Self Evaluation

This assignment has been a bit up and down for me. My idea was there from the instant I heard what the brief consisted of, I’ve just struggled more with the time to fit it in. Although I have finished my piece, and I’m quite pleased with how the end product has turned out, I know for next time that I will have to set aside plenty of hours/day to get stuck into my work from the off and get the best possible result I can. I also need to make more use of the library and the other resources I have to hand, I know this will help me from the off with my research and also help my blog work, which compared to other assignments has been neglected.

I was quite worried about getting into this project, with the technical side seeming quite daunting but after attending a couple of sessions with John showing us what’s what, it didn’t seem too bad. I knew I wanted to keep my idea and shooting it as simple as possible, and I think the end product shows this, yet it still keeps within the whole reasoning behind the project. As I mentioned about the lack of time and next time making sure I make a schedule to work to, I know this is important to me and my work as I could have had major trouble with my video and ran out of time to reshoot/edit/restart my idea, luckily my work wasn’t affected by this but this is definitely a lesson learnt.

Making time for my work is also important for my feedback sessions, my attendance has been pretty bad during this brief but again, I know now that if I give myself the time then I will have an end product to work around in feedback/development sessions.

Overall I’m pleased with how my piece has turned and I’m glad I’ve got to grips with the whole video making/editing process, I’m sure these skills will be required again at some point during my career. 

My Final Piece

So after a lot of worrying and panic, I have finally got a finished time piece, audio and everything! Go me! 

I can't upload the actual video to Blogger but here's a link to my YouTube account...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR1LWUuAZGk 

Starts off a little shaky I know, it's hand held and got the shake from when we pulled in at a stop. I'm quite pleased with how this piece has turned out in the end, the more I watch it, the more I like it, I'm just not sure if the audio is a bit too repetitive? I also think it comes across more a stalker type piece, rather than someone being lonely but only my feedback will tell me whether or not I've achieved a good enough final piece!

Please feel free to leave me feedback, good or bad! 

Shooting My Video...

So in the end, shooting my video wasn't as bas as I was expecting and got it done rather quickly and easily. In the end, finishing up with a 6 minute video. Shooting on the tram, out of the window, on a grey, wet Manchester afternoon, which inadvertently made the whole thing better! Having caught the reflection of a woman sat facing me, it had a kind of overlayed effect, which I was going to have to do later, but having caught this, thee was obviously no need, and it also worked out a million times better than I would have ever made it by doing it myself! 

With the video being shot on my iPhone, I had shot it in colour, changing it to black and white later. The black and white option is something that I feel makes the video reach out to you more, giving it more of a story, depth and character. 

The editing process was easier than I had expected it to be also, having only attended a couple of sessions, I seem to have picked up the most important aspects of what I would need to be doing in the end, I was also trying to keep my piece as simple as possible, in all aspects of the project.

Here's a link to the original video (The audio on here has been put over it due to a technical fault with the original)...

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

Street Photography and Public Transport

'Street Photography and Public Transport

This photographic attitude possesses different fields of action and in this book we have decided to focus on such modes of public transport as buses, the subway and trains. These modes of collective travel mark the dynamics of days, while for us they have become mobile and improvised photographic sets. The content of these captured images goes beyond that of aesthetics and also exudes a profound charge of socio-anthropological information. The restricted spaces of public transport help to observe the spatial relationships between bodies and the reactions of certain people, discovering a shared code in the way they look and/or hear each other, but above all revealing the codes whereby passengers brush or maintain a distance from the other bodies surrounding them.
This theme of corporeality demonstrates what Richard Sennett claimed was a major contemporary problem, with sensory deprivation acting as a curse that reinforces the tactile sterility that ends up afflicting the urban environment. The cold feeling of alienation that we feel on boarding a railway car or bus seems to be rooted in this fear of brushing against the other. When we travel crushed between the bodies of strangers, we feel that we are in the midst of chaos and grumpily reject this. Our aim is to re-establish a code of order by seeking distance with other passengers and voluntary, desirable non-communication. This lack of contact provides comfort to travellers because it results in order and control over the environment, although it involves the high price of isolation.
In line with this discourse, images taken on public transport often show moods of ostracism and circumspection, a vivid expression of a language that represses through exclusion. Urban experience is documented through the synthesis of difference, complexity and strangeness. Thus, the scenes that we have captured on public transport prove to be reality bites that are difficult to digest, because they illustrate unkind truths, such as the fact of discerning that diversity, per se, does not encourage human beings to interact. Straightforward individuation has led to urban individualism and the silence of a city. We therefore intensely experience this discursive absence on public transport, with the gaze having replaced the word. The public aspect of transport, that shared territory, is a purely visual space with only an exchange of looks, but no words of dialogue. Moreover, when someone does talk to another passenger, he or she is judged by the silent and silencing gazes of other passengers.'

