Final Images and Evaluation.

 

 

 

 

    Overall, I feel rather disappointed with the outcome of the project. There are some things I like more than others, and some things I would have definitely changed. If I had more time or had been able to gain access to night vision or infrared cameras, I feel I could have changed my project for the better.

    I like the aesthetic of my final images. I’m not sure they convey the meaning I’ve intended, although to me it is quite obvious.

    The hardest part about my project was staging the photos, but not making them look staged. In such low light, I needed my subjects to be still, but I wanted to create the feel that I was shooting them in motion. Photoshopping each image separately also led to some differences, and it was hard to get each image the same color and brightness. However, I learnt a lot about photoshop with this project.

   If I could do anything differently with this project, I would try to get a night vision camera, although it’s pretty hard to get them in New Zealand. I would put more effort into taking the photos as well as photoshopping them. I would also stick with one angle – the high angles in some of the photos give the illusion of a surveillance camera, but the lower angles in others make it seem like someone is stalking these two people.

    All in all, I think this project went better than the preceding, but it still could have used improvements.



Final Proposal.

   Light is so very important to humans. We use it every day in infinite ways. It allows us to see and be seen, but it can also deceive us and give us false impressions. Certain lighting tricks us into thinking of a certain mood. I aim to demonstrate this, using techniques such as night vision, angle, noise, surveillance aesthetics, and desaturation.

   Night vision is usually reserved for the military, combat, and violent video games. For this reason, we typically associate this style of lighting and photography with fighting and severe situations. I will take some s seemingly commonplace scene and transform it into a scene with a negative connotation simply by converting regular photographs into night vision.

   Because of the typical subject matter of night vision photos, people associate them with bad. In addition to showing how light can affect mood, I want to show that our previous notions affect our judgements. The previous notion of seeing night vision photos during war can affect the judgement of the viewer, leading them to believe that the photos show something bad happening.

   This project will illuminate (no pun intended) the relationship between light and mood, and will help the audience to think about the preconceived notions they have of the mood of a photo given the light sources.

   If I were to show this in a gallery, I would probably have each photo hung separately on a white wall, with dim lighting in the room. I think this would aid in the creepy vibe given by the photos. However, upon closer inspection, the audience would perhaps discover that the photos show a possibly regular scene.

Artist Precedents.

   Linda recommended the book Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870 to me, and it has a lot of work very similar to mine in it. It also has a lot of great essays about the topics of voyeurism and surveillance, with respect to the development of photography.

   Benjamin Lowy, "Iraq | Perspectives II."

   All of the photos in this series were taken in Iraq from 2003 to 2008. Lowy used US military-issue night vision goggles, and duct taped them to his camera. In the photos in the series, we see citizens as well as military, and some landscapes. All of the subjects of his photos show fear, citizen and military alike. The landscapes seem to convey a feeling of hopelessness. Lowy sought to make the audience think with this series, and wanted them to question war. He did this by presenting photos of war in an atypical way.

   The photos have heavy vignetting, as well as the classic night vision green look. The subject is generally at the center of the photo. All the lights in the photos glow more than normal, and are over exposed. This is the aesthetic I am aiming for in my series, as well. However, Lowy's photos are less surveillance, and more point of view.

Bill Epperidge:

Heroin party in NYC hotel room

Date: 1964

Artist and Related People:

Artist: Bill Eppridge

American (b. Argentina)

Dimensions: Image (Paper): 13 1/8 x 9 in. (33.3 x 22.9 cm)

Medium: Gelatin silver print

Credit Line: The LIFE Magazine Collection, 2005

place taken: United States, New York, New York

   I like that this photo is taken in a hotel room, because people are always concerned with privacy in hotels. Although this is not surveillance, it seems to make a statement about private becoming public. 

