Q: What were some key discoveries in this module in terms of your creative process?
Well, on a technical level, I would have loved another source of lighting. I love the low, neon-based lighting as an aesthetic (as I demonstrated in assignment 1), but I am beginning to realise they either had better artificial lighting capabilities in their cameras (my Canon 70D is showing its age), or a another source of it. Doing every experimentation under the sun, I still found myself physically having no possible way to get the desired effect and quality that I wanted, it was normally a compromise of one (which I suppose is, to some extent, the idea of the camera settings and the main trichotomy of aperture, shutter-speed and ISO usually, to some extent, demonstrate that is somewhat the essence of photography settings).
However, now I find myself having more questions. Because how do they, practically, ever get that effect in situations like the ones I was in? I couldn’t bring a light-box into an underground bar, and even if I did it definitely would not have been optimal or overtly portable. Thinking back to Arnaud Moro, who inspired me for assignment 1, I am somehow more amazed at how easily he achieves his effects. I would love to see his “bad” photos to cross-compare where I do things differently, because I found myself with a similar amount of lighting, but with a lot more difficulty in highlighting them or using them to gain the effects in the sort of stage-setting, backdrop-type of way he does it. He claims not to heavily edit his photos. That seems impossible to me currently (though exciting if true – I will learn how to get there!).
Q: What were two key learnings in terms of the experience of ‘collaborating’ with your ‘stranger’/participant?
I found myself asking My-Tien to take the lead and I sort of followed her around with whatever she found interesting/engaging. If there was anything particularly eventful or something she wanted, I told her to let me know and I’d take photos of it. This for the most part seemed to be a pretty good method for being in the right place at the right time, but some more that were candid could have made my collection a bit stronger I feel, as there are quite a few posed photos (though most of those are the ones involving Andrew, her partner).
I tried not to be too manipulative of my events, I wanted my photography to not be staged (unless the goal was to be staged, like the group photo). Though the night had a lot of photographs being taken in general so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to be asked to take a photo. Retrospectively, I’m not sure if that was the right call. I found myself being grateful when I captured a moment that was genuine, but it left me with limited opportunities. I think I possibly should have asked for greater direction from My-Tien about what she would find engaging, or what best highlighted what was important to her, which I guess, in hindsight, beyond Andrew and the bar, I’m not still necessarily sure what that is.
I love a good light-box.
I’m not sure what it is, but I feel a good neutral background, a light-box, and a decent camera really pulls out a person’s individual creative expression of themselves. Perhaps it is the fact it’s a photography equivalent of a canvas, or perhaps it’s a more controlled setting, I’m unsure.
The reason I mention this is because I really enjoyed this exercise (once I got it working, which was not only a temperamental nightmare, but turns out I did everything correctly and it just chose not to work for me, fantastic), and really enjoyed how different people prioritised different aspects. I was more heavily interested in shadows and angles, where others seemed to be more interested in detail and subjectivity.
Photos I took from the exercise
To use these photos as an example, my focus was more on composition of the parts I already had, than trying to add or adjust something. I loved the shadows coming from the bottom and under her chin in the first photo, and tried to use those shadows to highlight other features, more than trying to do it vice-versa (increasing light on those areas I did want to focus on). I actually hadn’t realised I thought in this way prior to this reflection.
The second photo sort of elaborates on my canvas point. I didn’t see anyone else attempt a Dutch-angle type of photo, but I did see side-ons and I was in several duo photos with Huang, which I hadn’t thought about either. I really liked it due to the way the monochrome filter highlighted the edges of Yascinta better, and the levels of shadows and light blended well throughout the photo.
I’m not able to use a light-box for my photos for Assignment 2, which I find a little devastating considering how nicely some of these turned out. I am eager to do this exercise again or something similar if given the opportunity, and use the lessons I learnt from it, because I want to try a lot more and expand my thinking.
I really enjoyed Finding Vivian Maier (Maloof & Siskel, 2013), and found her work very humbling. I have a lot of thoughts on it.
The first being her remarkable ability for attention to detail and composition. Some of her work is breathtaking. Gorgeous portraits, observational and street photography, her dedication to her craft I found genuinely incredible. Not just that she took so many and had such a keen eye, but also that, for the most part, she had no intent for anyone to see them but her self and a few others, is incredibly genuine and humbling. Not to say I necessarily take photos just for others to see them – I enjoy the cathartic creative fulfillment of taking them – but ultimately never showing some of my work, especially at the quality to which she often produced, to me shows a whole new perspective on creativity and why we do the things we do. They don’t necessarily have to be to show our view of the world, but instead, help us understand our own view of it, and navigate the world around us.
