Cindy Sherman's work oozes drama

Cindy Sherman 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/sherman.shtml


http://nmpeck.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/a-shocking-retrospect-on-cindy-sherman/




http://photogrist.com/portrait-photography-by-cindy-sherman/


thinking about the new project being a self portrait based project, and well this might be a bit of a obvious choice but yer Cindy Sherman fits this description as she takes a lot of self portraits. An most of them are actually a bit like film stills which kind of what i wanted to do with my self portrait. I like the fact that she pretty much does everything herself, i.e. she does all her own make up, directs, hairstyles , wardrobe mistress and models, this i feel is a real strength and while i probable wont be doing everything myself i could always try. Also i feel that once you know that she does everthing herself it makes you veiw her picture in a different light. I can better appreciate all the effort that she puts into her work knowing this. the feelings i get when looking at her work are one's of drama, as i feel her work oozes this in large amounts.    

Evaluation of book project

Evaluation of book project
This project has been one my favourite as a whole for some of the strangest reasons. At the start of the project i didn't know what to expect, so i talked to some of the third years to get some perspective on how the process of making a book would go. They gave a lot of good advice and hints on what could go wrong. So i started to think about what i actually wanted to make a book on and since i have quite peculiar taste i had to really sit and think about it. After some thought i decided to use one of last years projects as a basis for this one, that project being landscapes and for that project i took photo's of industrial landscapes using a 5"4" camera. The large format 5"4" has become one of my favourite camera's to use as the quality of image you can get is far superior to that of a digital or smaller format. It also has the innate ability to slows things down, which i think i really need to do, and as such i found i could produce images of a much higher quality than what i had previously. The ability to slow things down also came into effect when looking for place's to shoot. This in itself was a bit of challenge, but being able slow my thought process down and think about what it is i wanted to achieve from this project. After taking the images i wanted and collecting them together with those of the previous project, i found that i actually had to many and began thinking about layout and deciding which photos would make the cut. This part of the project was a real hassle  but  i actually enjoyed it. thinking critically about your own work is never easy, but when you get into the right mind set it can be enjoyable. So after i decided which would be going into my book i began making mock ups. These mock ups helped with deciding where to put images and deciding which work well with each other. i made three mock ups, the first two leading quite simply to the last. I had the layout pinned down, i only had to decide on front cover and title page. The title page was easy as i wanted it to be very simple, but in the end i put the title page after the first section to set my book apart from a lot of other books that fall under industrial landscapes. The front cover was more of challenge in a different way as i had to use three different scanners in order to get my image onto photoshop. When i eventually got the image onto photoshop it was straight forward job of putting a title and my name onto a layer then printing it. I am very happy with the final mock up and with the work iv produced for this project.

Edward Burtynsky  Oil

  Steidl  Corcoran

i found it very hard to narrow down my favourite images in this book by Burtynsky, as each individual image draws you in. his work in this book has way of making you think about what we as a society waste and what happens to that waste after we've finished with it, but it is never stated that you should think this about it. he makes the images make the statement, with very clever composure. he is clearly a very patient man as the images taken using a large format 5" by 4" camera, and some were even taken using 8" by 10". these camera's instil patience into you as everything takes so long to set up. but the end results you get from them is clear, as Burtynsky's picture and prints can only be compared to other images of the same format because theres no questions about the exceptional quality from which you can get with large format camera's.  

Edward Burtynsky  Quarries

  Steidl

there is a real sense of scale to Burtynsky's work, i mean its taken on a epic scale and its in perfect focus you can literally see every detail. there is no doubt about the fact that colour works in these images, if it was black and white it wouldn't have nearly as much impact as these colour. i think that the size of the images in this book would never be able to the prints justice, as they are massive being 40" by 50" inches. i really like the way some of the images make up a panorama across two pages, but the are individual prints with space on the page all around them.

Bernd & Hilla Becher  Basic Forms of industrial buildings 

  Thames & Hudson

this couple have very unique style in the way they shoot and the way that they have chosen to layout this book, its distinct to them. it gives a feeling of objectification. each image is able to stand alone, an they work well together in the context of this book. the simplistic layout of the book very much complements the images in the book. the nature of there chosen subject fits black and white perfectly. 

John Gossage The Pond 

 Aperture Foundation  printed in China

this book was a surprise as it had a three page fold out section at the very front, with the tittle page being on the back of the fold bit. i found in the past though that this can cause problems with the upkeep of quality of books as the fold out section can become very dogeared making the book appear tattered, which i would assume is a turnoff. i liked the quality of the black and white prints in the books, it gives the images an impact that they just wouldn't have if they were colour.