fern's

What is a photo book

As I read the brief for the last project and that we had to make a photo book, and that it can be about anything, I started to ask myself, what would I like to present myself as a photographer. It appeals to me that fashion, portrait, street and urban is my kind of style and photography. It is actually something I would like to continue doing in the future. A photo book for me is something that represent who you are as a photographer, what your aesthetic is. However, it can also be something you would like to explore more, or something you’re interested in at the moment.

In the progress of working on the photo book, the most challenging part is to keep all the photos in the same theme, to tell the same story. One of the beauties of photography is being able to lead the audience to get back in time where you took the photos, for them to be able to get the authentic environment like they were also there. In my opinion, photo book isn’t only about the photos, but how you process them and to be able to put them all together in order for them to compliment each other. Every page is extremely important. The tone of the photos. It is a must to take every details of the book seriously so that the finished work is perfect.

In conclusion, photo book represents who you are as a photographer. It portrays the perspective of your own world. The whole book the authenticity of the author, the way all the photographs are put together.

Uses of photography

Throughout the course, with all the practices, exercises, and learnings, I find myself enjoying portrait photography the most. Before this course, I only worked on video editing, never really got a chance to work on still images. However, this course made me interested in this field, even more than filmmaking for some reason. I find myself, most of the time, enjoying the course and think that time flies when I’m working on my projects. The images tell stories. No words needed. It is fascinating to be learning all the techniques and skills. However, I find it more enchanting to be able to find the right angle, with the right timing. It is challenging, yes. But It is worth the time to spend on to get that perfect angle, lighting, and timing.

Portrait is fascinating for me in terms of how your own kind of perspective can portray somebody through the photographs. My most favourite project was the one that we had to make a photo book as it has to be a theme. How to make all the photos that you take from different places, for different people and with different lighting to be in the same theme, showing the same mood can be quite challenging. But at the same time, I find it fun to work on it and trying to get it right.

What inspires me from the course is basically how one image can tell a lot of stories or the personality of the person in the frame. To be able to make the photos look enchanting is extremely challenging, as myself who prefers outdoor kind of photography, there will always be something getting in the way, like a pole or a sign, the colour that just doesn’t go with the whole thing. The storytelling project brief showed me a lot how photos can communicate. However, the right angle and the right timing is extremely important as it can miscommunicate as well.

Photo book

For PB4, we have to make a photo book that simply shows our interests in photography, the strength,  or/and what we would like to explore more. In class this week, there was a guest, Bella, came to talk about types of photo book and their main aim of the book. It was fascinating to see how photo book can be designed differently, with different kinds of purpose. Bella also showed how some photo books are stitched differently and all.

As I’ve always been interested in graphic design and illustration. My idea of photo book I would like to do is the combination of  illustration and photography. But yes of course, the main focus is still on photography but in order to make it fun and interesting, the mix of a little bit of illustration would be great. The kind of  photos I would like to photograph still remains the same, portrait photography. However, this time it will be more of action kind of portrait. There’s no solid idea yet as it’s still new, but that is the main theme of the photo book. It will be fun to explore more of these two aspects together and see how to make it work. However, I have to be aware that the main aim of this photo book is photography, not illustration or drawing. It is best to try to keep the drawing low in order to focus more on photos and the design of putting them all together nicely.

Working in progress

I have come to the conclusion that I will choose Elie’s style of photography for the project brief 2. His style is simply what I have always been interested in trying to do. What I like the most about his style is how it is not only art but only commercial in some ways. Admittedly, some people would think that this kind of style of photography is so much of an “art”, however, how I see it is that it’s the art that you can sell as well.

What I’m trying to imitate from Elie’s style is ‘urban’ kind of photography, trying to capture the city, the action, the fashion. Then after all the shooting, it’s the editing, the processing part. From his photographs, it is obvious that they are quite moody, high exposure, cool tone, and that is what I’m trying to do. The photograph on the top of the page is the one of the photos from the test-shot. It is a candid. Quite glad of how it came out, then I tried to edit and play around with it to see what I can do to improve the photograph and this is what it turned out.

Tried to play with the tone and the contrast to make it high as Elie’s photographs. Admittedly, it didn’t turn out as good as expected but it’s close enough of what Elie’s style looks like.

Also, I have tried to take photos of shoes to imitate his style it’s mostly fashion kind of photography. Surprisingly, I found taking a photo of a pair of shoes is even more challenging than doing portrait. As you can see that, the aim is to be able to capture the product and to make it engaging somehow. This photo is basically out of focus, which is what I need to work on. The aim for now is to be able to shoot this kind of picture and make it more interesting.

Introducing Elie Jonathan @visionelie

As this week’s task for us is to find a photographer that inspires us and my first photographer that came to my mind as I was exploring photographers’ accounts on instragram was Elie aka @visionelie. Elie Jonathan is a photographer from Toronto. His style of photos is unique and powerful. He does a lot of portraits, architecture, and candid and so much more. What I have always been interested in isn’t only the art of photography but also how you can turn that into something quite commercial in a way. As I always am passionate about how art can be developed into something commercial and be able to show the beauty to society.

