catalogue draft

BA Photography Exhibition 2011Leeds College of Art

The medium of Photography was given its name by using two Greek terms that described the process – drawing (graphy) with light (Photo). Though the process required very specific technical and scientific knowledge during its early stages of development, the term ‘Photography’ clearly implies an artistic reference in its description.

The medium of Photography has embedded itself within society and is used by a continuously increasing number of people. This has been encouraged through constant changes in camera technology as manufacturers were financially driven to make the process accessible for use by the public at large. With the possibilities of digital technology, we are fully immersed and bombarded by images. Not only are the general public more liberated with their use of the

FOREWORD

camera to record their personal lives, but they are also happy to place them in the public forum of internet sites for the world to see. Long gone are the fears of the camera stealing souls, replaced by a knowing awareness of how the camera ‘sees’ and can project a persona of ones self into the public realm.

As the world and our lives are recorded more frequently and covertly, the role of the photographer becomes even more important. CCTV cameras record mundane scenes un-relentlessly without consideration to composition and the ‘decisive moment’. Google’s Streetview shows us a virtual world through photographs where time is blurred to create 360% views of places we may never have visited. Yet to walk through this virtual world is still a complex and difficult experience.

_

Adrian Davies, 2011

_

_

The artist Doug Rickard has split the photography world with his recent photographs taken through his computer screen of ‘Streetview’ scenes. These images reference the history of photography and reiterate the most important point that photography is all about ‘looking’.

Looking and communicating is at the heart of the work in this publication. The photographers have followed their individual interests to make visual engaging images. The camera may still be the mechanical recorder of what it is pointed at, but the personal intention and vision of the photographer is crucial to creating images that will challenge us to reconsider our understanding of the world we live in.

03

The Journeys In Between

Travelling alone through familiar and foreign landscapes, an infinite composition passes by. Nuances and poignancies are captured by the eye that please and evoke a sense of beauty and serenity. Only being alone can one fully feel and become enveloped by them.

This page [left to right]: Image Name / Image NameNext Page [left to right]: Image Name / Image Name

_

+44 (0) 7533 994 122www.alexpoll.co.uk

_

ALEX POLL

05

_

Something to do with Ruins

Both ruin and photograph are fragments, deemed to connect us to a place in time, with a ‘history’, yet both are held in a perpetual present. The impulse to photograph has something to do with preservation; an attempt to rescue something as it passes away. A similar impulse asserts itself in the preservation of ruins. This project explores the notion that photography has a connection with ruins.


_

+44 (0) 7820 800 [email protected]

_

FREYA KRUCZENYK

09

_

By merging documentary with fine art practices to scrutinize the overlooked provocative connotations of everyday, recognisable scenarios, Anne-Marie Atkinson creates stilled frames with ambiguous narratives. The images consider the manifestations of relationships; what we can truthfully interpret from a still photograph; and the various contemporary influences on the individual. Creating breathing space for contemplation on the interrelated issues, the photographer aims to hint at a ‘universal sympathy’, the shared yet potentially isolating experience of being human.


_

[email protected]

_

ANNE-MARIE ATKINSON

13

_

Body Builders

This series focuses on the aesthetics of bodybuilders, and how men construct themselves. Without judgment or bias the images simply present each subject topographically for the viewer to construct their own impression of this intriguing group – are the men ‘clones’, or do they retain their personal traits even when shot, processed and positioned identically? The images also reference advertising portraiture, the industry the photographer aspires towards. In historical painting and sculpture it is common for male bodies to be presented as godlike and perfect, a tradition furthered in contemporary media, which raises questions of the affect this representation has on the spectator.


_


_

DAN ROSS

17

_

Basing his practice around a personal interpretation of beauty within the world, John Roy asserts that form does not necessarily have to follow function. Some things in life can have the sole purpose of being visually pleasing; the aesthetics of an object or a person can be just as important as the function they fulfill. John Roy explores these ideas through fashion photography, and intends to continue his practice in London following graduation.


_

[email protected]

_

JOHN ROY

21

_

Playing with Peoples Fears

This project highlights the ambiguity of the still image. In contemporary society, it can be easy to assume things that are not necessarily true, for example a man wearing a turban and rucksack on the tube being suspected of terrorism. The media encourage stereotyping and stimulate a constant wariness for signs of terror. Through fashion photography, this project deals with the notion of paedophilia, asking the spectator to judge the narrative and characters in the images - father, boyfriend, or paedophile?


