Alec Soth

What I particularly like about Alec Soth's images is the colour co-ordination, strange subjects and light. In the first picture we can see how all the colours are similar, creating a simple composition without a huge amount of colours to distract the viewer; this is the same premise as black and white photography. In the second picture the strangeness is subtle; a normal living room environment, you can imagine a cute old couple living there apart from when your eye is drawn to the top shelf magazine lying on the floor. In this way the whole aspect of the image is offset, creating an interesting composition. The final picture is of a towel shaped into two swans I think. I like this because its one of those things we can glance over easily and not recognise its beauty; when we truly look at the world around us there is a lot of weird, wonderful and beautiful things lurking beneath the surface. In a state of sleep deprevation I feel like I can notice these things more, I also take pictures of things that aren't any of these things, but to me at the time do look strange. While I am photographing I will have to try and record these feelings and reasons behind them as much as I can.

Sigmund Freud's 'Study of the Unconscious'

Following on from the post about Geoffrey Chaucer's problems I decided to look into how things I read and see can plant themselves in my unconscious and re-emerge in my photography. So why do I take pictures of certain things? Why would something I see compel me to record it? Freud theorised that the mind can be split into three parts

1. The conscious - everything we are aware of, full control and includes our memories to be pulled into awareness at any time.
2. The preconscious - representative of ordinary memory, not always aware of it but can be pulled into consciousness at any time.
3. The unconscious - reservoir of feelings, thoughts, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences. 

So to Freud, as we are going about our everyday activities our unconscious can suddenly spark up in response to something, making me recognise a potential photograph because it symbolises something to me personally. In this way it doesn't feel like I'm just running around with my camera taking pictures of things, the images will have deeper meaning.

Chaucer 'The Book of the Duchess'

 Geoffrey Chaucer was a chronic Insomniac, in his poem the Book Of The Duchess, not being able to sleep he reaches for his copy of Metamorphoses by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. The book is full of grand visuals and emotion, so when he eventually falls asleep he has magical dreams about the story. This is similar to being awake and dreaming; reading a story or seeing a film that effects you leads to seeing scenes or images while awake. This means that photographs I take could be contextualised back to something I have watched recently, maybe I could experiment by watching or reading something that inspires me to take such pictures?

Insomnia in films

 Memento is the story of a man who's wife has been murdered and his journey for revenge. The only problem is that he has a severe memory problem, meaning to remember his investigation he must take pictures and tattoo facts onto his body. No exactly about insomnia, it does however illustrate the way it effects your memory. The film is very disorientating, in my images I may choose to add this feeling to immerse the viewer, but then I'm not sure yet if I want to create strange images or document what I stumble upon.

 

Fight club follows an insomniac on his downward spiral into madness. It's very illustrative of the condition and how it feels to be in the state. Quotes like 'when you have insomnia you're never really awake and you're never really asleep' and 'nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy' are vivid of the feeling. The whole film is filled of surreal happenings and objects, but its never realised if this is all in his imagination or real, this is alike with 'dreaming while awake'. After so long being awake you start to seem things that replay themselves from movies or pictures in front of you, things out of the corner of your eye make you jump a mile, and the most usual object can look completely different. I will also consider the unkind lighting throughout alot of the film, its always very stark. Maybe if I were to use a flash it would add this effect, also colour gels and filters could you be used?

The Machinist follows the story of a factory worker that hasn't slept in a year. Eventually he begins to question his sanity when strange things start to happen. The overlying question of the whole film is, is it all in his head or not? As in Fight Club the imagery is very stark and empty, it shows the dark side of insomnia; how the smallest things can frighten you and things appear completely different. Maybe I could research more dark photography and directors like David Lynch to incorporate more of a terror quality into the photographs?

Self Directed Project

For my self directed project I have decided to chronicle what it is like to be an insomniac. I have had the condition for years, going without or with very little sleep for days on end. The experience can be likened to 'dreaming while awake', the body and mind becomes slow, I start hallucinating and things which appear normal and everyday take on a dreamlike quality. As this is similar to what photographers strive for in their images; the beautiful and unusual in the mundane, I thought what better way than to use this to my advantage?

Pictures from the shoot.

Today I brought my Olympus XA film camera and my lumix digital camera. In the Olympus I loaded Kodak Portra 400 film because it yields the cool, candid tones and colours I was after to portray a classical painting. I also chose a dull, overcast day to compliment to metal and machinery present in the area. I brought the digital camera because I wanted a backup in case anything went wrong with the film. I think these are my strongest images -

Scouting the area

Today I walked round the industrial area looking for locations to shoot. I saw some really interesting places that I could photograph that incorporate a dead pan and classic landscape style. The most significant find was a huge rubbish tip that looks similar to rolling hills. I plan to photograph it from a distance to render the rubbish almost unnoticeable, but just close enough so that after a while the viewer will realise what it actually is.