Preparation
Assignment Three asks us to keep a diary for a couple of weeks, and then to use that to develop a self-portrait drawing upon the examples studied in Part Three of this module.
My approach to this project was initially to follow the instructions and to keep a diary for a period of time. I chose to start the diary on 25 November 2014 and had intended to update it twice a day during my train journeys to and from work. I made single entries on 25, 27, 28, 29, and 30 November, and 1, 3, 5 and 8 December. On 16 December I wrote a summary of my entries. The biggest observation was that I have no available time. I couldn't even find the time to make a diary entry every day. For a start, I don't always get a seat on the train, and when I did, I was more inclined to look at images online than to write about myself. I realised that I am so busy with going to work, being at work, doing my coursework, researching, and then all the boring stuff like laundry etc, that I have no time, nor the inclination for introspection. Both at work and at home, my life seems to hurtle along at 100mph getting me through an enormous volume of work. The days fly past in a blurred rush of confusion. From one week to the next, I don't even remember what I've done.
To manage this, my life has become compartmentalised into little boxes on electronic calendars where everything I have agreed to do or have to do is mapped out. My work and home calendars do in fact look very similar. At work there are no gaps due to meetings and deadlines, at home there are no gaps due to photography commitments and traveling; the home calendar of course being a nice problem to have! But, if I don't do the allotted thing at the right time, in the time that I have allowed, it either doesn't happen, or there is a knock-on domino effect and something else suffers. Somewhere in the cracks, I see my poor husband, dogs, friends and rest of family. It seems that time takes the form of an out-of-control all-consuming monster that has a mind and a course of its own that I have no choice but to keep up with; I certainly can't slow it down. At night, I struggle to go to bed early (even though my alarm is set for a ridiculous time in the morning), as I feel robbed. I want just a bit more time for myself before I have to sleep. If I go to bed too early, I can't sleep anyway as my brain is still rushing.
To present this aspect of my life through photography, I wanted to make the most of a trip to Japan in December 2014 and shoot my images there and so progress the travel/street approaches I have been working on during this module. Before leaving, I initially had in mind some ideas that I might be able to use:
- Shinkansen to illustrate the speed at which time rushes
- Mt Fuji to illustrate the volume of work to get through
- Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo to depict the tidal wave of stuff coming towards me at the start of the day
- Sushi boxes/fish crates to show the compartmentalisation of time idea - or the feeling of being stuffed in a train during the commute - or fish in a tank to show the endless movement of me and the cycles of going backwards and forwards to work
- Monkeys relaxing to show how I feel when I finally flop on the sofa at the end of the day
I was also influenced by two photographers whose work I have been following recently on Flickr, who had both managed to capture sinister and confused elements into their work that I wanted to try to reflect in this assignment: Torsten Hendricks and Gareth Bragdon.
Torsten Hendricks, a German photographer based in Hong Kong, is also a Maciej Dakowicz workshop participant, but I actually found his work on Flickr before I realised I knew him from the workshop group. The photograph that inspired me for this piece of work is this one shot in Mongkok, Hong Kong, during the recent riots:
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| Mongkok (c) Torsten Hendricks |
The image is part of a series called 75 Days; Hendricks writes:
"For 75 days, Hong Kong was in turmoil. It took only 75 days to change the face of a city. A city which was known for its apathy in regard to politics, was becoming the centre of heated discussions. It was a cradle of tension, with families becoming estranged, political discussions erupting in offices and fights breaking out in the streets. Seventy-five days was all it took to change the image of the former so-called best police force in the world into one of the least popular police forces in the world. Cops used heavy force against citizens. Thugs and triad members were getting into fights with protesters.
The densely populated city became a centre of politics. While the occupied zone in Admiralty was a heavily organised zone through various political parties, the occupied area in Mongkok was shaped by the outsiders, by the minorities, by the people unable to attend universities – in short, people without any representation. It was the libertarian area of the occupied areas in Hong Kong, and it was in Monk Kong that the most violence, the most political discussions, the most heated debates and the most resistance took place.
