Blow Up (1966)

Recently we watched Blow Up (1966), a film about a London based photographer who spends his time trying to get just the right shot, smoking pot, shouting at useless models and generally being a little odd. Whilst trying to capture the picture of a couple in the park he accidentally photographs evidence of a murder. 

I know this is supposed to be a real mine field of metaphors and allegorical meanings, I get that, but this film really didn't do anything for me. Yes it was a reasonable (if lazy) portrayal of the life of a photographer, but the strange scenes of everyone standing still at the concert and the photographer joining in the mime's tennis game just threw me me too much. The scenes I liked and enjoyed were the ones where the photographer and Vanessa Redgraves character are in the cramped confines of the studio. The tension between the characters, both sexual and nervous, is palpable and their interctions are pure cat and mouse. This alone was the most interesting part of the film for me. Other than that I felt as if the climax had been robbed from me and the rest of this film seemed just a little drab. 

Good music though.

Nottingham Trip; Part 3

We went to see Anish Kapoors work in the Nottingham art gallery next. This gallery was a re-purposed castle, the view from the balcony has been used in films like This is England and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. The view was spectacular, I could see for miles and I felt small.

Anish Kapoors work was really amazing to say the least. When I walked into the room I was confronted by these amazing shapes on the walls and the floor. I'm not sure what they were made out of but they were covered in the brightest, most vibrant pigments of yellow, blue, red and black. On the left wall was a half circle covered in red pigment that looked almost violent against this plain white wall. Then we moved through the room to find several circular based installations that were made out of a strange wax like substance. Along with this we had a spinning tank of dark red water which, although was merely a fairground trick, still held me captive for a long time. The last 3 installations were also illusions, a large white bulge in the back wall that was only visible up close. A large blue ball and a very large concave semi circle. The large half sphere was coated in a dark red dye, what made it so interesting was that it reflected the light off the inside of it, so it looked bottomless. When you tried to reach your arm inside it looked like you could reach inside forever. 

One thing that Kapoors work reminded me of was an eastern festival that compromises of the natives picking up handfuls of pure powdered pigment and throwing it around in a celebration of colour. The pigments we saw at the exhibition were so amazing that I wanted to take some home wiht me. The reds and yellows also reminded me of spices like termeric and paprika, which are synonymous with Eastern Culture.

Nottingham Trip; Part 2

The second exhibition we saw at the Nottingham Comtemp was by a group called DAAR, (Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency).

DAAR is based in Beit Sahour, just outside Bethlehem. Their aim is to re-purpose Israeli architecture and make something better of it. Their definition of 'decolonizing' implies the dismantling of dominant structure, for example, the legal, military and financial structures for the benefit of a single group.

Most of the exhibition we saw was about 'The Lawless Line', this is a 5 meter wide band that runs over fields, roads, gardens and even a mosque. The Lawless Line is a stretch of land that basically belongs to no-one, or so I understand it, this is most problematic for both Palestines and Israelis as it's land that neither of them can do anything with. 

One of the Palistinian Parliament buildings started to be built on this line, eventually though the construction was halted and now the building sits in limbo, part of it is in Palestinian territory, part in Israeli territory and then there's the line. The 5 meter wide band which runs along both but belongs to neither of the legal territories. 

The part of the installation I liked best, not gunna lie some of it went right over my head, was a large black staircase the represented the line going through the parliament building. It stretched at least 15 meters across the room and many meters in the air at each side. There was a flat section in the middle which we were able to stand on to look directly up each end of the staircase. It was supported by metal poles and strong strings, I really wanted to see if I could navigate my way through the strings and get to the top so I could look down at it, it also made me want to travel to the actual building so I could see the line properly in comparison to the building and it's surroundings.

This exhibition was both similar to but very different from Thomas Demands work. Both exhibitions made small objects look and feel so much bigger, so immersive. But also the exhibitions are kind of like mirrors of each other, Demands work takes scale models and shows them at a large scale, whereas DAAR's work takes life size problems and shows them to scale on a map. I prefered Thomas Demands work as much of the underlying meaning and politics of DAAR's work flew over my , but also because I found it worked better for me. When there is too much meaning and force behind a body of work I feel like I'm being forced to feel certain things or think certain things about it. 

