for my second photographer i decided to focus on who expands onto the concept of identity, more specifically - hidden identity, i looked into the work of the artist, francesca woodman.
francesca woodman (1958-1981) was a young american photographer who created most commonly known black and white portrait images of herself submerged within and blurred into her surroundings. as a young artist, her work revolved around and explored experiences that effect young people such as self identity and identity questioning, mentality, body image, alienation, confusion, isolation and more concepts surrounding the idea of identity, which i found interesting. through photography, she managed to explore the identity, feelings and emotions of people.
this also links back to my first artist, elena oganesyan, as they both focused on the identity and emotions that are within people portrayed
francesca woodman artist analysis
francesca woodman artist analysis
francesca woodman artist analysis
through photography. her work was taken using old film cameras and medium format cameras, capturing her work completely discoloured, in only black and white creating an old film or polaroid, and eerie effect and immediately caught my eye.
the reason why i chose her as my second artist was due to her ability to be able to capture the concept of hidden identity through photography so well and tell a story behind the camera, also through the technique of long exposure , similar to elena oganesyan's method. her idea of lighting and use of lighting is also interesting however different compared to my first artist, elena
oganesyan. her photographs look over exposured as if she was aiming and focusing on the shadow work instead of light work, adding a surreal and dream like sense to her photographs.
her alluring black and white pieces of work expand and explore deeper into the idea of hidden identity and identity within ourselves portrayed through the process of photography, and her management to capture various emotions and feelings, questions and definitions of ourselves without specifically telling it instead showing it.
i also specifically admire the her ability to successfully somewhat capture the sense of ambiguousness within and behind her work because from looking at her work, each individual person can capture a different meaning behind it and resonate with it in a different way.
the general idea of there not being a specific meaning behind a photograph or piece of work allows different people
to create and imaging their own story and meaning.
her idea of portraying emotion and identity, through the concept of surrealism -faces and bodies blurring and merging into the surroundings and photograph - is generally captivating to me, as it adds on to the emotion and feeling she
is managing to express, which is also something that was able to catch my eye because it displays so successfully
the image of the emotion she is trying to identify.
i generally admire the idea and concept of ambiguousness and not only portraying her own story, feelings and emotions and more, however the idea of also being able to communicate with us and our own feelings and emotions and more.
i think that not only the way she interprets her work is ambiguous, but also the emotions and feelings she is trying
to display herself is a form of ambiguous and confusion through identity.
aside from the concept of ambiguousness and the idea of photographs portraying and questioning multiple meanings, wonderous fantasies forming in our head, over a single photograph, along with the lack of definition in her photographs, somehow at the same time portraying such overwhelming emotions - conceptions of meanings, energy and life passing though her photographs, in addition to and contrasting the appearance and use of the black and while filter effect and the idea of an old polaroid layout effect, also creating and exemplifying and expanding onto the mysteriousness and eerie style of her work; creating an unrealistic barrier between fantasy and reality ( which i think portrays the idea of hidden identity really well ) - time and energy, which again links back and follows back to the concept of hidden identity.
a specific piece of work that i find particularly interesting is her photographs of trees and forest landscape. because of this, i plan to base my inspired projected surrounded by nature. i also find her work using long exposure portrait photographs interesting. it illustrates the idea that surroundings and where you are, in contrast to who you are, also exemplifies onto the conception of identity. it also captures and follows the sense of surrealism, contrasting onto her portrait photographs.
the reason why i wanted to focus my second hidden identity themed project on her work is because the way she portrays identity and the mysteriousness and darker side to it matches well with the idea of 'hidden' identity.
overall, to me, in terms of how the images and photographs are displayed and shown on the screen, her work makes me feel a certain sense of comfort and discomfort at the same, i also find it specifically alluring how the photographs seem to capture so much energy and so little at the same time, exploring the concept of hidden identity and the idea of ambiguousness within her work, improving her work even further. following back to the original reason why i decided to research into the artist and her work, focusing on woodman and her work as a result of her ability to capture life and death and energy and identity, and show the concept of hidden identity within her photographs and photography, explores one-selves identity and mindset through a camera lens.
