William S Burroughs- Photographers gallery

William S Burroughs

Taking shots exhibition

Burroughs (1914-1997 USA) is best known as a writer and artist. He was also an inveterate photographer, making extensive use of photographers and photographic techniques throughout his life. He created intimate documents of his life and constitute a complex and lifelong artistic project. Burroughs took many photographs of his friends, colleagues and lovers. Some of Burroughs portraits are memento shots. The portrait of John Giorno is, in contrast, a studied, carefully posed shot, deliberately incorporating and photographer himself.


 

This exhibition was a great inspiration for my work I love the portraits he done for this exhibition. I really took in consideration the composition and detail in these portraits. The landscape and scene behind his models is very clear and this is what I aspire to do in my work to capture the emotion with the landscape to make my photographs clearer. 

Andy Warhol exhibiton

Andy Warhol Exhibition
My main interest in photography is portraiture to get a better feel and more inspiration I visited  The Andy Warhol Exhibition featuring Andy Warhol, David Lynch, and William Burroughs. Visiting this gallery really helped me gain perspective on the style I wanted to produce through the image. I looked carefully at the detail of the photographs and the composition and crop so I could use the knowledge for my own photographs. The photographs in this exhibition show a real an insight into Warhol’s daily life depicting: people in the streets, parties, uninhabited interiors, still life, consumer products. As in his artworks, formal aspects and patterns in subject matter emerge, showing photography to be at the centre of Warhol’s thinking, looking and making.


3 week project promotion

Promotion

 

For the promotional aspect of my project I decided to promote my photographs on a site called 'Instagram'. Instagram is an online photo-sharing and social networking site that enables its users to take their pictures and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr etc. I chose to promote my photos on Instagram as it is known worldwide and people who use Instagram generally are the younger generation or are photographers or Celebrities sharing there photographs with others. I realised that once I made my Instagram I would need to get my audiences attention. In order to do this I hash tagged my photographs so when my audience search a hash tag my photo will come up. I also spend a lot of my time looking through other peoples Instagrams then following them hoping that when they saw my project they would like what they see and follow back this was very successful, within a few days I gained over 300 followers. Another way to gain peoples attention was to look for 'shout out' Instagrams these are people who have a great deal of followers and will shout people out by posting some of the photographs so their followers will see and follow the person back. I think I definitely achieved promoting my photography and I got various likes on my photos and comments which was a great response from my audience.

The pictures below are some of the likes and responses I got from two of the photos I posted.

 

 

3 week project advertising ideas

Advertisement Ideas

In the brief for this project we not only had to come up with an idea or concept but we also have to promote it. One of my ideas was to play with the combination of solids and liquids and the differences for my idea. But that isn't my final that is just one of many. Despite the idea I have to think of ways to advertise it.

However with the advertisement part of the brief I have so many ideas that I could work on. Such as

-Websites
-Blogs
-Gorilla
-Gallery
-YouTube
 -Flick
-Tag lines
-Social networking sites
e.g.: Facebook, twitter
-Stickers
-Graffiti

-Instagram

-Flickr

and many more.

How I advertise my work is very important I have to think of the size if I'm going to put it on as a poster or flyer. If I make a leaflet will all the leaflets be the same if I have a wide target audience? Where will I put these promotions for my target audience to see it? If I have a niche audience where will I get there attention? I have to consider all these things when promoting my product other wise the photos for the project will not get noticed.



3 week project research

Research

 Rachel Graves

Rachel Graves created imagery characters based on derogatory terms that women hear everyday. I liked these portraits as it shows the comparison from the mask and the wash off of the face paint this was a good reference as my focus was on beauty and makeup.

Cecile Plaisance

Adam Krawesky



3 week project final idea

3 Week Project Final Idea

For this project I had many ideas of what I could, however I narrowed it down to one. The idea is based on beauty.

I looked at the idea that make up is just a mask to cover up your imperfections and why does society feel the need to cover up themselves a different way. why cant we embrace our natural beauty?

 

The above photos are the photos I promoted on the last week of this project. My idea was to take the model out of her comfort zone. I took her out of her home on a journey she would take once a week, but with a condition. The condition is that she had to take this journey without makeup on. Which she would never do normally. I took a photo of the model at each public destination we went to, this was to show how the further she went in public the more uncomfortable she felt. Once I took all my photographs I edited them on Photoshop. I lowered the brightness of the photo and increased the contrast but not by a lot. Once I had done this I tried to edit them in black and white, as I feel colour didn't look as good. Once I put them in black and white I tried to enhance her imperfections and freckles so it was clear she was wearing no makeup. I am happy with the photographs, however I do think I could have improved them. If I had more time I would think more about composition and try and get the landscape behind the model more clear so the audience are aware of where she is, and why she is feeling this discomfort. 



Freedom and liberty- research

Freedom and liberty- Research

 

The Purge

                      
             
The purge is a 12 hour period in which any and all criminal activity - including murder becomes legal. The purge is designed to act a catharsis, so that they may vent all negative emotions and express urges however and whom they desire. This is almost a freedom from the law to do what every they wish for 12 hours, where the police cannot be called and hospitals suspend help.

 

 Portrait photographers for my researchMorgan Silk
 

 

 

Richard Avedon (1923-2004)

Edouard Boubat (1923-1999)

 

 

I came to realise throughout the start of this project that freedom is more than just birds and meadows and open space etc. I realised this through research, The Naked Rambler is a prime example of the freedom many wouldn't think of straight away. He walked all the way to Scotland naked and doesn't feel that it is necessary to wear clothes as he believes that God did not make us with clothes on. I then thought that most things connected with freedom are quite literal. I then watched The purge which gave me a whole new concept of freedom and the idea of no laws, so you can do whatever you want.
Later throughout the week I was talking to my Grandad and he is very religious as am I, which triggered the thought of sin. This brought me to the idea of forgiveness of sin. I then came to the idea of asking for forgiveness from God or even from religion.

Below are some more pictures that triggered ideas for my photos



Freedom and liberty- graffiti

Graffiti
For the freedom and liberty project I had many ideas before I came to my final idea I decided to do some experimenting and research. I looked at the Freedom of Speech which led me to graffiti. I think graffiti is a great way to express ones thoughts or feeling through a piece of art work. I feel all my photographs were successful in the way I think I really captured the message the graffiti artists were trying to get across. I feel each picture speaks volumes about the person who created it. One I had taken my photos I decided to touch them up slightly on Photoshop. This was simply to make more definition in the photo. I also edited the exposure and brightness and contrast to make the colours more vibrant and to stand out more.



freedom and liberty final ideas

Freedom and Liberty Final idea

 

These photos above are the pictures I edited that I thought were the best photographs. I decided to dress the model all in black as if she were in white it would represent purity and for this freedom idea she was sinned and was asking for freedom from God. I decided to dress her with a cross as it is a well known religious symbol, therefore connoting to the audience/viewers that she is religious. Not only this but she is knelt down with her hands together to represent begging for forgiveness, this could also represent her hands in prayer. I decided to wet the model to give the idea that its raining as she would have to be desperate to go out and beg for forgiveness in the rain. When I edited the photograph I played around with the brightness and contrast to make her features really clear, however when I done this in colour I didn't get the right feel for the photo so I changed the colouring to black and white but played with the cyan and magenta to enhance her eyes. I also took the aperture into consideration as you can see the bottom of the photograph is out of focus this was so you are immediately drawn to the models face. I feel the timing was very good for this project and I think I captured what I wanted to achieve from the photo.