The Final Outcome

Here are my final images for the project ‘In Sickness and in Health’. These images have been inspired by photographers such as Joan Kocak, Andres Serrano and Laura Letinsky.

These two sets of images will be exhibited at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, Devon.

Here is the first set of four images;

I wanted these images to make the viewers uncomfortable and uneasy, I think I have managed to achieve that.

The next set of four images I have edited differently as I wanted to give them the aged effect, inspired by Joan Kocak, I used old medical equipment to add to the aged feel to the images.

This last image will be exhibited  separately from the other series;

So this is the end of another project, I feel I have accomplished what I set out to achieve so am very pleased with the project as a whole.

Update: After presenting my work to my lecturers I have received my final mark; A distinction! Very happy indeed!

– Amy

Experimenting…

So after looking at still life and how the composure and post-production can affect how an image is perceived I wanted to experiment with the content. Up until now I have left the fruit in its natural form, letting it rot in the first few shoots but ultimately leaving it unchanged. What could I do the fruit to change how the viewer sees it?

After considering different paths I chose to try dying the fruit – I planned to alter the viewers perception by having fruit in different colours to their usual ones.

Here is one from that shoot;

 

Alongside this I also planned to create ‘surgical’ scenes, in which the fruit seems to have been injured. I wanted these to look quite horrific and gory – as if taken from a horror movie. I researched different types of wound closures used after surgery and translated this over onto the fruit.

‘Surgical suture is a medical device used to hold body tissues together after an injury or surgery. Application generally involves of using a needle with an attached length of thread. A number of different shapes, sizes, and thread materials have been developed over its millennia of history.’

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_suture 

‘Surgical staples are specialized staples used in surgery in place of sutures to close skin wounds, connect or remove parts of the bowels or lungs‘

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_staple 

 

By using the red food colouring I hoped to create a blood-life effect on the fruit. I found this added to the ‘horror’ side of the image and when asking people what they thought they were often uncomfortable.

I wanted to allude to surgery and the graphic nature of these images has done that. By pairing the mundane fruit with the personal and often upsetting scenes of surgery I have bridged a gap that most people don’t usually consider. It is only when oneself,  a relative or friend is in need of surgery that we take the time to consider the innate fear that is held within us – the thought of dying – and with this comes the uncomfortable truth that ultimately we will all die. This is what I aimed to address and with the help of the fruit I feel I have done that.

Whilst experimenting at home I came across some meat hooks and a pole. I took my fruit and hung each piece from a hook and suspended it from the pole above the chopping board. I did this in reminiscence of a butchers shop. I always remember walking past the local butchers shop and steering my gaze away so I didn’t catch a glimpse of the dead animals hanging in the window. I want my images to have that same effect so connecting the fruit with the thought of a butchers shop and dead animals was a interesting route to take. I thought these images would be good for a vegetarian campaign as it’s very much ‘You wouldn’t do this to fruit so why do it to living creatures?’

Here’s an image from that shoot;

 

 

I still wanted to take this further and adjust my images. Instead of shooting again at home I moved my setting into the studio to perfect the lighting and set-up of the images.

In my next post I shall be showing my final sets of images. Thanks for reading!

– A.T

Still Life

After experimenting with location (studio and at home) I decided to explore still life and how the viewer perceives things depending on the composition and content. I aimed to change the stereotypical set-up of the old still life images I had been researching and photograph my fruit in a similar style but with an unusual aspect to catch the viewers eye.

I looked at the photographer Joan Kocak and found that her images inspired me the most in this part of my project. Here are a couple of her images;

After looking through Kocak’s work I wanted to experiment with still life and the different things I could alter in the image in post-production to create images with a similar soft and worn tone.

So back to my kitchen I went and set up all my fruit- needless to say my family haven’t had a shortage of fruit salad since I began this project!

I wanted to capture the fruit in its best form. Fresh and ripe as I wanted the viewer to see the fruit as a symbol for prosperity and youth – being in the ‘prime of your life’. Fruit is often referred to in a positive light e.g. ‘eating your five a day’ and ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ – this all promotes fruit as being a good thing to incorporate in your life, something that keeps you healthy and that can help prevent different illnesses due to the vitamins and minerals in the fruit.

Here are some of my edited images from that shoot;

 

Editing the images in Photoshop and Lightroom is something relatively new to me so I used these images to find my way around the software and see what would work best for these types of shots.

These images add the ‘nice’ element to my project – I wanted to depict the fruit how we normally see it, in its mundane and non-exciting form. As a health benefit.

I will the contrast these ‘nice’ images with my next shoots where I plan to mix aspects of surgery and wound sealing with my fruit – I want to capture something that people take a second look at. By mixing surgery (something most people aren’t faced with daily) and fruit (a daily occurrence for most people) I want to create images that leave the viewer feeling uncomfortable – possibly images that most people won’t want to look at.

So that’s enough rambling from me – until next time!

– A.T

 

 

A Fruity Mess

I began this project with little to no idea of what I wanted to create or what I wanted for a final outcome, I had no inspiration and after spending the summer holiday lacking in ideas I began to panic. This panic wasn’t helped by the fact that assignments have deadlines and if I didn’t meet those deadlines there’s a high chance I would fail. I have yet to do my final presentation which is on November the 23rd but here I shall share with you my journey so far…

So where to begin?

I started with my usual brain-storming and mind-mapping, jotting down any ideas that pop into my mind to hopefully come to a sane idea that I can run with and expand over the eight weeks of our project.

Fruit. This was my conclusion. I wanted to explore the different aspects of fruit and how photographing it in different ways can evoke different reactions and feelings – whilst linking this into the project title of ‘In Sickness and in Health’. And so the madness begins…

Now I mentioned the word ‘sane’ – this project has been anything but, in fact I even acquired some interesting nicknames such as ‘Hannibal Lecter’ during the course of the assignment.

My initial ideas revolved around the idea of fruit being a vital yet mundane part of life, something no one really takes much notice of but we all know its important to health and survival. I wanted to photograph the fruit in such a way that would make you take a second glance. I aimed to take very clinical photos of the fruit in ‘health’ form and then in ‘sickness’ form. Here’s a couple of images from that shoot;

 

As you can tell the lemon in the left hand image was freshly cut. For the right hand image I left the lemon for a week before shooting it – to the disgust of some of my classmates!

I feel I achieved what I wanted with these images but they weren’t  quite as striking as I had hoped them to be. The fruit represented the decay and decomposition of the mind in such illnesses as dementia and Alzheimer’s. Although the studio setup managed to allow me to get the detail of the lemon I felt this could work better in a more natural setting, somewhere you would normally see fruit rather than in the bright lights of the studio.

So I moved my fruit to my kitchen – its typical home. Here’s an image from that shoot;

I did these shoots with different types of fruit and some decayed better than others, the lemon stood out a lot more on the wooden surface making the mould more visible.

For my next shoots I plan to explore the idea of ‘still-life’ and how altering the subject matter can change the viewers perception of the image. Still-life images of fruit tend to be rather mundane so I plan to create images that can purvey a deeper and more meaningful message to the viewer – hopefully on a more personal level.

This is where I shall leave you for this post but don’t fret, the gory stuff is coming soon!

– A.T