photoshoot plan
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my idea is to take various images of people and places in the concept of hidden photography. the idea is the have a forest inspired background with a person in the frame and sometimes not. my plan is to keep the idea of using only black and white, with no color.
idea
idea
lighting
lighting
i want to focus on mainly using natural lighting instead of artificial lighting as the photographs / photoshoot will ideally be taken outside, however if i take any photographs inside i plan on using dim lighting.
inspirations
inspirations
sketch / plan
sketch / plan
my general plan is to experiment with the location and shift between taking the photographs outside and inside however i overall want to focus on taking the photoshoot outside so that i can be able to capture the background forest to recreate the theme of francesca woodman. i plan on having a singular person in the frame standing with a layer of forest behind them. ideally, i want to try and take the pictures around midday as long as it is light outside. the camera frame will capture the person fully however i do want to experiment with close ups. for some of the photographs taken, i want to take photographs of just the landscape without the person in the frame.
camera angle / position
main challenges of the shoot
main challenges of the shoot
i think the main challenges of the photoshoot will be capturing ideal lighting. around this time it gets dark earlier so i don't want the photographs to turn out to dark or dim. as well as the weather making the photographs not turn out as successful.
camera angle / position
photoshoot plan
like i said in the sketch / plan, i want to focus on capturing the full person in frame. it will be facing directly towards the person and the camera will be at a landscape angle.
my inspiration for this photoshoot is following the concept and idea of francesca woodman. i want to keep the same style and theme / mood which is why i plan to use dim lighting and a black and white filter
contact sheets + analysis
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for my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot, i decided to focus on her landscape / nature based photographs. i took pictures of trees, animals etc. also trying to create a motion blur effect to the pictures, like hers, to somehow create a sense of ambiguousness in the photographs. like planned in my photoshoot plan, i only used natural lighting, and the photographs were shot outside.
for my first set of photographs / first photoshoot, i did not take portrait photographs of a person. the weather and time of day was not that bad, fortunately, so the pictures came out successfully.
for the most of the photoshoot, the pictures were taken directly facing it's subject for example the trees.
however some of the images were taken upright, at the sky, in which i think turned out to not be ideal and as successful as planned as it changed the lighting and generally made the photographs unsuccessful.
after this, i also took multiple pictures of animals which were taken from a birds eye view and this turned out to be ideal and work with my photoshoot plan.
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some of the pictures turned out to be overly blurry, out of focus and the lighting along with the camera angle was not ideal - such as the photographs i took of the sky where the lighting was off and the camera angle was not ideal - and made the overall whole set of photographs unsuccessful.
overall, my main intentions for the shoot was to take pictures of the forest / trees to capture the style of francesca woodman.
my goal was also to create a slight blurry effect to the images - however not too blurry to the extent where is ruins the general photograph - which turned out successful.
overall , most of the pictures ended up turning out generally successful however certain photographs such as the images i took where the camera happens to be angled at the sky, shifting the lighting, turned out unsuccessful because of the lighting and lighting change.
in the future to improve, i want to also take pictures of animals and people instead of just landscape.
however i think that the general photoshoot turned out decent but did not completely fulfil the original sketch and idea that i had throughout my photoshoot plan and my general goal for the second and redraft photoshoot is to capture the overall plan i had and take portrait photographs and pictures of people compared to just landscapes.
developments + analysis
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for my developments, i selected the photographs that turned out the most successful and generally turned out the most ideal towards my photoshoot plan during the first francesca woodman photoshoot. i planned to keep to the similar mod and theme of my chosen artist whilst adding originality and also building up from the methods and techniques i used for my first artist.
using photoshop, the first, main thing i did before experimenting with the adjustments, was create a black and white filter effect by decreasing the saturation and increasing the offset to make the photographs appear darker.
this personally made the photographs seem so much more captivating and suitable towards the eerie style and the francesca woodman styled theme / mood.
after this , i focused on editing the main adjustments such as exposure, - as many of the images turned out to be slightly over exposed during the photoshoot plan - offset, contrast and the brightness of the images.
firstly, i lowered the brightness to create a dimmer mood to set the forest scene more successfully and also the scene in similarity to the theme / mood of francesca woodman.
