Shaun Samson

Risograph printing

A Risograph printer is an exciting piece of duplication technology. They create a thermographic master for each colour in your artwork which is then wrapped around a drum. Ink is forced through the voids in the master. The paper runs flat through the machine while the drum rotates at high speed to print each image on the paper. This means that they can produce high quality prints using special colour ink on a range of papers, quickly and inexpensively. Below are a few samples i have acquired of some risograph printing. I am considering using risography as a print process within the project, possibly as a means to printing the packaging/presentation

Personal letters

For my image and text I want to explore the personal things people send to each other through various mediums, such as here; letters. Its fascinating looking at peoples letters to each other in the past, how they worded things, how they wrote etc.

Alec Soth

Minnesota born photographer Alec Soth's book, 'looking for love',  is what I think Robert Frank would have photographed if he were single and lonely. The whole book circumnavigates the feeling of loneliness, that emotion we are all searching for and those who have it. In a magazine interview following the launch he describes his work as searching for the central point of quiescence and documenting the space between him and the subject -

You say you document the space in between the subject and yourself. How do you define that space, where exactly is it, how do you reduce the distance between you and your subject, lens and film, light and shadow? Do you kill or revive? Do they look at you or what do they see inside your lens?
I wouldn’t say that I’m trying to reduce the space between myself and the subject. I’m not trying to probe into their soul. We aren’t making love. I don’t really have any motivation other than to stare.

He also comments on the look he got from couples he was photographing, sort of a 'get back, this is mine' stare. Maybe its the emotion he is exhibiting that makes the images attractive, but the narrative and eye for a documentary photograph Soth has is commendable. He incorporates humour, sadness, irony and similarities between subjects like a real life theatre production, only the actors dont know theyre taking part.

Man in a frame, russian animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f29hdIVV0qk&feature=youtube_gdata_player
This video shows a series of pictures followed by words like "no,no,no," or "never owned, never arrested". Its hard to know what this video is trying to say and what its message is, but I will do some more research and find out. Apart from that, the images reminds me of risograph images, they look like manuals to cars or mechanical images; a similarity with industrial russia and its communism politics.

Robert Mapplethorpe

Im also thinking for my figure in photography of exploring the human spirit and the frailty of us all. Inspired by the 12.12.12 project held recently in Manchester, I want to create images that intially look like the subject is in control and almos regal, but on closer inspection something in the photograph will set that off to make the viewer think about it twice. Starting a commentary of how humans believe to be the higher power and always overcoming odds, putting on a brave face for the world; but underneath it all, we are self consious and frail. Robert Mapplethorpe has this feel in some of his photographs, like his subjects arent actually as strong as they are making out. 

Irony in the image

For my second project, instead of thinking of an idea for my final piece I decided to just run around with my camera and take pictures of things that catch my eye. After reviewing contact sheets of some of the street shoots I saw a pattern emerging, I saw alot of irony in the images. Alot of these are humourous, thought provoking, sad and interesting. After seeing david shrigley's work towards becoming more witty and fun, for example; a womanuding her mobile phone in a public phone box, a banksey graffiti obscured BECAUSE of the perspex frame put in front to protect it. These images I found on the internet after looking for similar ironic images.