Rejected Work

So I had a final 8 images and thought that the finals were complete with this amount of images.  I think they flow well together and having some different compositional images within the set you can see how different the backs of houses can be, but with this I wanted to make sure I stuck to the exact brief which  is to only have a final 6 images.  For this i needed to cut two images out.

Here at the top are the two rejected images.  I think that individually, each image could say a lot about the way the back of the house is presented and how the idea of a personality given can be seen within these images.  I personally like these top two images when individually.  I like hoe the graffiti and the broken fence panels show such a difference to what the front of house would and also of how different they are next to each other.  The reason the are not in the final six is because they are the images that stand out as different now.  Although the series is not called 'garages' or anything, the other houses show the garage, where as these do not, so stand out can when removed from the final six make a noticeable difference.

>     REJECTED WORK     <

 So above shows the two rejected images from the final 8 that I had, and here below are the final 6 images.  It is a selection of the best and most deadpan images out of the whole series of images from the back alley. I have narrowed all my images to these final 6 images.  I would like to think that I have managed to convey the "same so different" aspect to my images, I wanted to resemble images from photographers series that I have looked at from the New Topographics and Dusseldorf School of Photography.  I was able to recreate a bright nothingness image of some of the end's of gardens and have them placed next to each other like it's the same strip and all next too each other.

Although my "Same so Different" aspect would seem as if it doesn't show in my final six, because the three top images, for example are quite similar in the fact of there is a big garage - but it was also the fact of the Man Altered landscape that i wanted to show here.  I wanted to show how they are each different to each persons living in the house, but the change will happen, in 10 years from now these could change, now owners means new change.

Final 8 Images

Here are the final 8 images that I have chosen to show, I know I should technically be cutting two more images away from this set, but I wanted to put all of them in because, one of my main ideas for this project was to show the differences between each other the behind the house's and my aim was to see how different they are to see if could say something about the people that own the property.  

I have called this series "Same so Different" because each made man, garage and fence, was placed where the owner of the house wanted it.  I like that they are each different, I know some areas of new house's which all have the exact same garage space and back of house that they all look too similar, with these, you really see how some people need big garages and other do not really have a garage but a shed or tool shed.  I do think that they lack 'something' that I think they need, but they are a group of totally deadpan images which is what I wanted.  

I like how some of the images that I have chosen seem to have the neglected effect to them.  There is Graffiti on a few of the wall and doors, but this gives the impression and idea, that family's try so hard to make the front of their house look good so that visitors get a good first impression, but it makes me question, if these images were displayed in a panorama similar to Ed Ruscha's sunset strip, would it make them want to spend some time sorting out the back of the house ? Probably not because it is the back of the house and no one really needs to see it.  I do like this short series of images but I do believe I could have worked a lot harder on actually producing the final images themselves.

I have a final 8 here, so technically need to take out two images, if I were to take some out it would be the two bottom row right images. because they are the images that do not have an actual garage in frame and therefore are the different ones.

William Christenberry

After I had shot my images, I saw that William Christenberry had some images that had a resemblance to the ones I had just taken.  He said that as photographer, he took photographs of things that stood out to him.  He recored something that was going to be changing through time. 

The fact the his images show, these old style wooden huts and houses, makes my images look quite similar.  Maybe the light and time I went wasn't the best, If I had gone round the back of the house once the sun was out, I could have had maybe better colouring in the images and could have displayed them similar to these images here. 

The fact that the roofs of the houses/huts in these images go to a point is what I noticed the most in these images along with mine.  There are a few images of mine that look similar.  The main different is that these images have a lot more space around them.  If my project was bigger I could show more back of house from say I completely different road, one of much smaller house and smaller gardens and the in contrast I could have taken a road with huge house and huge gardens. 

I like how my images do show the differences from one another, kind of similar to the four images on this post.  They are all similar and are all of the same topic of huts/houses along the road, but look very different from each other.  I likt that one image has a car in it, because the images I have taken show garages which have cars inside but, the cars were not visible. 

Editing Down From the Shoot

With the help from my family, I narrowed down the 184 images from the whole shoot down to the best image from each house and each back of house, this brought me down to only 26 images anyway, which is what I averagely guessed for the house that are along the road with the alleyway back of house.  26 images was still too many so i cut out images that didn't look interesting and looked a bit too bland.  Remembering that what I was trying to convey was how each are of the same thing but all completely different.  

