Illustrated Discussion

First of all, I created 3 mind-maps of individual projects that I was thinking of doing, such as The Journey, People and Possessions, and Issues and Observations. These mind-maps allowed me to explore what these titles could mean, and where I could progress too. Therefore, initially, I decided that I wanted to choose the topic 'The Journey' because I enjoy street photography and have studied similar topics in depth. However, after creating the mind-map for it, I realised that my shoots would become very repetitive, as all of them would be on location. Because of this, I then decided I wanted to choose 'Issues and Observations' as I really enjoyed a Mental Illness shoot I've done recently. The shoot was very interesting for me, as I was able to portray my views and the severity of the topic within my photographs, plus it was personal. Therefore, I plan to do the same for my topics within this project, including a further shoot of Mental Illness as well. Obviously, the topics in this project won't have the personal aspect as I have not personally experienced most of them. However, I plan to create images that touch as close as possible to what some of the issues may cause emotionally and physically.

For this topic, I researched Henri Cartier-Bresson, Tony Ray-Jones, Homer Sykes and Peter Henry Emerson as suggested, to begin with. Along with these photographers, I also researched others which explore matters such as domestic violence, homelessness and mental illness, as these are the topics I want to move onto after using the named photographers above as influence. This is because, as well as looking at social observations with street photography, I also wanted to develop my work, so that my images focus on one in-depth issue, such as the ones stated previously. Throughout my shoots, I plan on focusing on one topic per shoot, so that I can work in depth on each issue. This enables me to produce photographs from on location, and in the studio. It also allows me to progress within editing as I will be able to experiment with different skills, techniques and filters.

The photographers suggested for this topic indicate that it meant to explore street photography and society on location. However, I've decided to develop that even further, and even though I will be using the photographers as influence and will be shooting photos similar to their works, I also want to focus on the 'issue' side and use the studio and explore the sub-topics in depth.

This is an image I have found on the internet, which is an example of some of the images I will be taking for the 'Observation' side of this project. This photo is also very similar to Henri Cartier-Bresson, Tony Ray-Jones, Homer Sykes and Peter Henry Emerson's' style of photography, particularly as it is black-and-white. This image is very simple, as it is just a shot of a street with a handful of people waiting for the bus. However, the photographer has captured that exact moment, which will never happen again, which makes this image so significant and extraordinary.

This is an image I found to represent my ideas for my Domestic Violence shoot, and is similar to the types of images that I would like to produce. I plan to have a practice shoot, and then recreate the shoot within my 15 hour exam. To create this, I plan to use make-up and face-paint to create different kinds of bruises, as well as fake blood to make the injuries more severe. I like this photo because it has a white background and so it is still quite bright, even though it's portraying a disturbing issue, which is connotative with darkness and secrecy. However, I would also like to experiment with dark coloured backgrounds, such as a black background, as this would match the emotive of the images.

This is an example of the sort of images I would like to create for my Mental Illness shoots. I want to improve my editing skills and learn different techniques to create obscene and crazy photographs. I like these images as they aren't obvious as to what they mean, but for anybody that has suffered with mental illness, they will understand the types of feelings the images are meant to portray.

Also, these images are incredible susceptible to multiple interpretations. Therefore, they do not necessarily have to relate to mental illness for somebody depending on how they interpret the images. Some images employ the feelings of sadness, being trapped, lonely etc., which a lot of people can relate to anyway.

This is a photo I found on the internet of a homeless man living on the streets. This image is black-and-white, which adds a dark and gloomy feeling to the entire photo. Within this image, there is a man sitting on a street, holding a cup, asking for  help from the public and he has also wrapped up in warm clothes for the day/night. I want to create images like this photo as it allows photographers to portray the extremities of homelessness, that aren't necessarily seen on a day-to-day basis for some people. Shooting issues like this also allow photographers to highlight the most important issues that need to be dealt with, homelessness being one of them. By shooting photographs of the homeless, photographers are able to show the variety of different people, from young to old, that are homeless due to all sorts of different circumstances.