Final Evaluation

The Final Evaluation of my 

"Same So Different" 

Series

Over the course of this project I had changed my ideas from Portraiture to Landscape.  This is something I do not normally do and wasn't so sure if it was going to work, but throughout my research, understanding and ability to overcome problems I managed to come away with a reasonable project.  My original ideas were to stay working with people, portraits and the human body.  A lot of what I was shown in my lectures was landscape based and I still found all of it fascinating, but at the start was adamant of working with portraiture still, to fit with my running ideas. One idea that I have had from the beginning is this movement of the 'deadpan photograph' which is something I have carried out throughout the project. After looking through all work shown and researched for my lectures, my interest for landscape in this particular topic grew more appropriate.  I decided to run over any ideas that I had before that I always wanted to try out and to see what would fit into this project, my Twins idea was something that I really wanted to carry out for this project, an idea of a deadpan shot of 6 pairs of twins stood in there casual daily dress/clothes, probably outside their house.  This was possible as i had listed 5 pairs of twins I knew and could have asked around for another, the problem with this project was timing.  I had let myself run out of time and was not able to use my time going round to all different places to take the shots.  I had other possible idea's, and at this point was still looking for people to use as the topic. 

I had reached a point in the project where I was still looking for possible ways the shoot a deadpan portrait but was also looking into research from New Topographics and Dusseldorf which mainly subjected Landscapes, on the side so that my options were open still, writing about all the different genres that include deadpan so that I could change to a different genre but keep with my theme throughout.  

For my major practical and mixed media modules I have been working with pole fitness and it plays a big part of both projects, I thought that I would be able to include this in link with this project.  My ideas were to go to the Pole fitness Classes and to take a still expressionless portrait in the style of famous 'deadpan portraiture' photographer Rineke Dijkstra, and have a shot of the diversity of the students that go to the new 'craze' of pole fitness, I wanted to capture the exhaustion after effect of the lessons, and hopefully have that show in the models face but still expression less like Dijkstra'a series 'New Mothers' but also capture the blank expressionless, no emotion look shown in Thomas Ruff's portraits, I had idea's of taking the shot either outside the building or just in an empty space in the room.  This idea would have been what i wanted to do the most, but I ran late on timing and thought that it would take a bit too long to set up studio at the class, I also wanted to change and work away from the portraiture, this is where my ideas changed from portraiture to landscape. 

The landscape option was to show some difference within my work, I looked at Lewis Baltz, Frank Gohlke, John Schott and then had the idea of "Same so different", which was the idea that I stuck with.  I wanted to show a series of images that had the same topic but with different outcomes along the project.  I looked into Gursky's gridline's, same gridlines in each image but images completely different,  Simone Nieweg's garden's same topic but each shot of a different garden can look so different from each other. After showing my hand made books and considering an idea that would fit into a book I decided against it and started thinking of my own ideas.  They started with my trampoline idea which I really liked because i thought that would be a perfect subject for showing the same but different, it would show the way in which different families live with the trampoline and how the 'garden' is such a family place, that it can show so much personality, all whilst sticking with my deadpan theme, and my same but different theme as each shot would have looked completely different. Other ideas included derelict Dartford, which I personally think would have been very interesting and would have fit perfectly to this module project, it would have been early in the morning showing deadpan empty images of the closed down and neglected boarded up buildings, but it wouldn't of had the same but different aspect to it unless I took the outside images of closed down building or building walls similar to Lewis Baltz's work. Which brought me onto my final idea. 

My final idea came from looking at the works of Lewis Baltz's industrial sites because he shot the 'same but different' aspect to my ideas and all shot as deadpan which is my other theme throughout the series, other inspiration was John Schott's route 66 series which again has the 'same but different' aspect of all the different motel styles and also deadpan shots.  Because of these two I had my idea of my area and gardens.  Once I knew I wanted to work with gardens, I looked into Simone Nieweg's images again and thought about the alley behind my road houses.  I planned out the area and what i was going to do really well and then went out early to shoot the series up the behind the houses, of a certain walk walk behind my own house. This automatically reminded me of Ed Ruscha's work because it is actually working with the same strip and literally moving along and shooting the same straight walkway. 

I am really happy with the way the shoot came out, but i knew that I wanted to display them in black and white to have a feel and sense of Baltz's and Schott's work within mine. I like that a lot of the spaces behind the houses and at the ends of gardens looked completely different because it fit with my ideas. 

Overall I think the planning up to my final idea was great an that my outcomes have worked in my favour to my two theme that I wanted to keep throughout.  My images are all shot with the 'deadpan aesthic' and definitely all fit into my theme of "Same So Different", all the spaces looked different some did not have garages and some were fully overgrown, I used images that were similar but still different for my finals in which I like a lot. The idea behind my images were to show that sometimes in landscape and property photography the deadpan image can reveal a sense and idea of who lives in the house and what personality they have, I wanted to try to make the difference of properties obvious but subtle at the same time. The negative to my images is how bright the sky was, in some, it looks a little too burnt out and too bright, but I am happy with how my project came along and think I worked greatly in the style to show an independent subject of art with a context of contemporary culture.  I have provided a critical understanding of theoretical practices and have shown questions of expression, representation and meaning and affect.  I have shown the relationship between form and content and issues of materialism, my photographic practice and work relates to my ideas the whole way through. I am happy with the outcomes, but should have arranged more time to concentrate on my original ideas. 