[At lamppost on Broadway and West 71st Street, Karen,

a heroin addict and prostitute, does some drug peddling, New York]

Date: 1965

Artist and Related People:

Artist: Bill Eppridge

American (b. Argentina)

Dimensions: Image (Paper): 13 3/16 x 8 3/4 in. (33.5 x 22.2 cm)

Medium: Gelatin silver print

Credit Line: The LIFE Magazine Collection, 2005

place taken: United States, New York, New York

Two fluffy-sweatered young men stroll in New York City, ignoring the stare if a "Straight" couple. Flagrant homosexuals are unabashed by reactions of shock, perplexity, disgust

Date: April 27, 1964

Artist and Related People:

Artist: Bill Eppridge

American (b. Argentina)

Dimensions: Image (Paper): 13 1/8 x 9 1/4 in. (33.3 x 23.5 cm)

Medium: Gelatin silver print

Credit Line: The LIFE Magazine Collection, 2005

place taken: United States, New York, New York

   Epperidge's work from the mid 60s seems to deal with drugs, sex, homosexuality, and other taboo things. It also has a surveillance aspect, sometimes bordering on voyeurism. In particular, he photographs a "junkie couple," John and Karen. Karen is a prostitute and John is in and out of jail. Some of his photos seem to be moments he has captured, while others seem to be more set up. I really enjoy his surveillance-esque photos, taken from above or at the hip. They really give a sense of the subject being watched. His photos are all in black and white, which aids in this motif. I have set up my photos in a similar way, with some of them taken above, and not in color. I'm hoping this portrays as much of a surveillance feeling as Epperidge's work.

Some Troubles.

   I have my photos all edited, and now I'm struggling with final edits and order. I'm also struggling with the cohesiveness of the set. I'm also not sure if it conveys what I want it to.
   The series shows a guy and girl at a bar, and then eventually going home together. I'm hoping that the night vision aesthetic I gave to the photos makes them look like surveillance footage. I'm also hoping that the night vision makes it look a little more sinister than just a couple going home together.
   Some things that are not quite right with my series so far are angles and privacy. The angles of the photos are mostly from above, like a surveillance camera, but not all. Also, some are outside, but some are inside bars and one is in a bedroom. These are not all typical surveillance video locations.
   I want the series to reflect how previous notions of lightings and situations affect our judgements, and how we expect the worst from people, especially given certain aesthetics.

Editing.

   With only a little bit of time left before hand in, and a lot to do, I decided to just write everything out. It really helped. Once I took the photos and photoshopped them, I also printed them and laid them out. It really works! I think it made the editing process a heck of a lot easier.

Contact Sheets.

   I've included all the photos from my various shoots.

 



So Far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   This is what I have photoshopped so far. They're all real rough - I have a lot more editing to do. However, I wanted to look at them together, to see which effect I like better - inverted or not inverted. Neither of them are true "night vision," but it's the closest I can get to the real thing.

   This is one of two ideas I'm working on. I'm still waiting to hear back about borrowing an infrared camera. If I can, I'll get some funky photos with that. If not, I'll go with this idea, that lighting etc affects mood. These photos looked at normally would probably just look like two people meeting at a bar together and going home. However, with the night vision, I'm hoping the photos look a little more criminal. I hope that the mood changes so that the viewer thinks something is wrong, something bad is happening. The photos could be taken either way. I still have a lot more photos to take and photoshop, but this is a good start, and seeing them all together will help me determine what I have left to do.

   It's hard to get all the photos the same, since they have a lot of different lighting to them. Some are brighter than others, which is problematic when I try to invert them. I took all the photos at night, in hopes that it would be dark enough. I had to have a long enough shutter to get details though, which made the photos bright.

Artist Precedent: Elliot Landy.

The Band, Richard & Garth's house above the Ashokan resevoir, infrared film, Woodstock, 1969.

The Band, Richard & Garth's house above the Ashokan resevoir, infrared film, Woodstock, 1969.

Rick Danko, Music From Big Pink session, infrared color film, Woodstock, NY, 1968.

The Band, pixelated art.

The Band, pixelated art.

Bob Dylan, outside his Byrdcliff home, infrared color film, Woodstock, NY, 1968.

USA. NYC. 1969. Ornette COLEMAN & son, Aero on infrared film, in Central Park.

   Elliot Landy is best known for his photos of professional musicians. He was the official photographer of Woodstock. Some of his photos were infrared or pixelated, perhaps an homage to the psychadelic era of the 60s and 70s. Most of his photos are relatively normal, except for the fact that they're infrared. It is normal subject matter, but seems strange because the colors are not as they should be. I like how Landy takes something so commonplace, but gives his own twist to the photos. It makes you take more time to look at them than if they were normal, visible light photos. I don't want to do exactly what Landy has done, but he has definitely been an influence to me. I can use night vision or infrared on something without it being army combat or police hunting criminals.

