Paris Film Contact Sheet

In this shoot there is a high percentage of more typical tourist attractions. This is due to the limiting factor of only having one 35mm film roll. Having said this I feel it will still be useful in my collage as conceptually it adds far more depth to the whole idea and not to mention that some of these images will aesthetically be useful. I like the old fashioned type images I took of the bridge leading up to the Eiffel tower as it only suggests the Eiffel tower as I was on it and this stands for a far more subtle inclusion of the Eiffel tower into my collage. I am doing this digital edit yet I do plan to also experiment in the darkroom with this film to create a different and more authentic analogue outcome.

What I want to avoid!London collage -

Here is a collage of London which I have decided to analyse in hope it will help me when creating my collage. Firstly I feel that it is rather stereotypical and this is exactly why I chose it as I want to create almost the complete opposite of that with my Paris collage. I feel this image rather shamelessly exploits the iconic symbols and landmarks of London far too explicitly which makes it feel slightly targeted towards tourists and marketing rather than being art with a concept. It seems like the creator struggled placing St.Paul's Cathedral and so has added an artificial shadow behind it. This in my opinion is the worst element of the editing in this image as Big Ben which lays above the Cathedral does not similarly cast a shadow. By placing objects randomly into one frame I think I will no doubt end up with an image similar in style to this and that is definitely not my intention. Perhaps looking at geographical shapes inside an image and then finding similar shapes in other images might be a good way to avoid a similar outcome.

Final Paris collage edit - Digital

Here is my final edit for the digital Paris collage and overall I am very happy with it as I did struggle for a long time to achieve any signs of positive progress with it. With the exception of the Moulin Rouge and its quality as a landmark for Paris, I feel I have avoided the onslaught of famous landmarks however have left hints and suggestions of them present, for example the road leading up to the Eiffel tower. The bridge crossing the river Seine which has replaced the window ledge lines of the building. Lastly and possibly my favourite, the top ornaments of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel which is a less famous landmark but is related closely to the Arc de Triomphe and it also stands west of the Louvre. The inclusion of the Parisian art gallery visitors is important to me as it helps to suggest my concept of viewing Paris less stereotypical and trying to engage different perspectives. To me there is no better way to explore different perspectives than that of the contrast between residents of Paris and that of tourists and this is why I have made sure to include the anonymous Parisians.

Accidental Aperture on enlargers

(LEFT) I had the accidentally had the aperture extremely wide and this left me having to use 0.5 second intervals which clearly has left me very little room for achieving the perfect exposure as half a second quite literally makes all the difference from over-exposure or under-exposure.

Correct exposure just too broad!

In this exposure test I narrowed the enlargers aperture to 16 and this has allowed me to better view the correct exposure and use a more broad second interval of 3 seconds. This has given me a greater scope of exposure and will also mean that when exposing my image there will be more room for error with the exposure.

This is my final test sheet for the exposure of this image and I am now certain that i must expose this image for precisely 16-17 seconds in order to achieve the correct exposure. 

Final images of Paris Film Experiment

 Here is the final base print for which I plan to now move on and create a merge of multiple images purely in the darkroom.

Here is my final image from my collage of images from my film shoot of Paris. The image was supposed to contain the Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge and the Eiffel tower however the Sacre Coeur was hard to expose evenly so therefore I ended up with test merges being totally black. I decided that I liked this effect along with the very weird effect that the acetate covered in acrylic paint has created. Initially the acrylic paint was supposed to be used as an opaque mask however with only one layer the brush marks remain transparent. This was unintentional at first but then I actually began to quite like the effect and wanted it to be in my final image as it really is quite different. I am a little disappointed with the placement of the Moulin Rouge however this was the best I managed to achieve and overall I would say that I have learnt just how difficult the techniques of McBean and Jerry Uelsman must be. I particularly am interested in how both the mediums have caused me to create extremely different images. This has a sense of spontaneity and surprise whereas the other digital edit is far more planned and well executed

Eldery - Young Perspective Research

Research by a company trying to build a bridge between the elderly and young and shed negative stereotypes for each group has been carried out by allowing them to communicate to each other through the use of photography.

-- After "parents," their most frequent choices of photographic subjects are grandparents and the elderly, as well as buildings significant in their lives. One child's photograph of the ruins of his grandmother's abandoned house sheltering a tree makes its point poignantly. Fascination with relatives may reflect the important role of the extended family in the rural area where the school is located. The children seem to have found an ease in expressing themselves photographically that contrasts with their difficulties in oral expression.

Initial photographs by seniors focused on scenery--frequently the ocean and marshland near the senior center. The older adults and the children both expressed clearcut ideas on sites they wished to photograph. As their foremost choices, the older people selected an aesthetically pleasing graveyard and various historical sites. --


I think it will be rather hard to make each image actually appear from the perspective of a child or elder person. After long consideration I have thought about drawing particular attention to the specific generic interests of each perspective through selective colour masks however without having read the article above the images would just look rather basic, partially as I would want to imitate a complete amateur photographers style. I have decided to try to explore more perspectives that could be easier portrayed, for example perhaps social perspectives which have iconography attached to them which would instantly be recognisable to the viewer.