 These images are all in Colour at the moment by I know my final images and final set will be black and white.  I looked through them altogether like Ed Ruscha's strip work and the only way that it would work if I was behind the fence in the heath because there were some garages that I could not get further back to take the whole shot.   It was a very bright morning and the sky was a bright white, this is quite bad in the fact that it overexposes very easily and also because it can almost be too white, So as long as I choose the images with the most going on then the sky will not be that noticeable.  The blandness, expressionless and deadpan image is what I was going for and I think I definitely have that in my images, now to see what they look like black and white.

Contact Sheets

The Shoot

I managed to shoot this a lot quicker than I thought I would. I woke up very early in the morning and went to photograph with that assistance by my mum.  We left early because I didn't want to get really harsh lights but wanted it to be the best exposure so that I could see everything.  I liked the idea of this shoot but it was a lot harder than I though to stand back and take the images, there were a lot of overgrown trees, bushes an mounds that i had to lean against to tray and get as far back as I could.  

The ally way is not that long at all and when taking images directly onto each back of house, it moves along the strip quicker than I thought, I came away with 184 Photos overall.  Some could say this was a lot but I was trying different lighting setting for each house I was at to try and get the best of each of them.  Here are my contact sheets of all the back of the houses along my road.  I do think it was quite interesting how some images looked like they linked on and some images individually didn't even look like it was the same area.  Take a look at all of the un-edited photos taken below;

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Edward Ruscha

Ed Ruscha's book "On the sunset strip" works really well with the idea that I am now creating - the strip along the back of my houses could potentially get put into a book exactly the same as Ruschas.  I said that I would consider a book after I made one in class, this could be the perfect option for displaying my final series of images of the "backs of peoples gardens" for my series "Same So Different". I am happy with my idea now i just hope it turns out ok.  But I also like the idea that my garage set of images could slide out next to each other like Ruscha's book below;

This book has a series and similar theme which is of 'Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966).  He has documented and displayed a panorama style type image along the whole strip, probably complied of separate images. The only text involved throughout the book is the name, title and date. 

I really like the idea that mine had compared to Rusha's, it looks like mine could be placed as a strip too. It is a project that will make the viewer have to go to the ned images to see how the end of the line plays out compared to the first. 

I like that my idea has fit well into the New topographics that I looked at originally and still sticks to my theme of taking images of the same thing with so every one looks different still.  I could fins that my images are nothing like this series and have no interest but its worth the try to see what it will turn out like.  I like that I am also using a street that I live on, which mean that the series of images will mean something to me as it will hold my house within the images. 

Idea 3 - Behind the House !! FINAL IDEA

I came up with a third idea for this project and decided it was the one I was going to stick with as it is easiest to do on such a short amount of time.  Due to coming up with lots of different ideas, I decided this is the easiest and quickest out of the three. 

I live in dartford jus infront of a Heath, not dartford heath but a heath called Bowman heath.  It is a lovely area and I love not having anything back onto my family home and garden. My idea for this is to take images of the backs of people's gardens along my road that I live in.  I have put on the google map image of my road because we are along a set of house that have an ally way that goes up the sides of around 40ish different houses.  It is really hard to tell who's back of garden joins on the who's and who actually owns each one because some are detached house and some are not.  I live in a semidetached house but have one of the bigger gardens along the back.  I have put the bullet point on my house, right on the corner on the road, you can see our long garden that back onto the start of the heath. 

The idea again for this is to photograph every houses 'back of garden garages' along just the ally way around our set of houses.  The reason for this is to show how different some people like to live.  I said before how I liked Simone Nieweg's garden images and that I would consider this idea because of the personal affect it can have on the family living there.  It is a really short walk along the back ally by the garages but I hope they are all different.  

The other reason for carrying out this idea is because it fits into my "Same but Different" idea, as i will be technically taking the same image, of the back of someones garden, but there will be completely different outcomes. 

 Here shows the two entrances/exits to the ally and both ends.  I will literally walk through and see what I can get from this series and see how the people on this road come across by the way there back of house looks. I think it could be interesting to see how people look after the front of the house so much, but when it come to the back, have no interest in keeping it well presented and tidy.