1. Prompt: Focus on the Iced tea bottle

Question

<What are the components that make something the focal point of a media item and whether peoples’ focal point on something can differ from each other?>

 

Instruction

-To take photos and from different angles of an iced tea bottle in different locations.

-Examine the media items myself one by one and also collectively, looking for focal points

-Interview minimum 3 people about their focal points on each of the media items collected.

-Compare everyone’s focal points

*Each time the photo is being taken, the bottle must be put in a different position in the frame.

what i need

  • gadget to collect media (my phone or video recorder)
  • Empty Iced tea bottle

Duration

  • 48hrs

What to expect

I expect to find out what makes the focal point a focal point and if anyone can have a different focal point from others and if how? By positioning the bottle in different areas of the frame.

What I assume may affect someone’s focal point on an object

The positioning of the object, Colours, Personal association with objects, The size of the object, The definition of the image (How clear is it), How far away are we from the object, the surroundings

 

Noticing

Singular Objects

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multiple Objects

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After examining all of the photos taken in accordance to my method of capturing singular/ multiple concordant objects at Southern Cross station, I noticed various things that I usually would have never thought twice about. It made me realise that just knowing about something and actually discovering it in your day to day locations then going even further to record it are very different matters.

In this case the media was collected first then by thoroughly going through all the photos, I found myself noticing things that i already had general knowledge of being utilised within locations such as the Southern Cross station .

I knew that the colour red stimulated ones appetite which is why fast food restaurants such as McDonalds and Burger King used red in their branding and interior designs. By going through the pictures, i noticed the round chairs at the side of the foodcourt, the chairs at Red Rooster and the vending machines were all comprising the colour red. This correlation between a certain colour and a certain sensation such as hunger or thirst was an already known factor for me but as i notice it in the scenes of my everyday location I discovered how great the relation actually was and how it was being manipulated to us in such a passive aggressive way.

Another pattern i noticed relating colour was in items associated with travel and the colour blue. This was something i never noticed or thought about but i assume was always subconsciously existent in our surroundings. As in the pictures that i took, it can be seen in the bicycle helmets, the transitory lockers for travellers and the handles of the luggage carts.

Looking at the first photo of the public rubbish bin in front of Gloria Jean’s I noticed how accurately the bin was positioned right in front of the cafe. I remembered when collecting the photos at Southern Cross, that there was a line of bins (about 4-6) aligning the eateries including Gloria Jeans on the side of the bridge path. This prompted me to casually review the reasoning behind the positions of public utility.

In the last picture of Spencer street which was taken from the steps of the stairway to Southern Cross, the focal point was the cement blocks on the boarder of the footpath. I found out that they were put up as a prevention for rampage breakouts from car attacks on pedestrians. Although at the time, I only noticed the cement blocks because it suited my ‘noticing method’ of multiple duplicates, but by capturing the scene it became stored in my memory and when i discovered the purpose for it, I instantly recalled the Bourke street attack.

Something that I hadn’t noticed when taking the photos that i noticed now by looking through the outcome carefully is that the pictures that were intended to be under singular objects or multiple objects can be simultaneously both. For example, the fifth picture of the eatery tables  lined up against the glass wall can be under multiple duplicates but also the man sitting alone can be considered as singular. The third picture of the bicycle standing singularly, I realise the stands are duplicates. With the eighth picture of the carts, at the time i didn’t see the no bicycle sign and intended to shoot the two duplicate carts but the singular sign stood out more as i looked at the picture.

One of the similarities that i have noticed in the media is that in most of the pictures, if they were shot from a general eye sight level and not a closeup shot, it is guaranteed to see spontaneous appearance of pedestrians whether in the background or even foreground. This just proves how busy the station is and enhances the organic and mundane feel of aesthetics.

 

Prompt

Prompt: In this post you should outline what your process of collection will be. This process should be informed by an idea from the Mason reading, Bogost reading or Patrick Pound exhibition. Further, you should list what you know, don’t know and expect to see and/or hear. 

Process of Collection 

The process of collection will be simple. It will be collected with a film camera (Ricoh super 300) and the medium will strictly be photographs. The method is to take photographs of singular objects that stand out from the concourse or of more than one of the same objects that show particular alignment or patterns.