Jonathan Hobin - Childs perspective

First the most important part to this images success is the eye contact between the models and the camera, not to mention the fact the camera is at the childrens height which makes the viewer feels as though they were their height and thus like a child. Yet again I have hit another block as I know of no one who is remotely a child's age that would be willing to help so this vital technique cannot be used by me. I am fascinated by the vary serious subject matter of the image as it is easy to assume that children are detached from such catastrophes as 9/11 however this suggests they are very much aware. The objects in this image are all key elements to its success as they all either have relation to the childrens age and nature and to the event of 9/11, however, there is no clear line between which objects are related to which. The technique of particular objects placement is something that I can definitely use to my advantage in order to suggest the perspectives in which i will try to portray.

Perspective Final Piece Plan

Here is the plan for my final piece in my exam. I have decided to pursue sociological perspectives rather than that of different ages as I feel it provides more scope and stands to be far more interesting. After research I found that Feminism, Marxism, Functionalism and Post-modernism were the most widely discussed and known perspective in sociologically and have decided to try and portray them each respectively through the technique of collage and layers of prints. I have researched all the iconography, symbols and imagery which are most commonly related to each of the perspectives and I feel that all of them have a fair amount of imagery to work with in order to make a final outcome. The only one that particularly worries me is post-modernism as the perspective is so highly debatable and there is no finite definition of what "Post-modernism" is.

Marxism Model

My main and only intention of this shoot was to capture my model in a suit as i wanted to portray the rich end scrutinised in the theory of Marxism as I felt it would make for more sense and would be instantly a more recognisable link to the idea of wealth than that of him wearing normal everyday clothing.

Post Modernism Model

I thought for a rather long while about how I could portray post modernism in a mug shot style portrait of a person and found it particularly challenging. I thought my best bet would to be to try explore the route of the collapse of social structures. When put next to the Marxism final piece this portrait will have a significant effect as the suit in which he is wearing has slowly become a dress code which can worn as casual attire and accepted. This to me displays the exact collapse of social structure that Post Modernism believes so strongly in. Being that this is not a very obvious link I have thought also that i will reverse the order in which this portrait will placed so that unlike all three other final images, it will be actually layered in front of the collage element of the image, which further displays the social structure collapse, even within the set of four final pieces structure.

Functionalism Models

 
 

In these four shoots I wanted to capture models which varied in skin tone, gender, height (which is not evident in the shoots however there is a dramatic height difference between all four models) and other noticeable key features such as hair colour and length. The reason for this choice was due to functionalism being the idea that everything in society works together as one greater whole. I plan to merge their four faces together ( which I have a feeling the liquify tool will be used rather heavily for in to get proportions more subtly in sync) and hopefully create one portrait image which represents elements of each of their appearance. I am aware that the final image will look rather strange, especially in comparison to the model images for each other sociological perspective, however I feel it will be a powerful element of the functionalism image and will be the biggest hint towards the perspectives identity to the viewer.

Feminism Model

My intentions from this shoot were relatively simple in that I quite literally wanted to capture a mugshot of a female model wearing business attire to express the equality of rights regarding jobs which exists due to the feminism movement. I wanted to find a model who looked independent, smart and could keep a straight face in order to keep the image sincere rather than transforming it into a satirical nature. I feel I definitely captured images in which I initially had in my head when planning this shoot.

Burning Bra - Feminism

I felt this shoot was a definate necessity in order to portray feminism as it is a symbol to which many associate the movement with. For this shoot I had to have some help as I knew the bra would not catch alight enough without a flammable substance on it so I poured white spirit on it however I was also aware that I would only have a very little burn time to capture my images so had to have someone else light it for me. Funnily enough the best shots for my collage were taken at the very beginning and I think I will definately be using either 6694 or 6695 as their flames are by far the most impressive.

Burning Erotica - Feminism

Along with the symbol of burning bras is the symbol of burning erotica with objectifies women. This is why I felt it was just as important to capture this element of feminism symbolism too. The day was particularly windy so I had to place a small rock at each end of the paper to hold it down. The first image burned rather terribly and didn't provide much to capture. The second image burned by far the best and will most likely use 6558 in my collage for my feminism final piece.

Make-Up & Accessories - Feminism

i am aware that objects such as these which I have captured do not support the views of feminism but are actually symbols of exactly the movement fights against. This is why I feel it was important to include these objects as arguably they are just as much symbols of feminism. I thought that the metal flower rings were particularly interesting from a feminist perspective as womens beauty if often compared to flowers, however flowers are fragile are and eventually wither yet metal is a strong material which is resistant to a lot of other elements and this might make it an interesting inclusion.

The symbol of Feminism

I have used this open source image and have adapted it to better suit the purpose of my collage. I have used one of my burning erotica images in order to replace the black parts of this image as I wanted to include both of these elements but not allow them to take up too much space each as it is limited in my collage and I already have a different burning erotica image in my collage.