The other thing I enjoyed about it was also the whole discovery of her journey. On the one hand, it was a gorgeous, investigative story of a woman who was never renowned as a photographer, which was cute in that there was a lot to uncover and how to navigate documentary stories that don’t know where they are necessarily leading, which is perhaps an experience I would have liked earlier in my career as a media practitioner, as it definitely would have helped shape previous attempts at documentary.
On the other hand, I thought it was a great example of how treasure and inspiration is everywhere, you just have to have a keen eye and a desire to find it. It doesn’t need to come from the well-known, the obvious or the brand new: it can come from whatever sparks in your eyes, and anything can be extraordinary.
References:
Finding Vivian Maier (2013) Directed by John Maloof & Charlie Siskel. [Documentary]. New York, NY: IFC Films.
Retrospectively, this may have been the first shoot I’ve ever done where I had an idea for what I wanted going into it. Not necessarily a one-to-one, but a general understanding for how I wanted my composition to look. I also actually hated this assessment.
To elaborate, I am not against pre-planning of any sort. Bringing cool lights you think may be helpful, different lenses, backgrounds, whatever it may be, can be a great way to spice up a shoot if you see something that strikes your inspiration. However, I cannot emphasise how consistently irritated I was that trying to replicate something took all the magic out of seeing the world through the lens of a camera. Of my five photos for this assignment, I’m arguably happy with two.
Let me work backwards here. I knew that my edits were going to need a lot of colour manipulation, as the neon style of Arnaud Moro contains a lot of contrasting neons. As a result, I knew I wanted to select photos from him that had relatively simple lighting structures where I would be able to try and recapture it with less roadblocks.
And, truthfully, that was probably a good call. There were a variety of reasons I couldn’t do some of his works (some are on film and re-shot on to create an effect, I don’t own a lighting company, the turnaround for this assessment was more or less a week and on the weekend I had an important event on, to name a few), but for the most part, I think the spirit of them was similar. I also remembered a previous student example in class we were shown was manipulated digitally to achieve the same effect on film, to mixed success, and felt I could probably also do something similar.
Now, the reason I hated the assessment:
I think a large portion of these photos are taken ‘in the moment’ (the decisive moment, if you will). Even the ones Moro takes that are two layers of film, he still takes the first set of film on a whim, with enough time to be able to consider what would look good as a canvas for them. This pre-planning aspect may have been fine if I had a whole month to hire everything I could ever need with all the space in the world to recreate it, but between a short turnaround, lack of resources and, above all, a creation that I was trying to just attempt to be like, rather than my own, caused several aspects to not come out as I hoped. In future, I am definitely going to use this type of prompt as inspiration, more than mimicry, as I definitely feel it took the magic out of both the process, and my photos.
However, one thing that was noteworthy was I found my editing process to be fairly effective. The edits themselves are so-so, and probably gave myself a difficult task with the photos I chose to be able to turn them into photos similar to the original, but I definitely felt efficient (which is not something I’ve always been able to say during my media career). I’d also say, when I started taking a little more creative liberty rather than sticking to a close original, I definitely felt my edits start to become better. Slide 4 on my PowerPoint was probably the biggest deviation, where I changed the colour tone entirely due to many conflicting blue hues in my image, and I think it came out much better as a result (though I’m still not entirely pleased with it, as the aesthetic of Moro’s image is totally evaporated even though the composition is incredibly similar).
Overall though, I think I just found that my biggest inspiration is going out into the world and trying to demonstrate my view for photography is through my interactions with the world more than it is pre-planned. I definitely feel limited or constricted when trying to find something as opposed to discovering it. However, it also probably demonstrated my pre-planning skills in pre-production are probably my weak link, and sometimes that shows up in the post-production in the form of the edit, where I have to use images I perhaps wouldn’t have needed to if I tried to consider how best to approach it as much as just what I needed from it. Prior to now, that hasn’t really come back to bite me, but if I find myself wanting to capture something in advance later and I only get one attempt, I should probably get better at it.
I was super interested to see what other people brought for their Pecha Kucha presentations. I picked someone on the easier side of being able to replicate their work easier for our mimesis assessment, Wes Ellis. However, I found myself super inspired by other people’s presentations, particularly ones that were low-light and neon-based, as I really enjoy playing around with illumination techniques and night-life photography. Jinli’s presentation particularly caught my eye, and I decided to deviate from my original plan and choose someone with a heavier focus on that style for my assessment.