Location: Souther Cross Station

What i know about the location:

  • It is located in Melbourne city close to Docklands and Southbank
  • There are more than one level
  • Connected to DFO shopping precinct
  • Small Foodcourt and small fashion clothing/accessories shops/pharmacies/ bookstores
  • Lots of fast-food and franchise restaurants
  • V-Line train and   Sky bus stop
  • Myki service stall
  • It runs everyday
  • Major public transport station for workers and students
  • Bridge along southern cross connecting to Cooperation buildings area
  • Two escalators one on each end of the station
  • Divided by the trains in the middle.

What i don’t know

  • Exactly how many levels
  • When is the busiest
  • Operating hours
  • What the walls look like
  • If there is a theme colour for the station
  • What the sign/ text font for Southern cross station looks like

What i expect to see and hear

  • Sound of people chatting to each other on their phones walking by
  • Lots of tourists
  • Trains passing by
  • Train schedule screen and announcement
  • Transport officers
  • birds (pigeons and seagulls)
  • Pie Face, Burger King, Woolies Express

 

 

Refining

I have learnt that setting yourself a formula is a good way to discipline yourself to notice things that are mostly overlooked. It can guide you to practise recording what may seem mundane and ordinary but i believe without these practises, it is impossible to see the unseen.

I have noticed the shifting of the focal points between the objects in the photos during and after the process of taking media. I would like to explore how it happens and what stimulates people to focus on an object. If it is the same for most people and if it does how does it differ.

  • What stimulates photographers to create a certain focal point?
  • What are some of the reasons for when the intended focal point and the viewers focal point don’t match?
  • How do focal points shift from one object to another?

Reflecting

Everything on my list of what i expected to see and hear at Southern Cross station i definitely did but because of the formula, my eyes were heightened to spot objects that were situated in a certain way whether they were standing alone or in group of duplicates.

In one way the formula i made up could have restricted my process of collecting media but on the other, it guided me to discover objects that i never would have taken pictures of. What i usually notice and record are things that are out of the ordinary and ironic. Even when i do notice things, unless i need it for evidence or it’s out of the worldly and feel like it’s crucial to share I don’t normally record it. Through this work of noticing and recording i have come to understand the idea from Bogost’s Ontography of Shore’s photographs being “deflationary not because their subjects are subordinate but because their composition underscores unseen things and relations.”

By looking at the pictures taken from my location, although the subjects (public transport, vending machines, fast food stores, seagulls and bicycles) may be considered subordinate, the unplanned composition of the camera was definitely what brought out unseen things and relations forward.

I refer to the composition being unplanned because honestly when i was taking the photos on my preview-less film camera with the tiny view-finder, I had very little idea on how the photo was going to come out and it was a huge risk to take on. The quality of the photo was not promised and some of the pictures actually turned out to be quite blurry. However it forced me to practise the process of ‘seeing the scene to be captured separately from the way the camera will see it.’ (Bogost) Although my camera didn’t have a ground glass that rotated the view like Shore’s ancient film plates from the Brassai’s era (so the parallax wouldn’t have been as ‘phenomenal’ as Bogost describes) but the parallax I experienced with my film camera was enough for me to draw curiosity towards the objects in the scene. 

When the film got developed there were a lot of surprises that i did not notice or expect when taking the photos. For example the picture of the single bicycle i didn’t know the man who just walked into the frame was gonna be in the photo but he was and it really doesn’t matter because regardless of having to had a particular subject, a focal point of the image(the bike), there weren’t any regulations on what i was supposed to be noticing. I’m glad he was in it because now i can relate to Michael Fred’s suggestion (Bogost) of Shore’s photographs being ‘imaginatively liberating’ and Shore’s unironic relation to the subject in the images.

Shore’s photography is conceptualised in the reading as ‘Nothing is overlooked, nothing reduced to anything else, nothing given priority. Instead, everything sits suspended.’

During the process of collecting media my mind was on noticing singular objects that were standing alone or two or more objects that were identical. I knew those objects were going to be given priority and be the focal points but as i actually started taking photos, tsk don’t worry about the objects being the centre, all i hoped was for the object to be posited inside the frame. When the images came out, i looked at them carefully and found that there was no definite focal point on anything. Since the film camera doesn’t have the ability to focus on one particular point nothing was emphasised or reduced. It was perfect, as my own focal point I had set in my head in the process, disappeared when i started observing the results and every little object i noticed in the picture became the subject or the focal point of the photo.