What is my current practice?
My current practice is an evolving exploration into the themes of the uncanny, sexual fetish and self reflection. So far much of my work has involved working on location at night or during the twilight ours, looking for in between spaces that convey to me a sense of uncanny, this can be through fear, or through some sort of immediate unconscious connecting felt at the scene. As I mentioned in previous modules, I can often walk into a space and know if it is going to work as an image without any need to look further, so quite often I may arrive somewhere and immediately leave without exploring, I have previously attributed this to the Surrealist technique of Psychic Automatism set out in Andre Breton's Surrealist Manifesto (Breton, 1924).
Towards the end of the last module my work began to head in a different direction, after completing an unrelated shoot with a close friend of my own in which he wanted to show of his own collection of fetish “Gear” (Various clothes and masks made of Rubber and leather). I noticed a connection to certain themes Freud and covered within his essay on the uncanny, particularly with the leather masks and puppy hoods. These items seemed to remove a layer of the person who wore, creating an effect of almost an autonomous doll, rather than a sentient human with an identity. This led to research into the famous and controversial photographer Robert Maplethorpe, whose work covered sexual fetish in a completely frank and uncensored manor (His own self portrait showed himself half naked with a whip inserted into his anus with no attempt made to cover up, quite the opposite in fact). While I would rather not head down the line of creating pornographic imagery (less so for the fear of causing offence, and more because I feel that has been covered pretty well at this point), I did resolve to use fetish gear in my work, and considered the future use of studio work and vague sexual imagery, perhaps in relation to the “Dark Rooms” I had mentioned earlier in my project (Unlit rooms in underground clubs where men go to find casual sexual encounters with other men).
What did I do during the first week?
So far not much, unfortunately I was unable to complete the ed Ruscha challenge during the time away from Uni, mostly due to a serious amount of work now that my business is heading into main wedding season. However I did resolve to complete a project based on this, and with a slight link to my main project. Being known for his work photographically documenting the banal, most famously his Gas Stations (Ruscha, 1962), but also swimming pools (Ruscha, 1968) and Parking lots (Ruscha, 1974), I have decided to complete a very similar project based on a series of small buildings found around the rhondda valleys, where I live. On many of the oldest streets, particularly those that lead to a colliery, you can find small red brick buildings housing a simple urinal. These were places about the valley in aid of the miners who would all walk to and from the colliery, and many would walk for quite some time. The buildings still exist and are still used. I intend to photograph a number of these buildings to create a small Photobook similar in style to Ed Ruscha’s books.
How would I describe my Methodology?
My methodology so far has been pretty consistent, even with the addition of a model. As mentioned above I employed the use of my own interpretation of Bretons Psychic Automatism as a system for deciding what locations I would and would not use. The locations are initially found through a mixture of talking to locals, my own husband's knowledge of the area in conjunction with his knowledge of my project, and through good old fashioned exploration via car. I use a digital full frame camera, often with a standard 24-70mm zoom lens, on tripod, set to a long exposure of between 10 and 30 seconds. I originally would use high apertures in order to retain as much detail as I could throughout the scene, however this was creating starbusts around bright lights in my scenes, and distracted from the main concept of the image, so now I use lower apertures, and I am more careful with my focusing. Editing is reserved to brightness and contrast adjustments, some cropping, and on the rare occasion colour correction and erroneous object removal. I try to keep editing as minimal as possible and get as much right in camera as I can. When I started the project, I would crop to square, and add artificial vignette, but as with the starburts, this was found to be a distraction.
For the most part of the first two modules, My methodology has been very repetitive, and changed very little. However with the implementation of models into the mix, things seem as if they are about to change, perhaps drastically. During this module, I want to explore the possibility of using the studio as part of my work, and finding ways of changing up my system to expand on my themes and ideas. Some of my latest work in the last module, included a model adorned with leather masks and respirators, and I found this added Punctum to my work that had hitherto been missing.
What forms could my Project/Photographs take moving forward?
As mentioned above, this module I plan to be working in the studio as well as continuing to work on location with my model. I may also use myself as a model, as I have done in previous work. Having been influenced by “Dark Rooms”, I want to take ideas and themes from these and put them into my studio work, I have ideas for lighting and poses already, and I may explore a more sexual theme in reference to Maplethorpe's work. I will continue searching for locations to shoot, and while during the last module I did begin to work earlier in the day, I don't think I will move to day time shooting, I will keep to night and twilight however that doesn't mean that I won't try to adjust and explore changes in my methodology. I have been wanting to expand on my methodology for a while, but I have been scared of breaking something that already works for me and creates images I am happy with, but I can’t move forward unless I take that leap, small changes have been good for me, the changes in the editing process, the changes in camera settings, the addition of a model, it will be interesting to see what changes come next.
Breton, A. (1924). The first manifesto of surrealism. Paris.
Ruscha, E. (1962). Twentysix gasoline stations. [Los Angeles]: Ruscha.
Ruscha, E. (1968). Nine swimming pools and a broken glass. [New York]: [distributed by Wittenborn].
Ruscha, E. (1974). Thirtyfour parking lots in Los Angeles. Hollywood: E. Ruscha.
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