Lens based project 1...
The idea of using an image to express time gave me a lot of options. I started with a set of images recording the death and rebirth of the old ceramics building on campus. The place is full of history and the lighting in there is excellent. I had 30 minutes and took about 100 shots before the place was locked up for the demolition team to take over.
All through the building are little reminders of what happened in there. Small pieces of work left there forever to be discarded when the builders start the demolition work. A layer of thin dust covers everything, built up over years of student ideas and projects.
I think the next step for these images would have been to get the staff in there and shoot moody, lowlight portraits of them in the areas they worked in, but I think its too late now. They stand as a photographic document of a building and work space, once used to build peoples futures but now gone forever.
The idea of freezing something in time before its gone lead me onto the next set of images. I wanted to record the fletcher building before they start ripping it to pieces and decided on a project called 'Of and from', the idea being I take images of the building and from the building. The Fletcher building is such a powerful imposing structure and I tried to capture this in each image along with details from the body of the building.
Exterior images frozen in time...
The idea was to collect a portrait of the building that works as a record of how it looks now, before it gets rebuilt.
I'm really pleased with how this project is going but really wanted to start on something more creative with the time idea. I decided to try and make a video based on a newspaper article about a man with mental health issues and the way he deals with it. He's really trying to get his life back but hears voices, noises, gets confused easily and has to deal with all these different issues on a daily basis. My idea was to use 10 second exposures in a darkened room with the only light being my mobile phone and a small green light above my head and make abstract images. As I moved around the area the light would trail through the image and create the spooky, alien-like feelings echoing the man mixed up, scary feelings and thoughts. I intend to use imported sounds which relate to what he said in a messed up, confused way and some text will be over-layed to add some narrative and cement some ideas into the viewers mind. Each image needed to capture something unique so they could stand alone as well as being used in a series.
I really like the spooky feel of them and the colours have turned out amazing. I resisted using photoshop as I think it might give them an over finished look.
I also think they would work well as a long print, tied together through photoshop and printed on a high gloss paper. the finished print could be straight or jagged, maybe breaking off into different directions and around corners giving an idea of the life the man leads.
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