Formal Intervention
My brief for this project was to understand the formal elements of photography; line, tone, pattern, shape etc but to also have a meaning along with the image.
We had to work with a medium format Hassel Blad camera, and i decided to use 120 black and white film, HP5 and Delta Professional.
For this project I started off by just brainstorming the words intervention and formal elements and came up with the word stairs. Stairs are jam packed full of formal elements which I initially related them to heights, security, confusion, depression and that lonely feeling of going round in circles and getting nowhere. As of a young age I have always been afraid of heights and decided that I wanted to show this in my work. With this starting point I picked up the camera and decided to start shooting.
- Shoot 1
Looking at my first shoot I realised that my motive of showing my fear of heights hadnt worked. I soon realised that my composition was all wrong and decided that shooting from above or below was desired to get my full denotation across of heights. So once again I picked up the camera and started shooting stairs and stairwells from a totally different perspective.
- Shoot 2
After looking at my second shoot, and understanding that the correct perspective and composition had a good impact on a sense of height I just didnt get the feeling of fear or anxiousness so I decided I had to go back to the drawing board one last time to re-think of a way to show this.
After watching a documentary about 9/11 there was a photograph that was use in the film, captured by Richard Drew called The Falling Man. The image showed a man falling from one of the towers to his death. I realised that for my own work I needed to include a person in the image for people to relate themselves with and to understand the full meaning that I was trying to convey.
So once again I went out and shot a model at the top of a staircase feeling anxious and scared and sitting alone.
- Shoot 3