Final Image 6

This is the last and sixth image used in this short series.  I actually really liked this image due to there being less 'garage' and more plants, trees and nature. One of the meaning's behind this series is too look at the background of whether the image shows a persons personality.  You can tell that house's along here with big garages obviously have a lot to store indicating a big bust family, whereas the garden in this image probably belongs to an older couple who do not need as much therefore do not need a huge garage. I do not like the over blown brightness in the sky and this lets the images down but, the thing I like about this image is the big tree branch broken and falling in front of the garage, and also the darkness in the fence panels covering the trees.  The falling branch indicates the fact the garage has not been opened in a while, which shows that the different personalities can be shown through images like this series because the garages like my own (image number 2), is opened a lot of the time and this garage quite clearly hasn't and shows a sense of neglect.  Once again, the reason I think this image is strong is due to these personality facts stated. 

Final image 5

This fifth image is another of the favourites from the series and also one of the easiest to pick out and use in the selection and editing down process.  I liked the way that whole image was set out.  You don't really realise the brightness of the sky too much because the sky is covered by the tree and another building on the right, but parts of the tree branches are blown out in which I am not happy about, but apart from the sky, I think the overall look of the image shows a deadpan aesthetic very well and  the way the building is quite small look good in the overall frame.  The previous images are bigger and was hard to get in frame but this fits well.  I like the fact the graffiti is covered the door, it brings out the real urban-ness and real urban-landscape feel to it.  You can also see how some of the house's along this strip have taken the back space of there house into consideration and cut the bushes down and the trees down where as some, like this image here have let all the back nature grow, and it gives the messy un used and neglected look to it which I actually think is what makes this image stronger. 

Final Image 4

This fourth image is my favourite image from this series. And as you can see, it is probably because of the broken down belongings just chucked out the back of the garage with the 'we'll sort it out later' attitude.  Like mentioned before, you really see how the back of the houses is not need to look great due to nobody being shown the back.  I like that this image has quite a lot in it.  You can see that this building is smaller than my previous images and here you can see two gates either side of the building, which proves the joint on effect of the strip.  I do think is it a shame that I could not get any further back to take these shots, because getting the whole of the roof in this photo would have looked better in my eyes, but it does give you a sense of size as well.  This would be an image to remind me of Lewis Baltz because of the closer in shot of the door, as the main focus.  The rubbish and old broken furniture is what makes this image interesting, it would have been nice to see another garage a long the walk also with some old belongings outside as it fits in with my meanings too.  Whether the looks of the property could show similarities in the person living there. 

Final Image 3

This third image is slightly different in size and shape.  Th garage is set further back meaning a smaller garden.  I wanted to show another garage that was similar to the first to but still have differences.  The biggest difference is the fact that its smaller and is all in frame.  Garages like this would have been there for a long period of time, you can tell this isn't new, because of colour, bends in the door etc, but the overall images reminds me of the work of Lewis Baltz but a little more in frame.  If I were to do the same project again but only keep in frame the doors themselves then it would have resembled Baltz's work even more. I like the light greys in the garage in contrast to my first image for example, where the greys on the door was very dark and near on blacks. I think the bright sky has complemented the overall image as there is not as much of the sky in frame, and the tree towards the left breaks up the difference from sky to simpleness 'deadpan' building.  

Final Image 2

This second image in the series is actually of my own house garage, and I think it's interesting to include my own 'back of house' image, because i can then get a reaction to what the project is about. Our garage is white, and has lots of graffiti written on the walls.  This obviously makes it looks quite bad and messy looking, but the feeing's i get and my family is that, there isn't a lot of need to make the back of the house so much presentable, because it's only for us to see.  In the basis of this project and showing the change and difference, you never really know, but in a few years, things may change and this could be re-painted to the brand new look, and might stay like it.  For the image purposes I actually like the fact it has graffiti on the walls, the same as the first image, the garage is large so was hard to fit the whole garage in shot.  Although this image looks as if it is wonky and off balanced, it actually isn't, all of the garages and sheds along this strip have been built on uneven grounds and are all different. 

The nothingness, deadpan aesthetic and simpleness of the look Im going for is conveyed and shown. 

Final Image 1

This was the first images along the strip alley walk that I chose for my final's, it was actually one of the garden garages that stood out to me.  It seemed different to all the others, maybe because it almost seems like a big barn house rather than a garage. I liked the deep dark vertical lines on the garage doors, this is probably because most garages have horizontal lines on them.  I was shooting at around 6.00AM, so the daylight was very bright, this is quite a bad thing because I have blown out quite a lot of the sky.  I don't think it matters that much considering that fact that the image is of the back's of the house's/end of gardens, and the image itself is quite dark, so therefore like sky being this bright makes up for the overall look of the image.  This garage is quite large and it was hard to get any further back due to the fence in the alley way.  I think it would have been nice to have the whole of both edges of the garage in but I also quite like that it shows its bigger.  The overall image shows nothingness, deadpan and recording something before change.