Formative Brief 3 - Song

I chose to look at a song called Sleep by Poets of the Fall. I have loved this band for a long time, they have some amazing songs. I found there was very little already created around this song. It's mostly pictures of people sleeping, or calm images. There isn't even an official video for it yet as far as I can tell. Video (which is pretty awful):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay-suDoSygc

Now here are the lyrics.

Hear your heartbeat
Beat a frantic pace
And it's not even seven AM
You're feeling the rush of anguish settling
You cannot help showing them in
Hurry up then
Or you'll fall behind and
They will take control of you
And you need to heal the hurt behind your eyes
Fickle words crowding your mind

So
Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in
Like waves of sweet fire, you're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in
And carry you over to a new morning

Try as you might
You try to give it up
Seems to be holding on fast
It's hand in your hand
A shadow over you
A beggar for soul in your face
Still it don't mater if you won't listen
If you won't let them follow you
You just need to heal
Make good all your lies
Move on and don't look behind

So
Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in
Like waves of sweet fire, you're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in
And carry you over to a new morning

Day after day
Fickle visions messing with your head
Fickle, vicious
Sleeping in your bed
Messing with your head
Fickle visions
Fickle, vicious:

Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in
Like waves of sweet fire, you're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in
And carry you over to a new morning 




I chose to look at a tiny part of the song, just the opening, despite the fact that I love the whole thing and wanted to take photos for all of it.


Hear your heart beat
Beat a frantic pace
And it's not even seven AM
You're feeling the rush of anguish settling
You cannot help showing them in
...
And you need to heal the hurt behind your eyes
Fickle words crowding your mind


This bit is mostly what I was responding to. I'm a bit of an insomniac and as such, the few moment before the day begins anew are very quiet and peaceful. To me it's the moment between the frantic thoughts and non-stop-ness of the night and gearing your tired self up for another frantic day. I suppose I know that frantic feeling before 7am, I hate it. It's usually followed by a moment of quiet and peace, somehow away from my own stupid mind, and this is what i photographed. This is followed by that anguish, knowing that there is a whole day ahead of you now, and then a sleepless night, and then a day, and so on. 


That moment in the middle is fleeting, and not even mentioned in the song, but the actual music reminds me of that [sane] moment. The music also feels kind of fuzzy and vague, which is how you tend to feel after several nights of no sleep, funnily enough. So anyway, I was going to photograph your usual insomnia thing, of grainy claustrophobic black and whites with a person looking all frantic and stuff (you know the ones, I hardly need to explain them), but I decided to do something different. The thing is that those images are so linked to insomnia, but I find this sort of photograph is more personal to people who actually have it, or have had it. That little in-between moment is something a little bit special to us insomniacs. So enough talking (I'm meant to be a photographer not an english student >.<)

So, I took this photo, i wanted that blurry, soft feeling to the background (yes, very dodgliy done with a filter, long story short computer issues, I could reedit now but I'm kinda ok with it for now, I'll repost later if I do), and I wanted myself just in the picture. My house is way out in the sticks, it's past Queanbeyan and basically the last house before just bush. We get lots of animals, it's quiet and peaceful and feels very away from the city. The bush around there is lovely and I wanted to include a little of it in the photo (any more and you would see my landlord's house =[) so yes. That's my moment. Drinking my tea. About to kick off for another very tired day. 


As people in the class said "wow! you got up so early to take that photo!!"
But up, of course, is relative. Haaaaaaa.

Alternative for Placement/Displacement

So, here's a shot that I like better. Other people's opinions said that I should use the other placement one but I always liked this one much better, it feels stronger to me. So here's the set for Displacement and Placement that I like better, plus a quote that sort of inspired my thoughts on it a little.

"My terms amount to cultural heresy. I had to say: I will eat what I want and look as I please and laugh and loud as I like and use the wrong fork and lick my knife. I had to learn strange and delicious lessons, lessons too few women learn: to love the thump of my steps, the implication of weight and presence and taking of space, to love my body's rebellious hungers, responses to touch, to understand myself as more than a brain attached to a bundle of bones.I have to ignore the cultural cacophony that singsongs all day long, "too much, too much, too much."'    -Marya Hornbacher, Wasted

My response was based around the idea of that cultural heresy, understanding yourself through your own presence in space. I guess. I find it hard to put into words.... I think the quote says it better than I do.

Formative Brief 4 - jabberwocky

When reading the poem, I was constantly reminded of a childish nature. More than anything it made me feel like a child, for a couple of reasons. I think one of the main ones was that most of the words, which were jibberish, made you feel like a child reading a story - you may not get every word, but you get the overall point. This is, to me, how the Jabberwocky poem went. It also reminded me of the scary stories we are told as children, with the torches pointing up at our faces to make us look scarier. This lighting, apart from anything else, tends to skew shadows into weird, contorted shapes and perspectives.

With my image, I wanted to convey the idea of childishness, via a scary story aesthetic. The distorted shadow is off a childhood toy, made to look eerie.

I do have an alternative...

Placement and Displacement

For this topic, I chose to look at how comfortable we are with placing ourselves within a space. I wanted to look at our confidence in the taking of space, how we command our space, and being comfortable in our own skin. With ourselves.

The best way I could find to do this was through use of body language and framing. The first image is displacement, and the second is placement. The displacement image is more of how I would represent myself, and was much easier for me to create - the pose, composition, and lighting came to me much more naturally than with the second, and I never had doubts about posing for it myself. The image is also not really altered in photoshop - just cropped and black and whited. I am not comfortable with taking space, existing in it. I would rather be at the edges, partially unseen. There, but only just.

In the placement image, I am (trying) to look more commanding in the space, to take it and make it mine. It's interesting to note, that I found something out whilst taking these photos. I'm not confident about looking confident, but I am confident looking not confident. (Strange). Anyway, this photo is meant to show the opposite of the first, that the subject is strong and in control. To me though, it's also distant and alienating where the first is not. My original intention was that the cloth would be used to cover my body because it takes away the "vulnerability" of bare skin in the first photograph.

These actually took an interesting twist to me, because what I see now is that in the first photograph, I am comfortable. Enough so to not cover myself at all, enough to not photoshop it and change anything. I command the space, admittedly not in a traditional way, but in my own way, I am. It's actually in the second image that I'm out of place.

I've only just realised that now, so it's all not very articulate in my head, and it's super late so I'm 99% sure none of this post makes any sense. Just... Look at the photos and make up your own mind.

Memory

Original Image: 

Response:

I chose to look at the idea of growing up when we were given the topic of memory. The original photograph is an interesting one for me. I remember the room, I remember the people in it, I remember the box, and I remember the bits and pieces of dress up clothing. But I don't at all recall the actual memory, or ever indeed playing dress ups with my mum and sister.

As it turns out, without really remembering that this box was once my toy box, and then dress up box, when my parents moved they tried to throw it away, and I got really upset and fought for it. I'm not really sure why, I just knew at the time that I really didn't want to let it go. So, it's now in my house, and I sit on it to get ready when I go out... To do things like put my shoes on. Which got me thinking about the idea of dressing up, and how it changes from when you are a little kid to when you are an 18 year old girl. That's about as far as I will go with explaining it. I hope it's overall quite an obvious photograph in terms of its meaning.