Year 13 Blog

http://sarahjennings13.blogspot.com/

To end

I have played around with the pictures from the windows from the wedding and I have put together a collection of them which I think sit well together and make a nice set.

One amazing site.

On Tuesday evening I went out to get some landscape shots for my black and white dark room project however I also backed up the pictures in digital and captured this amazing sunset. Many photographers capture amazing sunsets and I wanted to show the beginning middle and end in the stages.This is much like an older post of mine 'a change in the weather' where I captured the change in clouds and related it to the photographer Jim Reed who captured big weather events.

Idea's for a final piece

To create my final group of pictures I did some research on British photographer Martin Parr. I found some interesting pictures that he has taken, they are below.

Parr's pictures are a combination of British, humour and the outdoors. These threee combined make his fasinating pictures. My final piece will be somethin in the style of a Parr shot.

I have made my pictures in high contrast like Parr does with many of his pictures.

Postcard + Wedding

I wanted to relate my postcard to the street party pictures I took and I wasn't quite sure how in the beginning but then I realised that the memory of the ending of the war will stick in peoples minds nearly as much as the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, so rather than distinguishing the differences between the two I thought I may as well bring the two together to show the bond rather than the differences. However I am not sure how to present this in a way that will be striking as well as understandable. My first ideas are to put the pictures side by side and show them together, first both in black and white and then in colour and black and white to show the change in time.

Firstly I put my pictures into groups to see which pictures would contrast and compliment one another. These four I quickly put together in photo shop however I am unsure if they relate to one another well, however they are all quirky and show the detachment between what is being sold and the decorations for the wedding.

I also changed my pictures from colour to black and white to show some contrast im the images. By doing this it gave them a feel like they were from a tabloid documenting the day which would be a memory for people in years to come.

I also put two pictures together of an old fashioned street party from VE day in 1945 and the street party down the road from me on the royal wedding day in 2011. I think the pictures show a lot of contrast between the two as the first one is very open however the second is detached and closed off.

I've got a postcard!

In class we each took a one another names and addresses and had to write something on the postcard that would influence us, my postcard said 'memories are never forgotten'.


Initially I was really stuck for ideas as my exam piece was all about my family memories and about my Grandads memories from his lifetime so I found this postcard task difficult. However with the royal wedding approaching I used this as a stimulus for something to work with. I really wanted to go up to London to document the event, however after a reality check I decided that with only one days notice this would probably not be possible, so I would need to stay closer to home. Again I was really stuck for ideas on ways to relate my postcard to the wedding so I went to visit my Grandad. He told me about the street parties they had after the war and the celebrations between everybody. I did some research and found these pictures online of the street parties after the WW2.

This gave me the idea to find some street parties in my local area, however again this was a job in itself. After watching the wedding I went out to find some street parties however I was knocked down by the restrictions many residents had put on their streets such a 'residents only' and 'by invitation only' so I did the best I could to get around this problem. I took pictures on the end of streets so as to not intrude on the the residents or their parties. I also looked at shop windows in the local high street and photographed their impressions of the wedding. Here are some of my pictures of the day below

These are some pictures of the shop windows I took the evening before the wedding.

Many of the images relate to British photographer Martin Parr. He is a British documentary photographer. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England. He is also a member of Magnum Photo's. His work has a very British feel to it, often including flags and banners of the union jack. I have tried to collect quirky images that have a Parr style to them but also show that the shops that have decorations in them really have nothing at all to do the wedding itself.

Exam Blog

I am using a new blog for my exam work

http://www.sarahjenningsexam2011.blogspot.com/

Mockumentary Task

This task is was a development on the Bruce Gilden street photography pictures. Also the project linked with our Documentary task as these pictures obviously were manipulated by the photographer rather than just taking pictures of every occurrence in the documentary task. The task was to take some unique pictures that are completely contrived ourselves but look as though they are just snapped from real life occurrences.This project was to also link in with our fairy tales final piece project as the images could be of some inspiration for a modern day fairytale. Some ideas were; Hansel and Gretal, with bread crumbs in a trail on the floor, or red riding hood, someone with a red coat on or red clothes, and so on. I did find this task difficult because I wanted to think of the best possible idea. After some thinking I think I found the idea. I recently visited the Saatchi Gallery in London and I was watching the people walking around the gallery and decided that this would be the perfect place for my pictures. I wanted to show different peoples perception to art and the painting and pictures so instead of photographing the art pieces I photographed the visitors. Most of these visitors being my friends as we were there on a photography trip. I asked friends to pose accordingly and they were happy to do so. Hopefully the pictures are okay and dont look too manipulated by me.

Manipulation Task

These are the two pictures I used for my task.

