Day 39 Tuesday 22 November 2011 Body Tutorial

 Tuesday 22 November 2011 Body (Tutorial) with Rikard

Presented my ideas and progress and it all seemed to be well received. August Sander was mentioned as additional research and I have already had a look at some of his work and uniform related images. I'll try and get his book out before the shoot.

Also Jim Naughten was mentioned to review his portraiture work, I realised I'd seen it before. In fact I've photographed a couple of the same people!

Jim Naughten

Asked to write about a number of influencing images for out forthcoming Portrait shoot I have selected two images that relate to my main Idea, and one that relates to a backup idea.

 This image of the young boy playing for a Salvation Army band is pretty stereotypical of the images used to portray this organisation. This is how we think about the Salvation Army. It was taken from a newspaper and has no pretensions to be art, it is documentary. I've included it here to demonstrate the 'stock image' associated with the organisation. There are historical images, and religious images are indeed some of the most well known and longest survivng forms of imagery in the art world. These stock images conjure up festive Christmas feelings, but they do lack a power. They are less metaphorical and more documentary in their nature, and I feel that my images with require more depth and feeling to create an interesting narrative. At the moment I am still negotiating the sitters, so until that is defined my personal brief for the specific images remains undefined, but I have lots of ideas and the avoidance of stereotypes would be one goal where possible

 Photographer Brian Griffin:
Not a religious image but I wanted to use Griffin as my main influence as I liked his series of work on people at work in 'Management Today' (and 2012 and in large organisations), all playing small roles but forming part of a larger organisation. Obviously the example of his work selected here is outside, and we shoot in a studio, but I was inspired by the gaze/posture and lighting of this image. It would be an idea I'd like to replicate (amongst others) in a studio if possible. I assume the subject is replicating catching a cricket ball, but somehow it almost looks as if he is asking for assistance from the heavens and I liked that duality. Simple to light but striking in it's unusual pose I find this concept quite appealing.

Matt Monath: One thing if life I've learned is it's always good to have a plan 'B'! Should I end up with no sitters being available from the Salvation Army (for my main idea) I have a stand by idea that involves a UCA student (friend of a friend from UCA Maidstone) Danielle Homer is a Graphic Design student, so I wanted to find an image that spoke to be about being immersed in colour/ink/paint/imagery. Matt Monaths image was really striking in it's use of colour and composition. I've blogged these idea already and I also found an interesting artist who paints his face which is another really interesting concept I could explore.