Practice techniques

 

Here are a few photography techniques which I had practiced with (unrelated photographs to the project itself). 

The top technique is zoom exposure when you zoom while talking a photograph, I want to use this technique to represent time flying by as I feel it shows the world rushing around you. The photograph above I used in a project in my BA to show the stresses of adult life. The concept is similar but I will retake to work with this project and to not so much show someone stressed but to show how life passes you by quickly.

The second photograph is one I practised with to make a photograph look old. I wanted to have the effect that the photograph had been around for a long time and wasn't in perfect conditions anymore but held an old memory on it. I don't know if I will still use this in my project it depends on how I would represent it.

The third photograph  I practised with is using colour popping, a simple technique which can be very effective. I wanted to try this technique out, because I feel it could be used in my project for certain photographs, to show how some things don't change and these would be in black and white.

Presentation of images

Having just looked at how Frank Warren displayed his work has given me some thought into how my work could be presented. Although the submission will be of the images on a cd. This won't show how they should be seen.
I have a few ideas of how they could be presented and how I will show this on a cd.
My first idea was that all the images could be put together in a photo book, this could suggest that they were all sent in one go, and I would photograph each double page spread being opened on the lap of the suggested receiver of them with the hands as though they are flicking through the book itself.

Another idea would be to have a letter box, with the post cards all attached together by string being slowly pulled through the letter box by the receiver, slowly revealing each bit of advice. This would work nicely in an exhibition with a mock up of a letter box as it would make for an interactive exhibition for the public, although there would need to be care with pulling them in and out.

Frank Warren

After talking to John, I took a look at Frank Warren, an artist whom got people to send him postcards with there secrets on. The project itself doesn't directly link to mine, but is very inspiring. I have asked our group to do postcards for my with advice they think they would receive from the former selfs or give to there younger self, as of yet I have only received two, but I intend to ask everyone I come across over the christmas holiday, as I want more ideas to go into my project to make the images more creative and look personal.

In his project people send postcards, often with an image and writing over the top. They are truthful and people can let go to the things which they have kept secret, which makes them very emotional because you know it was real and came from the heart. A truth in which some people would never admit to the world in person. Without knowing these people you get a feeling for whole they are. They are very powerful images and even though many just done by every day people most are strangely empowering. They make you want to write your own secrets and send them in.

Here are a few examples:

I decided to look at ways in which Frank Warren show the postcards for inspiration towards how I could present my own postcards if they were going to be exhibited. The two images below show two different ways in which I have found he shown the postcards:

Even though this project is on a much larger scale then mine, so therefore there is many more postcards, I like the two ways in which he has chosen to put them together, it makes them more interesting to look at, and get people involved more while looking round the exhibition. Especially the second example where they are hung from string, you would have to go up to each one individually and even hold them to being able to read and see them properly.

Some of my own work

 

These two photographs are my first ideas for my postcards from the future. I decided that it would be good to have an opening postcard explaining what the selection is for. I wanted to use a short sentence 'A  bit of advice from the future', on the back of an envelope as though it would be the last thing you see before you see what is inside.

I used my daughters Great grandmother as my hand model, not only do the hands show there from someone older, but I have always love hands they so much about a person, and the older you get the more expression and detail they have.

Unknown prophecies

Prophecies which most people have never heard of:

Alois Irlmaier:
Irlmaier was a simple German man who, in the 1950s, made predictions of a third world war.

Hildegard von Bingen:
 A polymath nun from the 12th century, she was famous for her contributions to classic music and literate, but not as well known for her prophecies, which she had many. She referees to things such as the destruction of the USA, that peace will return to Earth when the French thorne is restored.

Baba Vanga:
A blind Bulgarian whowas very popular for her mystical powers. Some of her predictions included by:

• 4599 man would achieve immortality and that less than 100 years later we would begin assimilating with the aliens we meet on the hundreds of planets we will have populated.

• 4509 man will become sufficiently developed that he will begin to communicate with God directly.

• 2221, while searching for extraterrestrial life man will come into contact with something truly terrible (though she didn’t state what).

• 2023, a change in the Earth’s orbit.
• 2010 the beginning of World War III, which has not happened but her followers believe the machines are in motion.

