PROVIDE

Building on from the series Vessel (posted a few back), I created this series as the final chunk of my folio for this second semester. Titled Provide, it is in summary about mans dependance on nature as a provider. I wanted to make a photographic ode to where all human activity originated.

CHILDISH FEAR

This was a uni assignment about symbolically representing a public space that had some significance to us. We were challenged to think beyond just a straight image. I approached the series form the angle of wanting to represent a park from my childhood of which I feared being left in at night. The images were shot at night using either torch light-painting or strobes. I then illustrated some small creatures and scanned them and placed them within the photographs. Ta da!

VESSEL

Here we have exhibit A. This is my mid-semester assignment. I wanted to look at the idea of the human body being of earthy elements and returning to the earth after death. This probably isn't a series that I am completely sold on personally. But I always enjoy an excuse to make my family play dead and mess around with lighting. 

JOURNEY

Shot this for a mini project at uni. We were instructed to capture our morning journey to the university (in 6-8 images). The particular methods of my travel are not necessarily anything spectacular, so what I chose to focus on was the time frame spent on each segment. These shots are the result.

IMAGINATION TAKES YOU EVERYWHERE

This series of images was my final piece of assessment for semester 1. We were asked to produce a folio of twelve images around a central theme (3 portraits, 3 still lives and 6 opens). I decided to look at the natural and organic imagination that children have when they are young and how they are losing it sooner and sooner. This beautiful process of letting your mind create your fun is slowly being replaced with television, video games and the monopolised toy industry. Because of this idea I decided to avoid using technology as much as possible when creating the photographs. Everything in this series is shot on 35mm film, negatives then scanned and colour corrected digitally. There is a loose chronological narrative to the work that is orded as if spanning a single day of adventures and wonderlands (although the actual series took just over 2 weeks to shoot).

CHARACTER

The last assignment for my studio class was to create a character portrait in which we essentially tried to photograph someones personality or something like that. I got the pleasure of taking photos of a good friend, Xanthe. Pretty sure it was super fun.

STILL LIFE

In my studio class there was a big focus on the two major aspects of studio imaging. The portrait and the still life. This assignment brief was to construct a still life with some kind of metaphor or message. I wanted to look at body image as well as plastic surgery and self perception. The photograph is title "Self" because I wanted people to search for something in the image that relates to them.

THE FUTURE

Yet another university assignment, this one involving some kind of a photoshop process and relating to a prediction of life in the future. The future seemed rather boring to me so I went for something along the lines of an unrealistic vision of people travelling through portals. This photographed was surprisingly easy to shoot and even more surprisingly difficult to photoshop to match exactly what was in my imagination.

ACCESS: HOSPITAL AT NIGHT

 The topic behind this work was "access" and essentially we were required to gain access to somewhere/one/thing that was not typically publicly accessible. I got in touch with head of public relations for a local hospital and received permission to photograph in and around it at night. It was both a scary experience and exciting. I am quite happy with the photographs I got even though they are quite different to my usual style.

THE EVERYDAY

This next assignment asked that we looked at the everyday in a new perspective.
Inspired by Philippe Halsman's Dali Atomicus I tried my best to replicate this dynamic photograph on a smaller scale using household objects. My final image is titled "Gravitea" which is a pun I am both proud of and ashamed to use publicly.

DOMESTIC BLISS

This first assignment was particularly stressful as I was plagued with terrible weather and had to cancel more than one shoot. The topic was "Domestic Bliss" and we essentially had complete creative freedom. I took the angle of the 50's domestic household dropped into the bliss of nature.