after this, i then also procceeded to decrease the contrast only slightly to expose the darker areas and shadowed areas of the photographs. lastly, i only slightly increased the offset.
i think this was a particularly more successful area of my photograph developments as it added a layer onto it, creating an old movie / picture mood.
i also used the burn tool around the corners and edges of my photographs to exemplify this as well. this also made the images seem more rusted and old.
this was a more successful area of my developments / edits because i think that it set the scene a lot more drastically.
to create the polaroid effect of my pictures, which i decided on as i thought they were fitting and made the overall effect of the photographs a lot more exciting and less bland. the images were cropped so that there was a white background which came in place as the fake polaroid photographs.
for a better and more eye-catching effect, the brightness was lowered to match with the brightness-decreased photographs and i also used the burn tool as well to make the polaroid's seem somewhat more realistic, which i applied only around the corners and edges of the photographs, similar to the method i used for the actual photographs themselves. i think this photoshoot developments turned out somewhat successful.
however to improve and develop onto this general photoshoot further, exemplifying onto the francesca woodman theme, i could take photographs and an overall photoshoot inside of buildings - as well as generally trying to take portrait photographs of people - instead of just outside.
highlighting success
i think that for this photoshoot, this is one of my more successful developments. although i planned to capture portrait photographs, and photographs of people, this was one of the things i failed to to do my first photoshoot. however i planned to also take picture of certain animals. in this photograph the animal is running, capturing the motion blur of the movement on the camera. i think that this makes the photograph look for appealing in a way, as well as the general setting. in terms of editing, the black and white effect makes the photographs seem old and worn out, following the mood i planned to capture for the photoshoot successfully. i used the burn tool around areas of the photograph in editing to make the
camera seem old or vintage. i think that this was also one of my more successful areas of my developments as they made the polaroid effect seem more realistic as the photographs were not actually taken on a polaroid camera. of just outside. for the second photograph i highlighted, i chose this as one of my more successful developments for my landscape photographs as i thought that it managed to successfully capture the mood and theme that i was planning to capture of the photoshoot. similar to my other developments, i followed the same editing process, using the burn tool around the corners and edges of my photographs. overall i think the appearance of it and how it turned out made it one of my more successful photograph developments.
further developments + analysis
for my further developments and improvement edits, i chose eight of my most successful and ideal photographs from my developments sections and overall photoshoot. to further improve my work from my developments, i wanted to focus on exemplifying onto the eerie mood and theme of hidden identity. i did this aswell for my first developments edits so that i could manage to keep a consistent technique for my development edits.
i decided to add a sense of originality, however i planned to still focus on the concept of francesca woodman's works theme, by creating a drastic difference but still holding certain similarities.
i experimented with the filters in photoshop, adding on a cold slightly coloured filter to exemplify onto the olden and worn out themed movie / picture effect. I think this made the work pieces turn out somewhat successful and still correlates to francesca woodman's photography.
i think this was a highly successful area of my further developments edits as it added a sense of originality and created a drastic change without straying away the concept of hidden identity and the inspiration of francesca woodman.
after this, i also used a filter to add highlights onto the photographs to make the polaroid appear more realistic. this was a successful are of my further developments as it expanded onto the polaroid effect making them look more realistic. it also increased the darker and shadowed areas even more and made the overall photographs look dimmer.
another way i improved my developments even further was by adding a grainy texture to the photographs to form and again this was also a more successful area of my further developments as i ideally exemplified onto the old, textured mood of the photoshoot.
in the future for my francesca woodman redraft and second photoshoot, i want to improve my photographs and experiment deeper with certain areas such as adjustments and the overall location and camera angle that was taken and used within my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot, and create and reach even more in depth of the style and overall theme of francesca woodman. i also plan to elaborate even further with my adjustments so that my photographs successfully fulfil the vision i had sketched out in my photoshoot plan. my idea is to generally explore with taking more and experimenting with taking pictures of animals and people instead of just the trees and forest.
overall i personally think that the photoshoot itself as well as the developments and adjustment edits turned out successfully to a great extent, as i think personally believe that they were able to ideally capture the concept of identity and the portrayal hidden identity in photography really well though the photography style and technique of francesca woodman successfully.
redraft contact sheet
+ analysis
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for my second francesca woodman inspired photoshoot, i decided to focus. what my original sketch was for the first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot plan. what i originally wanted to do was take
portrait photographs of a person with the forest background which was successful.
