we may hate a certain aspect of our body which we seem to think is weird , someone else may seem to think it is wonderful and fascinating. Another Idea I thought would be interesting to explore regarding my project was birthmarks. I have thought about asking people if they had any interesting birth marks or scares which again are aspects of people which make us unique and individual. In order to develop my project further with the scars and the birth marks I consider using a magnifying glass to display the emphasis of these features and photographing this process. I also liked the Idea of using illustrations on the birthmarks to compose different shapes characters on my models.

Weird and wonderful ood boardSome people may embrace features of themselves that society may see to be weird or quite unusual. I have produced a mood board showing all the different aspects and areas that I feel will help me develop and explore my weird and wonderful project..

Gillian Wearing

The idea of photographing people holding sign seemed to be fascinating and so raw that I did some research into Gillian Wearing.

Shoot 1: Sign Holding

For my first shoot I photograph my friend and I asked her to write something random on a piece of paper, I told her to write something that we wouldn’t expect her to her to be interested in. We used the studio however it was fairly small and achieving the suitable lighting proved to be a struggle. Whenever I took the pictures there was a shadow produced behind my model, I experimented by moving the light around however this did not make any difference to my images. I then experimented with photoshop in order to try and lose the shadow however this was also not very successful either due to the poor lighting issue. 

Photoshop

I experimented with using Photoshop and increasing the exposure in order to lighten the background. I doubled the layer and then rubbed out the back ground, I was trying to change the background and lose the shadow behind my model however this was still unsuccessful

For my next shoot I am going to use the studio and explore different positioning of the lights and what effect they may produce. I thought about taking pictures of my birth marks and other peoples in the studio. I will make sure that the technique aspects in the studio are planned out well and researched deeply. I think the butterfly lighting and also the uses of broad lighting will best suit my shoot. The butterfly light could possibly be successful as this technique is soft and suttle. Whereas the board lighting is more of dramatic technique, which help emphasize the birthmarks.

Shoot 2: Birth Marks

For my second shoot I photographed my models birth marks and beauty spots using the studio. I used the white back drop and two different lights both position directed beside my models. This gave a bright and sharp lighting. My models did not have an big birth marks.

After my shoot I was not very happy with the outcomes of my shoot as I believe the birth marks I took images of didn’t contrast as much as I would have hoped they would have feel as though the birthmarks where not emphasized enough, they were not as noticeable as I expected them to be. In my next shoot I think it would be a good idea to find bigger and more dramatic birthmarks as small ones did not work as well. I have a patches on my back so I thought I would  photograph my own back. Am not too sure how this will turn out but I think it will be a good idea to experiment with any interesting marks on the human body.

Shoot 3: My Patchy back

For my third shoot I took pictures in the studio of my back changing and varying the different lighting positions’ did this because I thought the change and marks on my back would be interesting. My project is taking pictures of birth marks and interesting scars, and so thought this would help trigger some more idea which would help me develop my project. After my shoot I discovered that the marks on my back where not as obvious and I had hope but having completed this shoot, this gave me interesting ideas that would slightly alter my project help me develop my project further I discovered that photographing the human body in general was a weird and wonderful thing discovered the form and positions of the back very intriguing. The shadows and shapes that the bones on our body made created an abstract form of art itself.

For my next shoot I would still go ahead and experiment with the marks and scars however focus mainly on scars as I have produced a fair amount of work based on birthmarks and other marks on the body. I also plan to reshot the images of my back and focus on the lighting and different shapes which the body produces.

Shoot 4: Scars
before changing my project to photographing the human body I decided to experiment with taking pictures of people’s scars. My model has a tattoo and also a scar which cuts across their back, these images were beautiful, the idea that we are made in a certain way but our bodies change depending on experiences and event in our lives, weather this being a scar from a fatal fall when you was seven years old to voluntary changing your body through tattoos. Scars can be wonderful and interesting things even though people generally have a negative view about them. The person who has the scar may find it to be weird to them, but other people who view this may find it to be wonderful and interesting. I experimented with changing the positioning of the lights to find the one that worked best; I discovered that shining the light from one side of the model produced a dramatic effect which was the look I was going for whereas when I had positioned two lights my images were satisfactory but did not have an interesting lighting effect. The setting was not too light or neither too dark. In the second picture I had both lights shining from both side, this made the picture much lighter however I believe the first picture had a better effect.

During my fourth shoot I also decided to experiment again with the shapes and forms of the human body. I re shot pictures of my back and tried to change the shapes and positioning by bending my back and leaning forward, the spin mad an interesting shape and so I was pleased with my outcome for that shoot. This made connections with my main title weird and wonderful because our bodies can be presented in a weird way by this I mean if we change our positioning and shapes our bodies makes interesting shapes from either shadows or bones which protrude under our skin. I think this could potentially be a good idea and one that I can develop a lot more, in the first pictures the more obvious feature is my spine, it creates a snake like shape which also produces interesting shadows.

 The lighting produced form one side of me is dramatic this is emphasizes the shadows and the spine a lot more.

Photoshop: Black and White

I went onto Photoshop and experimented using different effects, I discovered changing my images to black and white put more emphasis on the shadows I altered the contrast which made the darker area more darker and lighter areas lighter. These effects bring out the shadows and shapes the body produces so I was pleased with my shoot and the Photoshop experiment.

This was my final outcome.

Moving my project forward
 

In order to take my project foward I dress some images of the last shoot I had completed and from there this helped me to acheive interesting ideas.I initial had the idea of cropping down some of my images and focusing on sections rather than focusing on the model as a whole and the whole back.In my second sketch this is a demostration of the type of cropping am looking into.I had the idea of cropping my images into the shadows.