Ursula Southeil Prophesies:
One of the best known for her prophets, some of which are:
1. A carriage without horse will go, Disaster fill the world with woe. In London, Primrose Hill shall be In center hold a bishops sea.
2. Around the world men’s thoughts will fly, Quick as the twinkling of an eye. And water shall great wonders do, How strange, and yet it shall come true.
3. In water, iron then shall float As easy as a wooden boat. Gold shall be seen in stream and stone, In land that is yet unknown.
4. And England shall admit a Jew, Do you think this strange? But it is true! The Jew that once was led in scorn, Shall of a Christian then be born. [Britain creating the Israeli state?]
5. For in those wondrous far off days, The women shall adopt a craze To dress like men, and trousers wear And to cut off all their locks of hair. They’ll ride astride with brazen brow, As witches do on broomsticks now.
http://listverse.com/2011/03/11/top-10-prophecies-you-dont-know/

How the world has changed over the last 10 years

I decided too look at how the world has changed over the last ten years, as I have not decided which way to take my project yet.
I found an article on the star.com with a few points of things that have changed or come about this decade:

• Blogs have become the new thing, over 100 millions blogs are about.
• Camera: Most people use digital cameras, including the older generation.
• Mobile phones: 85% of the us population have them, and some have even replaced landlines completely.

• DATING: Dating was transformed like everything else by Internet sites, rendering other ways of meeting people obsolete. And it wasn't just the territory of the relatively young: Seniors found love online, too.
• Facebook
• Going green
• GPS
• Ipod
• Texting
• Youtube
• Wikipedia
• Wii

There are also alot of classic 'If you were a child in the 1990's you remember' lists:

• You remember when it was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons.

• You remember reading "Goosebumps"
•  You can sing the rap to 'The fresh prince of bel air'
• You took plastic lunch boxes to school
• You had a black and white gameboy
• You still get the urge to say Not after every sentence

• You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green Ranger were meant to be together.
• When the super Nintendo became popular
• CD Walkmans
• You had a tamagotchi which you took everywhere
• Pokemon cards got banned from school

• You watched the original Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Ninja Turtles
• You remember when new beanie babies werealways sold out
• Yot got creeped out by 'Are you afraid of the dark'
• 'Talk to the hand'...
• You only had 5 channels on your tv
• You owned VHS not DVD

• Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'.
• Happy meals had Barbies or hot wheels cars 

These are things that not only have changed over time, so that children these days would not know of these things, but always are the things we miss about our own childhoods and make us smile to remember, but we never would have thought at the time we would miss them at all.

2057

I decided that although I looked into future images, they were all artist impressions, and most of which seemed to be for allot further into the future then I would need for this project idea. With this in mind I decided to look up how the world would be 50 years from now, and found a docu-drama series ( a vision of the future which relates to technology which is currently being developed) which was made in 2007.
Breakdown of information I found useful from:
2057: The City in 50 years:

• In the streets, everything is gathering gigabytes of information, including billboards, cloths, the street itself and buildings.
• People are living for longer, but having less children. Regions all over the world may become deserted because the birth rate is falling beneath the death rate.
• The change in population numbers could solve job and housing problems.
• 3d images which are not confided to a computer or TV screen will be the new way of viewing things. 
• Auto-matic self driving cards, with millions of chips in the road stopping any problems which may occur.
• City center- screens all over the building which spiral into the sky, taken over by nature itself.
• Billions of chips linking all major buildings, and it becomes a nerve center as though the city is a brain.
• Advance homes which can allow people in when your not there through linking micro chips to phones. Set the house to your exact requirements. Fridges which re-stock and check self by dates.
• Asimo learning robots which could even babysit children.

This program gave me a better idea of what the world would be like when I am older, so if I decide to take my project in this direction, I have a better idea of how to create my own visual concepts.
 
During own Graduation an honorary degree was given out to David Mitchell an novel writer originally from Malvern. During his speech he talked about what he would say if he spoke to his past self. Sadly because of the busy day I can not remember everything he said. But I do remember some of the main advice he said he would give himself would be about relationships and that some of the best knowledge he had seen was written on things such as magnets, simple short yet useful. This has also inspired some ideas for my project, thinking about what I would say to myself, or what I think I might say to me now from the future.