_

[email protected]

_

POLLY PARKER

25

_

This project focuses on the stages of production that food goes through in order to demystify this process and examine the resulting waste in the UK, paying particular attention to the animal lives that are affected. To illustrate this, the photographer has undertaken a systematic and lengthy process; involving photographing a chicken everyday from the day it hatches from the egg to the age of 39 days, when it is legally old enough to be slaughtered for meat. These images are juxtaposed with other scenes depicting the path that food takes, including the supermarket right though to the skip.


_

_

BUNGLE BROWN

29

_

This project is an exploration into the undocumented environment of wifi zones. There are cafes and hotspots all around modern city’s across the globe but it is sometimes overlooked that 68% houses are now installed with wireless internet, thus making a environment that cannot be seen but is all around us. This is an exploration documenting the undocumented environment we live in and around.


_

_

ROBERT WIGMAN

33

_

Transient Systems

Using photography as a form of social documentary, Douglas Tonkin allows the viewer to deconstruct and analyze society. Shooting on 35mm film, he slows down the image making process, creating more considered compositions. Transient Systems focuses on the state of limbo created within society by the transport system, where the commuter, despite being part of a busy metropolitan, becomes isolated and absorbed in the self.

‘Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.’- Walker Evans


_


_

DOUGLAS TONKIN

37

_

This project explores the ideas and emotions of the unconscious mind. Using the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud, the dramatic thoughts of the mind are usually trapped inside, whilst what we chose to shown on the surface are sensible personality traits. The images depict powerful and dramatic scenes, leading the viewer to presume the worst. However, closer inspection may belie this interpretation, as a more innocent perspective emerges. The images play with the viewers’ expectations in the hope of leading them to reexamine their assumptions.


_


_

AMY COCHRANE

41

_

Fishing: UAE

This project is an investigation into the state of the fishing industry in the United Arab Emirates. It is a study of location, technique, lifestyle and above all the effects that large-scale commercial fishing has on the marine environment. The photographer has created an in-depth documentary to highlight current social and environmental concerns, demonstrating that without change the future of the oceans, the marine life they support and those whose livelihood comes from small-haul fishing, is in serious jeopardy.


_

+44 (0) 7717 659 24100971501533813**[email protected]

_

ELEANOR SMITH

45

_

In the world of fashion, rarely do we see works-in-progress or unfinished garments before they grace catwalks and glossy magazines. This project provides a documentary insight into the backstage of fashion. Holly Saxton explores a wide range of fashion studios: a local designer constructing garments to support a cause is juxtaposed with a big-name designer who showcased at London Fashion Week. The images reveal unseen aspects of this sometimes intimidating and elusive world. Does the glitz and the glamour live on after Fashion Week? Is everything as beautiful and perfect as what is shown in magazines? Blurring the line between fashion and documentary, the grainy fly-on-the-wall aesthetic contrasts with airbrushed magazine images and challenges stereotyped ideas about the fashion world.


_


_

HOLLY SAXTON

49

_

Being

‘Portraiture challenges the transiency or irrelevancy of human existence.’- Richard Brilliant

An ongoing project exploring how people respond when encouraged to just, be. Recording the relationship between the subject and the photographer, the series is linked by psychological representations of the self, restrained not only to the sitter. The photographer invites the viewer to create their own understanding of each portrait, enforcing another relationship – that between the viewer and the person behind the glass.


_

[email protected]

_

RACHEL BARKER

53

_

‘Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.’- Walker Evans

Developed considering theories such as scopophilia, the love of looking; Panopticism, the “all-seeing eye”; and the voyeurism of everyday life, this project observes people observing themselves through a two-way mirror whilst they unknowingly become the photographer’s subject. The viewer of the work becomes a spectator of the observation made by the photographer. The two-way mirror, placed in everyday locations, capturing people doing everyday things, provides the enjoyment of surveying others without being seen by the subjects. The snapshot aesthetic of the images enhances the feeling of observing and recording from a hidden viewpoint.

This page [left to right]: Image Name / Image NameNext Page [left to right]:

_

_

ROSIE COX

57

_

NEEDS TO SHORTEN STATEMENT

Setting the Mise-en-Scène

Setting the Mise-en-Scène is a project exploring the moment of transition, between before and after. This conveys a narrative forming through still imagery that includes interior and exterior shots that create a sense of curiosity and suspense; it combines a cinematic style with documentary photography. The cultural relevance to the project is based on both photographers and conceptual artists, Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson. By combining the two we begin to discover character development within staged photography.

‘I’ve always felt that good art has to reflect somehow on its own process of coming to be’ - Jeff Wall


_

[email protected]/photos/superhanz_light/

_

HANNAH SUNDERLAND

61

_

HANNAH SUNDERLAND

Joe Creffield’s recent series of images explores the way people react when placed in front of the camera lens. Not about voyeurism or capturing people at their most vulnerable, rather this project references the vernacular, the every-day way in which subjects’ pose or smile for the camera. We do it because we are told to do it, but do we ever really mean it?


