Phone Box Experiment

In the holiday I decided to go to my local phone box and take some photos of it with some flowers added to symbolise how nature will take it over because of mobile phones taking over and lessening the boxes use. The are some of the images I took:

These are some before images of the phone box, which is on a main road. The door has been removes and the box looks dirty and unused. There is also a lot of litter around it. 

I took some close ups of the phone box, and tried to tie in the background to show the main road, as it displays how the phone box is seen my many yet left in a terrible state. 

This shot is a little further away and show most of the flowers I used. The main flowers were babies breath as they are fairly common and grow wildly when not kept.  

My main aim while taking this image was not to capture reality, rather to show a view. The view that nature has the power to take back what once destroyed it. 

Overall I am happy with how these experiments went, I want to try and explore some more phone box locations as well as different plans and flowers I could use. I will also be editing these images to experiment with the colour and tones I want to go for and how best to express the message further. 

Crimble Mill - Heywood

Crimble Mill was built in the 19th century and has been unused for many years. The old factory is situated in Rochdale, England, a northern town where many factories were placed in the industrial boom, only to be abandoned in the 21st century. "Roe Acre Dyeing and Finishing Company Limited was registered on 16 Mar 1907 with its registered office in Manchester. The business has a status listed as "Dissolved""(DueDil description). I was born in Rochdale and returned there this week, I decided to visit Crimble Mill and take some photos, these are some of them:

As the mill has been closed for many years there is a lot of graffiti and vandalism on and around it. This sign is one of my favirite parts of the mills surrounding area, as it captured the damage of humans even on there own man made objects.  

This image captured how nature is reclaiming what was once taken from it, the branches coming out of the windows show the power of nature and how the factory has returned to it. 

This would have once been where the smock and steam would rise out of the mill, causing pollution the the natural fields and woods around, but now it is inactive and it to has been silenced and returned to nature. 

This is a wide shot of the mill, it displays the wast natural area around, the mass amount of trees that were knocked down to make it become evident when looking at it's surroundings. 

This low angle shot, should show the factory as powerful but instead it looks sad and run down, the sky overwhelms the image and looks as though it could engulf the mill. 

This is another close shot of the mills windows, smashed and dark, with some nature peering through. 

I really like the way this shot shows how powerful nature is, the branches growing out of the windows shows the beginning of nature taking over. 

This image is a little to over exposed but it again focuses on the windows and the branches forming from the inside and outside of the mill. 

Again a side shot showing the mass of nature on and in the mill. 

I really enjoyed looking at this theme of nature reclaiming its old home, but the Mill is unfortunately not accessible to me through this project so I will be taking this theme and what I have learnt from taking these images and applying it to a more modern device that has become outdated, phone boxes. I wan to use art and the idea of creating something beautiful when nature is allowed to blossom in places it was previously ripped from.  

The Mill In Summer

I was looking through some old photos and found an image of the mill that I took in summer, these are the pages I did on the image in my journal:

The Mill - journal

These are some pages from my art journal, I looked at some old photos I had take of the mill and explored the nature and colours used, these are the pages:

I love to look at things in a more artistic way, by braking down the elements involved and what I see in a landscape or object. I was also able to look at the colours in the image and work out what tones I liked best. I can now go into take more in depth images of the mill as I know what angles and tones I like the best.  

Artist Inspiration

I am always finding inspiration from art and I feel that this greatly impacts my photographic work so I wanted to explore some artists work that I think will help me with my theme:

Kerry Miler - Flowering Plants of Great Britain - Vol 3 

 

Miler is truly an amazing mixed media artist, her work is hand made and centred around books. This particular work shows a collection of wild flowers sprouting from a book. What I like about her work is the use of nature in an non common place  as well as the idea of the book being taken from nature (pages made from trees) and then nature reclaiming it. From this work I can now see that the form of nature can be show in many ways and the power of it can shine through when it it represented in a place not usually seen.   

Barrett Biggers - Life and Death 

This work uses nature to build the form of a female face, it shows the depth and beauty of it and the power it holds. As someone who grew up around nature I feel it has build a part of me and this art work truly shows this. I really enjoy the colours in this work, the darkness and cold tones seem to blend so well into the rich lively colours at the lower parts of the work. This idea has also been done in photography with overlaying images and using a double exposure, however I want to explore this idea in a new way, by combining art with urban life and nature.  

Sharmon Davidson - Transformation 41

This work is a mixed media layer piece, using nature itself (leaves flowers). I really enjoy this directs use of nature, it adds a dimension and depth to the work. The whimsical nature of this work gives a magical feeling and reminds me of childhood, the small face has a fairy like look, again adding to the nostalgic tone. Instead of the work using bright colours the work used muted and dulled tones showing a more darker aspect of nature, perhaps suggesting the chemical effect on nature.  

This look into art work has really helped me to understand what I enjoy about the representation of nature, I have begun to think about how I wish to present nature and what I can say through my display of it. I want to use a cold tone to my work but have a whimsical and cinematic look also 

Studio Lights

This week we looked at lighting, though I am not planning on using the portable lights for my work, it helped to widen my knowledge on how lighting is picked up and used in photography. These are the images I took:

The Beauty of Decay

I have been exploring my project idea further by looking into the themes of decay and nostalgia and how they can be tied together. Sarah Arnold, in her 2016 work 'Urban Decay Photography and Film: Fetishism and the Apocalyptic Imagination', explores the human fascination with decay and ruined or "dead" urban buildings. When looking at some work she stats "The images are charged with nostalgia and instilled, with a sense of the spectral", I want my work to hold this sort of sense.

I also produced some slides to show the class in order to present my idea:

Through this project I aim to display the beauty of decay and the power of nature. I shall do this by photographing old or abandoned buildings that hold an eerie feeling and have a sense on nature taking over. The aesthetic will be shown through a cold and sombre style.