For this task we were asked to take a picture of ourselves or someone else and manipulate it into an old person or something different which would change the view of that person. I choose to photograph myself and I wanted to have the end result of an old woman. To do this I found a picture of an old woman and took out her features and put them on me. Obviously this was not as easy as it sounds and it took me quite a long time on photoshop to master the skills. I first found a corresponding picture with the one I took of myself, this was quite difficult as everyone has different face structures etc. I found a picture of an old lady with lots of wrinkles so I could edit them into my picture. I used the opacity tool on photoshop to make the layers see through so I could line up my pictures, after this I started to rub through the layer to show the pieces I needed, I took a nose and cheeks and wrinkles from the old lady face and rubbed them through to my face and then distorted my face slightly to enable them to fit in correctly. I also used the blend tool to make sure the colours blended together. Also I used the contrast and brightness tool to change the tone of my skin to fir the darker skin of the old ladies.

Here is one screen shot of how I edited my face to look like the old ladies. I used the masking tool to enable me to change bits and then I needed to change the contrast and colour of the face to make it darker.

This screen shot shows the way I did the hair. This was quite difficult as I wanted to keep my own hair and style but change the colour to grey but it still look natural. I did this by lassoing my hair and editing it in a separate layer, I then rubbed through and added some highlights of grey to get the end result.

My final outcome for this task was the picture. I am very happy with the way it has turned out and I think that I have improved my photoshop skills vastly from September when I began the course.

Continued prep work for final coursework piece

I created a piece of prep work from the original design and thought of what I was going to do. Here is my final piece of prep work before the creation of the final piece.

This work was made by using wood and images stuck onto the wood. I have the picture of the dog and of Old mother Hubbard which I edited in photoshop and also the cupboard and the text in the left hand corner.

My final piece if going to be slightly different. I am going to make a cupboard, again with wood, that opens up to tell show Old Mother Hubbard looking in her cupboard but on either side of the flaps I will have Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Arogan as they were part of the Tudor story of this rhyme. I think by doing this it will show an emphasis on where the rhyme originates from and it will be a stronger final piece.

In photoshop these ideas have been put together to make a prototype of what I intend to create.

This is one idea for the inside of the cupboard. The two sides will be on either side and the old woman and her kitchen would be in the middle. This would enable the person viewing my final piece to see the main focus point of Old Mother Hubbard as well as the story behind the nursery rhyme.


This is my second idea for my final piece, I have changed the layout slightly and I have kept the image quite bright instead of dark and gloomy. I think this piece is good because the wallpaper behind the ladies stands out and the text along the top and bottom makes it seem like its from the Tudor era.

The Christmas Feel

These pictures were taken on the really cold snowy days in December. They are just snaps that I found quite complemented one another as they both show the snow and cold in a quirky way.

These pictures are taken of the decorations on my Christmas tree. The decorations were Disney characters and really added to the fun of Christmas. As well as this the decorations gave me some ideas for my fairy tales piece. With the quirky decorations I got some ideas for a starting point of my final coursework piece. The bright colours and attention to detail really shows in these figurines.

New project: Fairytales

Our latest project is to create an image from a fairytale or nursery rhyme using photoshop skills of a more complex standard to show new skills learnt. My initial idea was to take an obvious story like Cinderella or little red riding hood but after some thought and planning I thought it would be much more intriguing to do a nursery rhyme. One reason being because of the fact that nursery rhymes have a story behind them and I was interested to know how nursery rhymes came about. After having a browse around I found 'Old Mother Hubbard' an old fashioned nursery rhyme that is still used in nursery's and primary schools today to tell the story of the old lady and her dog. I found many facts about the rhyme and one of the main facts being that it relates to Henry VIII and two of his many wives; Katherine of Aarogan and Anne Boleyn. According tohttp://www.famousquotes.me.uk/nursery_rhymes/old_mother_hubbard.htm it is said that Old Mother Hubbard relates to Cardinal Wolsey the most important politician and churchman of the Tudor history, The Doggie relates to Henry VIII, the Bone relates to the divorce from Katherine to remarry Anne and finally the Cupboard relates to the Catholic Church.

All this information helped me to contrive my image. I firstly decided to have a backdrop of Henry VIII with his six wives but later decided that as the nursery rhyme has been made to tell the story that maybe by keeping the story to its normal setting in a kitchen that it would look as it should. I then had other ideas such as making the picture 3D and created an image with the aid of an Internet tutorial however I also decided that this was not the best idea.

This is the 3Dpicture I created.

My final idea was to make a real 3D image, out of wood and other materials. This idea will show each character on different layers; The kitchen is the background on layer 1, Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog on layer 2 and finally the Cupboard and the poem on layer 3 to emphasize what the poem is about and relating this back to Henry VIII as the Cupboard is the Catholic Church and this was Henry VIII opposition.

After finally deciding on my idea I got to work and I am currently working on building up my characters. I have taken head shots of different people and made them into my charaters. I am using photoshop to manipulate the people into an old woman and a dog. The old woman is a lot easier to create as the features are the same however the dog is proving difficult.

These are my two pictures I am using for my task.