Nottingham Trip; Part 1

Earlier today the entire photography class went on a trip to to Nottingham to look around the art galleries, never having been to Nottingham, I thought this would be a really good exprience and a nice trip to break up the module a bit.

We first went to Nottingham Contemporary to see the work of Thomas Demand, a german artist whose collection we saw, named 'Model studies' consisted of extreme close-ups of scale models. Demand is known for often changing the dynamics of the exhibition space he has been given, however this time at Nottingham Contemp he said the space was perfect for his work. 

Most of the models we saw pictured by Demand were made from cardboard, foamboard, plastic trees and coloured papers. Most of the models were made by the late american modernist architect John Lautner. Demand found them at the Getty research centre, most of the are as small as shoeboxes and some even smaller. 

What's odd about this body of work is that the models are barely bigger than a shoebox yet his macro images are printed around a metre and a half tall and a similar size in width, being this size makes them alarmingly immersive, like you could just step into them and walk around on the minuscule cardboard structures. The images blur the line between reality and miniature, looking at some I felt almost like I was looking at the biulding itself, in a skewed sort of way.

Thouhg depending on where you were standing, the images appeared different to the eye, too close and they lost most of their definition and imapct, too far and it becomes too small looking, an odd thought for images that are barely a few milimetres in reality. Also being too far away you lost the ability to feel like you could step into it. I decided to walk around the gallery looking at his work from between 5 and 10 meters away from the frames. 

I've always loved macro work, but this is so much more amazing than that. It's like a macro of a macro. 

5x4 Test

Today we shot some 5x4 tests. Our subject in the Studio module is still life, but for our test shoots we just grabbed a stool in the studio to photograph. We were given a free 5x4 negative by Candice so we could do test shots while we were all waiting for out films to arrive in the post.

We took out a cambo and a standard lens, we had no problem setting up the camera, though we forgot the cable release so we had to release the shutter ourselves, which lead to some major fingertip pain, but we persevered.

Because we are all relatively new new to shooting film with large format cameras and how to use them properly we were also lent some 'dummy' film to begin with so we could practice loading the darkslides without fogging expensive negs, after spending a while in the darkrooms fussing around making sure we had the negs correctly loaded and making sure we could do it in our sleep, it was time to do it for real. 

After checking we had everything ready, Jen and I took 3 shots of this stool, we didn't bother with any fancy lighting because we were just testing out the camera. We took one at /30 of a second and one at /60 of a second, our other image was a bit over exposed because it was our first slide and we left the shutter open.

Never the less we developed all three negatives and they actually all came out rather well, no fogged paper, no scratches and all three of the images were useable. They may not be totally correctly exposed but the point it we managed to make manageable images using a large format camera. I really like using the large format cameras, not because when i stick a coat over my head to look through the back standard I feel like I'm in a fancy old film, but because I feel a lot closer to the image I'm creating and I feel much closer to the process of making the image. This might be a little preemptive but I think I'm going to like this module, although I may get totally fed up of such a long process when it gets to the last few weeks.

Also yeah, I like feeling like I'm in an old film actually.

Recently...

I've been doing blogs for the last few weeks as an assignment for my photography course and I've decided to move them here for public viewing, enjoy! :) Rx

Long time no speak.

Well hello there random person who has stumbled across my blog. Did you or are you currently going to university? I ask because I move in to halls tomorrow. Yes, I am spending my time blogging instead of packing. I'll probably regret that.

I'm totally scared but so excited about this. I've never lived anywhere but with my parents, I'm only just 18, and we've lived in the same house since I was around 6 months old. I move into a 5 bed flat, it's mixed thank god, I can't cope with too many women, they piss me off something crazy.

Any how, this was just a quick update since I've been neglecting my blog, sorry about that. Not that anyone reads it haha. It's more like an outlet at the moment. I'll post something next week after the move. Talk soon, Rae :) x