Second tutorial

Today I had my second tutorial of the year where I had to hand in my project proposal. The main point was that I need to start thinning down the amount of ideas that I have for this project and only focus on a couple of roots instead of mass that I have. One idea that is going around is looking into perfectionism as that's something that kind of interests me as I'm a larger then average person and look at the gym as the mountain the climb where the people close to perfect hang. The only problem with perfectionism is that it could and would likely send me down a route that I'm not really that interested in. This being looking at advertisement and how that portraits what a perfect person 'should' look like. Not only that but it would also send me going at looking at other people, one idea that came out of the tutorial was going and interviewing people in the public and asking them what they would change about themselves and also what their idea of perfection would be. This idea could work, and could work well at that but I don't really see it as something that interests me that much, also its something that is always in the media and something that real have looked at probably a bit too much.

What's going to interest me more in just looking at more subtle manipulations, like just removing something that you wouldn't see straight away. This I think has much more potential and is something that I can see myself getting more interested in which I feel is the more important thing that this early stage of the project.

Examples of old work

This project does come from a project that I did in my year at college where I a did a more basic version of the stuff that I'm planning to do this year. Nothing amazing just removing peoples facial features which even at a early stage got people's attention which is a good starting point.

This body of work was very experimental and something that I was doing to play about with photoshop but gave a good outcome and for that reason I feel that it would be something that I would be able to push forward in many ways and something that would have value in a competition as it has a shock value but then also is pretty intriguing to look at which should be good for this project.

Start

To start things of I want to remake the video piece I created in my first year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9qK39xH3Fg

It's a short that I made for experimental purposes which turned out to be a really good bit work which I think would be good for this project. This video I created doing stop frame but I didn't use a tripod and it was pretty rushed. I also did it in my Halls and you can see the light turn on half way through. What I think will be good will be to re-create this film but make it more professional. What I am planning to do is the exact same thing however this time I will go into a studio, use a better camera, set everything up properly with a tripod and pretty much do the exact same thing as I think it will look really good and also I feel that it should be effective when shown to an audience.

Notes from tutorial

First Tutorial

On Thursday this week I had my first Tutorial for this project. It went well, positive feedback and my classmates gave me some good recommendations which is a really positive for a first tutorial.

Manipulation:

Manipulation everyday objects that one doesn't pay much attention to and dramatically changing in for better or for worse.

• Photography based
• Lots of flash
• Transformation
• Trick and Distort
• Grotesque
• Body Manipulation
• Over the top
• Disorientating
• LESS IS MORE

Idea: Dissembling objects objects then re-assembling them in something new.

Techniques: Stop frame, Lenticular, 3-D, Sound

Artists and photographers of interest: Aziz & Cucher, Chris Cunningham, I am Legend, Silent Hill, Matt Collishaw.

Nation Portrait Gallery.

With all these ideas it will take me a month or two to actually come up with a single focal point to this project as there are a good few possibilities to where it can go to.

Idea changing

Idea 1 is now gone, pointless and something that I can see no point is pushing forward - End

Idea 2, this project is now something that I'm going to do for my other project this year - PHVP 3409 just because I don't really think that It would really be material to get into a exhibition or funding so therefor feeling is wouldn't work.

Idea 3 & 4 I think will be pushed into one project, looking at all forms of manipulation, both the human body and artificial items, maybe combining the two into one. I think this will work well, it's something that I've looked into before and I think it will be something that can be pushed forward effectively. It will deferentially be something that would be material that would be able to be put into a gallery space and I believe it could be something that could be able get funding. Also for me it should hopefully be something that I will be able to get behind and be motivated to push it forward.

Summer thinking...Ideas

So over the last couple of weeks I've been starting to brainstorm a few ideas that I would want to do for the final year. Over the past two years I've come to discovered that I'm really going to need a strong idea that will allow me to push forward for the whole year as in previous projects I've really struggled to get going and certainly after the Christmas break. So due to that knowledge I really to think of a project that will motivate me and something that I'll really get behind.

Idea 1

The ideas that I'm contemplating mainly resolve around three main focal points. The first is nature, something that I've been interested in for all my life and something that I know I would be motivated to work behind. The main problem with looking at nature is where to start and what exactly to do. I would be interested in doing wildlife photography however I know that would be too hard to be creative and just generally achieve. The main problem with wildlife photography is exactly what to do, everything that I would be able to achieve is such a short amount of time would almost certainly have been done, published and also would be pretty boring.

Idea 2

The other part of nature that I would like to look at is nature and man's interaction. Now this would be far more creative and productive then looking into wildlife photography. I also think there would be far more roots that I can go down. I could go at Leicester race course and look at the interactive between punters and the racing itself with I think would work well. I think I would also be able to contact several zoos and other places along those lines and document the places inside and out.

Idea 3

The other point that I would be interesting into looking into is manipulation. In my second year I did a piece of work (http://hursty02.blogspot.com/) which looked at manipulating objects that you wouldn't pay much attention and changing them dramatically. What I primarily looked at last year where bridges, taking a picture of the bridge from the side and changing it in photoshop to make it circular. The project went from strength to strength and it proved to be a generally exciting project that I think would be good to carry on. I would have to find a new item to look at, or several items to look at but I do think it could work.

Idea 4

Kind of the same line as manipulating but looking at the human body. I made a short film in my first year which was a complete experimental piece but its still one of the strongest things I've made in my years at University.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9qK39xH3Fg) If I carry this on then I would work mainly with the human body but manipulating it strongly. Making more work like the one above and maybe looking size and perfection. The only problem with this is that I'm not that happy with working with people, unfortunately I don't trust people sometimes to turn up for shoots and even then trying to actually get people to do it is not always easy, certainly if I need to get people to be topless or more.

Maybe a combination between Ideas 3 and 4 could be a good way of working.