Part Two: Objectivity

An objective study of myself.

ATTEMPT NUMBER 1

 I was told to create an in depth, objective study of myself, following the idea of photography and its use as a device for documentation. My initial idea was to take prominent features from my face and put them on different people to see if it changes the view of myself. I was interested to see if people would consider a person to change due to their appearance, especially when the evidence is recorded. My first subject was my brother; I decided to take the aspects of make up and fringe colour as they are distinctive and quite unique to me.

These didn't work because the aperture settings were wrong and the lighting conditions weren't good enough. Also the clothes are distracting from the face and don't fit in with the study of myself. I decided I needed to have the subjects wear a coat or t-shirt of mine.

ATTEMPT NUMBER 2

I chose to make a sign to hold to further provoke the idea of appearance changing objects and it makes my intentions clearer. The lighting isn't perfect but it is much better and the focus is much sharper.

I now need to get more subjects (ideally 5 including myself) to have a wide enough comparison for my third attempt.


ATTEMPT NUMBER 3

The lighting is better, they are in focus and the t-shirt is a good constant that makes the images more appealing, I like these images, but they are too dark and I didn't get as many people as I would have liked.

However, trying to develop the images I took with signs was a good idea as these are interesting, make you think and turned out very similar to what I hoped to achieve.

Experimenting with aperture (and shutter speed).

In this experiment I varied my aperture settings but kept the shutter speed the same so I could clearly see the effect on the amount of light that was let in.
I then put the photos together and noted the aperture setting on the photographs in photoshop.

Knowing that if you adjust your aperture setting, you may have to adjust your shutter speed (if you are on a completely manual setting) is useful because you might take the perfect shot at just the right time with the perfect depth of field and find it is exposed (too light), or underexposed (too dark).

I then wanted to focus on the depth of field and how it affects the background.

The lowest aperture setting (or 'f' stop) has the widest lens diaphragm (hole for the light to get through) and has a short depth of field, this means it focuses on closer objects and blurs the background.
Higher aperture settings have a smaller lens and a larger depth of field, meaning that more of the background is sharp and in focus. 

These experiments will help me with my field study when I am looking for consistency in my objective photographs. Inconsistencies such as different framing or different depths of field can be distracting and render the photographs ineffective.

Field studies-Lifts.

This project stemmed from the objective roots of early pioneers in photography. Examples such as Bernd and Hilla Becher have been important to the broadening of the approach towards, and use of photography, influencing contemporary art as well as photography through their style and concept of the camera as an observer, cold recorder and collector of information.

The water towers collected in their images are, alone, normal and uninteresting objects. However, when put together like they are they become intruiging due to their unique shapes and in some way, architectual value as someone designed them to be this way for a reason. The towers become almost humourous in their oddity although they would not usually merit a second glance. The framing of the photographs and layout of the images then becomes important as it is because of the uniformity of the images that we notice the differences and individual features of the towers.

Their approach was objective yet the pictures still have a certain appeal. 

Still considered objective, yet with more unique, playful intent is Stephen Gill, a contemporary photographer who's field studies have the naive enthusiasm and allure of those that existed before modern sarcasm and malevolence had a role in what we superficially perceive to be the value of an image.

Objective ears.

Within our class we did an objective study of each other; I decided to photograph people's ears with the intention of making a short film, adding the favourite music of the people whose ears I was showing. This was very ambitious for me as I had never successfully attempted to make a short film before.

To do this I had to have help, but I took the photographs in photoshop and made them three seconds long. I then added the songs one by one and cropped them to three seconds as well.  

 I changed the opacity at the beginning and end of the photographs and songs to try and achieve a smoother transition. A lot of the songs fit well together and I am pleased with this, however, some of the song clips do not fit together and it seems jumpy in places. Even so, I am pleased with the outcome.