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for my first set of photographs / first photoshoot, i took photographs of a person in the middle of a park where i could capture the background of the trees taken in the previous / first photoshoot. i also took photographs of the subject which, in this case, is the person, moving / running to create a motion blur effect. i also took pictures of animals i saw and landscapes / pictures of trees and the background. like last time, the weather and time of
day was not that bad, fortunately, so the pictures came out successfully on camera.
some of the pictures turned out to be overly blurry - because of camera difficulties and the camera angle being somewhat difficult at times, as well as certain images being slightly off and unsuccessful due to the lighting being continuously ruined because of the weather and time of day.
the general main intentions for the shoot was to capture my main goals for the shoot and follow what i originally planned to in the photoshoot plan / sketch which turned out successful as the photoshoot captured the main goals and sketch that i planned during the francesca woodman inspired photoshoot plan and the images were a lot more successful in comparison to the first photoshoot i did also there was not many drastic changes.
the camera was faced and angled directly at the person, as it was a set portrait photographs, and the overall set of the camera was successful and ideal. the weather and time of day was ideal, which made the photographs successful as the lighting was also ideal and made the images turn out a lot better and as i planned.
overall , most of the pictures ended up turning out generally successful however certain photographs appear to be either overexposed, or the brightness was too low or high which i eventually managed to adjust within my francesca woodman inspired redraft developments. however many of the photographs were taken successfully as during the photoshoot the weather and time of day was ideal and contrasted with the pictures well. many of the photographs taken turned out to be highly successful and ideal, for example, the images i took focusing on portrait photography were successful and the lighting was ideal.
to improve i think that as a way to challenge the photoshoot, i could take more pictures in a different / different places as well as focusing on different camera angles and lighting ranges to have more of a difference between my photographs.
redraft developments + analysis
for my redraft developments, i managed to successfully capture my overall intentions and plan that i generally wanted to fulfil in my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot and photoshoot plan by capturing more photographs or portrait images and photographs of people, similar to francesca woodman.
capturing portrait photographs of people and animals made my photoshoot and the general concept of the photoshoot successful to an even greater extent as it evaluated even further onto the concept and idea of hidden identity and overall identity.
one thing i personally admire about her work is the comforting discomfort you can find deep into her work.
i find it alluring how she somehow captures identity within herself and others through photography and creating a sense and effect of surrealism within it.
her technique, method and use of long exposure not only manages to exemplify onto the concept of hidden identity but also links back to my first artist, elena oganesyan who also used this similar method of long exposure.
i still planned to edit the photographs in the same similar way to how i did in the first woodman inspired photoshoot.
overall i found this photoshoot more successful and comforting to the idea of francesa woodman's concept of identity and hidden identity as the edited photograph developments look a lot similar to the style of the artist, worn out and old.
continuing with the same technique and method, for example i adjusted the brightness by decreasing it and lowering the exposure then increasing the offset. i generally did this for the same reasons as for my first photoshoot developments however i generally wanted to follow the same technique without making much drastic changes between the two photoshoot developments. i followed for my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot developments, i created a black and white effect and used the burn tool around the edges and corners of the photographs because i wanted to recreate the old, worn out effect, similar to francesca woodman.
i did not completely desaturate the photographs, leaving a tint of green in the pictures and overall still showing slight colour in them, as i found this was a successful area of my first francesca woodman inspired further developments, and i wanted to carry out the same filter and effect onto my redraft developments.
after this i also created a polaroid effect onto the photographs, the same way i did during my first photoshoot developments.
i cropped the chosen images to display the white background which created the overall fake polaroid effect onto the photographs. the brightness was again decreased to add on to the realistic effect by matching with the photographs which i also used the burn tool on, to make the polaroid's seem realistic and wont stand out from the actual photographs.
i think this photoshoot developments turned out somewhat successful as the adjustments helped the lighting and mood.