In an interview from VICE, Elie states that his aesthetic is ‘urban’ as he’s based in Toronto and he wants to portray the lifestyle and the vibe of the city through his photos as that. Elie also says that what he’s trying to show isn’t the lifestyle of people in general but mostly the lifestyle or as he states “the interests of my (his) generation.”

What I like the most about his style is that he representation the vibe of the generation, the fashion, especially streetwear, and the tone of the photos. Most of his photos are in cool tone, which is my favourite, or my kind of tone I always go for when I do photography. He uses really high contrast, separating black and white dramatically. However, he tends to edit his picture in monotone, which means most of his photos are mainly in calmer, cooler tone with slight difference between colours. They are also quite grainy, which, again, is what I like.

Final thoughts

Ways of making studio has helped and led me to where I am now, which is where I wanted to be since the beginning. I have learnt a lot of practical skills and creative perspectives from the class, which led me to do a piece of work that represents who I am as a media student. Before, I had a really broad idea of what filmmaking is. Throughout the course, I’ve learnt that there are so many ways to tell a story and also to show your perspectives via your film.

My goal in the beginning was simple, I keened to understand better about filmmaking and to enhance my skills and ideas of what media is all about. As I’ve been interested in design, I was wondering how I can combine design and filmmaking together in order to tell a story. Colour theory in filmmaking seems to appeal to me the most in terms of how not many people realise that it is one of the most important aspect in films. A lot of people seem to focus more on the right angle, exposure, white balance, cinematography etc. I began to investigate how colours affect in films, and how directors use it differently to create a piece of art. As I was exploring, I found colour grading really interesting in terms of how it enhances the film, changes the mood, and so much more.

I continued my investigation by doing an experiment in colour theory in filmmaking. I started off by choosing a location, which I had two in mind, laundrette and swimming pool. I find these two places interesting in general as they are calming and fun to play with sound and movement when it comes to making a film. My ideal shot of a swimming pool was basically somebody swimming, simple. However, it is not as simple as it sounds, the film would involve how waves are made, the sound of children playing in the background, and even the silence underwater. With laundromat, my idea was to show my personal perspective of the location itself, how it is such a beautiful place and how it can be more than a place to do laundry. Even though the swimming pool scene would be fantastic to shoot, I ended up shooting only at a laundromat due to the fact that it is difficult to be authorised to shoot there. However, I would say I am quite lucky that I have a perfect laundromat to film that is only five-minute walk away from my house, the place is in retro colours with vintage machines and design.

After having the shots that I wanted, I began to put them all together in Final Cut X Pro. I am happy with all the shots I have, the location is perfect. I started to do colour grading, I would say it was the real first time doing it. During the work, I discovered that colour grading is quite easy, however, to get the right colour, shade, and tint as you expect is challenging. I mainly graded the tone in two tones, warm and cold. I used a lot of yellow/green tone as the location has more of retro colours which looks incredible with yellow/green tone. I find red tone the least favourite for me as it doesn’t suit the location and the mood I wanted. In my film, there are several shots that involve dark exposure and really bright background, which shows really great shot of the shadow. I tended to grade the shots in warm tone, which presents more of sad, depressing mood. Throughout the colour grading, I enjoyed discovering how colours can actually affect the scene and mood. After playing around with the colour and exposure, I continued improving my work by enhancing the sound and movement in the film. I made all the shots backwards to make it even more interesting. The biggest challenge of all is to find the perfect voice over. At first, my idea was to have people talking in the background, combining with the sound of the machines. However, I ended up using my own voice reading a poem by Alexander Pope called Eloisa to Abelard. It is an inspiring poem.

I would say my project turns out abstract, yet interesting. I am happy how it turns out. In the end, I used the sound of sea waves to give it a feeling of calming and the water. This project taught me a lot of skills and I didn’t know and also brought me to another level of filmmaking. My goal at first was to understand better of how it works, I did achieved it. Hopefully, this experience will help me to be able to deliver messages effectively and creatively.

Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope

I have come to a conclusion that the voice over I’ll be using is my own voice reading a poem by Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard. It is an amazing poem in itself, and the fact that it talks about happiness and life, it is just the right one to use with my project and also it fits my aim of the film perfectly. And of course, I got an inspiration from my all time favourite movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. My favourite line, among all the great lines, is

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;

Is this going to work?

As I have come across the idea of putting voice over my project to make it more interesting and to take it another level, I had a little doubt in my head whether this is going to work or not. At first, I used a conversation between Clementine and Joel from a movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, then I found a voice over by Alan Watts, where he talks about the mind. There is one line where he says “That is a vicious circle”, it suits perfectly with my film since there are some scene of the laundry swirling that represents the circle Alan is talking about.

Then, in class, I showed my work to Paul and he said that the voice over may be so empowering that the audience would recognise the voice and the story instead of my genuine work, which is the image, the movement, and colours. I went home and tried to figure out what I can do to make the voice over better, I honestly want to use Alan Watts’s voice because it is really powerful and works with my film perfectly in every single way, it is just fantastic but what Paul said was right and the voice over can take over my real project. So, I am fixing it by making it more music, and less voice to the voice over.

I’m also working on colour grading, and as I have been working on it for a while, I am more confident about it now. I know what colour it will be, how a certain colour will create a certain look and feeling. So now, what I have to work on is the voice part.