During these 75 days, I went out with the camera to document the various faces of the “Umbrella Movement”, the fights, the struggles and the impact of the movement onto the citizens".
I didn't know this though when I first saw the image. I liked the blurred effect creating confusion and the feeling that something is out of control, the angry character and aggressive position, and the framing of the central character between some stationary people. It was the sense of confusion that I wanted to incorporate into my work. I guessed that this was handheld on a slow shutter speed; I later checked with Hendricks who confirmed that that was right, but that he also uses film (not digital) and flash.
Gareth Bragdon is an American photographer based in Edinburgh. I also came across his work came to me through Flickr, but I also saw his work at the Fotoura Street Awards exhibition last year, where Bragdon was one of the finalists. Through the use of a flashgun and a low position, Bragdon creates an underworld that seems bizarre, sinister and ghoulish. The photo that particularly inspired me was this one:
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| (c) Gareth Bragdon |
This is a handheld image shot through glass. I felt that this image personified what I wanted to say about time in that it is a monstrous concept, it causes things to get stacked up without any gaps, and there is something sinister about it. I had originally intended to use the snow monkeys to show my eventual relaxed state, but once I'd make a mental connection between Bragdon's manic monkeys and my own monkey shots, I realised that I could use a monkey to add to the monster I wanted to create (see Image 5) and in fact provide a dramatic end to my series.
Execution
While I was away in Japan, I let my photography take its own course. I was after all on holiday! But as I was shooting, I was of course aware of various images that I was taking that I could use for my submission. The only image that was deliberately shot was the Shibuya Crossing image (see Image 1). My original intention had been to set up on a tripod and blur the movement of people, but in fact I got an image I already liked during my location scout trip.
Over the two weeks, a story unfolded that depicted the self-portrait I wanted to produce:
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| Image 1 |
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| Image 2 |
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| Image 3 |
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| Rollercoaster |
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| Image 4 |
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| Image 5 |
With the following meaning behind the images:
- Image 1 (Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo) - tidal wave of activity about to start at the beginning of the day
- Image 2 (Bar Buri, Ebisu, Tokyo) - compartmentalisation of time
- Image 3 (Dotomburi, Osaka) - despite my attempts at being organised, changing and multiplying priorities
- Rollercoaster (Fuji-Q Highland, Kawaguchiko) - time is rushing at 100mph - the day is disappearing, yet I feel stood still unable to keep up with it
- Image 4 (Miyaji) - need to finish my tasks before the deadline - otherwise it will blow up in my face
- Image 5 (Jigokudani Yaen-Koen) - finally, home, I can relax, but my head is still spinning.....
"How did it get so late, so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn [sic]. How did it get so late so soon?"
But in the end I wanted to use my own words to explain what I experience, but I decided to keep the first sentence of the quote as a title piece, as this sums up perfectly what I feel every day!
Finally, I needed to think about how I would treat the images. They didn't look very frightening or monstrous in colour. Plus the lighting and tones were inconsistent. I wanted to make them look more sinister, more grainy, more like the monster I was trying to create.
I converted them all to monochrome, altered light and contrast where appropriate, and added grain. As they were shot on different ISO speeds, I had to add more grain to some than others. The only image I couldn't make work was the roller coaster - there was too much white in the image and I didn't like the composition. The top diagonal white post was bothering me. I had also tried to make a composite image for this scene that showed the car moving and the background still (instead of a panned shot) but it didn't work either - the car was too faint. I decided in the end to leave this out as it made the series seem visually inconsistent. It was an important part of the story, but the sensation of speed is present in Image 1 with the tidal wave and Image 4 with the notion that the thing will blow up if work isn't completed on time.
Please see my submission for the final images.
Websites:
- Gareth Bragdon on Flickr available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/garethbragdon/ [accessed 8 February 2015]
- Maciej Dakowicz Photography Workshops available from http://www.maciejdakowicz.com/photography-workshops/ [accessed 8 February 2015]
- The Art of Dr Seuss available from http://www.drseussart.com/ [accessed 13 February 2015]
- Torsten Hendricks on Flickr available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/purityt/ [accessed 8 February 2015]
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