Nightfall

Mannequin

Feral

A mechanical eye

"I'm an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself from today and forever from human immobility. I'm in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects..."

From an article written by Dziga Vertoz in 1923

I love how true this quote is. A photograph can present the world in a way unique to the camera; in a way that our human eye cannot see it. I find this idea that a technology created by man is so advanced quite incredible.

Ideas

"An artist, a photographer for example, is filled with ideas he carries around with him, without knowing what they look like. The act of creation consists of making these ideas visible to others... I walk along, and something catches my eye."

Alexey Titarenko, Art Et La Maniere

London

This is the view from my local park. I love the fact that I see the Gherkin on my way to lectures. I love to get the 453 and cross the bridge that overlooks the London Eye. I love that I live so close to the centre. I love the opportunities that have emerged since I've lived here. I love this view. I am so lucky to live in London, I hope that I never take it for granted.

Summer

I'm currently on holiday in Portugal. As I'm half Portuguese I am lucky enough to visit my lovely family every summer. I think that I'll probably end up living here one day. I couldn't love it more, I just wish that I spoke the language fluently... at some point I will; it's one thing that I really want to achieve. Anyway, today I went to the beach with my cousins and got a little bit snappy happy...

Such beautiful weather.

Condiments

I was lucky enough to acquire some rather oversized condiments recently, which were previously part of a shop display in my little hometown (it was particularly difficult carrying them home from town as they're deceptively heavy).

Since finishing my first year of university, I've been feeling the need to be creative, which is one of the main reasons that I've started this blog. So anyway, this shoot was just a bit of fun. I really enjoyed it as I haven't really done anything particularly fashion-y or colourful lately, so it made for a nice change.

Harvey Milk

"Politics is theatre; it's not about winning, it's about making a statement."

An extract from the film Milk. Love love love this quote.

Snapshot

My beautiful mother when she was my age. There's something that I have always really loved about this photograph.

Continuing from my last post...

Francesca Woodman completely inspired me for the remainder of my project. I absolutely adore her work, I always have. I love the ambiguity and mystery behind it.

Photograph by Francesca Woodman

Although for our project it was specified that we were only to use the studio space for shoots, I wanted the setting to be a bit more than simply a black or white background, so I decided to use the space a bit more creatively, incorporating the walls, doors, flooring and so on, yet keeping to the same subject and using the same techniques.

Thank you Jess for crawling, climbing, jumping and any other crazy things that I asked you to do. Couldn't love you more for it. xxx

Truth and lies

"The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what's in the picture."

Susan Sontag

The above photos are from the beginning stages of my first photography project at Goldsmiths. I chose to look at truth and lies within photography, experimenting with the idea that a photograph does not represent reality truthfully due to the use of techniques of manipulation.

From a different angle of truth and lies, I looked at the fact that when you cannot see a persons facial expression, you cannot read whether they are being truthful or not.

I also looked at basic symbolism of truth and lies, for example the fact that the colour white represents purity, innocence and thus truthfulness, with the representation of black being the antithesis; mystery, insincerity and therefore 'lies'.

Combining these points of view, I decided to use a long exposure in order to blur the subjects facial expressions, omitting the possibility of reading the person, and using a manipulation technique to demonstrate how a photograph is not truthful to reality.

I'll put up some photos from the later shoots in another post at some point. I feel that they're kind of separate from these.

Sunshine

“In the cinema the camera can capture a moment, but that moment has already passed. What the cinema does is draw a shadow of that moment. We are no longer sure that the moment ever existed outside the film. Or is the film proof that the moment existed?"

An extract from the film “Lisbon Story"

The quality of this film is awful, it really didn't take well to being compressed! If I can find a way to upload a better quality version, I will.