Andy Warhol

I recently remembered the work of Andy Warhol. and his film 'Sleep', where he filmed a man sleeping for 6 hours. That is all the film consists of, it simply observes the man as he sleeps, his facial and body expressions.
I find this fascinating, and I can certainly relate to it with my work in the way my photographs observe people's fears and anxieties when confronted with darkness.





I am really quite captivated with this films, and I find it quite interesting to just observe what the people's facial expressions are.




Again Warhol did something simlar in another film, but this time he filmed for 35 minutes the reaction of a man receiving oral sex, which is seen in the still below.

Here, Warhol has really invaded a private space, and observed someone at a very intimate time. By doing this he is clearly able to get the raw reaction from the man, it is honest and completley open.




The still below is of a film where a man is eating for 45 minutes.



It is the honesty in Warhol's images that I particualrly like. The way he simply observes peoples reactions to various things that they are doing.
This is certainly something that I want to experiment with.

Second group crits

In the second group crit that I had earlier today, I took in my latest work of the illuminated faces. I showed everyone a selection of about ten images from across the two shoots and I was given feedback.
There seemed to be a general liking to my idea. and particularly with a couple of the images, people said that they sensed the fear and discomfort of the model in the shot. This seemed good, and gave me confidence that I was going in the right direction.
One of the things that Dave and Sarah picked up on were that the technical aspects to the images were not quite right. They told me that the images were too dark, and that I needed to get my exposures better. I tend to agree with them on this, and even though I want the images to be quite dark in appearence, I should shoot them at the correct exposure initially and edit them later in photoshop. I will certainly have to get a more powerful torch now so that I can have more light in my images.

Fifth shoot

For my next shoot I again used the exact same set up as before, in the still life studio, photographed on a D200 and set at f4.0 at 1.5 seconds.



One of the problems I found with this shoot and with the last was that keeping my images fully sharp was difficult. I didn't want to increase my ISO because it would make the images too grainy and noisy, and so I needed my model to keep really still, which at times was difficult.

Once again I tried a variety of positions and angles of both the camera and of the torch, and I feel that overall these images look a little better than the ones previous.






The photograph in particular I really like. I think the right amount of body has been left in shot; just the top of the neck. This was aided by that fact he was wearing a dark t-shirt, which is something to bear in mind for the future.
Again it is the same for the image below, but this time the facial expression works very well. There is a clear show of fear on his face and a real sense that he is looking around in the dark for something that has caught his attention.



Something that I need to consider is getting a more powerful torch so that I can better expose the faces of my models. However I will need to look carefully for one that has a blue tint like the one already have, as the blue gives a really great cold look, that I think adds to the feeling of the images.

Fourth shoot

I finally got round to doing my new shoot the other day, and I got some really interesting results.
I chose to set up in the still life studio in college, so that I had a large amount of room to work with, and I cleared a big section so that all the camera was pointing at was the black wall. I set up my camera a few feet away from the wall and did a few test shots, to get my exposures right before my model arrived.

I was shooting on f4.0 at 1.5 seconds.




I shot a multitude of images, and by just moving my camera around slightly I could position my models face is different places in the frame. I also got her to look around in different directions, whilst I told her to look uncomfortable and anxious.
In some of the images she looks more exposed that others, and that's because the epicentre of the torch was more directly on her face.





I think the images certainly have a spooky feel to them, and you can see the expression on her face is one of discomfort. I think it would leave the viewer wondering what she is looking at.



With this one above I chose to crop her out of the frame almost entirely, and just to have her eyes in shot and looking upwards to create tension within the image.



I don't like this one so much as the light surrounding her is too distracting and it draws you away from what I wanted to focus on; the facial expression.
I suppose that in post production on photoshop I could get rid of this and darken the background.



Although this photograph isn't what I'm looking for due the face being out of view, I still quite like how the shoulders are in shot, as it seems to make the person seem more real.



Although there are some issues with these shots, I think that they are a very good starting for me. I need to experiment a little more, and perhaps look to see how I can get more out of my model, more reaction and expression. I am going to try and shoot again in a few days with a new model, so I will see how it goes then.

Experimenting

I got hold of a small torch and last night I quickly had a play around with lighting things and photographing them.
It was surprisingly difficult and was very hard to see what I was shooting. For most of the time I had to just rely on luck and see what I got.



I did a few just lighting up objects at first, but I then moved on and used a test model.



I was shooting on about f4.0 with a shutter speed of 2 or 3 seconds and I was barley getting any light. When I was photographing with a model I had to avoid directly pointing the torch at them as it gave a really bright glare, and instead I had to have the bright spot of the torch just out of the frame, and the outer rim of light illuminating the person.



Although the images are dark I do really like the way they look; quite scary and yet mysterious.
These are just some little test shots, but they have given me an insight into how to proceed when I do my next shoot, and I need to figure out how to get more light and how to direct it better.

New ideas...

Okay, so considering the amount I have moved throughout this brief, I think I've finally come up with an idea and theme.

I want to illuminate people's fear's and anxieties, by shining a spotlight on them in a dark room and photographing it.

The illumination idea has certainly been influenced from the works of Bill Henson and DiCorcia, and I think that it is a fantastic technique when there is need to focus upon people's facial expressions and emotions.
I'm quite excited with this new idea and it will be an interesting style in which to photograph.

I think that the dark can be really unsettling and especially with a spotlight on you, it can make the whole experience worse. I really want to focus upon people's reactions to this darkness, and how their facial expressions will show their discomfort.

These are my sketch ideas for the next shoot:

The heads series

The work of Phillip Lorca Dicorcia and his 'heads' series really remind me of the illumination my Bill Henson.

For the series DiCorcia used spotlights and strobes to pick out walking pedestrians on the streets to illuminate and single them out. He did this to give a dramatic feel to their facial expressions.



I really like this series, as it seems like such a simple idea, just simply spotlighting someone and then capturing their facial expressions. They work really well also in singling the person out, as I feel drawn particularly to them and their faces, not the other people on the street.



This image is really good.
You would almost expect this to be set up, and the man to be putting that expression on purposely, however because it is authentic it makes the photograph so much better, and DiCorcia has captured a really genuine moment.




Although much different to that of Bill Henson's work, there are still some close similarities. They both spotlight a key moment, or rather a mundane moment, but when it is lit it becomes more dramatic.



I'm really excited by coming across both of these artists and it is inspiring me to move forward with the project and take influence from them both. The next step it to figure out what I am going to shoot and how I am going to do it.