http://passengers-streetphotography.com/street-photography-y-el-transporte-publico/

Whilst doing my research, I came across this article which I feel raises some very significant points, some of which I will kind of contradict my own work and its meaning. The final sentence 'when someone does talk to another passenger, he or she is judged by the silent and silencing gazes of other passengers' is the most significant. There's no doubting we all feel alone when travelling, and most people would prefer it to stay that way, but even when we do try to make the journey less monotonous by talking to someone, that person instantly becomes a 'weirdo' and people turn their noses up, we simply can't win!

Urban Alienation

Whether it's being out in the city and feeling like the loneliest person on the planet, despite the thousands of shoppers around you, or if it's travelling on public transport, where I personally feel this is when this feeling is at its strongest, being alienated is something that most people can relate to in some way or another.

Having looked online for any references to this feeling or any other related bodies of work, I came across a link to IMDB (Internet Movie Database), which provided me with a list of movies all relating to the subject, although a lot of them refer to the punk movement of the 70s/80s, I have seen a few of the movies on the list but again, they don't really link up to the work I'm going to be producing, but are all good for referencing.


http://www.imdb.com/list/l4pyI6sICKo/

Research: Tom Wood

Having had our first feedback session today, I revealed my idea, which has been given the go ahead =)

During this session I was given the name of Tom Wood to go away and research. Immediately I came across the All Zones Off Peak set he created, something that is perfect for me and my topic.

'All Zones Off Peak is an epic fifteen-year bus journey through the streets of Irish-born Tom Wood’s adopted home, Liverpool. A body of work that documents a photographer’s (and a city’s) daily transit' - Dewi Lewis 1998

Now, 15 years is a long time to narrow down to 180 seconds, but this body of work is the perfect platform for me to gain inspiration for my own work. 

Research: Public Transport Photographers and Photographic Series

Seen as though I'm doing a project around public transport and the commute, I guess I might aswell start by researching photographers who have done such work! Where better to start my research than with Walker Evans and his 1938-41 project 'Many Are Called', in which he concealed a camera in his jacket and rode the New York subway, catching people unawares, creating a body of work that would otherwise not have been possible, or at least would have had nowhere near the same effect.

Now, in my project I would like to steer clear of photographing any members of the public (although this is subject to change ;]) but I think Evans' work is a great starting platform for me in this project. 

The feeling of loneliness on the commute is something I think we can all relate to, and this is the feeling I want to try and bring to people when they see the finished piece (Hopefully), but I would also like to show the passing of time, also the world, as we gaze out of the window, thinking about what you're going to have for tea that night or planning your days tasks en route to the office, fingers crossed this can be achieved! 

Welcome!

So, for this brief we've been tasked with making a video/stills combination piece. The theme that runs with this project is 'A Point of View', with a run time of 30-180 seconds.

Having sat in the brief, I had an idea pretty much straight away, as I had started something a few weeks previous which I think will fit perfectly with this project. I'm going to take on the angle of the daily commute, something which we all know and hate!
I still have to get the go ahead from my tutor as to whether or not this would be a suitable approach but other than that, I'm good to go and looking forward to getting into it!