In the Tuesday exercise, taking one-hundred photos around the block, I tried to make a special emphasis on colour and settings, and deliberately manipulate settings with greater consideration for what I wished to achieve. This probably came out better in my weaknesses for photography: movement and shots that are blink-and-you’ll-miss-them types, because I was more acutely aware of how I was shooting. However, this probably let me down in the more stylised photos, because I was trying to shoot what I believe is ‘correct’ and what that environment calls for (as in, faster shutter speed in sports settings, for example), compared to what felt natural to me (leaving it on a slower shutter speed and controlling blur through playing with exposure). But I got some decent photos out of it, particularly when messing with the white balance and shutter speed; I found a 2900 white balance to be a whole new perspective for cityscapes I hadn’t considered, as it gave a gloomier, darker look, that challenged with Melbourne’s obsession for wearing black and our penchant for tall buildings, began to look at times quite uniform. The task was a good challenge, and even though I’ve been photographing for a long time, I definitely feel more in-tune with my camera and perhaps the capabilities (and limits) of it. It also makes me want to buy a mirrorless DSLR more than ever.
I wasn’t able to go to the first class of week one, so my experiences were only of the Thursday class. The Thursday class was a lot more theory-based than I believe the Tuesday one was, and focused on the larger view of photography and how it has grown as a medium.
My main takeaway from the week one class I attended was listening to “The decisive moment.”
(HENRI CARTIER BRESSON – The Decisive Moment 1973_2007, 2007). Cartier-Bresson discusses several elements of photography – some even somewhat contradicting each other – and tries to demonstrate that the world needs constant re-examining to try and see the world in new ways: “There’s no new ideas in the world there’s only new arrangement of things, Everything is new, every minute is new. That needs re-examining, Life changes every minute” (HENRI CARTIER BRESSON – The Decisive Moment 1973_2007, 2007). I found this quote in particular rather uplifting. The belief that any idea I may have from here on may have been done before, but it won’t be done through my lens. The way I experience it is uniquely mine, and so my work will be even if inspired by others. This was also particularly noteworthy considering the mimesis assignment, with the idea we are actively intending to copy another person’s work. This has inspired me more in the edits of the photos than in the production I have done so far, as I have begun to take deviances from the source material if I feel it benefits the composition. I have also particularly focused on my own decisive moments, trying to remain patient to line up the perfect shots when I believe they are upcoming or I can see them beginning to take shape. Whether that pans out in my work is yet to be seen, especially considering I have not picked particularly easy shots to replicate.
References:
Bt465 (January 7 2016) ‘HENRI CARTIER BRESSON – The Decisive Moment 1973_2007’ , YouTube website, Accessed 20 Jul. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ih3WgeOLs
I liked how the studio website came out, although in some ways I feel it sells the feeling of the actual production a little short as it highlights more what we created than the process, which was what encompassed the entirety of our thoughts for the semester.
I did really enjoy Clodagh’s edit of our assignment two project, Recess Stress, as it probably made the show look less janky than it actually was, and highlighted the theme for visitors of the website of live broadcast and game-show-esque content that we made throughout the semester, though it missing the excellent EVS clips Matt produced perhaps was a missed opportunity.
Nicole’s poster for The Improv Games was fantastic. I think it did a perfect job of finding the mix between that local theatre-esque vibe, but also looking professional and highlighting improv, or more specifically, the idea that one person may have to perform many different caricatures through the multiplying of Jamie on the poster. In retrospect, we should have gotten him to do a few promotional photos to make her life a lot easier.
I hope people can take away from the website the intended idea of it being a studio that heavily promotes collaboration and liveness, and is a great place to learn the ins-and-outs of live media production, especially studio productions. If all they get out of it is some shows that were a bit peculiar and unhinged, that’s okay too. That was half the fun.
I’m not sure why it particularly caught my eye, but I decided to look at Poetic Video, as it had some former classmates I really enjoyed working with in it, and I have always enjoyed poetry in both its traditional and more alternative and video forms.
I am presuming that the idea of the studio, or at least their final assignment, was to make a piece that reflected a real-world issue or phenomenon in a non-linear form, that was stylistic and deliberate in its way of promoting that message. In that vein, I thought Em Cox and Isabella Cook’s Life is Plastic was quite good. It definitely achieved its purpose: a pseudo-documentary that showed the life of a plastic bag, and how its lifespan goes far beyond the commercial and capitalistic ways we often envision their use. But the style in which they did it I found very engaging. I loved the blending of the 1950’s salesman voice, combined with the plastic/junk remnants of the on-screen text, to provide the style promoting plastic, whereas the one that was a lot more eco-friendly was more solumn and tempered, which gave the effect of showing what it spends the majority of its lifespan: in the environment, not rotting away.
SURGE by Nick O’Brien, Auley Ryan and Kal Zhang’s was similar in reflecting a real-world issue in a non-linear form, and stylistically chose to manipulate their film to highlight the dangers of drug use, and how you can feel on them. It was incredibly non-linear, which may have led to some confusion if it weren’t for their composition, as many of the effects they used to demonstrate drug use I found clever, where they used a lot of visual distortion and blending of images to create the sensation of being under its influence.