Feminism Final Image

Here is my final piece for my Feminism Collage + Portrait. I am very happy with this image as it has come out almost exactly how I had imagined it to. It very much conveys Feminism and its symbols and its views. I feel that my model actually looks quite angry in this image which was not initially intended however I think this may be due to the flames in the image which have connotation to anger. Overall I am proud of the final outcome and do not feel that I need to make any changes.

Power Buttons - Marxism

Seeing as in Marxism there is particular importance on power and the inequality of it I wanted to try and portray it in my collage. The best form of object which symbolises power i could think of was that of power buttons on electrical devices. I feel that these provide a rather powerful emphasise on this element of Marxism. I also considered power sockets however they do not looks aesthetically pleasing so I decided only to include of the images in this contact sheet.

Money - Marxism

This is quite an evident link to Marxism however I felt the inclusion of money into my collage would work very well conceptually and aesthetically. I wanted to avoid using sterling notes as to me they are far to stereotypical probably due to living the UK. I particularly like the images of the euros notes where the wind was blowing one of the notes up as they look more dynamic. The inclusion of coins I thought showed the opposite of wealth, especially as they are mostly copper. I felt the contrast between the two images of money shows the inequality of wealth and society that Marxism is so passionately against.

Camera - Marxism & Functionalism

As Marxism believes that the media helps to further the gap between the rich and poor and overall increases the inequality of wealth I thought it would be important to include a form of media production in the form of old generation cameras. I thought it important to use older cameras as they make for more interesting aesthetics within the image as they are unusual to see contextually. 

I also plan to use the same camera image that I do in the Marxism also in my functionalism collage as it opposes the beliefs of Marxism and believes media contributes to societies structure. I will place the camera pointed upwards in the Functionalism final image whereas in the Marxism image I will place it downwards to resemble its view on media.

Open Source images -Marxism and Functionalism

I will use both of these open source images as I feel they will be particularly important in portraying elements of marxism. I will also be using this arrow in conjunction with my Camera images for my functionalism shoot as I feel I should use the same arrow to stress the opposition of ideas in these two sociological perspectives.

Marxism Final Image

Here is my final image for my Marxism collage. I am very happy with it as I feel that it does portray Marxism very strongly. It feels slightly more empty than the previous Feminism final image however I do care for this as I feel it is concise and very to the point. I particularly like the fact that the two currency types are on opposite sides of my model. 

Cogs, Gears and Mechanisms - Functionalism

I felt I should post all three of these shoots as one single post as the significance are all of equal interest and subject. They are all contact sheets of cogs, gears and mechanical systems and I personally feel this is symbolic of Functionalism as each person in society could arguably be viewed as a cog in the system. Seeing as this is one of the only real elements of Functionalism I could portray through photography I thought that I would fill the collage with this iconography of Functionalism.

Film Canister - Functionalism

In the end I have decided not to re-use the camera image used in the Marxism collage as I feel it could be quite boring and there are plenty more ways to portray media in one object. Here I have captured a 35mm film canister as I feel this is also quite a strong symbol of media. I plan to manipulate it into being part of the arrow which I used in the Marxism collage as I feel it is still important to create a link between the two collages.

Functionalism Final Image

Here is my final piece which represents Functionalism. It is quite heavily concerned with the whole theme of mechanisms and gears but that is what I wanted to create as functionalism does not have quite so many symbols as the likes or Marxism and Feminism. The fusion of my four models was rather challenging as the combination of layer masks and gradient masks became rather confusing to work with. It took a while to make the gradients between each model as smooth as they are, the particular problem area was the nose as it was where all four images met and with my method I was forced to leave the gradient between two images   so that is something I would fix if i were to have more time.

Global Fusion - Post Modernism

Here are three drawings I have made of countries and continents in order to use with the Post Modernism collage as the fusion of global culture is an element of Post Modernism.

Post Modernism Final Image

The collage for Post modernism was my biggest worry of the four images as it really doesn't have any symbols or even any real definition. This is partially due to its nature and this makes it even harder to portray in a portrait and collage. I thought I would search for famous quotes about Post modernism and eventually found "Post modernity is the simultaneity of the destruction of earlier values and their reconstruction.". I thought this quote was perfect to include especially as I could actually make it Post modern by dissecting the sentence and rearranging it, however remaining the exact same meaning, regardless to it now being rather poor English as far as syntax and grammar are concerned. The countries and continents in the right corner of the collage are each one of the three primary colours, I thought this colour choice would allow me to express explicitly the idea of global fusion as the sections in which the countries and continents overlap are coloured with the secondary colours, purple, green and orange. I think I have portrayed Post modernism as well as I could however I do not doubt I might have missed something in which I could have objectified and used in my image.

Making The Frames

Next step in my exam was to create the frames on which I would place my images on. It took just over an hour so the frames were slightly rushed and had to be nailed together rather than glued however I feel they are still rather nice. Making the frames by hand meant that I had control over exactly how thick the frames would be and thus how far the portrait would be from the collage. Next I used double sided tape on the frames to stick the collage to the front of the frames(except for Post modernism) and the same for the portrait which were mounted on black sugar paper so that they were more presentable but also to provide more support for them so that they do not flop about, it also prevents the back of the image being quite literally the wall they are mounted upon.