Category: First Brief

A project that is similar to my idea of showing less known areas of Lincoln is Lion Farm Estate. I have never particularly delved into the realms of documentary photography and fancy having a go and telling a narrative.

I like how Lion Farm Estate begins with an establishing shot before using various different portraits and detail shots. I like the lighting and high contrast in a lot of the photos as well as the positioning of the people.

These are some of my favourite photos from the collection:

The angle and high contrast are what makes this photo particularly interesting. I like how the Mini, although quite poorly, is the brightest thing against the dull estate in this photo.

This makes me think of new formalism and I like the chosen colours and random objects in this photo. It adds a little detail and gives an insight into what people had in their homes on the estate.

I think I like the dog looking at the camera the most in this photo as his owner has not spotted that a photo is being taken of him. The photo also highlights how dead the estate is.

Following our lecture today, I have had yet another idea!

Last year I went for a walk down along the canal heading East in Lincoln. I discovered council estates and large industrial areas that were fairly run-down, and even falling down. I find old, disused areas incredibly interesting and feel that a lot of people do not realise that such places exist in Lincoln. Therefore, for a project, I could create a narrative or sequence about the unknown areas of Lincoln.

I have been to such areas before, like Ipswich where I took these photos:

I love making photos of industrial areas look gritty and like a forgotten place. I find the lines and light also work well in black and white. Sadly on the day I went to Ipswich, it was really cold and foggy so not perfect for taking loads of photos!

I would take photos along the river where it says ‘Waterside N’ on the map. I may go and investigate and see if there is suitable stuff to take photos of at some point soon.

I would take a range of shots including establishing shots, detail shots of textures and items I find as well as just general photos. I also want the weather to be cloudy as it adds to the gloom of the area.

Here are a series of photos for a major film:

Which film do they represent?

The answer to what film this is, is of course, Pulp Fiction. The photos I would take would be more artistic and varied than these generic stock photos but this is the general idea that I have.

During class, Adam brought to our attention a book called The Photographer’s Playbook with 307 assignment ideas in it. As I have been a little stuck with ideas for this brief, I warmed to some of the ideas in the book that involve films and telling a story.

A couple of ideas I have had for my project are:

• Telling a film or tv plotline in 10 photos using objects, locations and sound
• Telling the lyrics of a song in 10 photos etc

These ideas could both work in and out of the studio and now I just need to think of a film/tv series/song that I could take photos for.

These ideas make me think of a book that I once saw in Waterstones – Film in Five Seconds.

The book is full of symbols and vectors that represent films which the reader is supposed to guess. It should then take you approximately 5 seconds to guess each film. This is similar to my idea as I would present images and sound that represent a film and the viewer would have to guess them too.

It also reminds me of the Guess The Film App, where you are shown a drawing that represents a scene in the film and have to guess what the film is.

For research, I have been trying to think of ways of how stories are told with both images and sound. I tried to think of a music video that successfully does this but have not remembered any yet. Another area I thought about was opening titles for films and tv series. I then remembered that in the opening titles for The Walking Dead (seasons 1 + 2), photos and still images are used with tense music to give the audience an idea of the world the series is set in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuumCteZVBM

The opening titles combine photos with zooms and pans on them as well as moving images too. I like the use of the family photos and simple screen movements from left to right to show the entire image and highlight the most important parts.

I like the foggy, grimy look to the images, suggesting the genre of the programme is horror or a thriller and that something has gone wrong. The shots change with the music – a simple way of tying them both together and making the story flow.

Another I have had is to create a story like the beginning of The Walking Dead. I could combine a group of photos with some uncopyrighted music or sounds to make an opening title for a made-up programme or film.