process log
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filter + burn tool
creating a polaroid effect
using photoshop to add on the black and white filter effect, i also used the burn tool to darken the edges and corners of the photographs. i did this so that when i apply the polaroid effect to my photographs, it creates a more realistic effect.
increasing the exposure to create a polaroid / old effect in contrast to the black and white filter
further redraft developments + analysis
for my further redraft developments, i planned to stick to my original technique and method i used for my first photoshoot edits, and my first photoshoot further developments.
continuing onto the polaroid and unsaturated effect onto the pictures, it gave them an old eerie sense of ambiguousness, contrasting onto the ongoing concept of hidden identity i had based my general photoshoots on. the whole general process of adding the polaroid effect was the same method i followed for all of my development edits, which i personally think was a successful area of my developments as the gave a sense of originality to the photoshoot.
i decided to follow the same idea and techniques that i followed for my further development edits for my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot.
again experimenting with the filters in photoshop, using the cold desaturated filter that added i slight tint of green to the photographs, again capturing the olden and worn out effect, similar to my inspired artist.
i think this was a highly successful area of my further developments edits as it expanded onto the concept of hidden identity and the inspiration of francesca woodman which i had followed through with throughout my first further development edits.
i think that adding a green layer and a slightly desaturated filter, gave the photographs more life, and i used this effect for my first further developments edits. again, i used a filter to add highlights onto the polaroid the same way i did during my first developments. i think that these two photographs turned out the be the most successful throughout my developments. unlike my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot, i managed to capture photographs of people, like i originally planned to in my photoshoot plan. i think that the general setting of the photoshoots, a forest surrounded area, fit the mood and theme i planned for and overall made the photographs successful. in addition, the green tint / filter and the polaroid effect made the photographs look old and worn out which was ideal. the lighting was also ideal, as the time of day made the photographs seem not too light,, especially as i lowered the brightness in photoshop to make the mood ideal. overall i think these two photographs turned out successful and fit the mood i was going for. --the photographs turned out to be a lot more green and saturated compared to my first photoshoot edits, however i think this was a successful area for my further redraft developments as the tinted filter gave the photographs a lot more originality however still matching with the mood.
throughout my whole two photoshoots, i believe this one turned out more successfully as it captured my general idea / plan and sketch that i explained briefly throughout my photoshoot plan, capturing and overall successfully portraying the concept of hidden identity though the inspired theme followed by francesca woodman, capturing portrait photographs which i did not achieve in my first photoshoot like how i planned to in my photoshoot plan.
for my second photoshoot i managed to capture images of people and portrait photographs which was my original plan, making the photoshoot generally more successful.
overall , similar to my first photoshoot / my first further developments, a large proportion of my photographs ended up turning out generally successful, in my opinion, and ideal to how i planed it to throughout my photoshoot plan, for example for certain photographs such as the images i took focusing on portrait photography and photographs capturing people instead of just the landscape were successful and the lighting and camera angle was ideal as well.
for improvements i think i could take more pictures in a different / different places to have more of a difference between my photographs and both of the photoshoot's are a lot similar to each other.
highlighting success
i think that these two photographs turned out the be the most successful throughout my developments. unlike my first francesca woodman inspired photoshoot, i managed to capture photographs of people, like i originally planned to in my photoshoot plan. i think that the general setting of the photoshoots, a forest surrounded area, fit the mood and theme i planned for and overall made the photographs successful. in addition, the green tint / filter and the polaroid effect made the photographs look old and worn out which was ideal. the lighting was also ideal, as the time of day made the photographs seem not too light,, especially as i lowered the brightness in photoshop to make the mood ideal. overall i think these two photographs turned out successful and fit the mood i was going for.
redraft contact sheet
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for my redraft photoshoot, i decided to take the photoshoot inside, because of this i generally experimented with artificial photography. i took the photographs on a camera which had the filter set to black and white. i took the photoshoot with a white background and used long exposure photography. my intentions for the shoot was to create long exposure photographs in the style following francesca woodman. using artifical lighting, was a successful area of my photoshoot because it wasn't too
dim and turned out ideally. overall i think these photographs turned out successful and fit the mood i was going for.
developments + analysis