When we began the pre-production for The Improv Games, my biggest concern was a lack of engagement with the idea from both contestants and production. It definitely felt unique in the sense I was letting twenty-five-plus people toy and manipulate my brainchild into something that I didn’t have total control over, but I was looking forward to seeing what other people did with my idea. However, I guess I was also hesitant in that I was nervous about whether people would run with the idea or heavily adapt it.
Ultimately, I think that ended up being a fair enough reason to be concerned. On the one hand, I think it was an ambitious idea that required some adapting to make an engaging piece, and many of the changes we made I think ended up helping the pace of the show. On the other hand, I think it lost some of the spirit of the show and a lack of engagement with the idea from certain members of the crew meant we were stifled in our possible outcomes. The transition to being more game show-esque may have been necessary for formatting and flow reasons, but I think the focus became a bit too strong on it and took away from the improvisation and risk-taking element of the contestants, and ultimately, it became less funny and engaging.
And those are aspects I’d definitely change if I were to continue production of The Improv Games in future. I definitely felt the essence of the show disappeared from my original idea, and would like to put more of a focus on just highlighting good improv and actors. The gamification of the show to me felt shallow and made it lose a bit of its soul. I found myself as director wanting to trust the process and lean into what the other crew members had come up with and not over-step my role, but I definitely feel I should have probably had a stronger voice in pre-production, particularly as the person with the idea originally, to help guide it. I would also allow for more time and try and get some theatre actors, as the show was always going to be as good as the talent made it, and we should have allotted time to find the best we could rather than focusing on logistically who was gettable. This isn’t to say the actors were bad, but with more refinement and with actors that would bring an energy to the show and play with it, rather than just responding to the prompts we gave them, it would have improved the quality of it.
I was also disappointed with some members of the class, who were consistently on their phones during production and didn’t ever really engage with the idea. I think the people who really immersed themselves in the thinking and world of improv really brought a lot to the table, and people who didn’t do much beyond when their name was called definitely meant we had strong and weak points of the broadcast that could have looked more seamless with stronger engagement and understanding of the ideas. This particularly irritated me on the episode I directed, as I consistently found myself repeating directions or questions to problems and ideas that had already been established or solved before we ever reached the point of rehearsal.
Regarding my role in episode two, where I was rostered as the floor manager for studio B – but ultimately ended up also being director’s assistant and the second floor manager in studio A, – I enjoyed it but the episode was clearly less prepared than episode one. While part of that was just the schedule and time we allotted for it, another I think was a lack of engagement with episode two’s quirks prior to production. When I was directing, I think people found it arduous but I was really glad we rehearsed as much as we did. Without that for episode two, it definitely showed in the chaos of production and lack of conviction with what people were doing. I found myself constantly having to adjust the schedule and direct people where they were needed (and not in the way of information relay that the role contains – as in, they weren’t where they needed to be), and I felt I was always putting out fires (which was ironic cause no fire alarms went off, unlike episode one) or adjusting for things that hadn’t been (and should have been) accounted for. I could say that rehearsing would have helped, because it would have slightly, but truthfully, I think a lot of the people for episode two hadn’t considered their responsibilities or engaged with their role for the episode prior to the shoot day (some people I found weren’t even aware of what their role was, which I truthfully found very disappointing), and more engagement would have prevented half the issues and created the more controlled chaotic energy that was prevalent in episode one.
This reflection has been fairly negative (and anecdotal), and that’s likely because when it’s your own idea and you are directing or managing it, it’s easy to be highly self-critical, which I acknowledge. One thing I would really like to highlight is that for a large majority of the class, collaborating and working with them was a real genuine highlight and made the whole process enjoyable. The producers did a fantastic job of keeping people in the loop and plugging holes where they appeared, and Jacob and Cecilia in the episode I directed were insanely helpful throughout. Clodagh did a fantastic job directing in episode two, and – as mentioned earlier – I ended up floor managing both studios and being the director’s assistant in studio B, which required a lot of back-and-forth with Clodagh, who did a phenomenal job in communicating her wants and needs, and in pre-production we came to a good point of finding an aesthetic and “look” for the show that was consistent between both episodes. It was good to see everyone really adapt to their preferred roles over the semester and the different assignments, and really start to find their groove in a larger-scale production. If there was one thing I took away from the semester, but particularly the final production, it was that your product is as good as your crew’s passion for it and their ability to collaborate with you. In that respect, I think The Improv Games speaks for itself: a show with a lot of potential, but a lot more to discover and refine.
