Concept
For my project, I chose the word ‘Entropy’ from the brief. I felt intrigued and creatively inspired by a gradual descent into chaos, which I believed I could reflect in a visually interesting way in my project. The photos I have taken relating to entropy are a series of shots, with the subject being an angry busker on the streets of Lincoln. A series of images which aim to tell a narrative about this man’s life. He starts of calm and collected, busking by himself showing a state of normal behaviour. In the second image, he begins to look more frustrated, angered, leaving the audience to try and uncover why. The third image allows the audience clues to his emotion, the reasons behind his anger and sadness. He is holding a two pence piece; the audience could infer that perhaps he’s fed up of being poor and alone. His narrative of descent into disorder and chaos is shown through him being calm, then gradually getting more angry, smashing up his guitar as a release of anger, reflecting a state of entropy. The final two images show him airborne jumping and throwing pieces of his broken guitar on the ground. This is his final state of anger and the ultimate point of chaos within the narrative.
Influences
- Jacques-Henri Lartigue
A photographer who particularly inspired me was Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He was often referred to as the ultimate amateur, who had access to the best equipment of his time. Lartigue understood each moment, how things of a certain time period looked. He was an expert at capturing the essence of a moment. Lartigue biographers Kevin Moore says that ‘Lartigue simply did what everyone else was doing, but with more flair and more daring’. The part of his work that I most admired and took influence from for my project were the jumping and flying photographs he captured. Some say it makes the whole world seem like they were on springs or could fly back in Lartigue’s time. This element really appealed to me, which is the inspiration I used for my final two images where my subject is in the air.
On a side note, over the last 3 or 4 years I have done occasional BMX photography, so my skills in that area helped me capture my busker at just the right moment whilst airborne.
- Portraiture
Portraiture is an area of photography that I was inspired by for this project. I liked the idea of portraying emotion, mood and a story within the frame; which is what I needed to do to reflect the narrative in my series of images.
Portrait photographers I was influenced by were Annie Leibowitz, explored in my research file, and Steve McCurry. I really admire McCurry’s use of natural lighting and colour in his images. Much like Leibowitz, he is able to capture such emotion within the frame that not many others can. Most of his work includes shoots of people from impoverished communities, which is evidently a situation that carries with it a wide range of emotion, of which McCurry captures brilliantly in his work.
In Lucy Soutter’s publication ‘Why Art Photography?’, she says that ‘the main focus of traditional portraiture is the individual, the person depicted. The portrait is a site of identification and projection, inviting us to relate ourselves to the person or people in the image’ (Soutter, 2013, 14). Portraiture inspires me because I want to create a story with my images, reflect the subject’s situation, and allow the audience to identify with the character in frame, whilst also perhaps relating to some aspects of his depiction. Also in the book, art historian Richard Brilliant apparently describes portraits as ‘purposeful constructions that present a particular proposition about a person, aiming to elicit a psychological response from the viewer’ (Soutter, 2013, 14). This is what I desired to achieve with my project. I wanted to elicit a psychological response, with the audience perhaps feeling sorry for the subject, thinking deeper about his situation, what he might be going through.
- Iain Campbell
I was also influenced by street photographer Iain Campbell, who produced an interesting series of work photographing buskers in London. He captured a lot of the raw emotion of the buskers, who are ‘literally singing for their supper’. Campbell was able to capture and meet people from all walks of life during his project, many whom are homeless performing to survive, some aspiring professionals trying to get their music heard.
References:
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/lartigue.shtml
- http://www.iaincampbellphotography.com/london-street-musicians-2/
- Soutter, L. (2013) Why Art Photography? New York: Routledge.
Alternative Images
Reflection
Upon critical reflection, I believe that I selected the best photos amongst the approximately 50 images I had taken. My final nine images convey narrative, emotion and mood which was my main aim for this project, some images are clearly more successful than others in achieving these things. In my opinion, I think that the last five images portray entropy in the purest form. However, the other four images were crucial in ensuring that a story was created, a build-up of events reflecting entropy or in other words, the gradual descent into chaos. These final images also really show the expression of the subject and his feeling of frustration with his life. They show outbursts of anger, smashing up an instrument, performing an act of destruction and disorder. Initially, I was unsure about keeping the second, third and fourth images in. However, I believe they are key to the narrative and allow the audience to follow the story and identify with the subject more deeply.
On the shoot and in post-production, I tried to achieve a consistent look, aesthetic, that is very natural and raw. Due to my images telling a story, I wanted them to flow on from one another, each relating together like an illustration book; which is why I made sure the temperature was the same and tried to achieve similar natural lighting and contents within the frame.
Perhaps if I was to repeat this project, I would get slightly more aggressive shots, playing with shutter speed to get interesting blurs and shifting the focus between objects. I am really pleased with my final two images, which I believe are the strongest of the project. Overall, I believe my images work together well as a series. They convey a narrative of entropy, destruction, emotion and chaos, capturing my subject through a thirty-second journey from a state of normal behaviour to a state of disorder.
Leave a comment