Artist Precedent: Sophie Calle

   Sophie Calle is a photographer who pushed boundaries with her "Stalker" series. She followed a man around, photographing him, without him knowing. Is this a total invasion of privacy? This is now what we're subjected to daily, with security cameras, cell phones, CCTV, etc. 

‘Suite Vénitienne,’ 1980, Paris

   This series of photos was taken in 1980. Could this be the reason the photos are grainy? Or perhaps Calle purposefully did that. She made the images black and white on purpose, perhaps to enhance the 'surveillance' feel.

   In this series, we see a man, the same man, over and over. He is always in the center of the shot, and is always looking away from the camera. He is always at a distance. This is because Calle took the photos without the subject knowing. There are lots of vertical lines in all of the photos, which is an interesting aesthetic.

   I like how Calle has used the 'surveillance' look in her photos, and has taken pictures of a stranger. I want to mimic this, in the sense that everyone is constantly under surveillance.

EM Spectrum Research.

   This video gives a really interesting contrast between night vision and thermal imaging. This leads me to think that maybe I should steer away from night vision, and move more towards different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Each wavelength will reveal something different that visible light can not.

 

The EM spectrum and photography: 

Radio - Largest wavelength. On Earth, radio waves are sent through the crust, and reach an antennae at another location. Radio waves can penetrate some stuff, but not everything, so they can give an image of what the waves can't penetrate. In space, radio telescopes can collect data from things that emit radio waves, and somehow, with lots of science and magic, create an image.

Radio image of galaxies from ALMA in the Chilean Andes.

  Microwave - I haven't been able to find much about this. However, it seems that microwave imaging is used in medicine, but may not be safe for humans. My understanding is that microwaves are shot at tissue, and are absorbed my the tissue at different lengths depending on what is present.  

Microwave image showing a mannequin with a concealed weapon.

  Infrared - This is a type of photography that will perceive heat rather than visible light. It includes night vision.


Visible - Cameras use visible light waves to create images just like our eyeballs.   Ultraviolet - Like black lights. Images are composed using the UV wavelength instead of visible light. It's similar to visible light photos, because they're next to each other on the spectrum and there is some overlapping.  

Sunscreen absorbs UV waves.

  X-Ray - Kind of life microwave imaging, in that x-rays are absorbed my different media at different lengths.

Typical X-Ray. Bone is denser than tissue so it shows up.   Gamma - Smallest wavelength. I think the nucleus of some element emits a gamma ray, and a special gamma camera can detect it.  

Gamma image of breast cancer tumor.  

I don't fully understand all the different EM frequencies, but they all show something different than visible light. I could use this to my advantage with this project.

Transitions.

   After tutorial today, I feel like my project is already starting to change. I'm now looking to kind of do both of my initial ideas. I want to show how light affects mood, but throughout the electromagnetic spectrum - with visible and non-visible (to humans) light. Humans can only see visible light, but so much more exists outside of that. Using infrared or ultraviolet will expose things we normally can't see.

 This diagram shows the electromagnetic spectrum. I could try to take photos using these techniques, or at least mimic them.

Project 3 First Shoot.

   This is actually more like my first through fourth shoots. I went out more than once and got a lot of different scenes. The photos aren't good - I mainly just wanted to see what I could do to them in photoshop. I just tried to get photos of people so I could see how radically they changed when I tried to night vision them. I'm not pleased with the results at all. I didn't so much night vision the photos, as just turn them green. I couldn't figure out how to make them look more like night vision. I'm seriously starting to rethink this idea, because I don't know how I would make them appear night vision, and I also don't know if I could come up with enough varied subject matter for 6-8 photos. It's a cool idea, but I'm not sure how practical it is. Here are the two cover sheets of before and after I night-vision-ed the photos.

 

 

Project 3 Research.

   I'm curious at looking how lighting affects mood with this project. I especially want to look at the night vision effect, because that always conjures up notions of combat for me. I only really encountered night vision in video games, and those are pretty violent. I want to see if making something night vision will make it seem like combat. I looked for some screen shots from video games, but they were hard to come by. Here are some night vision photos that seem creepy. If they were regularly exposed, I think they would have a totally different feel to them.

 

 

 

 

   I also looked at how lighting affects the mood of a photo overall. The following photos are the same RAW file, but were processed using different colour temperatures. The first is cool and the second is warm. They have totally different feels to them.



 

Portland Bill, Dorset, UK.

Andrew Gibson 2012.