Sidra Saeedzada
Photography
Jasper James
Artist Analysis
Jasper James is a photographer with work based on Beijing and Shanghai. Over the previous years of photography his work was all over the areas of New York and London, he has worked on magazines such as Vanity Fair and British Airways. He began doing photography as he thought that the images of seeing the world in a new light had inspired him to experience taking photographs of buildings and image blending it with people insight of the photo. 'I felt it opened up a whole world of possibilities and a more intense way to engage and examine the world around me.' Doing this, he has enjoyed capturing portraits as they allow him to identify an individual closely and create photos based on his impressions. The image that Jasper James has created are double exposure with landscape photos and people blended individually in the background. The work of Jasper James is similar to the work as my previous chosen photographer Daniella Zalcman as they both capture images of buildings and double exposure them with something, with Daniella Zalcman, she took photos of famous landmarks of the area and double expose them with one and another, however with the photographs of Jasper James, the similarities are double exposing them with buildings and people. The photographs that he takes give the feelings of surrealism and colour. My first reaction when seeing the images Jasper James takes remind me of the work from the artist I focused on before Jasper James. His work consists of layering a normal profile picture on top of pictures of cities and buildings. Doing this he creates profile pictures as if they look like a silhouette. The idea of doing this makes his photographs look interesting and avoids the style of a normal photograph.
The idea of this photograph shows us an image of a child double exposed with a landscape image of a city taken from a high building so that the view of the area is clear. In this images, he has created the double exposure and doing this he has blurred out the areas outside the person used. The photograph shown in the image is a mixture of landscape and portraiture. In some of his photographs he has not added colour making them only black & white. He does this to show the mood of misery. When taking the photo, he captured it from half of the child's body and inside the frame of the child, you can see a clearer view of the buildings. The silhouette of the child has been layered on top of it due to its dark tone, and the background itself is faded.
The work of Jasper James all have a similar look to them, most of his images are double exposed with people from all aged blended in with the photograph. In photography, Jasper James's work remind me of the work completed from Daniella Zalcman as they both are double exposing and image blending buildings. I have chosen to focus my work on Jasper James as his photographs are unrealistic which makes the photos more interesting and exciting to look at. I think doing this will set a challenge as the photos seem more complex compared to the work of Daniella Zalcman as there are more techniques being used such as outlining the outside of the individuals body and using the crop tool to cut it out, after this step I would be image blending the building photo and the person together. Once both images are added onto each other the dodge tool on photoshop would be useful to make the background lighter, that way the focus would only be on the inside of the outlined body. I think that Jasper James's photography is effective as it looks as if he wants people to focus on the inside of the body and the clearer image of buildings, but wants people to notice the surroundings equally. The title I would give this photograph would be including the terms of 'identity', as the work taken by Jasper James show the identity of a city and not someone as a person.
Photo-shoot plan
For the photo-shoot I plan on capturing images from a high building to take the photographs in the style of Jasper James. The photographs that he takes are double exposure of a view of a city with a child.
I plan on taking photographs from one of London's most famous tourist attraction (London Eye), including the area around.
I decided to use images of one of my relatives (who is a child) and like Jasper James I will be double exposing both building and person together in the style of Jasper James. The images will be taken during both day and night to see the different view of both lights used. My aim is to create the photos like Jasper James and use clear images of people looking toward the camera or their back toward the camera, this would be a useful idea as it would show that I am linking to my artist and trying to capture photographs from all angles. I plan on using the dodge tool to make the images more lighter and blended in, with the person I will be double exposing, this way the images would look more in the style of Jasper James. However for the first photoshoot my plan is to have different idea to what I will be planning to do for the redraft as it will show how I have adapted and could add changes to my work. The artist Daniella Zalcman has inspired me to take photographs in the style of Jasper James, as the topic is identity and both photographers focuses their work on buildings and cities. For the person like Jasper James I wouldn't want them to be standing in a specific pose as the photographs that Jasper James creates are more relaxed and suppose to give someone less things to focus on as all the attention is one part of the photograph, my aim is to give a similar perspective to the viewer with the edits by the end of this completed artist work.
Overall I think that the photo-shoot went well as I have successfully managed to capture photographs from a high angle and take a good view of the city in London, however the photos I have taken were not taken in the natural morning light, so when it comes to editing the photographs my aim is to make them as light as it could become using the dodge tool as it makes the photograph brighter using a light white shade. The photos were taken on an android device as they have a night time mode where you are able to see the clear details of the image including other small details. However I would like to capture some images with only the building as I would like to show the difference with the city alone and without the blended person
Contact Sheet
The contact sheet shows the collection of images altogether and the raw images before the editing is done. This shows people how the photo looks without anything done to them. I find a contact sheet useful as it shows all the images I would like to keep and all the images that I plan to not do anything. A variety of the photographs have been circled, as it makes it clear for people to know that those will be edited in the style of Jasper James. I have chosen the photographs that only have a clear view of the buildings taken from a high angle. For my photoshoot I went to Central London at night and captured photographs from the London Eye as it goes round it would take better photos from a high angle of the view around. However one thing that is different compared to the work created to Jasper James as his work only contains buildings but as London has many populated areas I decided to include most of them as it shows the identity of where I am from, I have included places like House of Parliament, River Thames and as London has a lot of night lights, capturing the images at night would look much more brighter as that is what I think about of photography.
Photo-shoot edits
2ND PHOTO-SHOOT
For my second photo-shoot I have visited the same place for the photographs, however I have taken the photos from a different angle, and have created a contact sheet with all the photographs combined together, I will also be including further developments after the redraft is completed.
Contact Sheet
For my Contact Sheet I gathered all my photographs and added them all onto contact sheet to show all the raw images. I have circled the photos that I am planning onto editing and I have annotated the ones that I am not going to be editing, this is because it will help with the understanding of the reason why I am not editing the image, whether it's the exposure of light or reflection of the glass, like Jasper James the reflection should not be visible in the photographs. I have created a third contact sheet with the portrait photographs I will be double exposing with the city view.
Redraft Photo-shoot edits
For my Jasper James redraft, I created double exposure portrait images in the style of Jasper James. I have double exposed an image of myself with an image with a view of a city and have created an overlapping image using the two sources. In the portrait images, I have changed the colouring of the photographs to black and white, these images relate to my artist as they have also been taken of portrait photographs of myself and double exposed with a background. For some of these images I have changed the tone and the contrast as a few of them are dark, whilst the others are brighter. I think that I could improve my work by mirroring the photos to show that I have experimented with the different tools on photoshop. One thing I like about the photo edits are that they shows a depressed mood and are dark, which is what makes the photographs interesting and different compared to the image edits of the city view. In the redraft I have shown that the work I have done is much more adapted compared to the first photoshoot.
Further Developments
For my further developments I have changed the work I did for my redraft. I have mirrored the photographs. However in some of these images they have been mirrored multiple times in different angles above each other. In the further developments I have made all my photographs lighter to make the edited portraits clearer to show the similarity of my work to Jasper James. I have shown that one photograph could be edited in multiple ways. I have changed all the images in black and white. I have made some of the photographs into a turn and moved the same image upside down, however with some of the photographs, I have used the same image but made the size bigger than the original size. After I experienced photographs in black and white I attempted to take the photographs in colour and different to my black and white image I have double exposed the portrait photos in different angles several time. However I have also tried different techniques with my images and made certain parts of the image black and white, but kept some parts in colour. I think that my further developments are more successful compared to my first and second photoshoot edits.