_

[email protected]

_

JOE CREFFIELD

65

_

Misadventures

Drawing attention to the abandoned, the derelict and the unappealing by transforming them into enchanted, inviting scenes. Bringing new light to forgotten places and re-beautifying the decrepit and the overlooked.


_

+44 (0) 7779 157 [email protected]@gmail.com

_

JACK BOOTH

69

_

This project aims to pull the viewer out of the logical world and place them within a livelier space; creating a 2D world that is unquestionably split from the one in which we live. The work is a study of mental states and emotions that we all share, yet for some reason find difficult to explain in words. Lauren Pissochet explores the human condition through portraiture, dance and self-portraiture. Striving to capture memorable and multifaceted imagery, she allows the viewers to consider their own invisible world, hidden from reality behind a delicate veil.


_

[email protected]/laurenpissochet

_

LAUREN PISSOCHET

73

_

‘We are immediately disturbed by wrinkles, pouches and other small imperfections which, in the classical scheme, are eliminated. By long habit we do not judge it as a living organism but something to be perfected…’ - Kenneth Clark, The Nude

Following research into the female form and the idea of perfect beauty, this series looks into our own perceptions of ideal beauty and how we view ourselves as a result. In a world where we are bombarded by images selling us products that can improve us and by extension improve the quality of our lives, this work asks, do we even need perfecting?


_

+44 (0) 7852 526 106www.jaydescreaton.carbonmade.com

_

JAYDE SCREATON

77

_

This work is a revaluation of space. The perception and use of space is constantly changing in contemporary society, and this project considers how the public conceptualise and relate to their immediate environment, as well as alternatives to the social norm. The images feature action and capture movement to consider how we interact with and move through modern spaces.


_

[email protected]. joshrose.co.uk

_

JOSH ROSE

81

_

It’s a Mixed Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World

With an eye for capturing unseen moments, Kirsty Garland’s photography aims to avoid the stiff and conventional. She brings her subjects to life in a manner befitting the person they are, the work they do or the music they make. Increase the Volume documents those who make, enjoy, and live for alternative music of all styles. From stripped down rockabilly to technical metal - and everything in between – this project explores the melting pot of passionate, contemporary music.


_

[email protected]

_

KIRSTY GARLAND

85

_

Issues relating to the environment form the focus of Maria Galvin’s practice. This project deliberates the idea of sustainability in relation to the symbiotic relationship between man and environment. Issues relating to the environment form the focus of Maria Galvin’s practice. This project deliberates the idea of sustainability in relation to the symbiotic relationship between man and environment. Issues relating to the environment form the focus of Maria Galvin’s practice. This project deliberates the idea of sustainability in relation to the symbiotic relationship between man and environment.

This page [left to right]: Drink Are On Me / EscapeNext Page [left to right]: Home Time / Early Morning Start

_


_

MARIA GALVIN

91

_

Exploring many genres including industrial, architectural and urban landscapes, Mark Zachary Helmore’s practice lies on the edge of strict photography. Incorporating fine art and conceptualism into his projects, he examines themes of geometry, symmetry, structure and perspective, working with traditional film based media before employing the modern process of digital post-production. This body of work consolidates these various elements. At the heart of the work is the photographer’s personal aspiration of design, using architecture to fill the canvas and photography as the brush. An understanding of modernist architectural movements and the perception of realism underpin the cinematic aesthetic of these challenging images.

This page [left to right]: Drink Are On Me / EscapeNext Page [left to right]: Home Time / Early Morning Start

_


_

MARK ZACHARY HELMORE

95

_

_

Sponsors

Pictures PlusLucy CareyPat Carey

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS_

A Special Thanks To

_

Course LeaderAdrian Davies

Course TutorsAaron ChadyRoss WilliamsJoanna Craddock Maria AllenAndy JoskowskiPaul Bennet Todd

_

_

Leeds College of Art

Leeds College of Art, Blenheim Walk, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS2 9AQ

+44 (0) 113 202 8000

_

Sponsors

CribsJack BoothRobert Wigmanwww.cribs.co.uk

PholioTimothy Smithwww.pholio.co.uk

_

Designers

Heather Bradleywww.heatherbradley.co.uk

Chloe Galeawww.chloegalea.co.uk

Carl Holdernesswww.carlholderness.co.uk

Emma Pricewww.emmaprice.co.uk

_

PrintersDuffield Printers Ltd, Leeds

Stock150gsm Premium Silk_

Documents

catalogue draft